Not my kid
Being a parent is one of the most difficult things in the world. It’s an awesome and at times, an overwhelming responsibility. You worry about how they will act as they get older. Will they do the stupid things you did as a teenager? Will they find love? Will they go to school and get a good education (and better yet, get full rides to college and grad school). And the cream of the crop…will they be good human beings?
One thing you honestly can’t control (not that you can control anything in your kids lives as they get older), is when they get sick.
Currently, both my kids have Fifth’s desease, which is similar to the chicken pox and typically produces a distinctive red rash on the face that makes the child appear to have a “slapped cheek.” The rash then spreads to the trunk, arms, and legs. From what I’m told by our pediatrician, by colleagues in the medical field and reading online, there’s nothing you can do to treat it. It’ll eventually go away. In the meantime though, your kid looks like they’ve been slapped around like Tina Turner and freakishly spotty all over their body.
And oh, this bag o’ tricks comes with a 24 hour period of high fevers and a cough that sounds like your kid has been smoking Marlboro reds for 30 years. Good thing is that once the kids get it, they shouldn’t get it again, e.g. Chicken Pox.
All of this results in cranky children that you treat via drugging them up — Benadryl to cope with the rash and Motrin to deal with the fever. You’re kid will end up walking around the house like Pookie in New Jack City, “It be callin’ me…callin’ me…”
This brings me to my point.
Having sick kids suck. There’s nothing you can do about it. You go to the doctors office and they pretty much confirm what you’ve already have been told by other parents who have experienced the same thing and what you’ve researched online (not always the best thing to do, but if you dig long enough, you’ll get a consensus).
So, what do you do when you’re kids are sick and miserable? You try and make them happy. With fevers, we’ll pump them full of popsicles. The coolness helps and they love the sweetness. Get the sugar free ones and you’re ahead of the game.
Play games with them — stuff that won’t over exert them: card games, board games, silly games, etc. Anything and everything that will take their minds off being sick and keep them entertained.
Other than that, the only thing you can do is make sure they eat and drink. Eating might be difficult because if they feel like crap, they don’t want to eat. Keeping them hydrated is the key in my experience.
So, by no means am I a doctor, but once you have a couple of kids and have gone through the gauntlet that is sick children, you pretty much become a pediatrician over night.
Don Martelli is just a dad, moonlighting as a PR exec, photographer and civilian journalist. He’s an editor for Technorati’s Business, Blogging and Lifestyle channels, a co-founder of Every Other Thursday and is a contributing writer for Shamable and the PR Finish Line. Connect with him at www.donmartelli.com or @bigguyd via Twitter.
