Saturday, August 23, 2008

Bar Mitzvahzilla Gets Pneumonia

Last week, four days before this interminably hot summer came to an end, Bar Mitzvahzilla developed a cough that Husband and I were a little torn over. Go to the doctor or not? We have gone to the doctor many times and been sent on our way, with nothing but a bill to show for our efforts and the words, "It's just a virus." But we decided to go anyway because BZ kept running a fever at night and showing up in our bedroom wanting to get in bed with us, and he's like a hundred pounds and 5'3 and barely fits anywhere now, so we'd prefer he stay in his own bedroom.

The doctor says, "There's a funny sound I hear when he breathes in all the way. I think it's pneumonia. I'll start him on an antiobiotic but I want you to take him for an xray tomorrow. If it is, we'll double up the antibiotic." So, yes on the positive xray and yes on the new medicine. Then BZ compounds matters by throwing up the first two doses of the new medicine, managing to miss the toilet, the garbage can, whatever he may have been aiming for ("It's because I close my eyes when I throw up so I won't gross myself out!") so we end up having to fumigate the entire house.

Then, because of some lingering, primeval preemie memory he has of being poked and prodded by doctors and nurses during his first 10 weeks of life in the hospital, he can't swallow pills and can barely swallow liquids. We have to get them flavored and then disguise them in, like, milkshakes, as if he was two. And he's thirteen. Even with all this subterfuge, he dances around the cups, hems and haws, has chasers of Dr. Pepper and water, and anything else he can scrounge up, and basically takes about 6 hours to get a dose in - just in time for the next dose.

So that's been my life for the last 10 days. Now we're keeping him under wraps - no exposure to potentially ill friends or family. We just need to keep him healthy for the next three weeks, till he's standing on the bimah, reciting his Torah portion. I think we might make it.

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