Pnuemonia

I meant to spend this weekend writing a few posts about losing weight and low fat recipes. That didn't happen, though, since my 11 month old was diagnosed with pneumonia today. Ugh. He is miserable. I feel so helpless and so bad for him. He had to have a chest x-ray which was about the worst experience I've had as a mom so far. Well, except for when he was born and stupid breastfeeding wasn't working and my baby wasn't getting the food he needed and the stupid nurses weren't helpful and he ended up losing a whole pound and I basically starved my new baby. Except for that. Anyway, so the x-ray had to be of his chest, obviously, so the first one wasn't so bad. He just had to lay down over the machine, on his back, and I had to hold his arms up. He didn't love it, but we got through it pretty quickly and painlessly. But then they needed a side angle, meaning he had to lay on his side over a hard machine, with his arms up over his head and his legs straight out and still. Um. Have you ever tried to make a baby lay in that position, when he's scared and sick? IMPOSSIBLE. So, given the position I needed to be in to help hold him down, I was right in the line of fire. So I had to swear that I wasn't pregnant and don a giant lead vest, which scared the baby even more. Not to mention he had to have a tiny little lead crotch-guard (I guess they didn't want to scorch his balls with the radiation?) which he wasn't pleased with either. So it was me and another tech trying to keep him in position and get him to hold still, while my little boy was sobbing so hard he was choking himself, little body rigid, trying to reach for me and looking at me with a wild look in his eyes like "Aren't you going to help me?!?" I didn't cry or anything, I'm pretty good in medical situations, but I was so glad to hear he had pneumonia (I know how that sounds, just wait, I'm not finished) because I have done a lot of research on various forms of radiation since my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer, and so I was thinking "What if it is just a little cold? What if it is just all me overreacting and here I am subjecting my little baby to two doses of radiation when it isn't necessary?" but it turned out he has pneumonia in the lower lobe of his right lung. The tech was awesome and the whole thing was probably less than ten minutes, but it felt like we were in there watching him scream for an hour.

So now he's home, and finally asleep, and I'm stocked up on amoxycillin, Tylenol, Motrin, Pedialyte, Jello, baby Vicks rub, baby freezer pops, and a few beers for me, because my god it was a long day.