Monday, March 12, 2012

Single Parent Situation: Sick baby/child

This past week I got into a situation that all single parents dread… My child got sick. Not just a cold, but a mucus filled, coughing, crying, feverish haze of misery. You know? When your child wants to do nothing except lay in your lap and watch Yo Gabba Gabba (or your toddler show of choice)? That was my life for a week. Nugget was diagnosed with RSV. Of course this means no daycare, and in turn that mommy needs to figure out how to care for a child 24/7 when she only has 10 hours of sick time at work and she can’t afford to take unpaid time…

Other single parents (especially “Only parents”) can relate. You want nothing more than to be there for your little trooper, but duty calls. You are the person in charge of paying the bills and without the job you don’t have insurance. My particular problem comes from the fact that I have only been at my new job for two months, so I do not have a lot of sick time yet. By the time cold season comes around again this situation will not be a problem.

Thank the lord for my mom, my sister and my foster sister. They really helped me out a lot last week when I couldn’t be at home. The first night Nugget had a bad fever and slept in bed with me. I set my alarm to go off every 4 hours so I could administer Tylenol and Benadryl (the only meds my doc said I could give her at the time). Not only did she snore, but she insisted on sleeping ON me. We were cheek to cheek for hours. That Nugget was so hot and snotty, I can’t say it was a pleasurable experience. I couldn’t sleep, not just because she was on my face snoring, but because I was paranoid she would choke on her mucus. Hey you can laugh, but it can happen!

If you read the above paragraph you can probably put one and one together and figure out that within 24 hours of Nugget getting sick, I too was infected. Being an adult made it a bit easier to tolerate. I took some Dayquil and sucked a cough drop to get through work the first day. By day 2 I had to give in and use my one sick day. I work in a hospital and it was just not safe for me to come in the way I was. My mom had to keep Nugget because I was down for the count. I slept for most of the day and sipped tea. The next morning I felt 80% better and my doctor said it was ok to go to work (I would wear a mask just around patients just to be safe and wash my hands every 2 mins). I was at my desk all day and was liberal with the Lysol.

Long story short: Nugget got sick, then I got sick, then I got better, then Nugget got better and today we are both still slightly congested, but in a much better mood.

Thank you again to all who helped out during this plague! We are very lucky to have you all!

Stay tuned later this week to hear about our upcoming move… Back to our condo!

1 comment:

K said...

Wow. We seriously had an identical week! Glad we are ALL feeling better. Too bad we didn't live closer, then we could be snotty and sick as a team!!