jinx, you owe me a cough

back on the 18th of february, i posted here how jude’s cough had seemingly dried up and was seeming to enter a period of relative health. Great health, in fact, when factored against the invasion of General Malaise and his army of Boogies. well, i dont consider myself to be a superstitious father, but i swear to (your) bloody god that no sooner did i post that entry did he get struck down once again. all too breif a wander out into the clearing, i suppose, before the thicket of coughs and snot and irritability were to consume him once again? dramatic? whoa: i got it too, and was staring down the business-end of the 4th sinus infection in 6 months. dramatic. oh sure.

we wanted to solidify a tradition amidst us Alexanders. on or around the concert of valentines day and the presidents day long weekend, we would journey to yosemite national park and stay at the wonderful tenaya lodge.

so, we packed up the famn damily and left tiburon on sunday morning february 20th. he was a pleasant and healthy little monkey during the waking moments of the stops we had to make on the way out of town.

the ride up to the hotel (in fishcamp, ca) was a pleasant one, despite the fact that the winding roads caused him to gain consciousness a little earlier then mom & dad would have liked. and it was that same winding road the caused the little conscious man to crank. and it was that SAME winding road, 2.3 miles from the hotel, to evacuate the contents of his stomach all over himself and the carseat.

we know winding roads have this effect on him, but we had to get to the hotel. and by the time we parked, negotiated the 1-2 feet of snow on the ground, changed him, cleaned the carseat and sat down to wait for our room, he was a cranking imp of pooh. his temperature was up, he didnt want to sit still, wouldnt eat a thing, and basically would start frothing at the mouth crying if you so much as smiled at him. and he was coughing.

but since anna and i are horribly selfish parents, we decided to stay the course of: “our son has never seen snow so lets bundle him up and toss him down the slope!” he was animated enough, in so far as he was interested in what the hell this cold white stuff is. but lying just underneath the surface was the same boogychild from damian omen 3. we accepted that he was coming down with something, and decided to let him take it easy. on came the motrin to keep the fever down. we brought him into the indoor pool to help bring his core down and to cheer him up. his hotel-arranged babysitter that night mentioned that it might be the altitude, which we’d not yet thought of. all this went down the 20th of february. the post about how healthy he was and how the cough was gone? that was on the 18th. what jinx?

this episode lasted over 2 weeks. and at the risk of coaxing a jinx back into the fold, here we are at march 8th and he seems to be out of the woods again. last weekend was about as famous a healthy weekend as we’ve seen in months: appetite, spunk, charm, long fuses, sound slumbers, etc. all of which might be due to yet another round of antibiotics.

he went into doctor dow on the 25th, where it was discovered that in addition to the old time bunker The Cough, jude also had an ear infection. thus the antibiotics. this time he was prescribed 10-days of CEFTIN and a new better/faster/stronger version of pulmicort-style stuff for the nebuliser. all of which seemed to have done the trick because again, here we are almost 3 weeks later and we have our jude back.

i however have to beleive that there is some other factor involved. what is he alergic to? mold? do we have a mold issue in our apartment? sure seems like it would be a breeding ground for the stuff down in that damp dark basement. with this suspicion in mind, doctor dow recommended jude be tested for as full a spectrum of alergy tests as can be done to a 22 month old. now, i just had the scratch-test done with 48 different points. it doesnt hurt, but it is IRR-IT-TAY-TING! you cannot itch it, or risk ruining the results completely. how on (your) gods green bloody earth are we going to get him to sit still for the same?

has anyone any advice to offer with regards to having a scratch-test done on such a young child?

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