Coughing, Coughing, and More Coughing

It's been a looooooong week around here. Will's been getting progressively better. He feels better and has more energy each day. The problem is that he still has a horrible, racking cough that strikes him several times a day. At it's best, it's incredibly annoying. At it's worst, it chokes him to the point that he's gagging and his lips are blue. Obviously, it's scary and upsetting to him, and he just cries, "Mommy, mommy" until it's over. Just imagine how frustrating it is to hold your coughing, gasping baby over and over each day, knowing that there's not a damn thing you can do to help him. It's awful, and it's been happening all hours of the day and night for the last seven days. It's maddening and exhausting.

And as if the coughing fits weren't enough, it's been an endless cycle of medicine and nebulizer treatments (or as we call them, hose noses) I swear, every time I turn around it's time to force another spoonful of antibiotics, or steroids, or cough medicine down his throat. And if I'm not doing that, I'm fighting with him to keep the mask on while I administer yet another hose nose. All of this punctuated by incessant coughing! It's enough to make a mom lose her mind!!!

I just keep telling myself that it won't last forever, and doing it at home beats doing it in the hospital. But it's very little consolation when you're by yourself, day in and day out, trying to be the nurse and the mommy and the cook and the housekeeper. (though from the current state of things, it would appear that the housekeeper took the week off. But hey, something's gotta give!) Hopefully we've only got a few more days of it sounding like the tuberculosis ward around here. I'm not sure I can take it for more than a few more days, so I'm crossing my fingers really hard.