"Just a cold"

I dream of that day arriving - the day when a cold is 'just a cold'.
It's been about 13 years since I didn't regard the onset of a cold for one of the kids with dread.

My last post was all about long term fall out of being a late pre-term child. That was developmental stuff which has such a far reaching effect through their lives.
But there's another spanner my guys, and many other prem kids like to throw into the works, especially when they are working hard to thrive.

When they get sick they fall fast and hard.

When the boys were all younger a cold meant not just a nasty case of snuffles but usually croup, chest and ear infections, antibiotics, reflux flare up and the resulting weight loss which usually meant about 3 months hard work to get them back to where they were pre-cold.
Things aren't quite so bad these days - for a starter thanks to the wonders of surgery none of them reflux any more!

Whenever N gets sick his eating goes to hell in a handcart and if he's already going through one of his extreme non-eating binges then it happens really fast. Last time T got sick we were lucky to keep him out of hospital and it was really only thanks to his gastrostomy tube and feeding pump that we were able to keep it running really slowly and almost constantly and so kept him hydrated. Big achievement that time as I kept the weight loss contained to only half a kg!

T's doing really well lately and so you can imagine my dismay when he started to sound snuffly recently.
Normally I immediately swing in supportive measures - increase feeds, decongestant meds, pain relief, coaxing tempting titbits of food etc to try and head off the worst.
But this time I wanted to see what his body could do for itself. We're making progress towards weaning off the tube and a major factor in that is being able to cope with bugs without needing extra tube feeds.

So the first day he seemed okay, just congested but happy enough but by that night we were up with him retching due to all the mucus in his system.
Even though none of the kids can actually vomit properly any more after their reflux surgery there's nothing quite like that distinctive retch in the dark of the night to get a parent running a sub whatever second sprint to a kid's room!

T's lucky in a warped way, with his tube we can vent the air out of his tummy which is making him feel horrible - and along with it a certain amount of the mucus he's swallowed can be removed.
So we fairly quickly settled him and went back to bed.

The next night we were up again - to the dreaded sounds of croup. The poor kid was working reasonably hard to catch his breath between coughing and crouping and wouldn't lie down. But the good old trick of extra pillows and lots of calming reassurance worked and he eventually settled and went back to sleep after a round of cold meds and some ibuprophen. I was thrown back into the "Does he need help? What supportive measures do I put in now since he's not holding his own? Why can't this be 'just a cold' for once?" dilemma.

Apart from the fact that W complained he could hear T coming down the hallway that morning as his breathing was so loud he did seem to be managing that day.

The biggest problem with croup in a tubie is that all the pressure from the tummy muscles being used in breathing can actually send the feed backwards - and on occasion with T he's been bad enough to be triggering alarms on the pump because it reads the backwards flow as a blockage!
But he was still eating and drinking reasonably so I decided it was time to play chicken with the cold bug.

4 days into the 'cold' he was still running temps, sleeping at times and propped up on cold and other meds but nothing prescribed, no trip to a doctor and no increased feeds.

He saw his paed on day 6 for a routine check and she declared his chest clear so all the gunk has to be restricted to his nose. His weight was also static but he had been weighed only 2 weeks prior.

We're now around the 9 day mark on this cold. He's still really congested, mood's a bit fragile but through all of this we've scored some firsts -
 - He didn't need to see a doc specifically for any effects of this bug.
 - He hasn't needed antibiotics at all - he often gets a secondary infection round his tube site when he gets sick but that hasn't happened either!
 - He hasn't significantly dropped off in his eating or drinking - this is a major first!
 - and because of the continued drinking and eating we haven't had to increase his feeds at all.
 - while he hasn't gained weight he hasn't lost any during this bug either - a major major first!!

So while he's still sick, got sicker than you'd expect from a 6 1/2 year old with 'just a cold' he's come a long way and made some major strides - one day, maybe, we really will have 'just a cold' in the household!

But in the meantime, this is another example of why people sharing bugs drive me crazy. It may well be just a cold to your kid but we're at day 10 and counting with a kid who is still unwell. People blow off the effects of a common illness but to kids already struggling it can really tip them over the edge.

So spare a thought next time you are coughing away - do others really need that bug - and do you know exactly who you might be spreading it to?
It won't be just the kid who gets it either - kids are generous...I 'm coming out the end of it too!