Roseola Update

Max is recovering slowly but surely and the red spots all over his face and body are steadily disappearing. It’s still so hard to watch him suffer from the bouts of itchiness and teething that hit once in a while, but things are better than they were before. At least he can sleep for several hours at a time now. He still has a runny nose but we took him off all of the meds the pediatrician put him on because the congestion is just a nuisance and not really affecting his breathing at night anymore.
So it seems he is out of the woods. Hell, with roseola perhaps he was never really in the woods, but I tell you, there’s no feeling like when your child is suffering… It’s like every parent ever tells you, except worse because when you feel it there’s absolutely no sense of elation in thinking to yourself, “Oh, it really does feel horrible.”
OK, I need to stop thinking about the negative stuff now and end with a Maxie chaser (from New Years since I haven’t really taken photos since then):
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Sixth disease aka exanthem subitum aka roseola infantum

Max has roseola. Yesterday the fever left and the pediatrician said the rash would peak, and it seems that the concentrated red spots all over baby’s face, chest, and back have turned somewhat blotchy and less well-defined today. The important thing is that Max is getting stronger again. We played around some yesterday and even though he didn’t smile so much, it was a relief to see him demanding mental stimulation again. Until two days ago was just horrible – he was hugging mommy all day and got weepy about anything.
Last night, he actually let me hold him and put him to sleep with two conditions:

  1. I didn’t stop walking
  2. I didn’t even think about stopping walking

So I held him and walked around the living room from 9pm to 3 am. This is only fair, since mommy has been taking care of him every night like this, although I kinda went into this Gumpish trance and couldn’t stop walking or even change the arm I was holding him with – my left arm feels like it did a thousand pull-ups or something. I gave him milk from a bottle when he woke up every couple hours and Nam finally got some uninterrupted sleep. In fact, I believe her exact words right before she fell unconscious were, “haha now you know what it feels like,” followed by, “don’t wake me up.”
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Max is sick

It started with a runny nose a week ago, then a fever four days ago. Then coughing two days ago and a rash on his face this morning. The pediatrician thinks it’s a bacterial infection in his intestines and perhaps an allergy as well. Max is now on an antibiotic course and taking a lot of fluids – mama’s milk, lactose-free formula (mostly sugar it seems), electrolyte beverage and water.
I’m not too worried because he’s a strong boy and getting sick is part of growing up, but it’s hard on Nam because he’s even more weepy and sensitive than he was a few days ago. She’s not getting much sleep at all, and is basically carrying him all day and all night except when he allows the nanny or me to spell her for a little while. We have to go see the pediatrician again tomorrow. Here’s to hoping it all ends well soon (especially the rash on his face, it pains us to look at it and we couldn’t bear to take a photo for reference, either)
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I happened to be going through New Years photos as I wrote this so here’s a photo of Max and his great grandma:
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