illness Archives - Obsessivemom

28/03/201615/04/2017

A gratitude post

About two weeks back I landed myself a sore throat. Nothing that couldn’t be cured by warm water gargles and mugs of ginger tea, I thought. However within a day my throat turned to sandpaper making swallowing difficult and I felt The Wheeze come on.

If you’ve ever had it you’ll understand the capitals. Within the space of a day breathing becomes a chore, lying down impossible and sleep a mere dream.

This hadn’t happened to me in the last ten years. The twins seemed to have scared it away! However this time it was back.

I gave up oral medications and took on inhalers. Soon enough the breathing eased. Within a week I was feeling human again.

I remembered my childhood – those long painful nights with my mum sitting beside me rubbing warm mustard oil and garlic on my chest while I struggled for each breath and prayed for the night to be over. The days weren’t ever so bad for there were distractions. Nights, on the other hand, were dreaded monsters. Propped up by pillows I would struggle to pull out each breath from my clogged lungs.

Those nights were truly dreadful.

It was this dread that made me reach out for shawls and sweaters at parties. This dread made sure I was always unfashionably bundled up at weddings and get-togethers when everyone else was flaunting their silks and georgettes. And it was this dread that made me completely immune to friendly jibes from friends and family.

It would take sometimes, a month for the congestion to go.

This gratitude post today goes out to scientists, researchers and doctors who have made our lives so much easier that a mere ten days later I was back at my Zumba class with just a memory of the wheeze.

Thank you with all my heart. Oh and from my lungs too :-).

Linking up to Vidya’s Gratitude Circle Blog Hop. Do click on the link and head on over.

03/09/201415/04/2017

Sickbay tales

This Friday while everyone was welcoming Ganapati, N, the strong one, the girl who never falls ill, caught the virus. She’d been up early morning and dressed in all her festive finery ready to go visiting all the Ganapatis that were arriving at our friends’ and relatives’ homes. Even as I sponged her burning forehead she refused to change out of the Chaniya Choli confident that she’d be up and about soon. After all, she never did fall I’ll.

H wandered about listlessly with nothing to do since his favourite ‘toy’ was out of action and the house was so so quiet. By the night, as expected, he followed suit.

Next morning The Husband was travelling for work and I spent my day sitting between the two children sponging them turn by turn. N opened her feverish eyes once to murmur happily, ‘our house looks like a sick-bay’ and then went off to sleep again. Why she seemed so happy about that, I have no clue. Meanwhile the Husband caught the virus too and slept his days off in his hotel room!

H firmly believes what N can do, he can do better and so he decided to have rashes along with the fever and I was rushing to the ped yet again. To make matters even more interesting they got calf-cramps, apparently that’s a viral side effect. They couldn’t stand or walk and proceeded to crawl all over the house like one year olds. No, the option of sitting in one place was not an option at all.

Phew!!

Finally day 6 sees them better. The biggest problem has been FOOD. They just do not want the regular stuff and my limited cooking skills have been stretched to the limit.

I’ve had a hard time steering them off television, with limited success. Today, however they spent the day making Teacher’s Day cards and gifts all on their own. Yeah sometimes I do get the feel that they’re growing up after all.

Those rolls are ‘pencils’ which they intend filling up with sweets.
And that’s a ‘tippy tippy top’ with a straw pushed through to make a flower.

So that’s what the week’s been like! I still haven’t managed to go Ganapati visiting. Hoping the next few days will bring better health and some peace to our home.

29/03/201323/03/2020

Dinosaurs, Dragons and suchlike

This is definitely not the first from-the-sick-bed craft post. I find making something is a great way to take Hrit’s mind off his troubles. To cheer him up what else would we try but dinosaurs. .. something basic and easy.We got an Amul Cool can and cut out the top. This was a bit tough the first time round, then I got the hang of it. With a knife and hammer I managed to get the top off. If any of you knows a simpler way please do share it.

We covered it with green glaze paper.

Since it was to be a Stegosaurus we cut out the spines from card paper…

.. Hrit stuck them on.

Then the tail.. a curved one with zig zag edges.

Stuck that on too.

Then came the face,.. a simple oval, with googly eyes and a big smile.

We gave it a pair of feet, then stuck on some rounds of golden paper (which Hrit insists on calling ‘yellow ochre’ for some reason) and finally smaller drops with paint and it was done. As a bonus it holds pens and pencils too.

Hrit wasn’t entirely satisfied because the Stego didn’t look scary at all so next we did a dragon, a scary one. The face, the wings and legs came out of red card paper. We cut out a zigzag from white paper and stuck it on for ‘teeth’.

We even did a tail with a pompom at the end ‘with which it could hit out at its ‘enemies’.

After everything was stuck on it looked quite nice.

There they are.. the two of them.

Linking to Artsy Craftsy Mom

20/03/201315/04/2017

Report from the sick bed

After six days of illness.. Hrit is off to school today. Cough, cold then high fever, then ear infection and finally an upset stomach courtesy the antibiotics … that’s the way things go with Hrit each time. What’s worse between bouts of fever he is completely well. The challenge is to occupy him without tiring him out and that is a true challenge for an up and about child like him. The options are limited…..Reading, playing board games, crafting or watching television. Over the last few days we exhausted pretty much each of them.

He read and I read. From Dora to Dinosaurs.. we did them all. He watched hours of Doremon and Ninja Hatori till my ears protested. And we did craft. But that’s another post. So bored was Hrit that the other day I found him at our ninth floor balcony addressing an imaginary gathering in chaste Hindi. He said in a booming voice, “Aap sab log dhyan se suniye. Kal raat ek bahut bara bhoot aane wala hai. Main use maroonga. Aur koi ghar se bahar nahin aayega. Jo ayega mara jayega.”

Friends, Romans, Countrymen….

Yes well kids are allowed to do strange things when they’re unwell.

With all our attention focused on Hrit, Naisha’s been feeling left out. She fussed around Hrit alright.. getting him water, fetching his medicine, putting his dinner plate in the sink. She’s been a good good girl. However she made sure I ran all her errands for her. I had put away her dinner plate, help her get dressed and when she went down to play I had to follow with her bottle of water — a kind of ‘I”m not relinquishing claim to mum just because you’re ill’ thing.

I did the best I could … relaxing the rules for her each morning.. the toughest time of the day for her, going to school alone. So the glass of milk was smaller, the daily egg relegated to alternate days and she was given a ride to the washroom each morning… sigh! I wish I had some way of reassuring her that I loved her just as much as Hrit. And I’m so very glad she’s spared the frequent viruses that seem to stalk him all the while.

15/02/201215/04/2017

Pride comes before a fall

The other day at the gym, complimenting me on my weightloss, my aerobics instructor said, “So is everyone supportive at home? Your kids and husband must be helping you keep your weightloss resolve, isn’t it?” And I, like an over confident smart alec, replied, “Nope. I won’t share credit for this at all… it’s all my effort and nobody elses.”

What a fall I had… me and my pride.

Less than a week from that day Hrit decided to fall ill. There I was, gym, exercise, soups, walks all forgotten, frustrated to tears, worried sick, spending sleepless nights as I watched him struggling first with the mother of all coughs and then with a fever that refused to go down below 102 and now it’s lose motions. Crocin, Meftal, IMol… cold sponging…. nothing worked last weekend. Sundays are now dreaddays to me. Two days and some antibiotic doses later the fever still hovers in the 100s plus he is has to deal with an upset tummy thanks to the strong medication.

Any child confined to bed is a sad sight. But a child like Hrit is sadder than ever. The neighbour’s noticed how quiet our house was. Says he, “Mama I think I must really be sick, I didn’t even ask to go to Y’s house today.” Y is his BFF.. the one he wants to marry… and that quite sums his condition over these last few days.

What’s worse, he missed the ‘solar’ day at school. He was to dress up as an astronaut while Naisha was planet Venus. Venus turned out to be a cakewalk thanks to MM. The astronaut was the tough one and after I’d run around MG Road (my favourite haunt) looking for all it needed, Hrit ended up not going at all. He’d been super excited about it all but was surprisingly mature about not being able to go. “Only my fever will decide whether I’ll go to school tomorrow”, he declared solemnly.

Here’s what they looked like…

Happiest planet ever

… and another pose

A rather serious-looking astronaut

I have to add that Naisha’s being a dream through all this.. not once did she complain about going to school without Hrit, she went to Hrit’s teacher to ask for his homework on her own, she’s perpetually fetching and carrying.. medicines, water, nebuliser. She’s a good girl.