Our Island Family Life

Sofie (my icon today is of Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle and the tipping force in our choice of Sofie's name..we love Sophie) woke this morning her cough worse than ever. It had been getting better before she left on Christmas day and I felt she had reached a turning point. When she came back on Saturday her cough was worse than when she left but I thought if she had a few days rest and proper medicine, humidifier, fluids and food she would improve. She has had this cough for a month now. Last night she had horrible headaches and her cough was just not getting better. I called the doctor today and she has an appointment tomorrow. They are going to give her a chest xray to rule out pneumonia. I am worried for her. She seems happy and is active but her eating is off. She has no fever but she has trouble sleeping with he cough and has to stop and cough during play. She isn't wheezing. I checked but this morning I heard a crackle. I am not all that great with the stethoscope yet but I am familiar with that sound. I am trying not to get angry for Sean for not noticing how bad she has gotten. After all I did wait myself 2 1/2 days with the hope she was going to turn a corner. He really should have brought her to the doctor last week though. I am sure Cade being sick was a distraction since his symptoms were more acute. The diarrhea and he also had a cough so bad he made his chest muscles sore. He is fine now though. He only has a slight runny nose. What made me mad about Sean's handling of Cade was that Sean told Cade that if he felt bad to go take some medicine. He's 11. I really don't think he should be swigging medicine any time he felt like it. Cade is not dumb though and asked his dad to measure it out for him. Proper dose for a child is important. Sean told him to do it himself. Thankfully I had shown Cade what the right amount for him was for several brands of medicine one of which Sean had. I also told Cade not to take it before the proper time was up or he would be overdosing. Thank goodness Cade listened to me because he had to do it himself quite a few times last week. When he told his dad his chest hurt Sean told him he felt bad for him and did nothing. I was able to figure out by talking with Cade it was a muscle issue but what if his chest hurt from not being able to breathe, or worse something with his heart? You just never know. Am I being over protective? What really made me upset though was that they (Kathryn too) said maybe his cough was emphysema. Emphysema? Are you kidding me? Are they trying to scare the crap out of him or are they really that stupid? Sean's dad now has Emphysema and is on oxygen all the time. It's a serious condition. COPD is nothing to joke about. The C stands for Chronic. Do I need to define chronic? Cade does not have any of the diseases that fall under the umbrella of COPD. Cold, bronchitis, pneumonia maybe. Does Sean's dad's condition make them think everything leads to emphysema? For "educated"people are they really that ignorant? Let's say Cade did have emphysema...did Sean think telling an 11 year old to "go take something for that cough" would be adequate? I wanted to scream when Cade told me this. I just calmly explained to Cade about emphysema again. I had done so twice before because of his grandpa. Cade has a good head on his shoulders at times and so he wasn't freaked by his dad's and Kathryn's comments. He is worried for his grandpa of course but not too much yet. We don't know what stage it's at but to be on oxygen full time isn't a good sign. He is only 63. I thought Sean telling Will he might have Mono (because they thought he slept too much) and that he should go see a doctor was bad and really stupid but this just might be worse.