my kid is always sick

“Oh gosh, don’t mind him, it’s just a cough, he’s not sick.”

Right? I mean he can’t possibly be sick — we just got done with our 10 days of antibiotics. The new antibiotics, you know the ones, the ones that are 7x more expensive than the other ones. The new ones the Doc gave us since he’s been on the other ones so much and she wants to switch it up. No, he is not sick. He cannot be sick because he was just sick and we just do not want to be the ones who are sick all of the time!!!! I don’t want my kid to be the kid who is always sick! 

Here is how I know. If you go to sign in my daughter for her well-check at the Doctor’s office you will see that she has come in only a handful of times other than her well checks since birth.  I don’t even have to sign in on a 2nd page, it’s the same page I signed her in on when she was an infant. If you go with my son to the doctor you will have to lick your finger at least 4 times and scroll through the pages until you find a blank space. It goes a little something like this: Ear Infections, Croup, Flu, Strep, another Ear Infection and those great “viruses” with no name.  You know the ones that they can’t give you anything for but that you just have to wait out? Put us down for like 17 of those.

The doctors have always equated it to the fact that he got very sick when he was very little. They say his little immune system just has to have more time to recover. See he got RSV when he was 6 weeks old. We have no idea where he got it because none of us were sick, but I’m sure I was much more lax about everyone washing their hands with him (my 2nd) than I was with my 1st little one.  Plus it was right during sick season. Very long story short, he ended up in PICU at Dell Children’s Hospital on a ventilator for 22 days. (That’s a whole other blog) We are beyond lucky and blessed to have him back and he is basically unscathed from the whole thing other than the fact that he catches every single germ out there.

Little guy is now 3 ½ and basically doing great. He’s wonderfully tall, hyper verbal  (thanks to his older sister talking at) him all of the time and sweet as can be with only one little flaw…my kid is ALWAYS sick! I tell myself that it’s good for him to go to his little Mom’s Day Out school and pick up some of these germs so that when he gets to elementary school he’ll be immune.  Which is sort of funny because my daughter just started kindergarten this year and has been sick more this year than ever in her life, so that may be total crud.

If someone coughs in the aisle next to us at Target, I literally say in my head…”and thanks for that, we’ll just go ahead and take that home with us.” If you can relate you have probably tried a few of the methods I’ve tried/are trying at home to keep everyone well.  Things like:

  • Probiotics:  We take them every day.  A healthy gut is the key right?
  • Vitamins:  We have our gummies every day because it makes me feel so good knowing he’s getting all of those great fruits and veggies even if he’s existing on goldfish and apple juice that day. 
  • Essential Oils: I have SO many at this point it’s troubling. I use them as roll on oils, I use them as aromatherapy, I wear them, I take them orally. Plus they smell yummy!  Warning: These are addicting my friends. 
  • Humidifiers:  They help right. They help with the cough, or wait, maybe they make him cough more.  Oh gosh I don’t know really why I use a humidifier. Could it be because someone said I should once, yea that’s probably it.

I can’t say for sure if any or all of these work for us but I’ll tell you one thing, they do make me feel like I’m doing something for him other than just waiting for the next sickness to come on, or waiting for new meds from the Doctor. I need to feel like I’m helping. Like I’m being proactive not just reactive and that I’m looking at all my options. I don’t want my baby boy (who is now 3) to be on so many antibiotics that they won’t work for him one day when he needs them most. 

Honestly mammas I don’t know. Maybe he’ll always be the one who catches everything, or maybe he’ll grow out of it like the Doctors say but I can tell you one thing, I’ll probably try just about anything I ever read about or hear about from my friends that might just keep us from catching whatever is coming up next. I’d also like to apologize in advance for bailing on our playdate but once I heard your kiddos were sick last week I had to pull the plug — I just can’t chance it.

So here’s to hoping that with spring we can all get busy sneezing because of pollen and flowers and dust and mold and not from germs. Now let’s all get a good night sleep because, well it helps you stay well to be well rested, right? Didn’t I read that somewhere? I can’t tell because my kid is always sick!

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