Streptococcal Pharyngitis

That's right. The kid is sick. He's been coughing for a few days, which tends to happen when the weather changes and his throat gets snotty. Normally we'd just run the vaporizer at night and lube him up with Vicks VapoRub until it passes or until he starts running a fever, at which point we'd take him to the doc assuming that an ear infection is to blame. This time, it was keeping him up at night, and while a dose of Benadryl before bedtime soothed his itchy throat enough to let him sleep, the coughing wasn't going away or even getting better. I still wasn't really worried until he was listening to music on Tim's headphones and was so uncharacteristically calm and quiet that I noticed he was wheezing. That pretty much raised a red flag - time to see the doc.

The wheezing started on Friday afternoon, so our only choice was to take Alex to the walk-in clinic at Baylor Pediatric this morning. Timothy volunteered to take him so that I could have a peaceful morning at home (much-appreciated after Spring Break week with no M.D.O.), so the two of them set off early to beat the rush. Unfortunately, the rush beat them. The clinic opened at 9am, and by the time they arrived at 9:06am, they were 11th in line to see the doc. Luckily, A was in a stellar mood and entertained himself by entertaining the masses in the waiting room. A mere two hours later and they left with the diagnosis - Streptococcal Pharyngitis, aka "Strep Throat", and a minor respiratory infection.

They came home with antibiotics and an inhaler, which Alex loves and hates, respectively. Well, to be accurate, he only hates the inhaler when we force him to breathe from it. It really doesn't help that the handy, kid-sized mask attached to the inhaler has been painted to look like a cute little ducky face. Nice effort, inhaler-mask-designing-people, but instead of making my kid love his inhaler, I think you've made him hate ducks.

So forcing him to use the inhaler is a torturous and traumatic process for all of us. But thank God for that nurse who taught us an invaluable technique for making a kid do stuff that he doesn't want to do, one that involves one parent sitting on him while the other pins his elbows to his ears. Thanks to that method, we were able to administer Round 2 of his Albuterol much more efficiently than the first time. A few hugs and one gumdrop later, and A was back to his usual giddy self.

Speaking of which, aside from the occasional cough and a little wheezing, you'd never know the kid was sick, let alone inflicted with two nasty infections. He's been a total goofball, super happy and lovable, maybe even more so than usual. Case in point:

Seriously folks, does that look like a kid who is suffering? Streptococcus, shmeptococcus.