Sickos and Scouts

It was an exciting interesting day yesterday.   The kids finally got to race their Pinewood Derby cars last night.  And yesterday afternoon, I officially fell out of contention for Mother of the Year.

Really the fact that I was still in the running until mid-February is pretty amazing.

So the story goes like this.    About 2 1/2 weeks ago, Matthew picked up a cough.   First it was that dry, hacking cough that keeps you up at night.  Over time, it got more "productive."  And by "over time" I mean about a week later.   It lingered on for another 5 days beyond that.   Although the Delsym bottle says do not take more than 1 week without consulting a doctor, I knew it was getting better, so didn't worry about it. Plus, when I asked B if I should take him to the doc he looked at me and said, "Nah, it'll be fine."

Typical doctor's family.   We know doctors, but we rarely go and see them in any official capacity.

The cough finally gave up after 12 or 13 days.  Then the congestion set in . . . big time.  Poor little munchkin had a headful of snot.  Treated him with cold medicine for a couple days and switched over to Zyrtec after realizing that it might be allergies (from which he suffers terribly.).     By Thursday morning, it was clear the Zyrtec wasn't helping and we needed some bigger guns (read:  a prescription allergy medication).   I called the doctor and asked for an appointment the next day, because the kids got out of school yesterday at noon.  They offered me a Thursday appointment, but Matthew didn't want to miss school and I didn't want to take him out of school, so I assured them we would be fine to wait until the next day.

Friday afternoon we scored the first appointment after lunch.  While doing the intake, the nurse asked about his symptoms.  Then she asked if he had been wheezing to which I promptly answered, "no."

See, it turns out the correct answer to this question was YES.   Dr. Moss determined that within 2 seconds of putting the stethoscope on M's chest.  

My bad.  

The problem was he couldn't tell what was causing the wheezing.   He wanted to do a chest x-ray do determine if it was pneumonia, bronchitis or situational asthma.  

Okay, can I tell you how bad I felt about now?  But, in my defense, Matthew is not a complainer, other than fussing when I ask him to blow his nose.   I had no idea.

The answer was asthma, probably brought on by a cold virus, and before I knew it,  M was hooked up to a nebulizer for a breathing treatment.   It helped a lot and an hour after our appointment started, we were sent home with a loaner machine and two prescriptions. 

On a muuuuuch lighter note, last night was also the Pinewood Derby.   Hooray!   They run it as a double elimination, so each kid gets to run his car at least twice,  more if they continue to win.  Last year Matthew's car ran just twice.  And it came in last of 4 both times.  Not good.    It did make this year's goal (doing better than last year) a reasonably sure thing. 

Gracie's car ran first in the sibling division.  She won her first trial and came in second in the next run.    She got one more run where she came in third, so she didn't make it the championship.  She was disappointed, but happy for her pal, Amelia, who ended up winning the sibs division. 

Matthew's car had a similar run.   He got second place in his first race and first place for the second trial.    His third run determined whether he would make it to the championship and unfortunately, his opponent was the kid who won for his entire den.  Bad luck on that one.    He was really so bummed.  I'm always amazed by the speed at which my kids' moods can swing.  And by amazed, I really mean thoroughly confused.

Still we had a great evening.   No one from Matthew's den won any of the Pack trophies, but you can be sure the wheels are already turning (no pun intended) on how we'll make next year's car even faster!