Has everyone read the joke about how to give a cat a pill? Well, take that joke, substitute 'Jamie' everytime you see 'cat', and make it not funny. That's why I haven't been blogging, although I have been wailing and flailing other places.
Jamie had his pre-school vaccinations on Friday and his arm starting swelling and reddening over the weekend, although strangely not at either of the puncture sites. Back to the doctor's yesterday and the verdict was that he hadn't had a reaction to the jags as such, but that the open wound has allowed some other bug in and that was causing the swelling. Armed with an adult dosage of antibiotics so concentrated there were pellets of bitterness floating in the suspension like evil sprinkles, and intructions to dose him 28 times in 7 days, I made the schoolgirl error of letting Jamie smell the medicine. Remember this is the child that can tell if I'm attempting to pass off a cracker Dida as a proper Dida, by smell alone. See my error? This one does not smell like bananas or strawberries. Oh no, it smells like back alley dumpsters, the girl who bullied you in primary school and desperation. Or maybe it was me who smelled of desperation because after the preliminary sniff there was point-blank, wild-eyed, foaming-at-the-mouth refusal to let said medicine anywhere near his mouth. It did, however, get all over my shirt.
If you haven't been reading here for that long, you might not know that he struggles generally with anxiety and exponentially with anxiety about eating. After all, he's the one that instigated The Soup Wars which was at least as long as the Hundred Years' War and twice as bitter. When it comes to him and his gullet, he will not respond to threats or retribution or praise or bribes or persuasion or logic or trickery-pokery. His mouth = his business. Which we've more or less accepted when it comes to food but cannot accept when it comes to important medicine.
After another edifying conversation with Unfeasibly Young Doctor today, I was told in no uncertain terms that he absolutely had to have that specific medicine, in that manner, in that dosage, and if necessary, I had to pin him to the floor, force his mouth open and shove it down his throat, twenty eight times. I'm so silly and neurotic that she had to spell it out to me several times before I could comprehend how a food phobia and anxiety should not hold me back from violent force feeding. But first I had to drag him out from behind the couch.
Last minute toddler negotiations failed. I got him in a hold unseen outside a WWF wrestling ring involving two legs, an arm and an elbow. Two hearts brokes. 'Maia, help me!' he screamed. 'Mum, don't do that to Jamie!' she answered. Five milligrams made it down and stayed there. 'I'm so brave!' he shouted in triumph. Maia patted his back and cheered 'I'm so proud of you!'. We had a group hug.
I'd give you some sort of "It'll get better" platitude, but it probably won't. Be sure to ask Unfeasibly young doctor if she has ever actually tasted that medicine. They made me do that where I trained, and it was very educational. Also, if he likes chocolate pudding, it is very good for masking bitter medicine, but don't try to fool him by mixing them together, just give him some after to take the taste away. That's mom+doctor advice - hope it helps!!
ReplyDeleteMy son was a great eater until about 1 and then for no apparent reason it stopped. We used to do 'picnic' which was little bits of things on a big plate which he could graze at instead of an overwhelmingly big plate. We eventually (after about 10 years) discovered that his food 'thing' was more to do with texture than taste (he won't eat anything sloppy - soup, sauces (except gravy weirdly) spag bol etc etc etc) and so acted accordingly and he became the meat and 3 ish veg man he is today. He is (at 17) getting better but will still only eat peas, carrots and corn as vegetables and will pick the tiniest pieces of anything else out, will NEVER eat mashed potato, mince in any form apart from burgers....and so it goes on. As KID, MD says it probably won't get better. Parenting never gets any easier it just gets different. At least he eats something. And that is something!
ReplyDeleteHow painful for all of y'all! I can totally sympathize with the heart-breakingness (what? It's a word!) of having to force your child to do something that they just don't want to do and are fighting you the entire time but that they NEED.
ReplyDeleteWhat's funny, is that so often if you can just get them to do it once and face their fears, they can accept having to do it again.
I so know what you've been given for Jamie and it stinks like rotten eggs, no? Well done you on doing the deed- though this being a grown up sucks s**t doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteOh my God! Poor thing, that medicine sounds revolting. Hope he's ok (and you xx).
ReplyDeleteAwww poor chap, poor you. I did enjoy the cat joke though.
ReplyDeleteNasty:( Don't know if you've tried the medicine syringes for toddler medicine? I suspect by this point you've probably tried everything though. Hope now you've done it once it does get easier. Does chocolate bribery work - have this medicine then have a chocolate? Works with my (non eating problem) child anyhow.
ReplyDeletePoor you! We recently had a similar experience with Izzy. She flatly refused to take calpol/nurofen despite having a temp of 40 degrees plus and we were spending hours trying to cajole her into taking it. Her dad would put a tiny drop at a time on a chocolate button and it literally took 4 hours to get her to take 5 mil and even then she spat some of it out and got really distressed. It was horrible. I finally lost patience at 4am and was all for using the holding her down approach but my other half wasn't keen. My colleague at work actually persuaded me to give it a try saying that it had worked with her son. That evening we literally pinned her down and syringed it in. It was heartbreaking as she screamed for us to stop but it only took 2 minutes (rather than the hours of crying before) and 30 seconds later she was laughing and really pleased with herself. The next time we tried she struggled briefly then took it and the next time she asked for it and did it all by herself!! It was as though she was pleased we had taken control of it and no longer had any choices. Not sure thats any help but thought I'd share our experience. Its slightly different I know as Izzy isn't anxious around food but she had defiantly built up some kind of phobia about pink medicine!! I also appreciate its much harder to do by yourself physically - 4 year olds are pretty strong!! Good luck.
ReplyDeleteI do admire your consistent ability to spin A hilarious story out of hideous situations.
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1 down, 27 to go. You can do it mom!
ReplyDeleteWrapping my cat in a towel helped keep the knees and elbows less forceful. So maybe throwing a blanket around him to help with the pinning can make the whole thing less violent?
Hang in there!
aww poor you and poor Jamie - it is horrendous having to force them but sometimes you really do have to be cruel to be kind - i totally understand the fussy eater issues and anxiety my daughter was AWFUL but she is fine now, sometimes it really does get better :o)
ReplyDeleteThat last little paragraph brought tears to my eyes, been there, done that, will be thinking of you all the next 27 times.
ReplyDeletexxx
I so know what you are going through. Thinking of you for the next 7 days worth, hope it gets better. *hugs*
ReplyDeleteAwww. The sentence "two hearts broke" almost made me cry.
ReplyDeleteI know what you are going through. Here it got better, eventually, when the little ones got a little bit bigger, but that won't help you a bit right now. I just want to let you know I'm thinnking about you. And remember you are doing what's best for him. He might not see that at those specific moments, but in the end he will.
You are a wonderful mom.
is it flucloxacillin- that stuff tastes awful! we went through the same with antimalarials earlier this year.
ReplyDeleteLittle late to the party, but if you get it from a drug store here they'll add some flavoring to try and mask the taste - mine got excited about picking different flavors.
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