And Again

I noticed that Daniel was coughing a lot in the car when we were driving to the boys' swimming lessons yesterday afternoon. I asked him if he had coughed a lot at school during the day, but he said no.

I briefly considered putting Daniel back on the nebulizer--we had stopped the nebulizer treatments last weekend--but didn't bother with it, thinking that the cough was due to seasonal allergies, which both Tab and I are from suffering right now.

I was wrong, though. Poor Daniel woke up this morning with a high fever. He couldn't go to school today, of course, nor to his swimming lessons. Daniel didn't want to eat a thing; all he wanted to do was sleep. He napped for three hours this afternoon. Although he wasn't wheezing I put him back on the nebulizer, giving him four treatments during the day as Dr. Jacques had advised me to do whenever Daniel came down with a respiratory problem.

Daniel was feeling a little better after his long nap, although he was still running a slight fever. I offered to let him stay home with his grandmother while I took his brothers to their swimming lesson, but he said he'd rather come along with us. He was sorry to miss swimming, but I consoled him by letting him play SubHunt and chess on my Palm.

Later, after a dinner that he wouldn't eat, Daniel's fever went back up. All he wanted to do was go to bed, but I made him wait until he'd had his final nebulizer treatment of the day. Looking at him on the couch breathing through the nebulizer mouthpiece, his face pale and eyes fever bright, I felt tears come to my own eyes. What if something is really wrong with Daniel? How do people cope when their children become seriously ill? I've asked myself that question many times. Despite having seen my own sister go through the worst possible experience a mother can have, the loss of a child, I still don't have an answer.

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