Scared Shitless!

Sharkteeth scared me shitless last week. She's been bugged all week by cough and cold, and with cough and cold, can asthma be far behind? She finds it difficult to fully cough out the secretions when she has asthma and usually ends up throwing up all her food. This time though, she threw up a number of times, plus her nose bled, and she's been having fever. My mind was already racing with thoughts of dengue or possible brain damage due to loss of blood---I'm paranoid, see (must be the curse of taking GMSC* back in college), and it did not help that I'm terrified of blood (my own blood and my loved ones' only). I tried to steel myself not to faint, or else TheHusband would have to bring two patients to the hospital...which is kinda difficult if one is throwing up and asthmatic and the other is unconcious and overweight. It would look like some absurd Greek tragedy, don't you think?

Anyway, it turned out that her mucous membrane got irritated by the acid when she threw up, that's why her nose bled. She was nebulized twice before we were sent home, but not without getting bitchy and dissing me, her own mother, if I may add!

Sharkteeth: Deden, hold the nose piece for me.
(TheHusband held the nose piece for a short period.)
TheHusband: I have to go to the pharmacy.
(I started to hold the nose piece for her.)
Sharkteeth: (looking at me askance) Si Deden ka ba? Hindi kaya! [Are you Deden? I think not!]
ThePseudoshrink: (in my mind) An.Ti.Pa.Ti.Ka!


Even after a few nebulizations at home, she (and we) spent a restless and sleepless night. We even walked around the village at half past three in the morning to relax her. She was throwing up till the morning, and the entire house smelled of sick. We had to go to her pediatric pulmonologist, which is a pain in itself, but it's another story.

This was her most severe asthma attack yet, and during all that time, I couldn't bear to look at her and see her suffer. What my mother said is true, that a mother would prefer, nay, welcome, any suffering if it means sparing her child from the pain. It might me a bit thoughtless of me not to post anything about the Glorietta blast, and I know this is not comparable to the loss of lives in Glorietta, believe me, my heart goes out to everybody who lost a loved one, especially the parents who lost their child, but Sharkteeth takes precedence over all my thoughts and cares and I love her so, even if she disses me, her own mother.

*GMSC, general medical and surgical course