Random fact of the day: In my world where everything has horrible germs on it, and I can't touch anything, I like to delude myself that germs cannot live on paper or cloth. Sometimes it's all that gets me through in life. I try to force myself to not wash my hands after touching papers that people have handed me, or to die a thousand deaths at sorting through some clothes someone donated to me (OK OK I STILL HAVE TO WASH AFTER THAT SECOND PART). But knowing that germs are everywhere, I still like to pretend they're not on fabric or paper. It gets me by, thinking those are safer to touch than, say, doorknobs and toilet flushers and restaurant menus and EVERYTHING ELSE IN THIS GODFORSAKEN WORLD. I like to think paper and cloth/fabric can't harbor germs. Even though I know I'm wrong. But let me enjoy my fantasy world.
This holds true except for USPS mail. After I open my mail I wash my hands with a quickness. Because, that's shit's been from New Jersey to Texas to Portland to Seattle and touched by millions of bum-bum germs and I can't have that.
But since you can't soak books in bleach before reading (yea though I've given this much thought and have attempted to perfect a scenario in which this is plausible), I have to take my chances and just bite the bullet and go for it and OMG TOUCH THINGS SOMETIMES.
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In other news, Maya is back in Pre-K, and she's taking swimming lessons the same day, so our Mondays and Thursdays are really super busy. Stresses me out, the getting up early and the wrangling two kids just to get Maya home from school (unbuckling the giant heavy baby from her mystery carseat contraption just to take her inside for 340 second to pick up my big girl, the load everyone up, sani some hands, then go home and have Maya take off her shoes, strip down to her nudey pants--
--and wash her hands and wash my hands and use hand-sani again, and clean the baby and clean the lunchbox and just generally disinfect. Coming home from anywhere it far more complicated and stressful than packing up to go OUT, even though going out means loading up the entire house and the proverbial kitchen sink. Because coming home means there has to be a system in place whereby the kids' shoes are off and clothes are off and hands and clothes are cleaned immed before they touch anything. It's touch to wrangle--it's hard with just two kids--how do OCDers with more kids handle it?
Plus, Maya is a major nail-biter and always has her fingers in her mouth. I've trained her well not to touch her eyes or nose, but she bites her nails on the constant. Her fingers are always in the mouth. This makes kitty angry.
So surely cold and flu germs are having a party in there, all up in her mouth from her grody nails. Good times.
As for swim class, it's driving my nuts. Maya has a good time just bobbing about in the ass soupbum-bum chowder water, but there's got to be more than taking one turn every 6 kids just to take one around a very small swimming zone, with no real instruction (the instructors just carry the kids through the water basically). I look at it like, it's a chance to get poor stifled Maya out of the house and do something that she enjoys, but I can't help wish we were getting our money's worth. They also scam us on time--classes are half an hour but we're lucky to get 20 minutes of time out of it, split among a whole bunch of kids. You can only spend so much tie going over "What's a pool rule?" (where the kids have no idea what he's even asking) or being asked "How do we use a paddle board, to we sit on it? Do we ride it like a horse? Nooooo!" before the kids are finally asked to jump in. And he doesn't teach kids to jump far without help (he underestimates their bravery), or to bob underwater, or other important things. I want some technique taught, and I'm not finding it. Oh well. We'll give it a few more tries before deciding whether to continue.
Either way, having Pre-K and swim on the same day is stressful to the max. I am a person who does not like to have anything on my schedule, anything looming in the future, appointments, dates with friends, doctors, etc. I look at my schedule and see flu shot vax appointments, routine vax appointments, play dates, coffee with a good friend, school, swim, and an upcoming birthday to plan, and I get really overwhelmed. I know I should be able to take this day by day, moment by moment, but I get so caught up in the overwhelmitude.
I just feel like I'm not equipped to deal with daily life. I mean, daily life means getting up early, getting breakfast going, packing lunches, taking the kids to school or playdates, trying to squeeze in the baby's nap, running errands, picking up Maya from school, usually making a Starbucks run for her for a kids' hot chocolate (because she's spoiled like that), and oh yes, cleaning this endless pit of a house that I cannot stay on top of. For someone who panics easily, it's tough to want to do anything or go anywhere, but when I give into that, that's just perpetuates the evil cycle of isolation and loneliness and depression. Then I just stay at home more or want to cancel every appointment on the book or whatever.
I fully expected life to get a little more assbutt difficult after Maya started Pre-K, and I'm trying to take it in stride, but the very moment that Maya comes home with the stomach flu or rotavirus H1N1, my first instinct will be to withdraw her from school again. Which I can't. It's not an option this time. Kid's gotta go to school. Mama has to suck it up.
So I guess we're in for it. A year or two of sick ALL the time,
Gotta put in my big-girl panties and buck up. But it's just so hard. I live with constant stress that eats away at my at night and makes me wake up at 4 am thinking 23749023709432 thoughts, none of which I can really control, but all of which upset me anyway. I'm a work in progress, but I sure as shit hope to see some progress soon.
Because tomorrow Maya starts at the Cesspool school again. She'll be in Pre-K this year, not just preschool. Kid is grown' up. Sniff.
However. This only means one thing to me: We will all get sick within hours of her playing with blocks, coloring with pens, or sharing books at reading time. We will all come down with horrible cold and flu (and small baby tiny precious blonde blue-eyed God Jesus please help us not catch the dreaded stomach flu or the trots or Captain Trips or Rotavirus). And the best part of knowing that Maya and we will all get sick? Is that this shall continue twice a fortnight until the end of time.
It had been a new beginning, a new adventure, something for her to look forward to: Look, back then, at my kid all excited to be a groweds-up!! Going to gee-dee SCHOOL!!
BUT. See, Maya has been on what I like to call a "hiatus," taking a sabbatical if you will (pursuing her Ph.D in Play-Doh 101 and her masters in Dirt-Sculpture-Making for the Under Five Crowd, and learning in depth the philosophy behind how to play XBox's Harry Potter and Spelunky.
She was taken out of school, as of last Christmas because (1) she wasn't loving and appreciating school (a gentler way of phrasing her frothing split-pea-spewing beard-rending sackcloth-tearing fits whenever we woke her up at 7:30 am to go to school); (2) it was very pricey and we wanted to save money, especially on a school my kid didn't love; and (3) MOTHERFUCKING COLDS IN OUR MOTHERFUCKING NOSES EVERY MOTHERFUCKING WEEK.
It was just unreal. I couldn't take another second of it. The baby, who was only 4-5 months old at the time, was sick constantly, once for six weeks straight. And she was so new and so fragile and did not handle colds well, getting so congested that I literally thought she'd choke and die in the middle of the night. Silently. Once, on our way to a restaurant to enjoy a little family time, we skipped our plans for a meal and made a quick, last-miunte detour to the local ER because she was struggling so hard to breathe and it sounded like she was fighting to get any air in and was going to suffocate any minute. I was panicking every second of that 10-minute drive. Fuck. I don't know how many people get this, but the common cold can be scary shit.
And might I interject, that since removing Maya from school before Christmas, we have not caught one single solitary cold or flu. Not even a sniffle. Not even a throat tickle. Not one. Nothing. So it's all those filthy little bastards who do not know to wash their hand after the use the potty and who do not sneeze into their sleeve and who dig for gold up they got-damn noses and and then offer my child a bite of their Bunny-Grahams.
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I like to think now at almost a year and a half years of age, the baby Naomi is stronger and heartier (God knows this child is build like a truck (or built like my one true love, Edgar Martinez)).
Thighs like what. what. what.
And Naomi is so strong and determined and hearty and wily and mischievous and just a ball of fire than I think she can fight off colds more easily, or deal with them more easily as them come. Well, part of me logically thinks so and the other part of me is screaming, "We will have a nicely lovely playdate with some favorite neighbors and enjoy some apple juice and Goldfish and then Naomi will chew on her playmate's Sophie the Giraffe and then catch a cold and will fill head to toe with mucous and die. Dead. Dead of rhinopharyngitis."
Sorry, you played with a kids' favorite rubber toy and now you shall die of dystentery. Fuck you, Sophie.
Or that Maya will have come home from a lovely day at school fingerpainting and baking cookies and playing telephone and cooking in the play kitchen and making macaroni art, and the she will breathe in the vicinity of the baby who will instantly perish.
Because every other time that Naomi has caught one of Maya's (trillions of) colds, she got incredibly sick and churned out snot the way the Amish churn out butter and caught horrible double ear infections and sinus infections like it was her job. Every time. So yeah. Who knows if the baby is stronger now or not. Time will tell.
But still. Maya is off hiatus, is beginning Pre-K tomorrow, and will be bringing home God only knows what kinds of diseases. I can't say I'm prepared for the Onslaught of Sick, but I know it's coming. I know it's coming. I'm trying to steel myself for the inevitable, but that doesn't mean I don't feel like taking two handfuls of Xanax, 27 Klonopin, and two bottles of our very best $3 red wine to try to soothe my worries.
That's right. We finally get out of the house, do some fun shit, touch some fun things, and all come down with nasty colds. Who would have thought, it figures.
Take-home lesson: Never, ever, ever leave home again.
So the other day I headed in to the Department of Licensing, for to renew my license. I was two weeks too late, but whatever.
First, I had to find the son of a bitch. It was hidden in a little hellhole of a strip mall. Signs would be nice, people. Signs stating "DOL! YOU FOUND IT! ENTER HYAR! GET YER NEW LICENSE RIGHT HYAR! STEP RIGHT UP! POPCORN PEANUTS CANDIED APPLES DOL, STEP RIGHT UP!"
Or at least a storefront sign reading, "Licensing." But whatever.
Anyway, after breaking two small sweats and U-turning all over creation, I found it. Then I had to find the fucking door. I'm not even kidding. I have never experienced this particular phenomenon before: Can't find the entrance. Can't find the right door. Are you serious? Is this real life?
Honest to God. I think I found myself entering one door only to exit another, then backtrack and enter the previous door and then suddenly find myself on the sidewalk. Took a turn round the corner, saw another door, and entered it, found myself in Taco Bell, then repeated the process only to find myself twelve sizes too large.
Honestly. WHAT THE FUCK. God help me I just want to stand in line for two hours so that I can lie about my weight, agree to donate my corneas, and be off. But whatever.
So I finally found my way awkwardly in, then had to ask like seven random pedestrians what the hell I was supposed to do from there. I was like, "O hai, you motherfucker, um, what's this partic'alar line for?" and "I need to renew my license, do you have any idea where I'm supposed to Christing go?" and "Where's the end of this here got-damn line??" (At which point I was told I had just totally cut and was in fact at the front of the line. But whatever.)
Then I tried to use the "renew online" computer option that was straight the shit out of the Paleolithic era. It has a mouse ball, ffs. A mouse ball. I entered my legal name, my birth date, my eye color, and the last four digits of my SS #. All right out in the open n shit. Meanwhilst, I was all paranoid that someone was watching me and gleaning my info so as to impersonate me later and steal my life and credit and eventually become me, SWF-style.
Oh, and ALSO I was freaking the fuck out over the germs. OH GOD THE GERMS. The rollerball, the keyboard, the enter-key, the filthy hordes, the masses...just...the...all of it...touching things...breathing air...I wanted to die. But whatever.
To top it off, once I'd defouled my pristine fingers and had attempted to renew online, it told me I was not eligible. Well FUCK YOU MISTER FUCKING 1997 ROLLERBALL INTRANETS. GOD. Now I have E. Coli and semen on my hands and no updated driver's license to show for it. Fuck you and the fucking manure-covered horse you rode in on.
Finally I found the right line, and waited for a bit, only to tell a greyed, aged, spent, disilllusioned gent, "I'm here to renew my license?"
He was all, *stamp* *click* *print* "Here you go." I was number R730.
And thus, I waited. Oh how I waited. I waited, then waited some more.
It was 12:27 pm.
I had previously scheduled an appointment with my therapist, my favorite little slight, gentle-voiced, darling Indian lad, Dr. P, at 3 pm in Bellevue, at least 45 American minutes away from my current locale. I thought I was golden.
Then I waited.
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I continued waiting.
Now, I know that any visit to the DOL turns into an HOURS-long ordeal. But I was going at noontime on a weekday. Surely that counts for something?
Turns out it doesn't. I waited. How I waited.
Meanwhile, there was assault to my every sense, from every direction. As I had found myself a seat among the unwashed masses, I thought I had chosen wisely. Then, not four minutes later, a couple made their way to the seats in front of me. I watched with disinterested interest, then observed the woman to cough. And cough. And cough. Oh how she coughed. She coughed. I was all, "Shit on a shingle. I cain't win."
The I started observing the people around me.
To the right: An ancient white-cropped lady, with lovely delicate features, but with a dry hack.
To the left: A largely man wearing red tights, which would not stop sneezing. O GOD.
To the far right: A sweating, bereddened person which kept snorting down their phlegm and coughing up crud.
To the far-left: A small child of about three who had the world's worst croupy cough. Bark. Bark. Bark.
In addition, I observed many a person wearing purple dreadlocks, or wearing what was clearly last week's ensemble, or wearing electric-blue skinnypants and an orange faux-hawk, or wearing size XXXXXXL, saggy, befouled yellow sweatpants. But whatever. No judgment here. Carry on.
Anyway. I literally spent the vast majority of the time trying not to breathe. Do you know how hard that is? You sense that someone to your left has a terrible cold, so you turn to the right, lower your eyes, and halt your breathing when they cough. Or you know that someone to your right should be at home in bed, eating chicken soup, consulting their pharmacologist, and they're sneezing every 1.5 minutes, and you are cursing your very God, asking Him Why Have You Forsaken Me, and you are questioning your very will to live, but you've already committed 45 minutes to this shit, so you have to stay?
It's hard out here for a germaphobe.
Bygones.
As 2:15 pm came ever closer, I started to think, "This was all a waste. I exposed myself to the dregs of society just to have to pack up and leave before ever earning my silly fucking temporary paper license, cuz I gots to leave like NOW."
But I stuck it out.
Part of the time, my attention was occupied by a twosome whom I had previously thought was "a couple," but who turned out to be mother & son. The mother didn't look a day over 24, and neither did her son. I was all, Wuh fuh?? But this man called her Mom. Now, unless this was the world's sickest who's-your-mommy relationship, she had indeed birthed him from her strawberry-blonde loins. I was fascinated. Except that they Kept Fucking COUGHING. God DAMMIT. Is no one, nowhere, healthy at any given moment?? JFC.
Finally, at 2:19 pm, although I had to leave at 2:15 pm, my number was called. I made my way nonchalantly up to desk #7, even though I knew all eyes were on me, as all my eyes had been on everyone before me. I kept thinking, "Does my ass look big? Do my new highlights look brassy? Shit. They're all judging me, as I once judged them for having The Common Cold or pants a size too small. FML."
Then as I approached desk #7, I realized there were more horrors in my future. In order to renew my license, I had to Press My Very Fucking Forehead against they "Eye Test Machine," letting the woman at the desk know whether the flashing lights were inside the box, outside the box, or on both sides. I had to let her know what the letters were, left to right. I had to let her know what colors I saw. All this required that I press my very brain on a germified, coldified, fluified, face-oil-ified nasty forehead presser. I attempted to zoom throught that shit ASAP. I was all, "RIGHT!LEFT!RIGHT!BOTH!E, G, F, Z!OUTSIDE!INSIDE!!FOR GODSAKES GREEN! RED! MOTHERFUCKING BLUE!!!!!11111111!!"
Finally I was granted my license renewal--not that anything has CHANGED, you motherfuckers, except my goddamn weight, yes, I know I am not 125 U.S.LBS anymore, sheeee-it, I've grown two kids in my belly, and I am still 5'4", and my middle initial is still E., and my eyes are still blue, my hair is still brown, except I got some kickass blonde highlights last week, BUT I DIGRESS...
Anyway. I got outta there at 2:19 pm, giving me 39-41 minutes to make my hour-long drive to make my appointment with Dr. P.
The Lord JC Hisownself was wif me. He was all, I'm your man. Because, I made it to the appointment on time.
Then I proceeded to cry my eyes out in Dr. P's office, telling him how much I suck as a mom, how often I want to smack the taste out of Maya's mouth, and how I constantly want to fucking beat the shit out of my kids all because I want some peace and quiet to read some blogs and catch up on LiveJournal.
1. Is there anything about your OCD that you'd miss if you woke up tomorrow and were suddenly cured?
Well, not if I were cured of my actual FEAR of getting sick. But if I were cured of my "germ awareness," I'd miss that, because I happen to think it's actually a really good thing to be as aware of germs as I am. That's part of why my disorder is going to be so hard to "cure"--simply because I think that it's right and good to be so aware an conscious of germs. I know germs ARE on the things I think they're on, and I think it's best to avoid them if possible, or wash after coming into contact with them. So to answer your question, hell no I wouldn't miss the terror at hearing someone cough 8 mile away, and the absolute panic with which I'm bestricken when I come to pick my child up from preschool and I hear one of her little friends let out a huge sneeze, I'm but I would miss being aware of certain germs so that I could avoid them and be as clean and healthy as possible. If I were TOTALLY cured of this, I would probably get sick more often with both colds, tummy bugs, and who the hell knows what else. Hope that makes sense.
2. Can you feel ANY effect from those medications? Are they helping at all?
Honest to God, no. Not with regard to the OCD/anxiety aspect, at all. I'm taking some meds to help with irritability/atypical depression, and I do notice a difference there. (Finally, I don't want to smack my oldest child into next week All The Time. I kid, I kid. Just kidding, I kid about kidding. OK I kid about that too. OK FINE I'm HALF KIDDING ABOUT EVERYTHING YOU JUST READ.) So the meds are working with my OMGRAGE issues, but not even remotely with my OMGOCD issues. I feel absolutely no relief with my anxiety, and that's after taking everything under the sun for it. Hard-core shit, like Klonopin, Xanax, Buspar, etc.
3. How do you feel about natural cleaners (like vinegar instead of bleach)?
Well, I'm undecided. I take that back. I'm not into it so much. I mean, if you're cleaning something the baby's gonna lick, I wouldn't use Lysol wipes. Although I would probably use Clorox "Anywhere Spray," which insists it's safe to use in the immediate proximity of food and children. (It's a super, super mild bleach mixture, basically, and bleach in certain dilute concentrations is extremely safe. Which is why I luuurve my some bleach. Harsh enough to kill shit, gentle enough to swim in and drink.) I always hear what a good disinfectant natural cleansers are, and I suppose vinegar is fairly harsh and kills certain things, but it's not murderous enough for me. For things like cleaning windows? Sure. But if my kid had another one of her poosplosions of semi-automatic ass spray, I wouldn't feel confident cleaning her "drawing weasel" with vinegar. It would be Lysol wipes, then Lysol spray, and some bleach thrown around here and there, all the way, baby.
4. Did you worry about using a lot of harsh cleansers while you were pregnant?
I definitely did worry. I used rubber gloves all the time, every time I cleaned with Clorox or Lysol wipes or Comet scrub, and I was worried about the amount of hand sani I used. (I was like, is the amount of alcohol-based hand sani soaking into my system to the point where I'm using the equivalent of taking a shot?) So I worried, but not enough to stop using it. ;) I didn't really use anything with fumes much, or if I did, I would spray it, hold my breath, turn on the fan, close the door, and run, run away.
5. Do you prefer original scent Purell or the green "with aloe" Purell? :)
Original all the way. In fact, I hate those stupid hand sanis with lotion added too. They don't feel astringent enough for me. I don't want to feel moisturized, I want to feel dry and tight and crisp and alcoholed. It's a mental thing. Although as far as scent alone goes, I like Germ-X the best. Smells delish. Well, so do Bath & Body Works hand sanis. But yeah, no added moisturizers for me. It makes me feel dirty and gross.
6. Do you use ketchup/mustard packets when you're at a restaurant? Or do you disinfect them first?
I never really encounter those so much. Just regular bottles of ketchup and mustard sitting on the restaurant table. Oh well, I guess you're right, those packets do some with burgers at McDonalds. Yeah, if I do use packets, I'd def hand sani afterward. Packets of Splenda or sugar are bad enough. Those feel dirty to me too. And I guess I do encounter packets of hot sauce (fire sauce, specifically, because I'm a fire sauce kind of girl) when we go to Taco Bell--I use those and either Clorox-wipe them first, or use them them I hand-sani or wash. Usually because it's the cashier, not the food handler, who adds those to my bag of food, and That's Just Gross.
7. Cloth napkins at restaurants - stressful?
NOT UNTIL YOU MENTIONED IT GODDDD. But yeah, not especially. I suppose they should unnerve someone like me, but...I guess I deal all right with them. Lord I hope they use bleach though. Or color-safe bleach, whatevz. Probably they don't, but it's another one of those things I desperately don't want to give much thought to, lest I develop yet another "issue." Funny enough, I have far, far more of a problem with rolled up PAPER napkins, the kind they roll your silverware in and then secure with a rolly sticky paper thingy. Those, I feel, are super gross, from the napkin itself to the silverware they've diddled and doddled with. Because there's no way they wash their hands first. Ugh. They roll up our silverware at the restaurant we go to every week for trivia night, and I feel like those napkins and that silverware is just foul. I DON'T WANT ROLLED-UP SILVERWARE. DON'T TOUCH MY NAPKIN.
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Excellent questions, ches. Feel free to ask more in our next installment, or any time you wish. :) xoxo.
1. What about people who want to shake hands? Do you go all Doc Holiday and say "Forgive me if I don't shake hands" or just suffer and wash up after?
Oh God, how I hate, hate, hate shaking hands. Hate it with the fiery fires of hell. I will do it, though. I'm not ballsy enough to be all Howie Mandel and be like, "How about a fist bump instead?" I shake hands, but then my hand literally feels hot with the burning burning germs until I have the opportunity to wash at my earliest convenience, and I don't touch my face or mouth or food or child or anything with my right hand until I can wash. So yeah, I just suffer and wash up later. Maybe after I rise to internet fame and fortune, I will be able to pull a "forgive me if I don't shake hands, dahhling," but for now I just have to deal with it. But it's awful.
2. Also, how about touch screens in public? ATM's or order screens or whatever? Those are totally disgusting.
You are completely right. They are gross. Although everything you touch in person is gross. Pay phones, doorknobs, menus, ATM buttons (touchscreens or not), handrails, everything. But with touchscreens, I use my knuckles. I don't know why it feels safer to me, but it does. I knock the buttons super fast and hard with my knuckles instead of pressing them all juicylike with my fingertips. And yes, I use massive quantities of hand sani afterward, and then go home and wash. ;)
1. Did you nurse your babies? Did you have to sanitize your breast before latching your baby on? How did you handle nursing in public? I would think that nursing would actually make it easier to handle germs then with bottle, were bacteria creeps in every nook and cranny.
I did nurse my babies. Because I had terrible terrible nursing issues and never produced enough, I ended up exclusively pumping and supplementing, so I only ever nursed in public a few times, and that was with Maya, my firstborn. I nursed at the mall once, and then at a family holiday party another time. I would wash my hands first (like I did any time I nursed or, more accurately, attempted to nurse) and just take her somewhere private or through a blanket over my chest and nurse. Yes, nursing was somewhat easier than putting together a bottle of formula and worrying that the parts are touching a dirty table or something. Although exclusively pumping made everything hell on earth, having to plan around pumping sessions or even bring my pump with me, then worrying about storing the milk, etc. Basically, there was nothing easy about feeding my babies, ever. Argh.
2. How did you manage potty training with your oldest daughter? Did she have any poo accidents you had to deal with? (My friend had to throw her daughter's panties out when she pooed her pants at Boston Pizza, she WAS NOT carrying those filthy things around with her.)
Potty training went very smoothly and easily. Maya was potty-trained within a week. We just stayed at home, kept her naked from the waist down, and had her sit on the potty every 20 minute or something. It all went very easily. Cleaning her little Bjorn potty has been a super gross-out factor to me. I mentioned that here. But, yes, she has had accidents, even *shudder* poopy ones. There was the epic, epic diarrhea all over creation accident, which I documented, and there have been a couple other times when she has pooped in her panties, one time so bad I threw those things away, causing massive outrage on Maya's part. But I was NOT washing those or dealing with them. She has constipation issues and lets things go waaaay too long, so accidents are becoming more frequent now, and I kind of don't know what to do. :/
The one part of potty training that SUCKS is that she uses public restrooms. When we're at a restaurant and she has to use one, I use like 800 toilet seat covers staggered all over the whole damn toilet, tell her 799 times "Don't touch ANYTHING," and have a mild panic attack.
adelerium asks:
1. Do you worry about MRSA? That is the kind of stuff I worry about most for me and my kids, more than random colds or just the grossness of what other people have touched.
I do worry about it, although not nearly as much as I worry about colds, flu, and other sickness. I'm not sure why. I know it's odd that I'd be more worried about my baby coming down with a cold than a flesh-eating antibiotic-resistant infection, but it's true. The one exception to this is that my husband has a recurring infection in his leg (he has some kind of weird pocket or crypt under the flesh there that just gets repeatedly infected), and I worry my ass off that he's going to get MRSA in it. As it is, he's gotten ridiculously bad infections in his leg before, and they've had to treat it with like three different extremely strong antibiotics and lance it and drain it and pack it full of iodine-soaked packing strips, etc. Wow, way more than you wanted to know. But to answer your question, yes, it is then that I worry terribly about MRSA. But if my kids get a scratch or a skinned knee, no, I don't panic. But if someone coughs in my general direction? PANIC CITY.
Once your baby is no longer a baby do you think your OCD will improve since a lot of it seems to stem from worry over her getting sick?
I think so, to some extent. Part of my fear is just that she's so little, so young, and doesn't know how to deal with getting sick. She can't clear her nose or throat very well. It's scary and dangerous. I worry about Maya when she gets a cold, but it's nothing like the worry I feel for the baby. I think that will simmer down as the baby gets older. But I don't see myself changing my habits (both normal and very extreme) as she grows, unless I've found effective treatment and I no longer obsess or compulse. Still, I look forward to the day when my little one catching colds isn't such a terrible fear for me.
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Thanks, Thea. Thanks in fact to all y'alls for participating in the 1st Annual Ask Me Shit Convention. xoxoxoxo!
I'll have you know that my baby kicked her cold's bum-bum because she is....
SUPER NOEY!!!
. . .
Know what's weird?
Once Maya actually came down with a cold, and Naomi and I immediately caught it, it's almost like...like I could relax. I mean, I get so afraid that the kids or my husband or I will get sick that I spend all my time thinking about it, but now that we actually got effing sick, I could stop most of the all-consuming anxiety. (Athough, for the duration of the cold, the anxiety is contained to worrying about Naomi choking on mucous in the night--that fear doesn't just go away.)
I'll tell you a story. Awhile back, when Naomi was only about a month old, I caught a cold. A really bad, lingering one. It started with a terrible sore throat, and progressed to a snotty runny nose and a terrible cough. I was in full blown panic mode. Definitely Code Red. I mean, we are talking none more red.
I was so afraid of getting my tiny baby sick, that I wore a mask. WORE A FUCKING FACE MASK, for more than a week and a half. And not just the flimsy-paper doctor kind of mask, but the full-on N95-1860 particle respirator, which--
"...meets both OSHA requirements and CDC guidelines for TB exposure control. The model 1860 may be used during laser surgery, electrocautery, and other procedures involving powered medical instruments. Intended to help reduce wearer exposure to airborne particles in a size range of 0.1 to > 10.0 microns generated during these procedures. Fluid resistant to provide .99% BFE against microorganisms and help reduce potential contamination and exposure of the wearer to the spray, spatter, and aerosol of blood and body fluids.inst micron-size particles. CDC recommended to protect against avian and swine flu."
You know, the ones I bought when I was certain everyone was going to die dead of H1N1?
Anyway, when I caught that first cold, I wore it every time I fed the baby or held her or leaned over her to change her diaper, and after that first week and a half, I let myself take it off but still held it briefly over my face every time I had to cough. (The cough lingered.) And it was really fucking annoying. It's hard to breathe through those things. They are THICK. Pray to the Patron Saint of Effluvia that we don't ever have to wear them to protect against Zombie Flu or something.
Not only did I wear a mask, but my husband slept in the baby's room with her, instead of having her in the bassinet in our room next to me. I had to go like two precious weeks without kissing her. And I was fanatical about washing. I mean more than usual. If I touched my nose, I washed. If I ate and my hands touched my mouth, I washed. If I breathed, I washed. If I coughed into my elbow, I'd go take a hydrochloric acid bath. You get the point. I was living in terror. But, my efforts paid off. My tiny newborn did not catch my cold.
So now that we're past that fiasco, and Naomi did catch this new cold? While it broke my heart seeing her too sniffly to even suck her binky, and seeing her mouth-breathing like a jerk, I just kind of let go of some of the stress. Because what's done is done--we caught it. We got sick. I didn't have to try anymore to have her not get THIS cold.
I caught it, but she caught it too, so I didn't have to go around wearing a gas mask and a HazMat suit and spritzing bleach about.
But seriously, doesn't this poor sick baby break your heart?
Being sick sucks. Having sick babies sucks. But this cold, we couldn't avoid.
Doesn't mean I'm not going to go into full gas-mask and HazMat mode when there's a Zombie Flu outbreak.
I wonder if it's possible to catch more than one cold at once?
I think the answer I like best is, "Technically, it is possible to become infected with two different strains of the cold virus at once but it is very doubtful that that will make your symptoms worse."
I think it's clearly possible, but that you'd never know.
