An apple a day...

This week Luca woke up with a really high fever - so high that all our books recommended we take him straight to the hospital/Doctor. We were reluctant to go because they really can't do much except look in his ears, listen to his lungs, attempt to look in his throat, take his temp, look for spots, and then recommend giving him children's paracetomol. Can you tell we've been through this several times before?

Being safe rather than sorry, we were off to the ER at 11:30pm. We got out of there at 1:30am and were assigned with a very young doctor who I don't think had any expierence looking at children. He actually thought Luca was going to open his mouth up for him, and a nurse that tried to take his underarm temp. Yeah, right...try that with a screaming, wiggly sick baby. I felt like handing the Doc our high tech forhead thermometer (thanks Fran!) and saying, "here just use this." I'm not sure, but I think that perhaps the nurses have to supply their own thermometers which is why they all have the ultra cheap ones? It's gotta be the only answer.

Bless the NZ health system....where it's free to visit the ER, and get medical treatment, except for a tiny fee (waived for under 5 year olds). You just have to be patient, and wait, and wait....and wait....

Anyways they gave us antibiotics and told us to use paracetomol. Only problem is little man refuses to take either. He's just too smart (stubborn) for any of that business.
It's horrible. He used to actually like the taste of that bright pink parecetomol in the syringe....but a few months ago something happened, and now he won't let us near him with it. He spits it out everywhere (and the stuff stains carpet, clothes, and just about anything else it comes in contact with). In order to get him to take I have to physically hold him down while James holds his tongue. He gags, his eyes get as big as saucers, and it makes us feel like horrible parents, but how else do we give it to him? We've tried everything...mixing it with food, reverse psycology "no, none of this yummy pink stuff for Luca...it's only for mommy and daddy....", mixing it with liquids...nothing seems to work.

We should have told the pharmacists to perscribe us 2x as much medicine b/c he ends up spitting more than 1/2 of it out. We're hoping that baby #2 won't be so difficult when it comes to medicine, and praying that they figure out how to make a powdered non flavoured paracetomol that we can just sprinkle on his foods. Any pharmacists out there that can do this for us?

PS...my friend Toni took these photos of Luca - isn't she good?