Parenthood : Paranoid

Remember the SAT word association pairs? You were given two words like dog:cat and then had to know that chicken:man was equivalent because the association was the same number of legs or some other nonsense. I’m not sure if parenthood:paranoid ever came up, but I sure hope I answered something meaning they have more in common than just starting with P and ending in D.

Everyday of being a new Mommy is an adventure that likely would end in the cute “lesson learned” minute if it were a sitcom. But not every lesson is cute or humorous. The first close call, no matter how unlikely or easily resolved still shakes you to your core. It is one thing to face your own mortality head on, to then quiver in fear soaked panic at the very thought your child may get so much as thier first cold let alone be hospitalized. Surgery? Someone grab the smelling salts…

What started as a minor rash for our new nephew, a mere three weeks younger than Kahlan, quickly turned our entire familly into paranoid fearfull wrecks. In the week following Dev and his Mommies stay with us, his little baby rash developed first into larger pimple sized pustuals and then took over his little system. 2 weeks after thier visit we get a call… Dev has been hospitalized, he has a high fever, some kind of infection and a silver dollar sized absess on his chest. It might be MRSA.

Pre-parenthood response:
Offer to rush down to help in any way posible. Visit them in the hospital.

Post-parenthood response:
Offer heartfelt condolences and best wishes for a positive outcome. Jump on Internet and research MRSA. Have a panic attack becuase that crap is super contagious and your newborn just spent a week snuggling up for cute pictures with the now hospitalized cousin. Do more research. Inspect every inch of our newborn. Call back to see how cousin is doing, ask if they know what it is and if it’s contagious for the hundreth time. Inspect newborn again. Debate with spouse if what we thought was just regular old baby acne is realy something else. Second guess your eyes, your instincts and every tiny blemish for hours. Break down and call the pediatrition on a Sunday morning in tears convinced your baby is next. Ban anyone from coming near the baby or visiting who could have had contact. Consider cancelling Thanksgiving. Then consider cancelling every familly get together for the foreseable future, moving to a remote hermit location and installing a germ proof baby sized habit trail.

Get the call – NOT MRSA, just some unavoidable bad luck bacterial infection that unfortunatly absessed.

Cancel plane tickets to Alaska wilderness. Call off code-red. Reduce panic attack to

Tags: cradle cap, MRSA, newborn, skin