All About Your Child

Though I can’t force, I do urge you to read my previous 2 posts ~ The Beginning and The Progress , before you get to this one, or else you may not fully FEEL the joy in my heart as I write this final post about the 7-long-months of struggle with Keatkeat and with myself.

Its took 7 months, yes it was that long. My sis asked me few months back, why didn’t I blog about the struggle I went through every morning? I shouted at Keatkeat so loud that my volume works better than my sis snoozing alarms, to wake her up for work. It was not just a physical, mental and emotional torture for Keatkeat as he tried to win this battle with the HELP from his almost-going-mad-mommy, it was stressful for the WHOLE FAMILY too.

Now it can happen any moment. The sudden change of temperature, passing by a construction site, smelling his baby-bolster or even when he is half-way chewing his pork chop rice and “Haahhh…Cheee”. I bet you can imagine the mess spread out 2 feets in front of him; the chewed-up rice will be on this hands and the table and some back to where it began with (that is back to the bowl of ‘fresh’ rice). Will you let him eat that bowl of rice then?!!! With the extra flavoring of Mucus and Saliva and Half-chewed-up food bits?!!! We didn’t! We couldn’t! Its TOO GROSS! Can you imagine how much FOOD we have wasted?!! *Ashamed*

I didn’t want to complain at the beginning of every blog post for those 7 months, it would be awful! I wanted this story to wrap up nicely. To have the beginning and hopefully a nice ending (solution). And The time has come. Its been a month since I last yelled at Keatkeat. *Hands Waving in the Air ~ Yeah!* He is able to react faster than his nose for a month now. I think its time to REJOICE. My boy had WON the battle. Not that his sneezing has stopped, but that he has trained his mind to tackle the problem like an adult, in full control. *Yeah*

If he is woken because of ‘IT’ in the middle of night, though he whines, he doesn’t forget to cover his Mouth and Nose and KEPT his little hand there, no matter how many times he continues to sneeze his way to the toilet. Yes, he woke us up too, but we no longer need to JUMP out of bed as if there was a bomb attack! We stay awake, lying on our pillow and listen for any SOS call, but there never had been, for a month now….*Yeah* After the minutes of washing and blowing in the toilet, the little figure in the dark just move back to his mattress and continues his sleep like nothing had happened…. *Hooray*

Months before today, I sat and thought “Could It Be? Could my poor boy be suffering because of his dad and mom? Could he have inherited his parents’ sinusitis?” High Chance, eh?! Yes, he did, with confirmation from the doctor.

Allan was a very weak boy when he was little. His immunity system was terrible ~ according to my MIL. His sinus was so bad, he was on those bitter Chinese brewed tonic for YEARS!

And Me? I was under the mercy of the cold surgical knife. My sinus was so serious when I was a teenager that I must have at least 6-8packets of tissues with me every day for school. And by the end of the day, they are all soaked through. At 16, I was diagnosed with Chronic Sinusitis. My face was bloated, I had fever and persistent sore throat for weeks.

When I went for the Head-Scan, the result was GROSS! My whole head was filled with Mucus, which made me looked as if I’ve put on weight on my Face. The sore throat was caused by the infection from the prolong-stay of the Mucus in my ENT area (Ear-Nose-Throat).

After the 2 days stay after the surgery, my doctor (who died 2 years after operating on me in a Car Crush with her husband during an anniversary trip to Australia) said I needed to be on a life-long medication in order to prevent it from happening again. And so I was on Clarytine till I was pregnant at 25. Though my gynae said it was ok to continue, I just didn’t want to. And boy, aren’t I glad I made that decision! ‘Cos since then, I’ve stopped taking it daily, except on very very terrible ‘sniff-sniff’ days. I love those medication-free days! *Yeah* I’m free!

The only thing that made me feel better, when I was at war during my teens, was bathing every morning. I sneezed lesser, it did help. And so I did it to Keatkeat too. Boy, he sure is my son! It worked for him as well as it did for his mom!

Over the past 8 months (7months of battle + 1month of victory) and NOW, these are the things we have been doing other than 1st bathing him in the morning, before anything else.

2nd Forbide Keatkeat’s favourite soft-toy, Winnie the Pooh, to sleep with him.

3rd Stop his WEIRD HABIT! Keatkeat likes to uncover part of his BABY-bolster (small photo), revealing the ‘rough-bolster-skin’.

He would slip his hand into the cover and rub his fore-arm on the ‘rough-skin’, close his eyes with full satisfaction glowing on his face and said, “Soooooo ‘Shu-Fu’ (comfortable in Mandarin)” We believe the stuffings inside the bolster may sneak out of the ‘bolster-skin’ and might cause irritation to his nose. Ok, I’ve mentioned before he has WEIRD SLEEPING HABITS back in March 2008 ~ remember? he ‘swims’ in order to sleep?!!! So I guess this bolster-rubbing-habit is ranked no. 2 then.

4th We change his mattress cover, pillow case, bolster cases (he has 2 bolsters) every 2-3days to ensure that it doesn’t collect too much dust.

5th On warmer days, we will let him wear slightly cooler clothes to bed and NOT have the fan switched on at all.

I don’t think the above measures help significantly, ‘cos he is still having the “Haahh…Cheee” moments, but at least we make an effort to help in every way we can to make my boy feel better….*Hmmm….*

The ONLY complain I have now is, I can never get the timing right every morning. ‘Cos once his sneezing starts, it can go on for 5mins or as long as 20mins. He would be stuck at the basin, blowing his nose and washing away the *Yuck*.

School starts at 8am, it takes 2mins to walk to school (that is IF he DID NOT sneeze on the way there). When I wake him up early, say 7am, he could be perfectly ok with just ‘sniff-sniff’ or sometimes ‘snort-snort’, no sneezing at all, and we would be super early for school then!

But sometimes when I allow him to sleep slightly longer, he could be in his sneezing routine at the basin for the next 20mins and we end up being late for school for half an hour! Hmmm….I guess many of you would say, its better early than late, and that’s what I had been doing. Sometimes when he does have the attacks, I’m glad I made the right choice; But when he is sneeze-free, I feel guilty for depriving him from the extra minutes of sleep….. *Sigh*

But this is no BIG issue, Really! ‘cos the worst is over already! I started the 3-Day long post with this sentence and I think by wrapping this memorial experience with Keatkeat with the same sentence is just too perfect:

Finally, after 7months, I feel relieved, at peace with my boy, at peace with myself….

(this is a continuation from yesterday’s post)

When the sun was beaming, “Good Morning”, our weary eyes and body were ready to report to our family doctor. We were the first customers. That was how urgent we want to get this over and done with.

Dr L. rattled on the usual stuff, “make sure the air-con is off…” “No, we don’t have air-con at home” I reminded the 50+ year old doctor AGAIN. He smiled and continued, “make sure the fan is not directed at him, no soft toys should be around him because of dust…blah blah blah…” All too familiar sentences that I was not listening to much. I just couldn’t wait for him to finish and GIVE ME THAT RUNNY NOSE MEDICINE so that I could get back to sleep!

We left the clinic satisfied. I fed Keatkeat the medicine the moment we reached home. He fell asleep soon after and so did I. Allan was taking care of Binbin that morning, while his wife, ME, tried to get her beauty sleep. My 4 year old was fine when he woke. No more sniffing, no more mucus and definitely no more “Haahhh…Cheeee”. Everyone was happy.

At 3am+, it HAPPENED AGAIN!!!! The nightmare happened again! Everything that I posted yesterday was replaying itself! *Urrrggghhh* The only difference was I had runny nose medicine this time. Got it down his throat and waited for the drowsiness to take effect, as my robotic body went like an automated machine, “Haahhh…Cheee” – Wipe Keatkeat’s nose and mouth – Wipe his saliva off my body….. “Haahhh…Cheee” Again – Wipe Keatkeat’s nose and mouth AGAIN- Wipe his saliva off my body AGAIN…..

He was all chirpy at 7.30am, ready for school. The nightmare was gone with the darkness of the night.

Did it happened again that night?! YES!!!!! In the wee hours of the morning I’m up AGAIN! This went on for about weeks. Went back to Dr L. for more medication, this time we took the bigger bottle. My body was so used to the unusual wake up timing, it didn’t feel like it was abnormal anymore. That’s how bad it was!

WE HAD TO STOP THIS CRAZINESS!

Step 1: We reminded him over and over again to cover his mouth. It didn’t work. We assisted him by bringing his palm to his nose and mouth every time he went, “Haahhh…..” (Before the “Cheee…” comes). After doing it for months, he still DOESN’T DO IT by himself!

Step 2: We fed him the runny nose medicine BEFORE he sleeps every night, EVEN THOUGH HE WAS NOT sneezing. I know its wrong. But after a month of such predictability, we just didn’t want to risk. Its not just about our sleep, its about Keatkeat’s sleep too. He lost weight, lost appetite and lost the cheerfulness. After doing it for another month, new progress, he stopped sneezing at night, he started to sneeze IN THE MORNING!

The sneezing and blowing of nose varied from 5mins to 35mins! We can be up early for school yet by the time all the sneezing and blowing of nose stops, we ended up being LATE for more than half an hour! Sometimes we were sent back, ‘cos the teachers think he is unfit for school. BUT THIS HAPPENS EVERYDAY, does that mean I had to stop his schooling totally?! That was another struggle I had to go through because of Keatkeat’s problem.

Step 3: We trained him to wipe and blow his own nose everytime his nose felt itchy and BEFORE he sneeze. For months, he would SNEEZE FIRST and let the thick mucus HANG DANGLING FROM HIS NOSE, threatening to break off and smack onto the floor, “Hurry Up! The mucus is DROPPING (noticed, not dripping). Get the tissue and wipe it off!”

There was no urgency in him AT ALL. He took his own sweet time and pluck out the tissue and SWEPT his nose! Sending the LONG STRAIN OF MUCUS FLYING TO THE GROUND! *Urgghhhh*

I showed him the right way to do it over and over again (you bet I’ve got lots of chance to demonstrate ‘cos he was sneezing non-stop), but it just didn’t get into his head! I ended up mopping the *Eeewww* off the floor every time.

With the medication and the tissue, the cost of this sickness was getting way too high. We were lucky to have free supply of toilet rolls from Allan’s aunt. So no more tissue, we switched to toilet papers. Worst! He sloooowwwlly UNROLL the toilet paper with his goo dangling from his nostrils, COUNTED 3 Sections and sloooowwwwly tear the perforated line with perfection. DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO WATCH THIS every time?!!!

You want to DO IT for him, WIPE THAT MUCUS OFF with your well-trained hands, yet you know if you continued to do it, he will NEVER LEARN!

But we were reprimanded by Keatkeat’s teachers after she saw the toilet roll in his bag. We needed to do that because it comes in handy AS WE WALKED TO SCHOOL. He stopped and blew his nose several times on the way to school too. A 2mins walk may end up being a 10mins walk sometimes.

Mdm N. told us its better to wash then to blow his nose into the tissue or the toilet roll which is very dusty. Fine! I AM ALL GEARED UP TO TRY ANYTHING that can stop all of these nonsense! So we tried BUT our WATER BILLS WENT UP! This was really really tough…

I was GOING CRAZY! I was completely beaten, I had no more ideas to solve the problem. No more patience with my boy. No more nice mommy. The sight of his nose twitching just makes me *Urrrghhhh*. Every morning, I had to yelled at him, “Cover your mouth! Blow your nose BEFORE you sneeze! Wipe the mucus OFF!…” I hated every morning. I was fuming every morning and I hated myself so much, I couldn’t recognize myself ANYMORE!……

(I think I’ll stop here for today….will end this 3-DAY long post off by tomorrow… if you have read yesterday’s post and today’s post, I admire your tolerance level *wink*…. Thank You!)