Day 30

"Everybody needs a hug. It changes your metabolism." -- Leo Buscaglia

Today I really need a hug. I feel like an awful Mom. That somehow I am missing that Mother-Knows-Best sensor the hospital implants when your baby is born. My Darling Daughter has been struggling with coughing issues at school. It has been a hard road these last few months, lots of trips to doctors, needles, tears and fears, frustrations with the teacher (the coughing is far far worse at school while almost non-existent at home), but it seemed like we had finally gotten through it, finally figured out that she has some severe pollen allergies, meaning winter is a bad time of year for her since we live in the desert, meaning that there is probably some specific plant near or at school that she has a problem with. We had tried several samples of drugs and I decided on a set that I thought were helping the most, were best. She has been on the medications for a month or so now and the coughing issues at school seem much improved. Well, last night I figured out that the stomach aches she has been complaining about more and more as time goes on are most likely a side effect of one the new drugs. Needless to say, no more Singulair for her. I feel like I somehow should have just known, or clued in on the link sooner. I had passed off the stomach aches, at first, as just growing lots of late and being hungry all the time (she's been eating me out of house and home!). But as they got slowly worse and more frequent, I started to think maybe there was something there, but even Dad thought she might just be overly whiny, she is like that -- a bit of hypochondriac, theatrical, especially regarding pain or discomfort. I finally decided we would go to the doctor. Then, somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought about the timing of the drugs and the stomach aches....I should have known, I should have trusted her complaints more. Oh, I tell myself, it's OK, you made the connection in only a month or so (some posts on the web indicated kids went 6 months to a year with pains before the connection was made), but I still feel awful, like a bad mom, like somehow I failed. So today, I really need a hug.