I can breathe again, which is good. Jean is still suffering. This afternoon I ran out to get her some cold medicine (she had to check with her doctor's office first to know what was okay to take). She's been coughing frequently all day. I worry a bit that the constant violent coughing will kick Jean into labor - REAL labor. We need at least another week and a half to be considered full term (37 weeks), and I'd prefer to go all the way to February 4. So Jean's taking her Robitussin DM and she's also taking some throat lozenges to keep things smooth.
Jean seems to be about a day behind me with this sickness. This afternoon she told me that she was just trying to slow down for the day, which was exactly what I was trying to do yesterday afternoon. I hope she's a day behind me because it means that by this time tomorrow night she'll be doing okay again.
It's been interesting getting this sick. I don't get sick often and when I do it's usually not rough like this time around. I know that part of my response to illness is a product of my age. As I get older these things are going to hit me harder. At what age do you start getting flu shots regularly? It never even occurred to me to go to the doctor this time, and I don't think I needed to go. When is it time to call the doctor? When the fever lasts for many days?
I'm certain I won't let it go that long with the baby, but I guess things are different for children. I don't want to be a panicky dad, but she's my (shared) responsibility. That's something I've never had: complete responsibility for another person's life. I'll play by Pascal's Wager: when in doubt, I'll call the doctor. On the one hand, I've got everything to lose with the baby, while on the other hand there's nothing but perhaps my reputation as a collected father with the doctor's office to lose.
I keep thinking about how detailed we are these days about caring for infants: choices about everything from health care to day care to food and more. All of this specialization is new within the last one hundred years, probably the last fifty. And yet humanity made it to the present without these innovations. While the mortality rate was stunningly high for children until only recently, we've now moved beyond solving life and death issues and into trivial issues.
Recently Jean and I had to decide on a crib mattress. We were presented with four options. I don't remember the first two, but the second two actually became a point of discussion for us. One mattress was vinyl (water resistant) while the other was rubber (water proof). The rubber mattress was also reversible: the infant would sleep on the softer side of the mattress until she or he reaches twenty pounds. At that point, you flip the mattress over so that its sturdier side can support the growing toddler. The price difference? The vinyl mattress was about one hundred dollars, the rubber reversible mattress was about one hundred and fifty dollars.
Jean and I weren't so much debating amongst ourselves about how much to spend as much as we were wondering if this flip-able mattress was something we should earnestly consider. I am happy to say that we opted for the plain old, both-sides-are-always-right mattress. One hundred years ago, we're talking straw beds for most of humanity. I think Jean and I spend more time trying to ferret out real baby concerns from bogus ones than we do learning the stuff we really need to know.
If you've been trying to get to my site today, I apologize. The University took the campus network down today for some hardware upgrades. We're back, though I think we may have some additional interruptions on the fourth and sixth of this month (both should be shorter interruptions of service). Our goal is to have all the network fixes in before the new semester begins on January 11.
We're back to freezing rain again tonight, and the state is bracing this time. The forecast says that the freezing rain we've got now (at ten thirty in the evening) will turn to just rain later tonight. I have my doubts about things going that way. Jean bought a bunch of batteries yesterday, and I went late in the afternoon to the grocery store (all the early morning panicky people had come and gone, thank God) to pick up supplies that should get us through another blackout. Let's just hope the weather people know what they're predicting. My windshield is already coated thick with ice.
reading: 1 Maccabees; The Hobbit (Bumpy's Bedtime Book)
© 1999 Kevin J.T. Creamer