The Coughing

Ashi has this baby doll that burps when you pat it on the back. Only he's certain that the baby is really coughing, not burping (maybe I should get fresh batteries??) Whenever he has this argument with me I wonder if his frame of reference is maybe a little off from your average kid.

Tonight before bed the three of us were shooting kisses at each other. You know, blowing them across the room, then pretending to be knocked over when they hit you? You do that all the time, don't you? Ashi was just cracking up! Which seems to end with him coughing, poor kid. Everything has ended with him coughing this weekend. Drinking, eating, falling down, crying, and now laughing. Kid can't win, even between colds.

I've gotten several inquiries about an update on his TB recently. I vented about it on the listserve but never wrote about it here, let's be honest, my b*tching posts get the all-time most hits so somebody out there must enjoy seeing me all worked up. SO here goes. When he came home (ONE YEAR AGO, WOOHOO) and we started this whole thing with the TB, we got put in quarantine because he was just such a danger to the community. And then, we had the daily supervised intake of the drug cocktail, because missing a single dose would be, well...catastophic! And I certainly couldn't be trusted to properly dose the kid's meds, not when the health and safety of the entire community was at stake. No, not the entire comunity, the entire country ('member the changes to immigration policy for TB kids? I do.) So we had a "proffessional" come "supervise" to make sure he got every last nasty drop. Plus 4 extra doses, cuz "I don't think he really got the one on the 2nd of April" (and the nurse HELLO forgot to show up one whole weekend- and I can't be trusted with the meds). And that whole entire time I can't tell you how many times I had it drilled into me that we have to get every last cell of the TB dead and gone before stopping meds or it will come back all multi-drug resistanty and kill us all instantly in our sleep, or something scary like that. And that the only way to know if it's gone is a clear X-ray (because once you're +, you're + so only the chest film will tell if it's still around).
During the last week of scheduled meds, he went in for a check-up x-ray. To get the "all clear" I was told. But it wasn't, not even close. And the nurse told me he would need to continue indefinately. Two days later they stop his meds and called it good. Huh? All the government's doctors and all the government's men, pulled up a single Morbidity and Mortality report and decided he would probably get better sometime in the next 1-2 years, no more treatment needed. That's comforting, probably. So is the advice that, "well as long as he gains weigh we'll know that he's not getting sick again." Yeah, that piece of rocket science completely jives with the fact that the kid doubled in weigh between ages 11-18 months despite the TB spreading into 3 lobes of his lungs. Do these people even listen to themselves talk? I swear they are making it up as they go along.

In January I called the Health Department to see if I could swing by and weigh him on their scale to see how things were going. The nurse told me she'd be in the neighborhood in a few days and would just come by. Two weeks later I got a statement from my former health insurer that had been billed for the freaking home visit. And the insurer paid it (the insurer that doesn't cover my kids anymore!). I'm not sure who I'm more annoyed by, the Health department for charging me to weigh him, or the idiots at BCBS who are probably going to come after me to repay them for a bill they had no business paying.
Anywhooo... since he is gaining weight (6 ounces between September and January), and his lung junk issues seem pretty stagnant, it's looking like "the leftovers" are just scars. Which is good, because we really are done treating it. If we had to start over again I pity the nurse that comes a knocking on my door, we are not doing that dance again. Since he's little, so he has lots of lung left to grow. Eventually he may even stop coughing. That would rock!