Conversations ...

...between the siblings - sweet, innocent, delightful, fill up our household with much cheer these days. Its sheer joy listening to their understanding of the complexities of the world and how it functions. One such conversation went like this

Jiya (to Vansh) - dhishkaaon, dhishkaaon (some gun sounds)

Vansh: Jiya aise nahin karo, main aapko chowkidaar ke paas le jaaonga. (Jiya, don't do that or else I'll take you to the guard) and goes on to pick her up by putting his hands under her arms.

Jiya: Nahin, nahin, nahin, nahin. Sorry bhaiya! (No, no, no, no, sorry big brother)

Vansh: Theek hai, ab nahin le jaaoonga! Mamma, Jiya ne sorry bol diya. Ab use chowkidar ke paasle jaane ki zarrorat nahin hai! (Alright, I won't take you now. Mom, I don't need to take Jiya to the guard now!)

Jiya (with a naughty twinkle in her eye) : Dhishkaaon, dhishkaaon

... and runs away with Vansh running after her, the house reverberating with their squeals. :)

And these conversations are the rays of hope and of delight in the tough times we have been facing for the last close to 2 months. Jiya has been catching one infection after another. It started with an ear infection. The ENT specialist that we went to prescribed 7 medicines for her including antibiotics. I read about it extensively on the internet and gave her only 2 - the acitamenophen and the ear drops and it went away. Some masty 9-10 boils followed all over her body. After the 4th boil, when they refused to subside and continued to pop up, she was prescribed a week of antibiotics. A week or so later when I took her to her pediatrician for a fever, which thankfully turned out to be viral and went away in a couple of days, a more serious problem was diagnosed. Her lymph nodes in the neck area were swollen, most likely because of the bacterial skin infections earlier and another week of antibiotics followed accompanied by medicines for relieving the fever. More medicines had to be added to counter the side effects of the antibiotics because she had developed blisters deep inside her mouth. I hate giving 5 ml of so many medicines when all you needed in the US was 1.6 ml of Tylenol sparingly but then I don't have a choice. A possible reason for the swollen lymph node could be that her ear infection never healed properly which is why this happened - I can never know. She cries and cries. I have to literally force her little body under my legs as I lay her down, force open her mouth and hold it open with one hand and hold her nostrils shut with the other as I put the syringe/dropper filled with the medicine and empty it there so that she can't spit it out. 3-4 meds at one time takes close to an hour which means the poor child spends close to 3 hours crying resisting the awfulness which is still forced upon her.

And then suddenly she started getting up in the middle of the night and howling like crazy. She would slither away from our hands and just cry endlessly. After trying a lot of things and watching her diet very carefully, on the third such night we just took her to the Emergency. The doctor there prescribed gas and colic drops. We called her ped the next morning and he asked us to get a urine test and culture and a stool test. Instinctively I knew it was a Urinary Tract Infection and I was right. The ped told us that it had been detected early and it could have led to much worse symptoms. So she is on another week of unavoidable antibiotics. Always a petite baby, she now looks more lean than ever and as a result everyone notices and comments - advices on what to feed her and how, what and what not to do follow - well meaning but it gets a lot at times. Unfortunately its become a vicious cycle I think - infections, antibiotics, low body resistance, more infections - yikes!!

I just pray to God to break the cycle soon. Very very thanfully she's a chirpy child throughout the day. And I am getting better at shortening the medicine administering and hence the crying time.

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