The Sick Bay

The pestilence is visiting our household. The previous weekend it was Small Girl and I who had taken to our bed, and said Girl convalesced through the week while I hacked together my research proposal for my subject at uni.
Then Tom took the boy to the farm on Saturday night and us girls were to join them on Sunday for Fathers Day. I got an sms early on Sunday morning to say the boys were coming back early because it was cold and windy. WELL, Tom came back and brought me home a feverish, sadly looking child...not a successfull Fathers Day outcome. I spent it tending to my sickly child's needs, between his various naps. Yes, MY ELDEST had lots of little naps during the day...he was THAT sick.
He spent the next day in bed watching DVD's on my laptop, then transferred to the couch to watch some kids shows, before retiring to bed again. THAT sick, he was.
On Tuesday he spent the morning in bed and then decided it was too sunny to stay in bed feeling sick. He took himself outside, played hard, came back in, lay on the couch, went outside, played hard again and came back in again.
Yesterday, Wednesday, he felt sick again after a feverish night. Again, it had been a sunny day and he couldn't help himself, he just had to go outside and feel the sun on his skin. This time, he took himself off to bed for two long naps. And he went to bed easily that night again, with no fuss.
Today was a similar story, just without the naps, so he fell asleep on the couch while I was away swimming with the girl and was transferred to my bed.
I haven't actually dosed him up on paracetamol this whole time at all. I decided to let his fever do its work. Sure, he was feeling subdued and unwell and sometimes a bit dizzy, and has had a perpetual eyes-at-half-mast kind of appearance about him, but he's not actually saying he's in pain. Talking to a friend about it last week, in relation to the girl having her fever last week, we concluded that sometimes it's ok to let them have a fever and not give them something to make it go away. The body is trying to do something - it's elevating its temperature to kill off the bug that's giving it the irrits - the body is in combat mode. It occurred to me that we live in a society that is afraid of fever and jumps to quell the symptoms of illness, before gauging just how important it is to do that. Yes, some high temperatures carry risk of meningitis and similar complications. I know that can happen. This fever, though, wasn't seeming to be such a critical deal. Hot body, some sweaty outbreaks, fine by morning before another feverish bout occurred the following night.
I took him to the doctor after the third night of it (I'm not a white-coat hater, I just don't feel the need to clog up waiting rooms for every virus we contract). Turns out he has swollen glands but no sign of infection, and a follow up tomorrow should determine where he's at with it all. So, I've done ok.
The doctor did, however, espouse that I dose the boy up on paracetamol and a decongestant, to 'keep him comfortable and back to himself'. Hmmm, there's keeping him comfy, and then there's having him back to his old self. I decided to just get the decongestant to keep breathing comfortable, and to let him feel a bit sick. I made a calculated decision to avoid dosing him up based heavily on what he, himself, had done during that day; that is, to take himself to bed for a nap.
For a kid who never stops, maybe it's ok to let him really feel what it's like to slow down. Not for my convenience (or for undiagnosed Munchausen Syndrome, which I'm pretty sure I don't have...), but for his own self-awareness. If I dose him up so that he doesn't feel that sick, how is he ever to read his body's signs and listen to what his body is telling him? Masking discomfort isn't the best way forward all of the time. Just because we have paracetamol in the house, doesn't mean we have to use it. I do use my essential oils for their medicinal properties before I resort to manufactured medications. The bedroom smells divine, as well as helping to restore healthy order!
As it is, it makes sense to him when I tell him that his body needs rest. If he's on pain relievers, this connection is much harder to make. When I've asked him over the last few days how he's feeling, he's been able to stop what he's doing, have a think and intuit, and then articulate that he's 'feeling bad' and where he feels bad. He's four. Knowing himself and what he needs is a great tool to have and medicating him every time he's got a virus isn't going to do him any long term favours.
A side effect of this illness of his is that our relationship is back on track. Whatever energy it is that guides our lives and nature could well be at work here (I'm not religious, so if you'd like to think of this energy as a God, god, deity, spirit, go ahead; it would work just as well). One of my recent posts points to the near-exasperation I have felt for the first time in four years of motherhood. None of the other stages of motherhood have tested me as much. Up until recent times, motherhood was pretty dreamy and I loved how I came out of the challenges presented to me. My kid is probably more high-octane than most of the other kids we know. He's irrepressible. That's how I prefer to think of him. Words like 'naughty' and 'bad' just don't enter my vocabulary. They have no constructive value.
Anyhow, this spot of sickness has come at just the time we needed to press 'pause' in the way things were going. It's given us a lot more opportunity for cuddles and "I love you's" than we'd ordinarily have - we usually have a lot, it's just that during the week we get caught up with the various activities we have for him that keep him occupied and engaged, and I'll go to bed thinking we didn't spend a particular day with much tactile communication.
This week we have woken up together, with him being in my bed for comfort. We have snuggled in the middle of the night, we have snuggled in the middle of the day with nowhere to rush off to. It's been very good for our relationship to have him home sick and getting back to basics, I suppose.
Whilst outside today, he saw that I was standing with the girl on my back in the carrier. He insisted on procuring for me a folding chair. "Mum, I will get you a chair so you can sit down and stay outside with me", "Thanks, that's very kind of you", "You're welcome, Mum". This is not what 'bad' kids are made of, and if they are, then I'm willing to bear that cross!
So, boy being sick is not such a terrible thing to befall our household. Not when it's taught us both a bit more about ourselves. Me, to take stock of recent times and just hold my precious, intuitive, reactionary, effervescent, joyful first child in his frailer moments, and him, to learn the value of resting his body and listening to it.
Putting himself into bed rest was an unexpected and mature, independent action. I'm glad I didn't order him to bed when he stepped outside. It would only have ended in frustrated argument, anyway. With freedom comes responsibility. He's not doing too badly, is my boy, with his freedoms.