Chest infection

Have you ever seen a child's face light up in the way it does when they are told they will be off school for a little while? That is what Neil was told today, and he was buzzing, to say the least.

I'll rewind back a little. He's been unwell since 3 weeks ago, when he projectile vomited all over in the middle of the night. The weekend that followed was a bit nasty, with some very high temperature readings, lots of sick and a horrible cough.

He seemed to recover pretty quickly, and while still having a cough, we felt he was well enough for school and sent him back in. His cough got slowly worse, until Thursday of last week when I went to wake him for school and I could hear him wheezing as I walked in to his room. I took one look at him and brought him in to our bed for a cuddle, deciding that school probably wasn't a good idea. He looked ghastly, his temperature was pushing 40 and his cough would fool you in to thinking he'd been a heavy smoker for about 30 years.

I made an appointment with the doctor for that afternoon, who listened to Neil's chest and said he had an infection on his left lung. He was prescribed some antibiotics and told to rest, and that he would need to stay off school until the coughing had stopped. Since then, he's spent most of his time either in bed or on the sofa, watching minecraft videos and feeling generally sorry for himself.

 The poor fella has been taking antibiotics, three times a day for the last week. It's the kind of stuff that gives you shivers, it looks and smells toxic, and judging by reactions every time he saw me reaching for the bottle, it must taste toxic too. He cheered this morning when I told him we were finished the bottle.

He has perked up a bit in the last few days, but the cough is persisting and he's becoming very breathless at small tasks. The doctor advised if he was still coughing after 1 week, we were to make another appointment, so we headed back to the doctors today.

After a listen to his chest they found that the infection is still present and told Neil that unfortunately he would need to take another week of medicine, which  he was not happy about at all. It's different stuff this time, and Neil says it tastes worse the first one, oh dear!

We were also sent to the hospital to take an X-ray of his chest. I was expecting a monster of a wait at the hospital, but we were in and out in about 30 minutes. Neil was apprehensive about the X-ray, until we explained that it was just like getting a picture taken. He had some trouble standing still for the procedure, but then that's just Neil for you, always on the go.

Once it was all over he was allowed to look at his 'picture' and was fascinated the his bones were 'glowing'. They gave him a sticker saying 'I sat still for my X-ray', which he was a bit miffed about as he didn't sit for it, he stood. He's a very literal child! He lost his sticker somewhere on the journey home.

So now he's been off school for a full week, and the doctor has recommended that he should not go back to school and should continue to rest until the cough is gone completely and he's feeling himself again, which could essentially be another week. We have been doing work at home with him every day, going over what his teacher has said they are doing in class at the moment. The issue is, he breaks up for Easter next Friday. If he hasn't returned to school by then, that will be another 2 weeks off school, meaning by the time he goes back he will have been off for a month!

I'm really hoping that these antibiotics start to work soon.