Breathe, just breathe

When Tru was born, I called him chicken legs. Mostly because he had chicken legs, all skinny and bony. Every time I changed him, I held them ever so gingerly because I was afraid they would snap if I yanked too hard.

I remember looking at him during his first week at home and thinking how ironic it was that the most precious thing we had was so fragile and so easily broken.

It’s an irrational fear but nonetheless a very real one. As parents, we can’t help it. It’s terribly instinctive. My heart races and I can’t breathe and my mind goes blank because it can’t even handle the thought that something bad will happen to him.

But we held him and fed him and showered him with love and within 3 months, we had to call him thunder thighs. Mostly because he had thunderous thighs, all fat and juicy. Just as we reveled in chewing his juicy rolls, he came down with a bout of the flu and he was back to being broken all over again. He sniffled and sneezed and coughed and I felt like my heart broke with every whimper. His eyes were all teary so I held him for 6 hours straight until he managed to fall asleep on my chest.

Every time we start think that he’s alright, he would trip and knock his head or bleed all over his shirt or catch another flu bug and that awful feeling of panic would come back.

As he grew, my heart got stronger as he got stronger. The feeling of dread dissipated and I started to believe that he’s actually going to make it.

Then on Thursday, he came down with the sniffles again, which was fairly normal. But by Friday, he started wheezing and his chest heaved as he struggled to take in tiny breaths of air, which was not normal at all. Also, all that running and climbing made it worse so he would stop occasionally to catch his breath. We rushed him to the hospital and it was diagnosed as bronchiolitis, which sounds like a terribly scary word. Anything itis is bad, like meningitis or laryngitis or prostatitis, all bad.

It was by far the worst experience ever. They swabbed his nose, x-rayed him, pumped his system with ventolin and a whole ton of meds. He was back to being chicken legs all over again. He clung on to his blankie and shuffled his feet and smiled weakly when I made faces at him. During his entire hospital stay, we had to pin him down and make him inhale ventolin every 2 hours while he screamed and flailed and cried for mercy.

He’s finally home and all better now but I honestly don’t think I can take much more. Watching him struggle for breath is possibly the most painful thing I’ve ever had to do and I could feel myself breathe harder because just maybe it would help him.

That’s the thing with having kids. A piece of your heart breaks every time you see them hurting and I’m not sure I have that many pieces to spare.