Puddi's illness and what we learned from it

Puddi fell badly ill with some gastro-enteric + something else viral infection last week and wound up having to be hospitalised for five days last week. The whole episode was traumatic, and though she seems to be bouncing back with the resilience only children have, we know she's still traumatised by the way she howls when put into her crib at night. I think she fears having the drip inserted again.

It started with a simple episode of her throwing up early morning. We thought it was because she had been too warmly covered - A and I do tend to err on the side of caution, because she and her brother have a habit of kicking off their bedcovering. That evening when I came back from work, I found she had a fever. I took the next day off and took her down to the paediatrician who said it looked like a simple viral which sometimes causes throwing-up episodes and prescribed an emetic and fever SOS medication. She was ok that day and managed to keep her food down after the emetic, though she had less than her usually healthy appetite.

The next morning she threw up again so A took her to see the paediatrician that morning. She was prescribed an additional antibiotic and seemed ok by lunch when he left for work. By afternoon, she had raging fever of 104 and had to be sponged down. Mom called me and I rushed home in a panic, because she had also been throwing up everything, including water.

I had had an uneasy feeling since the first time she had thrown up that this was a gastric bug. I don't know why because she's been through a fever/ viral once before that involved throwing up but this time, I had an instinctive fear. We figured the next morning would be too late so we called the paediatrician and she asked us to rush Puds to the hospital. Once there, she was promptly hooked up to the drip as she was mildly dehydrated, and then it was a series of gloomy up-and-down days when she would throw up, dislodge the most hideously watery and green potty and lie moaning piteously all day.

It was really sad to watch this perpetual motion machine tied down to the bed and not just not protesting but lying there not moving. From someone who chatters all day, always has a naughty twinkle in her eye, moving her cute little fanny from side to side when music plays and being the family dog, i.e. begging everyone to give her a taste of whatever they are eating or drinking, she turned into a 'goongi gudiya' - a mute doll who just lay apathetically, said no to any form of oral nutrition including water which we otherwise have to keep far out of her reach, shook her head negatively when music played and stopped speaking, apart from heart-rending little moans. She lost a good 25% of her body weight in 2 days and now weighs as much as she did when she was a year old.

Thankfully she's back at home, being her usual nutty self - the family dog in action, wiggling her butt to the tinny sound of every television advertisement she hears, playing tricks and stealing water. Most of her clothes are somewhat loose for her now, but I guess that's a matter of time, especially if she has my genes and genius for gaining weight.

What did we learn from this?

....To always err on the side of panic when it comes to the kids' health and well-being. No matter how good a doctor is, they don't know your child as you do and won't be able to read the signs of an inarticulate sick child as you can. Never try and brave it out or fear being a nuisance to the doctor - you should be one when it comes to the kids...

...To listen to your instinct when it tells you something. I keep telling myself this when I quiz but it's a good life lesson as well. I should have had her stool and urine checked up immediately after she threw up the first time, when something told me this was serious...

...That family is the most important thing in life ( in case we had forgotten that). It comes before everything else - friends, money, career, status ( if you care about it)...absolutely before everything else...

...That you should have a paediatrician closer home. Ours lives half an hour away but I want someone within 10 minutes...

...That eternity is the definition of the time it takes you to get your sick child to the hospital. I almost couldn't breathe during the drive to the hospital.

...That protective instinct is the term attributed to my willingness that evening to singlehandedly blow up all other cars off the road so I could race her to hospital sooner...

...That Chubbocks is an amazingly sensitive boy and no matter how grown-up he seems sometimes, he needs to be treated with extra love and care...

Funny Superstitions

Normally I would tag my husband and I as rationalists. We're not heavily into rituals, traditions or organised religion, preferring to follow a more free and easy style. Yes, of course, if you're Indian, by and large believing in God seems to come more easily and naturally, as does believing in ghosts. But otherwise, we thought we were pretty scientific in terms of knowledge and up to date and all that jazz.

Well, four years and eight months ago, a mini-earthquake put all of our rationality to test. When little A ( gotta think of a more creative name...hmm how about Dennis - as in the Menace? naah...Chubbocks? That was one of his many nicknames...I have to try this out and see) was born, we started off all scientific and Dr. Spock-ey. Soon enough we realised that this kid had a major problem - that of attracting 'nazar'. Occidentals call it the Evil Eye, but it's not purely that, the way we Indians think about it. Nazar is something that happens when someone casts a complimentary eye on you or your kids or anything else. Somehow, the compliments are thought to awaken some unknown jealousies on the part of the universe, which then combine to cause a negative impact on the object of that jealousy. Sounds like mumbo-jumbo, right?

We thought so too. Until we observed a pattern. Every time Chubbocks got complimented or happened to be in the limelight, he'd fall ill that very day. Though he seemed perfectly fine at the start of the day. His part in the playschool play this summer? He was cutely dressed up in a bowtie and formal white shirt and trousers and attracted many smiles, pats on the head and so on. He was fine that morning, right upto the time he went to school. As soon as his performance finished, he started complaining of a headache, and by that night we had a full-blown throat infection on our hands. Last Saturday he attended a birthday party along with my husband and apparently got lots of compliments. Saturday night, he fell ill with a viral. One time, my husband bumped into an ex-colleague and took out a picture of Chubbocks to show him. That afternoon, Chubbocks started with high fever.

We've seen the same thing happen with the Puds as well. Anytime she gets complimented, she falls ill. In fact, we don't take her out to too many places even now, because she's at a stage where she just wants to run around, and not all public places are safe for her to do that. Lately she's been going to Chubbocks's school along with the maid to pick him up. Last week some three moms doing pick-up duty apparently commented on what a happy child she seems to be and how active it is. By evening, she was whiny, fretty and droopy - yup, a throat infection.

It sounds ridiculous for two grown adults with post grad educations to believe in such a concept. Especially when people say, "Bacche Bhagwan ka roop hote hain", i.e. Children are a manifestation of God. How can one cast Nazar on God, right?

But it happens. And that is why I have removed the pictures of the kiddos from the header of my Food blog.

Hey my job is to keep my kids safe and healthy, right? Even if it means I start believing in weird superstitions and acting irrationally! Comes with the territory.

Mother Love

It's interesting to think that of all the relationships that exist in the human world, the only one that is parallelled in the animal kingdom is the mother-child one. There are the rare exceptions like swans or lobsters mating for life, but the one that cuts across is the maternal bond. I guess it's designed that way to ensure basic survival of the different species, but whatever the reason, it's heartwarming.

We got evidence of it several years ago through a pet. A cat, one monsoon, decided to have her kittens on the windowsill of our drawing room. The window sill was a good 2 feet deep and provided ample protection from the raging storm, and we woke up to find 2 little kittens curled up there. We put a cardboard box and some old clothes out for the ginger cat and she made a cozy nest for her two kiddies out there. Sadly one of the kittens died soon thereafter and the mother cat left our place a couple of months later. The other kitten adopted us but only in part - he had the soul of a wild cat. He never ate anything we put out, preferring to hunt his own food, never allowed any petting or caressing by us and made it clear that the relationship could only be on his terms, not ours. He came whenever he wanted to, lay in a patch of sunlight in our sun room or lolled about elsewhere at will. We named him Sphinx, after his habit of curling up in that pose on top of the sofa.

After a while we started to notice that Sphinx seemed to have a date saturday morning and were curious to observe. Come 10 am saturday morning, he would be eager, all aquiver with excitement. He would wait in our garden, all his nerves on alert. About five minutes later, who should come along but his mother! He and his mother romped through the garden playing catch-me-if-you-can, roll me over and other such games, leaping up to snap at the flowers, throwing themselves onto each other in that visceral connection that now reminds me of the way my kids throw themselves on me. It was a joy to watch the two, completely oblivious to us gawkers and to anything else, their orange bodies gleaming in the morning sun. At the end of the romp, they would cuddle up quietly for a snooze, mother cat and kiddie cat all tangled up in a bundle of orange fur, so entwined you couldn't tell one from the other.

They kept us this rendezvous every Saturday, and as long as we lived in that house, we made it a point to watch them. Sphinx declined to come along when we moved house so we left him to his happy hunting grounds. But I hope and believe that he and his mom kept up their playdate as long as they lived.

Why this Blog?

First off, I have to confess, I'm not a very maternal person. When I was in college and later, I rarely went gooey eyed over other people's kids, even if they were cute. I liked chatting with them when they were a little older - say 3 or 4 - but just for a bit. I never imagines I'd be so ga-ga over my kids that I'd blog about them in two places!

Life really changed when my son, little A was born. I wasn't ready to have kids when we conceived. like the majority of first born kids, he was an accident and then since we were older first time parents ( for India anyway), we went through with it.

My husband A on the other hand has always loved kids. Even when we were dating, when he looked all goo-goo eyed over my shoulder I knew it wasn't a pretty girl but some baby he was staring at. He was thrilled by the prospect of becoming a dad and had been ready for it for ages.

I didn't instantly fall in love with my son when he was born, either. It took a while for me to understand him and relate to him as a person rather than as a baby, and I have blogged about it at my other blog and will probably post it in here one of these days.

However, over time, I don't know how but he and later his sister, little a, have crept into my heart and created such a huge space for themselves that it surprises me. Every day when I call and hear my son's voice on the phone, my heart melts a little. Each time my daughter sways her hips from side to side or manages to say 'mamma', I turn all mushy inside. It's almost impossible to explain to people who don't have or don't want kids, the immeasurable joy that they bring in along with their dirty diapers and crayonned walls. I mean, did you ever think you'd change stinky diapers as a matter of course? Anyone whose potty-filled diapers you change and still hug and kiss at the end of the exercise has got to be special, right?

I was trying to find a metaphor for life with versus sans kids and came up with it yesterday, which explains the title of this blog - life without kids is like half a rainbow - missing so many hues.