We hardly brought Matt out in the first six months except for routine clinic visits for jabs. His first visit was about a week after his birth, a routine check-up. Matt didn't poo since he got back home from the hospital, so he had a suppository shoved up his ass (eew!) When we got home, he poo-ed. Wonders of modern medicine. On the left is a picture of Matt during one of his clinic visits, taken in Mar 08.
Next visit was about a month later, also routine. This time round, medical invoice recorded 'Sterimar Microspray' which was prescribed as Matt seemed to have difficulty breathing in his sleep. Apparently, his nostrils were a tad bit too small, so we'd administer this spray up his nose whenever he seemed to have "blocked nose." Spraying water up his nostrils seemed mightily uncomfortable and an "invasive" procedure, so we decided not to use it often.
Matt first fell sick when he was about three months old. I remember it was after Chinese New Year. Hubs was most proud of his cute little son, and showed him off to his bunch of friends who were visiting. Aircon was at full blast as it was very hot - we concluded that the cold air blowing directly at him was too much for the little kiddo. More nasal drop, Zyrtec drop and Mucosolvan. These were the usual medicine doctors prescribed whenever Matt fell sick. I grew to have a preference for medication which I can mix with his milk (like the Zyrtec drops) over those I have to force-feed using syringe (like Mucosolvan). Typically, the medicine would be flavoured - Matt's favourite was grape (Bambec).
Matt's first high fever was in June 2008, when he was 7.5 months old. Hubs was on overseas business trip, and I was home alone with my helper. His temperature was 38.5C around 8:oopm, and I gave him paracetamol. The temperature, however, climbed up to close to 39C and I remember waiting frantically for the four hour mark to give him another dose. After the second dosage, it came off to about 38.7C. My helper and I sponged him, and took turns to cradle him in our arms to give him comfort and help him sleep. In less than an hour, his temperature soared above 39C, and I started to panic. I didn't know what to do. I called a cab, and rushed him to KK A&E at around 1:30am. At the hospital, they immediately gave him another dosage of paracetamol, and inserted a bag to collect his pee. While waiting for his pee, Matt was alert to the new surrounding, and refused to sleep despite clearly tired from fighting the fever. I fed him water and milk, and prayed that he'd pee quickly so we could get him home to rest. But no pee came. Finally at 3:00am, the nurse checked his pee bag and realised that it moved and he had peed into the diaper quite a fair bit. Aarrgghhhh! I decided to forget about the pee since his temperature came off. We got home around 4:00pm, and I carried him in my arms, sat on the sofa, and we slept in that position until the morning. I brought him to his pedi, who gave us Nurofen, which I learnt was to be administered alternately with paracetamol whenever high fever wouldn't subside. Fortunately, I did not have to use it - just as quickly as the fever came, it went away. Apparently, his body was fighting some virus. So I guess Matt's body was strong enough to defeat the virus on his own!
Matt took well to all his jabs from birth till 18 months. He mostly did not cry except for the second one; the rest we distracted him with snacks or toys (and suckling when he was younger). He'd let out a small cry, and then he'd be happily eating or playing :) In fact, the useless mama cried for the first jab. Wuahahahahahaha! He also did not develop severe reaction except for the second jab where he ran a fever and was cranky and didn't sleep well.
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