Parenting through pain - ugh

So I had this root canal and I delayed taking the antibiotics 'cause Noah had had his immunizations and in case he suddenly went off the milk or something I thought it would be good to give him a couple of days. My dentist said she thought it would be okay.

Were we ever wrong. Sunday night I got the searing pain and swelling that only come with a root/bone infection gone wildly wrong, and despite starting the penicillin then it has been raging out of control. We doubled the antibiotics. I took ibuprofin and it didn't work and after consulting Motherisk (which is a fabulous resource for Canadians, esp. Torontonians) we determined I could take Tylenol 3 (with codeine in it). For Sunday, Monday, Monday night, and Tuesday until about 4 pm, the painkillers made very little dent in it - about 20 minutes out of a 4 to 6 hr dose. Finally, finally it is starting to recede - swelling and pain alike.

But man, it sucks. For a bit there I thought we might have to put Noah on formula. I thought I was going to go insane with pain, and Carl really had to step in and take care of the baby here and there while I laid on the floor and sobbed (literally; it was worse than labour in many ways due to the unremittingness of it). I didn't sleep from Sunday at midnight to last night at 7. It was crazy.

I felt vulnerable in a way I never have before. It's one thing to get sick on one's own, but having a baby, if you get sick you're messing up their days too, and in this case putting breastfeeding at risk, not only from the drugs one might have to take, but also milk production. (My body is a trooper because it has continued to produce milk despite lack of calories and all this stress and pain and infection, although frankly I felt more like my body let me down with the infection in the first place.) It really hit home that I have to take a bit more care with me, too.

Lynn was brilliant. She really is able to dissociate out of a lot more physical pain than anyone else, or maybe she just has a higher tolerance. In any case, although I wouldn't count on being able to do it again - and having backup is really important - she was the most able to still change diapers and croon, rock the baby, and keep calm around him. Not a hundred percent, as the aforementioned breaks showed, but man. Occasionally past trauma comes in handy, although I think probably non-traumatized parents also rise to the occasion each and every day.

Of course Noah slept 6 hrs every night, while I could not take advantage of it. :) He also discovered he can grab onto my lip, in a weird sort of not-really-paying-attention way that he is batting and and grasping things these days. That was - painful, but I managed to be gentle disengaging him. I have a tiny baby fingernail scratch and I'm oddly proud of it. Being a mum is occasionally so weird!

I did get thinking about us growing up. When my mum was sick it was often a major crisis, at least where I remember it (when admittedly we were older enough to handle it). She would get (understandably) stressed and yell and stuff. Maybe my dad didn't help enough; my memory is foggy on that. And lord, with this pain I could see that a toddler or a defiant 5 year old or a bitchy pre-teen would be really really hard to cope with. At least a baby is clearly just doing baby things.

But I renew my commitment to try to handle things differently - get a sitter, get relatives in, whatever, rather than getting so stressed that every illness becomes a battlefield. Because that is what it felt like, growing up. And I so don't want to do that.

When the painkillers really actually started working yesterday I took Noah in my arms and danced for joy and he almost laughed. I would say it was probably an accident of sound but ooohh am I looking forward to baby laughs.

Now of course my concern is thrush because massive antibiotics can certainly do that. I am popping acidophilus pills and being ultra-hygienic and everything. But Noah's tongue is a bit white. Cross your fingers for us. :)

Spaced out on codeine,
Shandra