So, today I decided to blog my experience as a first time mother who struggles with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Our daughter Aubrianna is 10 1/2 months old. Already, discussing Aubrey at all on the internet brings me a lot of anxiety because I am putting "my daughter out there" in the internet world where potential threats to her safety exist...ughgh, am I sure I can do this???? Talking about my OCD is not the issue here at all or people knowing about my mental struggles but exposing anything about my daughter and my intense love for her makes me feel very vulnerable to anyone who might try to target and hurt her, it's really hard to write this now, wasn't anticipating this new exposure opportunity. So, here I find myself, vulnerable and opening Aubrey up to vulnerability as well.....YUCK!!!!!
In this same moment while experiencing this awful feeling...I have torn off two new layers of skin on my poor right thumb with my right index finger, "pointer" is a master at thumb skin pick-n-peel with over 18 years experience.
And I have contemplated for the hundreth plus time today whether or not I am a bad mother as my husband offers to put our daughter back up to bed after I had been rocking her for 30 minutes and decided to take a ten minute break to work on this blog (how Narcissistic and selfish of me....)
So, since he is still upstairs with her and she seems to be getting sleepy (don't worry I have the camera baby monitor turned on and right in front of me as I glance down at it every .5 seconds),I will continue writing even if my mind is telling me now on broken record...."You should be upstairs not Travis, your baby girl is sick (she has laryngitus at the moment with a croop cough) and she needs you! you are going to be judged and punished for this somehow..."
But, let's get to the my daughter is sick part (please note writing "my daughter is sick" made me worry that I would somehow give her a terminal illness and that I should erase immediately and rephrase with something more neutral and "safe," as another layer of my poor thumb is scraped away by Dr. Pointer (oh yes, by now he's received his S.D. : skin pick doctorate)
On Friday my daughter felt warm so of course I took her temperature throughout the day where it maintained a 98 or something degree until I took it in the evening (around 5) and it said 102 (Oh shit, we need to get the ER ASAP I thought and then that somehow I should have known she had a fever all along so...if she develops brain damage from this it's totally my fault) with my more practical (but also first time father) husband beside me, together we opted to call the on-call doctor instead who told us to just keep an eye on her and if her temperature rises to call back in the meantime give her tylenol and a bath (okay...I do trust the doctor but my OCD tells me that the tylenol is going to give her liver damage and I should research some other way to ease her fever...oh and teething pain and a bath my cause her body to go into shock)
Needless to say her fever went down and waxed and waned throughout the night (as a fever does and should...fighting an infection) and she slept through the night, I did not of course as the reality of finding her limp body in the crib seemed closer than usual tonite than a night where she did not have a 102 degree fever (again, "her limp body" is another exposure and now I'm afraid I'll find that tom. morning having wrote it now).
Her fever went away the next day but Sunday evening she seemed to be hoarse and Sunday night she had a cough (which I already knew was probably croup...sp???) and she was up in discomfort a lot during the night so on Monday I called the doctor first thing.
She was given a diagnosis of Laryngitus (sp?) and Croup (totally my fault she has this, I should have done something more to prevent her being sick) and she was perscribed Predisonal less potent liquid form of prednisone I think....a steroid help her breathe). Well...I was perscribed Prednisone once for a rash given to high of a dose....and I went bonkers for two days so, I am in a panic!! Do I give my daughter the medicine that the doctor perscribed or not, is this OCD or my instinct???? Maybe he misunderstood what she had??? Should I tell him I had a bad mental reaction from a steroid????? I didn't tell him that....now what????? If I give my daughter this steroid, maybe it could alter the chemicals in her brain (since she is already at a predisposition to develop anxiety) and exacerbate any type of mental illness she was already predisposed for???? But if I don't give her the medicine and her cough gets worse what the heck do I tell her doctor..."Well...I know you went to medical school and have been a very good and respected pediatrition for many years but....my 27 year old self with absolutely no medical background felt that the steroid was unneccessary and could cause more harm than good?"
After panicking in my mind for an hour I call my sister who is a pharmacist for resassurance (I know BAD...but I was tired and just wanted a quick fix relief) who told me it was perfectly safe (if you are a good intending person who is reading this and does not know about OCD and how one opinion can plant a weed of a thought in my clustered mind and you disagree with the safety of this medicine please please please refrain from telling me, you will be doing me, my husband, and most importantly my infant daughter a grave disservice).
So, that's what I have for tonite, daughter is still awake so I am going to take over and comfort her,
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