Poorly Barney

Poor Barney has had a terrible few months. Since starting school he has had one bug after another, which is to be expected when suddenly thrust into a world of unhygienic, snotty little children. But more than that, he was been very unwell, and hes just about had enough of feeling miserable. He's been missing 1 - 2 days a week from school on average, and I'm sure the teachers wonder if I just can't be bothered to send him in. About 6 weeks ago I took him to see the doctor who prescribed him antibiotics and sent him for an x-ray. The antibiotics cleared everything up for about a week, then it all just came back again. He has a constant cough, cold, blocked sinuses, headaches, occasional vomiting and diarrhea. During the day he is always cold, I mean frozen cold, to such an extent that he needs to wear thermals under his clothes and could really do with gloves and slippers, no matter how much we heat the house. His hands and feet just cant warm up. But then at night time he wakes every night with a burning fever, hot to the touch from head to toe and complaining bitterly that he feels unwell. We have tried every natural remedy we can think of, from steam inhalations, changing his bedding for dust mite proof bedding, getting rid of rugs and anything that traps dust in his room, giving him vitamins and a childrens iron supplement. But nothing makes a blind bit of difference.

So this week I took him back to the doctors. Firstly she told me the results of his x-ray. He has an abnormal rib, a congenital abnormality that he was born with. One of his ribs splits into two and sticks out at a a funny angle. Apparently its completely harmless and he's just unique. She drew him a picture of his special rib which he enjoyed. Yesterday I drew on his chest with blue felt pen to show him exactly what ribs are and how his are different. The doctor was puzzled by his symptoms and admitted that he probably needs to have some blood tests done. But rather than traumatize the poor lad with blood tests yet she wanted to try him on an asthma treatment to see if that would help. She is seeing him again in 2 weeks, and if there's no improvement it will be onto the blood test route. So for 3 days now he has been taking 2 different inhalers, and there has been not a tiny bit of improvement so far. Part of me doesn't want him to have asthma, but part of me wonders if asthma could be a darn site nicer than anything else that he could have. It's a waiting game now to see if theres any improvement. But the poor mite is just so fed up of feeling poorly and we are all feeling very sorry for him.