How to recover from a cough

Warning: This post starts off rather innocuous and light, like all my other postings but gets unsuspectingly heavy toward the end - not for the faint hearted. But adversity is part of life and we all get our fair share at some point or other.

Last evening, I learned something new - on what to eat to get well from a cough that has lasted more than 2 weeks - from none other than my wise 4 y.o-to-be.

"Mama, I eat one M&M and then I sleep. I wake up, no more cough already!"

I do not promise that it will work for you. But if you want to try, you must first do the following for 2 weeks:

- Abstain from banana, orange, chocolates, ice-cream and all things cold
- Abstain from fried food
- Get lots of rest (including forced afternoon naps)
- Drink lots of water
- Finish a bottle of Prospan (herbal cough mixture)
- Stay away from the fan
- pop Vitamins C

And you ask, "He did all of that?". Yes, isn't he just wonderful? I just couldn't bring myself to chide him for taking the little indulgence with that M&M.

You think I'm being strict with him? Well, I believe you are not alone. My mum and parents-in-law happen to think so. Slightly more than 2 weeks back, my parents-in-law indulged S.P with chocolates. The following day, he got an ice-cream from popo. Then a stubborn cough followed. I highly suspect that they would need little persuasion to resist being indulgent with snacks after this. And I can finally give up my incessant nagging which honestly is making me unpopular with myself - how nice.

Did I also mention that you should get someone to cover you with a blanket in the early hours of the morning when your hands and feet are cold?

Btw, if you think I'm paranoid. Yes, you're right. The stubborn cough, irritating it maybe, I can cope with that. What scares me is the fever. This child, unlike Peanut, had an episode of febrile convulsion - fits or seizure is the more commonly used word. It happened in Dec 2009 at 38.6 degrees at 11.30pm. For that 5 minutes which seemed like eternity, I went berserk - I thought he was going to die on me. He was stiff, shaking in spasms, his eyes rolled up, I could only see the whites, he did not respond to my cries (I think I was yelling, "Don't scare mama". I was totally incapable of giving any assurance to my child) and I could not tell if he could breathe... It's an experience I would not wish on my worst enemy. So each time he has a fever, I would drop everything at work and stay home with him. It doesn't matter that the PD (plus all the medical literature scoured from the internet) had assured that a febrile convulsion, though frightening to observe, is nothing serious and definitely not life threatening.

I love being a mum. The only time I remember hating being a mum was during those 5 minutes of helplessness, succumbed to an overwhelming fear of loss of my child.