Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Beach Week

My parents rented a house just across the street from the beach. I was so excited for Benson to see the ocean for the first time! Here he is with grandpa and me with his first trip to the ocean.
The day before we left he had woken up with some type of sores around his lips, he had three of them and i just knew they were cold sores. i panicked. there is something about having a first child that makes you so worried when they get sick. It a whole guessing game- does their throat hurt? do they feel achy? are they okay? why are they sick? where did they get it from? how long is it going to last? should i take him into the hospital? how much tylenol is too much? why wont he sleep? is he drinking enough? should i try to force him to eat more? is he eating enough?
i hate it. i dont handle it well at all.

The following day, he had more on his face and it made me more stressed. the first night at the beach house, Benson got up at 2am with a fever and didn't got back to sleep till 4 in the afternoon. When he first got up, I went and put a onesie over the lamp in the bedroom to try to keep it dim, hoping he'd go back to sleep. It was around 2am when all this commotion happened. i was holding him on the bed and i could smell smoke- like a bonfire. it really bugged me. Why would some idiot have a fire burning on the bay side at 2am. Then I realized it must be one of our neighbors because the smell was so strong. But normally at a bonfire there are people talking and some type noise. it was quiet. really quiet. The whole time I'm thinking about weird people who have bonfires at 2am and don't make a peep, I'm holding Benson and just looking down at him. My eyes started stinging and i look up and the whole dang bedroom is filled with smoke. I turn to the lamp with the onesie on it and its on fire. uuh-hu.

I woke my mom up in a panic holding the onsie that was on fire with my sick baby on the other side. the rest of the week my room smelled like smoke and i'm sorry to say that we are short one onesie. (sorry Kristie!)


The following night Benson wouldnt sleep unless someone was holding him, by this time his sores started to spread to his eyes and we were giving him medicine to keep his fever down every 4 hours. my mom and i took turns holding him through the night and the next morning we went to the doctors. He said he contracted the virus that causes cold sores and he'll be likly to get cold sores the rest of his life, espeically if hes in the sun too much or stressed. He said that the first time small children get the virus, it breaks out really bad but wont ever get like it again. I felt so bad for the poor guy.

This is the worst it got, but it takes about a month to heal. he has small red spots where the sores were, the doctor promised no scares would come from it.

Me and Dallin took him to the aquarium one day, and he loved it. you can see that Dallin is very sympathetic towards him.

1 comment:

Alicia said...

Oh man! Too bad about that onesie, it was super cute.

Poor Benson! I feel for the little guy. My little sister contracted the same virus when she was in kindergarten and the very first time was awful- it looked like she had been beaten up or fallen down the stairs, her face was so swollen. Fortunately, she's learned to handle it pretty well, except that when she's mad at us she threatens to share a drink with us while she has a sore so it'll spread to us. :)

My sister uses an over the counter ointment on her sores called abreva, though I'm not sure if it's safe for infants. It lessens the duration and severity of the sores.

Congratulations on the new walking skills! Go Benson!

And... sorry for typing such a long response. ;)