Confessions of a worry wart

In the back of my mind, I’ve been thinking my kid might be a hunchback. Joseph rolled over pretty early at about 10 weeks. He started rice cereal and advanced to food well ahead of when the doctor predicted he would. He began sitting in his Bumbo seat before he even fit in it. By all accounts he’s achieved many milestones a little ahead or right on target, especially for his small size. All except sitting up. Most kids I know his age are sitting up by now. For the past couple weeks, I’ve been trying to encourage him to sit up without support. Each time he leans forward and touches his abdomen straight to the ground, in perfect gym class form. Yes, he’s a flexible little guy, but why won’t he sit? As with most things anymore, I jumped right to thinking something must be wrong. Before he was born, a test showed an indicator for spina bifida…could this be related to why he’s not sitting up? I know…I’m nuts, my kid doesn’t have spina bifida! He is perfectly normal and healthy. Last night, after creating much undue worry in my head, my fears were alleviated as I watched Joseph sit up all by himself in his own time.

As a new mom, worry becomes a constant. Some worries are warranted, some spring straight out of “new parent” paranoia, and some…well I really can’t say where they stem from, but they do seem a little out there when I find the time to reflect on them! From constantly fearing that someone will drop my child to imagining that he has some sort of severe undiagnosed illness with every sniffle or cough, I think I must carry around 10lbs of anxiety at all times!

Case No. 1: When Joseph was about 2 months old, I found a deer tick behind his left ear. I was alone, and I was in a panic. My crazy post partum mind immediately diagnosed him with an incurable case of Lyme disease. I sprung into action…the tick had a pretty good grip, how was I going to get it off of him? Remembering lessons learned from my years of Girl Scout camping, I dabbed a tissue with some alcohol and held it against the tick until it backed out. Then with the level of detail of a CSI detective, I carefully bagged the tick into an evidence kit, and jumped on the phone with the pediatrician.

What? I have to wait for a call back? Don’t they understand what just happened? 15 minutes later the doctor called. Man, I was ready...we could get to the office in 20 minutes. I had that little sucker bagged and ready to be tested for whatever he might have transmitted to my helpless little boy. Through the phone, I calmly explained the horror of what happened. Our doctor, whom I thought was an advocate for my kid until this point, basically said that Joseph was fine. There was no need to bring him in. No need for a lab to dissect the tick. No need to save the tick. She went on to explain that the probability of him contracting Lyme disease or anything else from this one bug bite was very slim…and in the slight chance he did, other symptoms would begin to exhibit such as the infamous bull’s eye. She told me to flush the tick, and keep an eye on the bite for the next week or so, but not to worry. Was she crazy? Not worry!!! Well I monitored that bite 20 times a day for the next week (all the while, the tick was sitting securely on the back of the toilet) just knowing that she was wrong. Needless to say nothing ever came about with the bite, and I ended up flushing the tick about a week later. Lesson learned…no need to panic.

Case No. 2: About three weeks ago, I finally relented and began giving Joseph his Amoxicillin prescription, seeing that his cold was not going away. One teaspoon, twice a day for two weeks through an oral syringe provided by the pharmacist. After about two days on the medicine, there a marked improvement with his cold. Great, good decision, glad we started the medicine. End of story? Not quite.

Two days ago, 10 days into the prescription, I had a moment of panic. Had I been giving him the correct dosage? I don’t even know what made me think of it. The syringe was clearly labeled in “ml” and “tsp”. But did “tsp” stand for tablespoon or teaspoon? OMG!!! Had I been giving him three times the proper dosage every time? Was I overdosing Joseph on prescription medications?! I spent the next 25 minutes researching the abbreviations for teaspoon and tablespoon. Now, I’m not that dense- I took Home Economics. I know how to abbreviate tablespoon and teaspoon. But somewhere in my irrational mom mind, I was seriously doubting myself. Finally, my internet search confirmed to me that my son was not excessively medicated, and that I did indeed have a working knowledge of kitchen measurements…thanks Google! Whew!!!

Case No. 3: The tick wasn’t our only experience with an unwanted creepy-crawly. Recently, during bath time, I noticed a gnat inside the lobe of Joseph’s ear. Before I go on, I should preface this story with a brief summary of something that happened to one of my co-workers (weak stomachs beware). A friend of mine was traveling on a vacation and felt a fly on her ear. She brushed it off and went on with her day. A few hours later she began having an awful headache and ended up in the hospital. It seems that this fly in the few short seconds it was on her earlobe, laid some eggs. Gross right? Anyway, you get where this is going? After some pretty crazy and lengthy treatment, she was fine though.

Back to my gnat. How it got there, how long it had been there…I don’t know. But if you understand at all how my mind works now, you should know that I was freaked! I got it off of Joseph’s ear with a Q-tip, wiped the spot with some alcohol, and then proceeded to tell Matt my worst fears. He convinced me that I should not call the doctor, saying that I would sound completely insane if my concerns were explained to her by sharing my co-worker’s experience. And as I reflected on my previous “bug call” with the pediatrician, I agreed that it would be best to freak out on my own and refrain from sharing my outlandish fears with her. But,each time Joseph even batted at his ear over the next few days, my mind raced back to that dang gnat!

Case No. 4:  Before the Amoxicillin, I was treating Joseph’s cold with saline drops, vapor bath and Vick’s baby rub. During this course of treatment, he broke out into a bumpy skin rash all over his chest and neck. Any sane person would deduce that the rash was only occurring where the vapor rub was going…thus the vapor rub was causing the rash. While I realized that he probably didn’t have shingles, chicken pox, or some kind of autoimmune disorder, I can’t say there wasn’t a small part of me that jumped to that conclusion. I have learned and grown from the aforementioned experiences though…it is best to slightly abstain from voicing these concerns! After a few days of discontinuing the baby rub the rash disappeared. There really might be something to this cool and composed thing!

I do think that I’ve mellowed out a little over the past half a year, but ask anyone close to me, and they might disagree. So really, I’m not sure! I realize there will be bangs and bruises, bug bites, and over and under achieving at times. Each new bump in the road, provides a whole new set of worries and uncertainties. I've been told this is the norm for a very very long time. I’m trying to stay a little more chill though.