intruments of torture

Should waterboarding ever be tossed out once & for all as out-of-bounds (and it should be!), I would like to recommend a couple substitutes: the bulb syringe & the asthma inhaler. These seemingly harmless instruments are capable of producing the most blood-curdling screams. It really boggles the mind. The first few tries with the inhaler went swimmingly -X was too distracted by the novelty to notice that it pissed him off. But ever since those first instances, he twists & turns & writhes around like I am trying to suffocate him with a pillow or something. The bulb syringe can be equally tortuous, although after a long bout of sniffles he does seem to come around to accepting the fact that he in fact feels better after he lets me suck massive wads of snot out of his head.

Why are we applying these horrid instruments? -X caught a nasty chest cold last week that moved into his lungs, caused horrible wheezing (think Darth Vader), induced us to rush him to ER on a Sunday evening -and VIOLA! -we've got an asthma baby! Actually, no -that's jumping to conclusions. But according to statistics, he stands a 30% of one day developing asthma (his father had it). As for now, they are just calling this particular episode a case of "bronchiolitis," -an infection of the small airways of the lung. But we will worry if it happens again & again.

I am glad to have the inhaler -it at least makes me feel as though I have options at hand when my poor baby can't seem to catch his breath. Whether it is actually helpful or not is another story altogether. It gives me some small sense of power over circumstances that are entirely out of my control, and for that I am grateful -- the illusion of control is almost as nice as actually having control....but not quite...