T.Puzzle is now doing really well so I feel comfortable writing this. On Thursday after school, it came to my attention that he had developed a skin infection on his right bicep. He came waltzing into the dining room where I have the boys’ homework stations set up (yes, kindergartners have homework these days), and proudly announced, “Hey, look at my big muscle!” He thought his swollen bicep was hysterically funny. If my Mommy alarm hadn’t gone off at full volume, I would have thought my little Popeye was hilarious, too. Instead, by the feel of his heated, red skin, I knew it was time to head to urgent care.
He was quickly diagnosed with a soft tissue infection and prescribed an oral antibiotic. Fortunately, he seemed to act fine, didn’t have a fever and by all accounts, looked as if he would make a speedy and complete recovery (so far, so good).
Any reasonable person would probably think that T.Puzzle was in no danger. As a not-so-reasonable Mom, my mind kept going to scary, flesh-eating bacteria places, and I couldn’t get myself back. I hovered over him like crazy and kept wishing I could give him my arm to replace his infected one. T.Puzzle responded to all this over-attention by patiently allowing me to smooch him dozens of times, and saying it was okay to snuggle with him because he could still hug me with his ‘good arm’.
As I explained to Mad Dog why I had become so consumed with worry over a very typical, routine sort of infection kids get all the time, when it comes to any possible threat to your offspring, logic leaves you. It gets up, runs away and is almost impossible to retrieve.
Even with two good arms.
Writes for all Mommies 