Vector

I've been a pediatrician now for 8 years (has it really been that long?). During my intern year I had a few protracted colds. I remember my last year of residency having a pretty nasty cough. Now I'm a pediatric intensivist, so my patient population is self-selective for the sickest of the sick. Despite this near constant exposure, I never had as long of a string of a cold and sniffles as I've had since early November.

What changed between now and then? I now have a child in preschool.

Shortly after Cruz started preschool, we both came down with a cough. To put it infectious disease terms, Cruz has been the vector. He's carrying home germs from school and spreading them to yours truly. And since I'm at home with my son, I'm not practicing the same level of obsessive hand washing that I do at work.

As punishment I seemed to have gotten the brunt of it, while Cruz did okay. My coughing was so bad that Sue had to sleep a few nights in another room because I was keeping her up. Just when my cough started to get better it would come back with a slight change in consistency or quality, only for the pattern to repeat itself. I knew that I was getting a cold, back-to-back-to-back.

Cruz, similarly has been having a series of viral infections. The good thing is now he knows to cough and sneeze into his arm. Occasionally he thinks it's also proper to blow his nose into his arm too. I have to say, it's quite cute to see a toddler practicing proper cough etiquette.

You might have noticed that I haven't been mentioning any real maladies affecting Sue. Hopefully I won't jinx her by mentioning this, but she has gone through all this remarkably unscathed, especially in lieu of her being pregnant, and thus in a somewhat immunocompromised state. She's had a case of the sniffles, but nothing to the extent that either Cruz or I have had.

In anycase, we hope to get all the nasty colds out of the way before our daughter is born. Today Sue is 38 and 2/7 weeks along!

(P.S. Thanks Auntie Jen, aka Auntie Bow-Wow, for the picture.)