Back to school

Well, classes began Monday. Sorry there were no posts the last couple weeks; I was enjoying the end of my summer. I'm looking for a regular day to blog during the school year; it might end up being Wednesday afternoons. Might not. Stay tuned.

So, I received this request several weeks ago from Sams:
"Here's a request! The Prince has another set of ear infections, and trying to get him to take his antibiotics is challenging, to say the least. Any tips, or will you promise to work on a better way to get babies to take medicine when you're a famous pharmacist?"

I asked one of the pharmacists at Kaiser, and basically, the answer is no. I'm assuming you're referring to ear drops (not oral antibiotics), and it's never going to be easy. It should be easier than eye drops, because at the very least you can hold his head still while you drop the medicine in his ear. Eye drops are an absolute nightmare, even for adults, and can be almost impossible with an infant. On the other hand, if it's an oral medication, it shouldn't be extremely difficult. The key is to be quick and direct. Get the syringe into his mouth and put it up against the inside of his cheek. Then empty into his mouth, and he should naturally swallow it. He won't like it, and you might have to keep surprising him with it to prevent him from closing his mouth at the sight of the medicine, but it should help. Also, depending on the medication, it can actually be mixed in milk or formula. Diluted like that, he won't really taste the medicine, and it won't look any different from his normal bottle. You can't always do this, so ask your pharmacist about the specific medication before you do this. And that brings me to another good point: a disclaimer.

I'm not a pharmacist (yet). Even if I were, this blog is not designed or intended to give medical advice of any kind. Without knowing the specifics of your situation, I can't recommend a product or course of medication to you, and nothing I write here should be considered as such. I'm simply relating things I've heard, seen, or read about, not trying to be some kind of Internet pharmacist. You should always check with a real pharmacist if you have a question, and never change your medications or the way you take them without consulting your doctor or pharmacist.

My wife is six months (or so) pregnant. I can feel the baby kicking now, which is great. Sadly, she's not been in the best of health lately. Her doctor really thought she had gall bladder disease, since she had every symptom thereof, but after an ultrasound of her gall bladder, that seems not to be the case. So it's a medical mystery. And then her blood glucose came back high, but that turned out not to be gestational diabetes. I hope they can figure out what's going on (and hopefully it's just "normal" pregnancy symptoms), and I'm really grateful that she gets to keep her gall bladder.


The best news of all is that it looks like I'm going to be able to manage this course load well enough to get ahead a little bit before the baby comes. I don't think I'm going to get to many classes in the first two weeks of December. Also, if you're in Denver and want to help out with a 2-year-old and various around-the-house chores while Jaime recovers from a C-section, we would never say no.


That should do it for today. I'm sure to have plenty on my mind as the semester gets going. The second year looks like it's going to be extremely challenging but also extremely interesting. Thanks for stopping by.