A Deep and Troubling Question

Today I would like to pose a deep and troubling question: As is typical for this time of year, we've been sick. The Boy, the lucky duck, got conjunctivitis in both eyes along with his cold. Ever given eye drops to a toddler? Boy, is it fun! It took a little practice, but I can proudly say that I am an expert at the strategy know as the “toddler straddle.”

Instructions for toddler straddle:

1. Catch child.
2. Put him on his back on the floor. Avoid teeth and flailing limbs.
3. Straddle child by sitting on your heels (so as not to crush the child), and pin his arms under your legs. Pin his head between knees, so he can’t move his head.
4. Pry open one eye with one hand and administer the eye drop with the other. Ignore all screaming, and quell all bucking of legs and lower body with bum.
5. Repeat 3-4 times daily.

Fortunately, a few episodes of this, and he was willing to try and hold still all on his own. To his credit, he did very well. Eyes are now healthy, though he still has a sniffle and a cough. Jasper, now…he’s got leprosy. Well, okay, maybe he doesn’t have leprosy, exactly, but the word fits the bill: open sores, anyone? Apparently he has a common condition amongst cats: an abscess at the base of his tail caused by another cat biting and/or scratching him, the scratch getting infected, the skin healing over the infection, sealing a world of nastiness inside which…well, swelled and filled with fluid and…er…ruptured (gag) right in the vet’s office. I will not attempt to describe the disgusting nature of the sore any longer: Jeff was obsessed with it for some time, and kept saying: “it reminds me of peeling a blood orange, when you start to peel the skin back. It seems like you could just grab the edge of the wound and pull back his skin…” at which point I start screaming, “No! Stop! Disgusting!” and then I vomit on him. The vet cleaned him up and gave him some medicine to take (a wash for the open sore and an antibiotic taken orally), so now he is feeling much better, but he’s walking around the house with an unsightly shaved rump with an open sore on it, he’s been oozing all over everything, and he hates to take his medicine. Unfortunately for him, I’ve had plenty of practice administering medicine to unwilling patients; unfortunately for me, Jasper’s teeth are much sharper than the boy’s, and the boy doesn’t have claws. So what do you think? Who would you rather medicate? ANOTHER NEW POST BELOW (after all, who knows when I'll have the time to come back again? I know I'm killing the posts, but oh well. I must write when I CAN!)