Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Just a Spoonful of Sugar...

Tonight my daughter had to take an antibiotic. Medicine has always been a huge struggle with her, from the time we had to administer a little liquid children's Tylenol when she was two, up to the present day. Last time we had to do an antibiotic, it was in the form of an evil-looking pink liquid with "cherry" flavoring. Getting it inside her was a daily struggle--tears, wailing, threats, shouting, you name it.

This time the doctor prescribed pills and suggested we crush them and mix them in sorbet or applesauce. Great! So I'm blissfully out on the porch doing some emails this evening, when I hear all hell break loose inside. Apparently tempers had reached the breaking point after an hour of trying to do the medicine thing again. My daughter was near hysterics and my wife was at wit's end. "I'll handle this, " I manfully announced.

I crushed another pill (two had already been sacrificed to the cause) and mixed it in some raspberry sorbet. My daughter eyed me tearfully.

"We tried that. I can taste it!"

"Well," I replied, "I'm sure you can, a little bit. But how bad can it be? Mommy probably didn't mix it up enough. Yummy sorbet, it'll be great, you won't even notice."

"No, I will, " she wailed.

"No, you won't," I said calmly, "just relax! It'll be fine. It's yummy! Look, I'll take bite myself."

I took a tiny nibble of the sorbet with the crushed pill mixed in.

"See, it's fi...UFF! ACK! GAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHH. URK! BLLLLEEEEEECCCCCKKKKKHHH. PTOOEY! PTOOEY!"

She was right! It was just incredibly horrible tasting, like eating frozen battery acid, just unbelievable awful. How could a little bit of antibiotic powder completely overwhelm a half a bowl of sweet, delicious, gourmet sorbet?

We're going back to the liquid. At least it's over in five seconds, as opposed to five minutes of choking down a bowl of atomic waste.

4 comments:

  1. I am sitting here laughing in solidarity. Throughout her childhood (and even now, in her teens), my daughter has made taking liquid medicine an epic struggle wills. When she was three or so, she eyed the red cough medicine with venomous tears, and said, "I think you put BLOOD in it!"

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  2. WTF, "Mommy probably didn't mix it up enough" ?! For that, you get to administer the antibiotic from here on out.

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  3. Oh no, Tad, this is something of a different order entirely. Next time mix some Comet bleach cleaner with your cherry-flavored cough syrup. That will give you a faint approximation of the hideousness of this stuff.

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