My son has “reactive airways” which means that his lungs tend to shut down if they get irritated. Fortunately he has a couple of inhalers that help keep it under control. Unfortunately, he’s had a bad cold for the last four days.
Yesterday coughing was just getting worse and worse, suggesting that maybe the inhalers weren’t doing the job. So I took him to the doctor. She said, “Yep, he needs a stronger dose of steroids to reduce the inflammation”.
That’s all well and good. So she mixed up a batch of some steroid goo and gave it to him to drink. She warned him it would be vile, but apparently it was extremely vile because he promptly had a gagging fit and threw up his lunch all over his new shoes.
Okay. Plan B. A steriod injection. Painful, but effective.
We left the doctor’s office with a prescription for steriod pills. Take one in the morning and one at night for the next five days.
When it was time for his first pill this morning we discovered we had a problem. My son hasn’t learned how to swallow pills, so I mashed it up and mixed it in with some chocolate. He took one bite and immediately started gagging. Okay. That won’t work.
I mashed up a second pill and put in in some jello. That was worse. He took one bite, started gagging, and immediately threw up his breakfast in the sink. Sigh.
How bad could this stuff taste? I sampled the jello. Oh, my. Quite vile. No wonder he threw up.
But what to do?
Suddenly I had a brilliant idea. I got a piece of soft bubblegum out of the pantry. I cut off a corner and molded it into a little pill shape. I gave it to him with some water and his swallowed it! We practiced with gum fragments about six times. Then I took some more gum, mashed it flat and wrapped the pill so it was coated with a thin film of gum – making it virtually identical to the practice pills.
He swallowed straight down. Huzzah! I’m a genius!
