Patient abuse?

Last night Persephone had a stuffy nose.  I searched high and low for the bulb syringe so I could help her out, but could not find it.  I finally had to resort to a delicately executed Q-tip extraction.

This morning she was stuffy again so I resumed my search.  As a last ditch effort I asked Lincoln if he knew where it was.  I was confident he knew what I was talking about because I had used it on him (against his will) last week when he was sick.
  

“Lincoln, do you know where the green nose sucker thing is?”  (Bulb syringe wouldn’t make much sense to him.)


“I don’t know,” he said firmly.

“Persephone is all stuffy.  I need it to get her boogers out so she can breathe better.” (Remember, I’m speaking with a five year old!)


“Oh, I think I know.” 


Apparently the fact that I wasn’t going to use it on him made a difference.  He led me down the hallway and opened the closet.  I had already looked extensively in the closet so I figured he was just guessing.  Nope.  He didn’t head for the medicine shelf like I expected, but instead went to the floor and moved a box.  From the hallway closet on the floor in the back corner, behind a box magically appeared the missing bulb syringe.  Hmm, curious.


He then offered an explanation.  “I just hide it so you can’t find it.”  Oh really?  I hadn’t noticed.  “I wanted you to not put it in my boogers.”

Lincoln is a horrible patient.  He was sick for six days last week and he and I were both miserable.  Forcing medicine down his throat seemed to be verging on child abuse so I only attempted it twice, late at night when he was burning up and couldn't sleep.  I'm still not sure he swallowed enough to do him any good, but forcing him to take it was certainly torturous enough to bring us both to tears.  Another form of abuse I inflicted upon him was the bulb syringe.  He simply couldn't manage to breathe from his mouth while sleeping.  He would gasp for air, take a few breaths from his mouth and then try to breathe through his nose again causing him to gasp for air again.  This was very unnerving for me and impossible to sleep next to (he was in bed with me since Uriah has been in Kentucky for the past two weeks).  Out of desperation I again pinned him down and let him scream it out while I tried to clear his nose with the syringe.  Again tears for both of us.  He was crying so hard that he probably produced more mucus than I removed.    It's little wonder that the syringe mysteriously disappeared a few days later.