A brief (I hope) interruption of the baby bliss

Because reality has rudely intruded upon my babymoon, and I’m not even talking about the part where I’m already back to cooking and cleaning, more or less.

If you follow me on instagram, or my facebook page, or twitter, and you should, I’m a very faithful instagrammar, it’s all been sweet baby pics, and sweet bonding sibling pics, and even videos of him just sleeping. It’s obvious that I’m smitten with little Dek, we all are.

Which is why this little creeping bacterial infection is completely annoying.

I thought about posting a picture of it, and then thought better because, EWW, it’s disgusting. Google bullous impetigo if you want to see it in all it’s glory, with the big yucky blisters and crustiness.

What’s even more convenient is that it’s in my armpit, which, if you are familiar with basic anatomy, you will remember is terribly near to the breast. So I have a highly contagious bacterial infection, with swelling blisters cause by toxins released by the bacteria, scant inches away from the place where my baby spends most of the day sticking his face. I consider it a crowning maternal achievement of epic proportions, and very dry hands from the constant washing, that he has not, thus far, been infected. Damn thing keeps spreading though, in spite of the antibiotic ointment. Heading to the doctor in the morning to see if there is something else that will kill it dead. Like, right now!

This will teach me to casually throw a bandaid on over what I mistakenly thought was just a bit of under bra chafing, and then forget about it for a day or two because of giving birth, and what not, until the place under the bandaid starts to itch. Rookie mistake in a tropical country during wet season.

Do you know how hard it is to have a gross rash right under your bra band? Especially when you have new mama nursing breasts that are tender and slightly bruised feeling and really need something to hold them up. Wear a bra, it chafes and collects sweat and makes the rash spread. Don’t wear a bra, and it chafes a little less, but you still sweat, and your breasts hurt, and the rash spreads anyway. Actually, the problem is the constant sweating.

Add that I’m still healing in the giving birth region, you know, where infection is a real risk until you stop bleeding, and the insult that I have yet to start pooping like a normal person again, to the overall level of, you have got to be kidding me.

The Boy just had major surgery a few days ago, so the caution level around him is way up too. Dr. Google kindly informed me that staph infections like this are often caused by MRSA. Trying not to infect him with something icky and dangerous as well.

This country has taught me to love bleach. Do you know how lucky you are that your water has chlorine in it and doesn’t smell faintly of sewer, like the government water here does? You can bathe yourself and your children and not worry that they will catch something from the water you use to clean them. I’m adding bleach to every load of laundry now, hopefully enough to kill bacteria in towels, without ruining clothes.

At the hospital they wanted me to nurse Dek because they were trying to draw blood, for blood typing, and coudn’t get any so they wanted to try hydrating him. Only, they wouldn’t let me until they brought me a little dish full of cotton balls and sterile drinking water and I used them to wash my nipples off first. At first I thought, “How silly. That seems a bit paranoid.”

And then I realized how not paranoid it was. Even if you are clean, as in, able to take regular showers here, which not every one is, you can’t trust the water you shower in to go in your baby’s mouth. You wouldn’t drink it, why would you let him put it anywhere near his tiny little mouth? So wash first with safe drinking water. It makes total sense here.

And that, my friends, is why no one in north America should complain about their completely drinkable tap water, no matter how suspicious you feel about it. It’s not likely to give you infections or make your kids sick. Not by comparison to here.

So enjoy your next shower, or bath, or drink from the tap when you brush your teeth tonight. I’m off to get some filtered water to drink from the bottles that we pay the man to deliver every Tuesday, and then take to the roadside dispenser to refill when we run out, which we always do. Then I might bleach out the shower. Adam and Cindy have a cleaning lady, she helps with kids too at their house, and she comes to clean this house twice a week, which is lovely. But Thais don’t like to use bleach because it smells bad. If I want something actually disinfected, I have to do it myself.

My apologies for this interruption. I promise, nothing but sweet baby photos from this point forward. Unless you want to see the legion of insects that start invading the house when it rains?