The Oracle of DOOM

The Smaller Hooligan likes to go straight to the worst case scenario. I call him Baby Doomsayer.* No sunny side of the street for that guy.  It is dark and stormy, with a 101% chance of a tornado and a hurricane, followed by an earthquake and an outbreak of cholera.  Obviously I should turn off NPR.

Anyway, he is coming down with a cold, which means his asthma gets aggravated.  Usually we start treating him and it's well controlled, no big deal.  But this time despite starting the inhaled steroids and the oral steroids, it was just not going away.  As a result, at 8:15 last night, I was bundling him into his boots to run him over to the urgent care clinic for a round of the nebulizer treatment.

He was not happy about this.  "What are they going to do to me?" he hollered.   "Are they going to give me a shot?  They are going to give me a shot.  I will die from the shot because of the PAIN!"

"No shot," we said, "NO SHOT!  Not even a little one.  They are just going to give you some breathing medicine that you breath for a longer time than your inhaler.  It will work better and you will stop wheezing and coughing."

"They will make me breath acid and I will DIE."

We tried hard not to laugh.  The oral steroids seem to make him more wiggidy-wack than usual.  It makes for dialog that is riddled with non-sequiteurs.

12 hours later he devoured two waffles and an egg. (The prednisone makes him hungry.)  His friend stopped by to walk to school and he grabbed his backpack and rushed out the door, hatless and coatless.  He seems to have forgotten that he is sick and we are all conspiring against him.

*The predilection for doomsaying comes directly from the father and grandfather of this child.  For once it is not my fault.  The asthma comes from me.