Here’s what it’s like when your kids get sick in Québec right now

First, there’s no over the counter painkillers or fever relief on the pharmacy shelves. When my kids came down with daycare lurgies two weeks ago, the pharmacist made me up bottles of adult meds with instructions on how to cut the pills, crush them, & mix them with apple sauce.

Have you ever tried to make a 1-year-old with gastro eat a spoon of weird tasting gritty fruit compote in the middle of the night? And when they can’t keep meds down, there’s no suppositories – so you can’t make them comfortable. 

Second, there’s no ER. My eldest got better & went back to daycare. My baby didn't. He has asthma. He’d been running a fever for 5 days when I recognized the signs of respiratory distress - the rice krispie crackle of his lungs, the sucking skin at his neck and under his ribs. 

You don't want to fuck around with that shit, so I took him to the Montréal Children's Hospital ER. I told the nurse at ‘pre-triage’ or reception about the asthma, the breathing, the fever. The pre-triage nurse performed a brief visual exam - i.e. - she looked at him. 

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-WiscoDave