Project 52:14 Character Building

On Friday evening, we had a scare with Penn when we noticed he was wheezing and having difficulty breathing.  We rushed him to the hospital to be evaluated in the ER.  We were concerned because the symptoms were very similar to the episode that he was hospitalized for when he was 17 days old.

As I was driving to the ER,  I was thinking about how I just wanted to hold Penn close and wipe away his sickness.  I didn't want him to be in pain or to be struggling.

Being a parent is the hardest job that Nate and I have ever done, not from a physical standpoint but from an emotional one.  Nate and I want the best for our boys.  And sometimes our natural urge to give them "the best" makes us try to protect them from all pain and struggling.  We try to mold them into little men, to hold them when they fail and strengthen their character but how do we turn little boys into men of character without some degree of pain and struggling?  That's one thing about being a parent that I haven't gotten used to, and it can be difficult to walk the line between allowing my boys to experience life while at the same time protecting them from life's hardships.

After four hours, an x-ray and two neb treatments, Penn was diagnosed with a right-sided pneumonia. Fortunately, they allowed me to take him home with the promise that I would bring him back early the next morning for another neb treatment and reevaluation. The reevaluation went well and after another 48 hours of outpatient inhaler therapy and antibiotics,  he remains at home, recovering from the infection. Today the doctor gave us the okay to return to society (we were avoiding contact with other people to minimize exposures).  I'm glad that Penn is breathing more comfortably and that we didn't have to be hospitalized.

I'm thankful that he's better and that he won't remember these visits to the hospital. And while I'm not sure how much character building occurred on his end, seeing your child struggling to breathe sure stretched his mom and dad a lot. Maybe parenting is hard because it builds character in mom and dad, too.