This'll Be Fun

I'm so not excited about this afternoon. Why? Well, Rosebud is sick. She's got a lovely fever and a cough that sounds like she's been a pack-a-day smoker since I was 15.

I took her down to see our généraliste this morning. He stuck his stethoscope on her little back, right under her natural tattoo, and announced, "Aië, aië, aië. C'est une bronchyolite."

Which in English means that little girl here has a lovely inflammation of the smallest air passages of the lungs. GREAT.

So what's the treatment you may ask?

The Inquisition. That's what.

You see, she's going to have the pleasure of meeting the super hot physical therapist with the Australian wife, who will then lay little almost 9-month old Rosebud down on her back and squeeze the living shit out of her lungs.

If it weren't for the fact that I'll be melting into a puddle of motherly tears, I'd say that the treatment is effective. Nothing like seeing a whacking great big loogey of phlegm come shooting out of your pride and joy.

I remember the first time I witnessed this. The Princess was only a few months old when her doctor told me in broken English that she needed, " 'elp to brive." Like Bambi caught in the headlights, I watched that little peanut scream bloody murder in both French and English while I stood in the corner of the therapy room crying. For months after, just laying her on her back to change her nappy would generate a chorus of baby expletives.

Yet another memory besides tree-lined streets that makes me shudder, twitch and climb into the dog house with Typhon.

Oh, and did I mention that this treatment isn't just a one off? Nope, the lucky little Rosebud gets to freak out for the next 5 days.

That's right. Five days.

Five days of lung squeezing. Five days of screaming 'til she matches the colour of her favourite hot pink pyjamas. Five days where, I promise you, I am going to drink wine until I can forget that it was me that drove her to that damn shrimp-on-the-barbie loving kinésithérapeute in the first place.

Someone either hold me or find the cork screw.