I don't understand......why some parents simply don't THINK.

I am skipping quite a few posts to vent my frustration here.

Both J's are sick, and my little Jazreel is having croup. She has hoarse breathing and a nasty nasty cough with lotsa phelgm. She's only 8mths going on 9mths and she is on nebuliser.

I am frustrated because I know how this happened.

Scenario
1. gor gor goes to school. meet with sick classmates who's irresponsible parents keep on sending to school. I even noticed 1 girl who sneezed out a bowl full of phelgm all over her face, the teacher just took tissue to clean, and thats it. There are even parents who claim they are "not free" to fetch their kids home when teachers call them to report their child having a fever and pls bring them back. There was a mother who was having a chesty cough and left her brain outside the classroom and enter the class filled with 20 young children, all the while coughing her nice germs into the air, without the courtesy of covering with her hand, turning away, or wearing a mask to protect the kids.

2. gor gor goes to school with these kids and gets sick too.

3. Before he shows sympthoms, he affectionately hugs meimei as usual in the morning, and puts his face close to hers.

4. Once he develops fever later that morning, we kept him from school immediately, and separated him from Jaz for the next few days. But, the contact on Tue morning already infected her. Sigh. She started a sudden phelgmy cough on friday morning, after a night of sleeplessness (awake from 1am-3am from some discomfort which I cannot sense). Saw PD that morning and as she's so young he tries not to prescribe too strong med, only probiotics, prospan (herbal), kaloba (herbal). He said however if she has high grade fever or green mucus to give her gorgor's antibiotics (gorgor tested negative for Type A and B influenza twice, so doc decides to treat it as bacterial). Her cough very quickly develop into this chesty sound when she breathes, and at times can see she has difficulty drawing in an unobstructed breath. that night itself she has 38.8 fever. :( So it gotta be antibiotics.

5. But her cough and phelgmy breathing got so bad I worried whether its wheezing so PD asked us to bring her down again. He diagnosed it as croup. So put her on nebuliser to help her breathing.

I just feel like ranting on and on, but I know it doesn't accomplish anything. We are parents who are careful with hygiene in order to minimise chances of cross infection. We are socially responsible and keep our kids at home if they are sick. And if WE are sick, we wear a mask out despite knowing we look wierd and are inviting strange looks from other folks. So why can't other people do the same? It doesn't take an arm or a leg, just some heart, a dose of social responsibility, a healthy sense of duty. What's so difficult?

I feel so heartpain for Jaz. Her gorgor did not even fall sick at all until he reached 17mths. And now she's barely 9mths and had 2 courses of antibiotics and already knows what's a nebuliser. All because of what?

People who think "it won't happen to me" or "fall sick fall sick loh" should STOP AND THINK. THINK - statistics are made up of real life humans like you or anyone else on the street. There's no such thing as "it won't happen to you". THINK - yes, YOU can afford to fall sick, but what about that poor 14yr old kid with epilepsy, what about that man with pre-existing illness? Everytime ONE SINGLE person falls sick, and KNOWINGLY goes out without wearing a mask, coughing left right centre on the MRT, is exposing someone else more vulnerable to risks. It can be a 6mths old, it can be a 60yr old, or a pregnant mom. Either way,these people do not have the kind of health he has, and may not be so lucky.

We happen also to learn from our PD that he has recently sent a 9mth old boy for H1N1 test. Its positive. Can you imagine what that family is going through???