Sigh.. Solomon and Eva are sick again! Eva must've gotten a bug from school and passed it on to Solomon. Now they're both on Augmentin. Solomon's only 6 months old and this is the third time he's on antibiotics! I think he's broken the family record. Well, at least it's not Hand Foot and Mouth disease. There was 1 case in Eva's school this week. It's a good thing that her school is very honest and careful. They check mouth, hands and feet every morning before washing hands and they will inform parents straight away if there are any confirmed cases. Her principal says that the health ministry has predicted a Coxsackie outbreak this year. Hip hip hooray...
Solomon hit 38.8 degrees Celsius last night. Luckily Eva's fever wasn't so high. Poor Solomon was feeling miserable and couldn't sleep from midnight till about 2:30 a.m. So of course mummy had to entertain him. I'm so glad that in about 3 years time I don't have to do this fever night watch thing anymore! At his age, old folks say they get fevers all the time, when they're teething, when they get their jabs, when they're learning something new? I don't know the logic behind that last one. Maybe the new task overloaded their brain? Er...
Anyway, Solomon's been putting things in his mouth since he was 3 months old and people have been saying he's teething since then. I still don't see any teeth. I'm not worried though, my nephew Bryan got his first tooth at the age of 1!
Now I'm debating on whether to get all the kids vaccinated with the new pneumococcal vacine. I think I most probably will, but I haven't yet decided whether to vaccinate Solomon now or after he turns 2. If he gets it now, he'll need 3 jabs. After the age of 2 you only need 1. Seeing as Solomon gets sick real easy, I might go for the 3 jabs. Not cheap. Each jab is around RM300 if I'm not mistaken. Multiply that by 4 kids, or 6 if Solomon goes now! Decisions, decisions... It is already routine in western countries though.
It's gambling, like buying insurance. There's not a very high chance of contracting meningitis, but if you do, the consequences can be dire. Then there's also short term side effects but those are not serious. What worries me more is, as with everything that is relatively new, you do not know what they might uncover say, 10 years down the line. The pharmaceutical industry is an extremely lucrative one, it's all about money and it is well known to have made mistakes before. The most famous one being the Thalidomide Disaster, long time ago in dunno what year, 1960 something? That was real sad. Pregnant mothers took a new morning sickness drug and many children were born with deformed limbs.
Well, what about stem cell banking? I did that for Eva and Solomon. There isn't that much you can do with cord stem cells yet. Moreover, research is moving in the direction of using adult stem cells harvested from the spine, which will render cord stem cells redundant. However, there are still some uses for it and since it isn't all that expensive, I don't see why we shouldn't do it. If a time comes when you need it in a matter of life and death, what price are you then willing to pay? Cord stem cells are usually more useful for siblings than for the baby himself. So I thought it would only be fair to Eva if I banked Solomon's as well! I did it with Stem Life. I think there are only 2 companies in Malaysia. The other is Cryo Cord. Stem Life is more established, in my opinion.
Okay better go see to my two sick babies!
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