The taste of homoeopathic dirt

My fluffy patch of hair is feeling a little under the weather.

Call me Captain Bronchitis! I have the power! The power to identify the first stages of bronchitis at 20 paces. Bring me a child, and I will diagnose them! Yup, Hamish is ill again. I am so bored of bronchitis already. I have lost count via all the sleepless nights I've had of the number of times he's had it.

So I had an inkling that it was on it's way again. Something funny about his breathing that I couldn't just put down to a regular sniffly cold. So I made a appointment for the following day, and yesterday we went to see the Kinderarzt. Turns out that I caught the bronchitis right at the beginning stages, and his oxygen saturation levels were still high, but I'd missed that he had a virus as well, and also a middle ear infection. Ah well, can't win them all. Just as well I'm not a doctor, eh?

We walked away with a carrier bag of medicine which cost 58 Euros. For that sum I got a new inhaler thing, which we've had before, but which I suspect is nearly empty because I use it with him every time I think his breathing is a bit funny, and I don't want to admit to the doctor that I am self-medicating him. Though he started talking to me about whether I had used any of the spare suppositories we had for him, but in my book that's taking self-medicating a finger up the bum too far. Anyway, he gave me 2 more suppositories for fun evenings in when his breathing is really bad, a nasal spray, some ibuprofen, and a bottle of homoeopathic medicine for the middle ear infection.

Keeping a check on the timings of all these medicines is an art. The last one, the homoeopathic one needs to be taken every hour up to 10 times a day. Just 6 drops on a spoon. I have no hang ups with homoeopathic medicine, my mum used to give me arnica when I was a child, but I do know that people say that the active ingredient is so diluted that there is no way that it can work. So seeing Hamish's face screw up and his whole body shudder at the first administration came as a surprise to me. He said " I think Dr ----- has made a mistake with my medicine. This can't be for me. This tastes like yucky dirt.". So I tried it. Jeez-us-CHRIST!!! Even I dived for a drink to take the taste away. So hideously intense! So utterly vile! I even triple checked the box to make sure I wasn't meant to put the 6 drops in his ear rather than in his mouth. If this is the stuff diluted I can't imagine what it's like in undiluted form. It better work, is all I can say. I have faith that something that tastes that bad must be doing some good. And now, wish me luck for I must go and administer the next dose.