What did your parents do for you, while you were sick?

Vicks Vapo Rub delivered by a steamer if I was congested.

Yes, to the couch and TV if I was up to it. If I had a fever, they usually made me stay in bed. Baby aspirin (no one knew of the issues for children then.)

Tummy rub, period

When I was a kid you were never sick in bed. You were sick on the couch. And mom was a big believer in 7-Up and St. Joseph’s Baby Aspirin.

Chicken noodle soup. And I pretty much slept the whole time, I don’t think we were allowed to watch TV, at least not too much, she figured if we were sick, we should be sleeping/resting. She totally catered to us with 7-up and soup.

@Blondesjon We were always put on the couch too, unless you were really sick..then my parents would pretty much lock us up in our bedroom. I had scarlet fever as a child, and the doctor came to the house! (i’m not that old, this was a rarity)
Vicks Baby Rub is good stuff.

When my baby girl gets a fever, we go for tylenol if it isn’t too high, baby motrim if it is and she and I watch Elmo videos together…she loves Elmo.

Nothing. Nobody ever believed that I was actually sick. (I complained of symptoms that turned out to be a brain tumor for four or five years before my parents finally relented and took me to a doctor to “prove that nothing [was] wrong with [me].”) If I was almost literally hacking up a lung, I’d get Luden’s cough drops (which I often asked for even when I wasn’t sick) in hopes that it would make me quieter. That’s about all anyone ever did for me.

@MacBean—you should have lived at my house, I swear, my mom would rush me to the doctor for a paper cut.

My mom would push fluids (as do I) move me to the couch and keep a very close eye on me…I believe the correct term would be hovered. The woman hovered. She did always buy me paper dolls, though.

Usually when I was sick as a child, it was due to extreme chest congestion/coughing/breathing problems, so I got rubbed down with Vick’s, ate hot soups, and was tucked into lots of covers with my humidifier on high all night. I remember all of this, but I never realized how much my parents would check on me during the night. Apparently, my chest was so bad, there were nights when my dad was worried that he’d have to rush me to the hospital. He told me not long ago that he couldn’t sleep on those nights, and would constantly check on me to make sure I was still breathing good enough to sleep.
It’s actually my dad talking now about how much he worried and fussed over me then that really makes me feel special… the things they did when I was sick as a child, I just thought all parents did.

When my boys are sick I hold them a lot. We go with the Tylenol or motrin for a fever and Benedryl for congestion.

sometimes, i didn’t have to go to work til like 7am. my parents are understanding like that, and an 8 yr old really needs the extra sleep.

also, mashed potatoes and cartoons.

7-up, toast and popsicles, and when I was feeling a bit better, ice cream.

I was lucky as a kid – my dad worked out of our house as an architect and would take wonderful care of me when I was sick. There was never any worry about taking off work or whatnot, he was already there. My mom would call home periodically throughout the day and just let me tell her how terrible I felt and that alone would make me feel better. My dad would make soup, peanut butter toast, pb&j, mac and cheese, etc if I asked for it and would sit and watch tv with me and rub my head or back until I fell asleep.

The day before I went back to school my senior year of high school, I got extremely sick. I had been feeling badly all day at work but I didn’t think it was anything to worry about. Both of my parents just so happened to be out of town (I had a car and was pretty responsible, so they weren’t worried about leaving me on my own for a few days). I came home and sat down, and within a half-hour, I was doubled over in pain. I called both of my parents, boyfriend, and best friend repeatedly, and got no answer from any of them the whole night. I managed to call my school the next morning and explain that I was in terrible condition, and when I finally got a hold of my mom, she was convinced I had meningitis and was in hysterics. My dad finally came home and took me to the hospital, where they misdiagnosed me (that was an entirely different story), and I spent the rest of the week at home. My dad took the best care of me ever; he waited on me hand and foot (I couldn’t walk without terrible pain), made sure I had just what I wanted and needed, and sat with me for hours. I never did find out what I actually had…

@TitsMcGhee Aww, it sounds like you have wonderful parents. What did they diagnose you with?? I was doubled over in pain when my ovarian cyst ruptured..maybe you had that??

@casheroo: They diagnosed me with a combo UTI and sinus infection. I had neither (they should’ve known it wasn’t a UTI when I had no symptoms – no pain with urination, for one). I had an all-over body pain, incredibly high fever, muscle ache, migraine level headache, and nausea, but almost no vomiting. The muscle pain was to the point where I couldn’t walk because my legs hurt too much, breathing made my chest hurt when my lungs expanded, I couldn’t reach for things because my arms hurt, etc. And it all hit me pretty suddenly (which is why my mom thought it was meningitis). I had been feeling a little achy all over at work, but I assumed that I was tired and standing on a tile floor for a ten hour shift wasn’t doing anything for me either, but once I sat down at home, I was practically immobile within 30 minutes. I was really surprised when the ER doctor gave me the diagnosis… I was also severely dehydrated by the time I got to the hospital, to the point that a vein ruptured when they tried to take blood because the pressure was too much. They had me on an IV for a reeeeeeally long time after that. When I told my GP what they said it was a week later when I went for a check up, he said, “Well, I don’t know what you had, but it certainly wasn’t either of those things.” They also had me on antibiotics that I didn’t need. It was all a very strange and surreal experience.

My mother was really good to us when we were sick so it was almost worth being sick. Tea, toast and consomme soup with alphabet noodles were the nurturing foods, flat ginger ale for nausea, and resting on the couch with books or t.v. It felt relly good when you were better enough to not feel sick but still sick enough to be coddled a little more.

I remember my younger son being quite sick one whole winter week. He didn’t miss school though because there were a few bad snow storms and school was closed for snow days 4 of the 5 days. Boy was he pissed!

If it was stomach flu we always had the “puke pan”. In my house it was a big, deep, black roasting pan that mom kept around for only that reason.

@Blondesjon lol, ours was a white bucket for cleaning dishes no she didn’t reuse it for dishes

@casheroo and @Blondesjon our was a plastic yellow mixing bowl and we called it an “urp pan”

my mum’s at-the-time boyfriend was visiting from texas, so my mum was spending time with him while i stayed home from school sick. my aunt, in a sort of out-of-character act, went to walgreens and picked up my favourite candy, and a few bags of the good kind of cough drops, and a magazine or something, and dropped them off for me so i woke up to a bag of goodies. and i think she made me a pot of coffee, or tea, or something.
that’s the only thing that really sticks out in my mind right now, probably becasue it was pretty unexpected.

vicks vapor rub and i still love the stuff use it whenever im sick.