$10 co-pay says Davison family.

Jonah lacks the self-recognition to behave like a little snot, but he can certainly get a plugged up nose. He wheezed through last night and didn’t feed well this morning so we called up a Kaiser advice nurse for recommendations. If anybody out there thinks you can mention “one month old” and “breathing difficulties” in the same sentence without the telephone staff insisting that the infant come in immediately for a look-see, well, let me disabuse you of that notion right now. Given the threat of a malpractice lawsuit, they will err on the side of caution every time.

So Jonah got the once over by a pediatrician. He’s 11 lbs. now, up about three pounds from his birth weight. The whistling nasal breathing was an easy fix. A few drops of saline solution in the nose, in with the aspirator, and slurp! Out comes the gross stuff. It wasn’t pretty and Jonah didn’t enjoy it at the time, but he’s breathing fine again, so he’ll deal. Otherwise, a clean bill of health.

Erin’s the one who talked with the advice nurse, and I’m not sure that they couldn’t have explained how to work the nasal bulb over the phone (or that we couldn’t have figured it out for ourselves), but I’m glad we went in had Jonah looked at. In quizzing the pediatrican on all manner of baby topics we believe we may have gotten our money’s worth. Otherwise, that’s one expensive booger.