Three Ring Circus

‘It’s long, and ranty and it’s about illness again’ or ‘Don’t get me started, well, ok, if you insist’!

We are in a cage, trapped like wild beasts. Paraded in front of an audience of uniformed people. I peer out the locked, grated window, out to the sun and the blue sky and the trees. I look to my small sleeping girl and I wish I had no need to bring her to this zoo. I wish she could be outside, running free, with the sunlight kissing her curls and the wind rushing past her ears.

I look over to her, her small, fragile body lying still in an oversized bed with more prison bars to stop her from escape, I see the tubing snaking down to her little arm and I will her to get better…

I guess it’s obvious that all was not well with Ivy come Christmas day. Santa was not kind. I didn’t get my Christmas wish… or wishes, I guess there were alot of them leading up to the big day.

Aside from my husband totally dropping the ball and presenting me with a wireless mouse (c’mon Kelley, that must out do your chocolate chip biscuits) as my gift (I gave him an ipod nano) Ivy was as sick as the proverbial dog, come Christmas morning. She screamed from 2am onwards. Panadol did nothing, Neurofen was the same. It wasn’t until she was given some heavy duty pain medication that she finally collapsed into sleep for three hours. When she woke it all started again. My mum had come over and we tried to make it a good day for everyone but the baby girl was miserable and only wanted to cling and cry. Her temperature was escalating and she was crying that her ear was sore. I’d already upped the Erythromycin  from a therapeutic dose to a full course but she was not getting better. Her bottom, for all intensive purposes, was fantastic. I had not seen it look so good in months. Boxing day came and went in a blur of worry and pain relief.

Waiting, waiting, waiting for the doctor services to open up again. On the 27th we paged the paed who eventually returned our call. I relayed our problems and he asked if he could check the ear swab results that they had taken on Christmas Eve.

When he called back he sounded a little flustered. Her ear had grown pseudomonas and we needed to present to the ER as soon as possible. It would not get better without IV antibiotics and was dangerous.

This is the part where I could tell you how it all went wrong and have my rant about the doctor’s ignorance and arrogance in the ER and the fact that the paed (although he promised) had not informed the paediatric registrar that we were coming, so we were left for hours only to face the horrid ER doctor who couldn’t even stoop to introduce himself and belittled my concerns about my daughter. I could mention that when the paed was contacted he kind of said ‘oops‘. He had forgotten.

I could tell you all of that and then I could go on to tell you that we didn’t get to the ward until well after midnight, (after we had finally seen a lovely paed resident, who took the time to listen) we didn’t see our paed at all and nobody knew what they were supposed to do with Ivy.

 Or that when the nurses found out that she was infectious, we were treated like scum and told that we should never have been sent to the surgical ward, that as soon as they were able we would be transferred. (I need to pause here to say that I totally agree with this on a nursing level but as a parent of the patient, we did not need to be told this over and over again). I could also tell you how the nurses muttered under their breath that it was really kind of the ER to let them know about us so they could refuse our admission. That would be boring though, and shooting down my own professional *cough cough* colleagues, so I will refrain. (Sort of).

Before I do though, I might mention that we didn’t see a paediatrician until late afternoon the next day and that it was not our own (he wasn’t on call so didn’t come in). I could also inform you, my esteemed members of the bloggerati, that the new, older (much older) paed totally poo pooed Ivy’s management to date. Told me he could cure Ivy in 48 hours!

Ivy’s bottom, which had been almost totally healed before we started the IV ampicillin, had broken out again in a blistered mass. So on top of Ivy’s ear we were now dealing with another round of what the new paed dismissed as thrush!!!! Just to cover Ivy (and himself) though he added another antibiotic. He threw accusations and I threw them right back and then he retaliated again but I was done. I didn’t have it in me to yell anymore. I just took myself off to a world where Ivy was well and healthy and I didn’t need to deal with doctors with large egos trying to out treat each other.

Finally, that night, we were transferred to another ward where the nurses were lovely and not at all scared of our (ooh, boggety, boogety) infectious status.

Ivy and I slept the sleep of the dead that night, after many tears and a much needed visit from my mum and our friend Mary. I hadn’t eaten or had anything much to drink for three days now and when David arrived without food I could feel the need to rip out my hair rising not so slowly in my being.

The following day the paed returned and did the victory dance as Ivy’s bum was much better. He did concede that Ivy had some sort of bacterial thing going on on top of his so called thrush. He could not answer my question as to why it cycled every six days. At least he was honest.

He offered us another 24 hours on IV antibugs and I decided it was the best thing to do for Ivy.

Today we are home. After meeting yet another paed, who had a differing opinion (he noted that he had never seen anything that looked like Ivy’s bottom be called thrush before - he felt it wasn’t thrush) from that of our absent paed and that of the older paed and changed all of Ivy’s medications once more. (It’s mind boggling, isn’t it?). We left with Ivy’s ear still discharging, hopeful that a sulphur based antibiotic might do the trick. I guess if she gets sicker again, the bright side is we already have an appointment with our paed on the 7th. (Hang in there, little girl).

We had a lovely late lunch outside and Ivy played the afternoon away with the kids and her precious No - No.