How to clear a doctor's waiting room part 2 (or how to wake up everyone in a children's ward of a hospital)

1. When your child falls over and smashes his hand into a broken bowl make sure it is late on a Saturday. i.e. so that no x-ray is available at this time of evening to check all the bowl is removed.

2. 5 weeks later take the child back to the same medical centre with a lump in his right hand which is hard and sore.

3. Have lots of fun getting him to stay still for x-rays.

4. Take him to city children's hospital emergency room for consultation.

5. Have him seen by 2 doctors, 1 orthopaedic surgeon and 1 anaesthetist. Sign hundreds of forms.

6. Wait patiently for 6 hours at hospital for operation.

7. Take mobile phone call in parent waiting area from nurse telling you he is in recovery. At least... try to take call from nurse when there is full on screaming from your child in the background. Figure that it must be the theatre nurse asking you to go to recovery so go there.

8. Comfort child screaming, "I want to go home. I want some milk. I want to drink milk all day long. Ouch, Ouch, Ouch."

9. Assist nurse to administer panadeine in between screams.

10. Try to quieten child as he is taken into a ward at 9 pm at night when another child is supposed to be sleeping in the room with a broken femur.

11. Try to sleep at 11 pm beside child's bed. Get woken at 12 pm for I/V antibiotics, at 12:30 pm when the drip machine beeps unceasingly, at 1 am as new patient arrives screaming, at 1:30 am as child with broken femur screams, "It tastes yukky, I don't want the medicine." Just get comfy to sleep and forget it when at 2 am patient (who arrived at 1 am) screams, "It tastes yukky, I don't want the medicine." Again a short time later when Mike asks for the toilet so request nurse to drag drip in while you help with the toilet. At 3 am give up on the sleep idea once Mike is asleep and search out some hot water and low fat milk and LOTS of sugar because you haven't eaten since breakfast. More disruption as nurses take temperatures and discuss why Mike had I/V antibiotics.

12. Finally get to go home at 10:00 am.

13. Sleep most of the afternoon.

14. Be thankful it was only one night. Femur Dad gets to stay a couple of weeks.

Mike is showing everyone the pictures of his bones (some of them have my bones too to hold his hand in the right place).

More news: I got to see the specialist Aug 28 as there was a cancellation. At least there's a diagnosis: SOD type 3 (how's that for an acronym). Bad news is there's no quick fix surgery. Good news is there's medication I've started which may help. Terrible news is that codeine and chocolate aggravate the condition. But....maybe when the medication controls the pain I can have teensy-weensy bits of chocolate. I need to put some tucks in my clothes... maybe this justifies spending money on some new clothes? According to Edna (The Incredibles) I might fit the supermodel definition, "Stick figures with poofy lips."

Updates

Mike: He's now better from his adventure of a few weeks ago. The scars on his hand don't really show just how nasty it was. I think he may have been watching a little too much of the Olympics though. Yesterday after swimming lessons he was awarded a "gold metal" and was pleased as punch but afterwards said, "They forgot the flowers."

The diet: I've decided to include a photo of the chocolate stash so I have a record of just how much chocolate there is. I am managing okay by being careful with the diet but had a "shocking" experience with the old dryer this week. It's getting on in years and the electric shock it gave me was enough to make my little finger numb for a while afterwards, so it's now at the dump. I'm very impressed with the replacement. No telling it how long to dry, I just press the "start" button and it automatically dries the clothes until it detects no moisture then stops. Very environmentally friendly.

The swans: Sadly the lone cygnet did not seem to survive. I suspect one of the local non-native wildlife got to it. Good news though is that they've hatched more cygnets. There's now three and they seem to be doing fine. I don't know how they do this when we've had frost (in August)! It's that global warming problem again.

Anika: Those who read her blog would know she's busy with schoolwork and not blogging. She's keeping to the rules reasonably well and has just managed to survive one of the busiest weeks in the program. There were a few late nights the last few days, and I had to tell her on Friday that it was Friday and not Thursday. 12 days to go.

A New Diet for the SINKS Mummy

Rules for the new diet:

1. No cheese or other dairy food unless it's extremely low fat
2. No chocolate (ouch)
3. No tea because it tastes funny
4. No fried food
5. No sausages
6. Basically, no fat

You might think that I am on this diet to lose weight. At 45 kg (that's around 100 pounds for US readers) I don't think that's the problem. I've actually lost about 3.5 kg in the past 6 weeks. I really did eat too much Brie that time (see Here We Go Again - a previous post). The problem is that if I eat any of the above I get a terrible pain and need painkillers. I've had heaps of tests and will see a specialist on Sep 15. To minimise the need for codeine I've adopted the above diet.

The hardest is the chocolate! Every time we get chocolate I've been removing my share and stashing it in the fridge for when doctors finally work out the problem and fix it. Be warned Q family, I know exactly how much is there!

The stash was considerably added to this week. Our local city's Exhibition was this week and Hubby's work friend helped out by purchasing some chocolate sample bags for us. I haven't been to the Exhibition since I was about 16. Walking around a crowded showground in freezing cold August wind, trying to keep track of 4 children and spending a huge amount of money doesn't appeal to me. Some years ago Hubby asked another work friend if he was taking his 4 children to the "Ekka". Steve mentioned that he could open his wallet and empty it's contents into the W.C. and push the button. He said if he was to go to the Ekka he would be just as broke afterwards but with considerably more stress.

I was interested in the various bits and pieces that accompanied the chocolate in the show bags. One item was a small keychain light with some rather interesting "Engrish" on the packaging to enlighten us as to its features:

1) Adopt to exceed high LED. Lamplight divides into: white, blue, green, bonus, yellow, orange, and purple colour examine currency. (Could someone please explain the colour "bonus"?)
2) Choose high capacity to deduct type battery. (Er, perhaps to extinguish battery?)
3) Taste housing LOGO. Can print, it is to promote sell, the best option of advertising gift. (The funny thing is, the device had absolutely no printing and no LOGO on it. And I'd rather be able to taste the chocolate than the housing LOGO - could be slightly metallic flavoured.)

Roll on Sep 15.