Da-da digivolve to..

This morning my son upgraded me from "da-da" to "da-day" :)

I've got that all-warm and fuzzy feeling that you can only get when you have children

Scared shitless pt3

It was suggested that we keep him in the hospital overnight and we both reluctantly agreed. We were given a room which had a cot, a single bed and a chair but the boy wouldn't sleep on his own in the cot and so slept on his mother on the bed whilst Dad took the uncomfortable chair.

Thankfully the boy managed to get some sleep and the extra ibuprofen they'd given him was starting to work and his temperature was dropping. It was awkward being with his mother for this length of time given our history but my son's always more important and past history is something I've always wanted to shelf - it's not forgotten or forgiven but it's not at the forefront of my mind. Both mother and son managed to get some sleep with the latter getting the most. I on the other hand, sleep lightly normally (so I can hear ninjas coming) and with the ward randomly bursting into life with someone's kid crying or screaming, I was lucky to get an hour and a half at most.

The day came eventually and I was beaten down - so, so, so tired but the worry was still keeping me going. He woke up and was a bit groggy but after a few hours of waiting for the doctor to do her rounds, he was back to his happy, little self :D He was mucking about on my shoulders a lot and even had some food which was a first for two days.

When the doc did come round, she and the consultant concluded that it wasn't a reaction to the mmr but he'd probably picked a bug up from his brother's dad (timberwolf was dying of a stomach flu or something). To be honest, we both knew at the start that that was a likely cause but we were taking no chances especially when he had just had his MMR.

So I took him home and I was beaten and shattered. My family came up to look after him for me and I went for a nap but it wasn't long or very good. Still, it all worked out in the end even if I had to go through hell to get there :p

Scared shitless pt2

I had the boy Saturday night and whilst he seemed like his usual, happy self, there was still a slight bit of worry in the back of my mind especially since we had been at the hospital that morning. Anyway, bedtime came and I put him down without any complaint. I would keep checking on him and then started noticing that he was getting hotter so I stripped him down to his nappy and left him asleep.

At 10PM he awoke crying and I rushed through to him to find he was burning up and shivering. God this made me panic a bit but had to change his nappy so it was "focus Dad, focus!" With that job done I found he just wouldn't leave my arms and just wanted to hug me but he was so bloody hot. He'd had some medicine (ibuprofen and calpol) so I didn't know what else to do or what was wrong with him.

I ended up phoning the NHS 24 helpline where the call handler had issues with me. Because my son is resident with his mother, my address didn't prove squat.

Her: 'So what's his address normally?'
Gurn: 'Oh.. I can't actually remember?'
Her: 'Right, do you know his mother's phone number?'
Gurn: 'Not off the top of my head, it's in my phonebook on the phone I speaking to you on so I can't get to it.'
Her: 'It's just I need some way of proving identities'

I felt like shouting "HE'S GOT THE SAME BLOODY SURNAME AS ME AND HE'S BURNING UP ON MY FUCKING LAP SO I THINK THAT FUCKING PROVES HE'S ACTUALLY MY SON AND NOT SOME RANDOM CHILD I'VE KIDNAPPED!!".. but I didn't (I was getting angry at this point)

Her: 'Okay, do you know who his GP is?'
Gurn: 'I have no idea.'
Her: 'What about the name of the GP pratcice he goes to?'
Gurn: 'He used to go to the one in ZZZZZ but he's moved since then and I've not been told.'
Her: 'Eh.. hold on.. does he have a middle name?'
Gurn: 'Two'

And with that I was finally taken seriously

So the nurse I was eventually put through was very nice and asked me to bring him into the hospital at 00:40. I met his mother there and we waited in the foyer for the doc. There were a few other toddlers there, all of which looked REALLY sick so that did nothing to alleviate my fears.

Finally we saw the doctor and she gave him a thorough examination. Her conculsion? Might be related to the MMR or it might be a viral infection, OR it might be a VERY nasty viral infection that could fuck up his kidneys. She made us take him straight up to the Sick Children's hospital and I remember worrying that little bit more.

We got there and were told they'd do some tests on him to rule out some things but they'd need a urine sample first. "oh, right" I thought as if, yeah, I can make my son pee on command? I even took him to the toilet and let him watch his dad pee as sometimes that's made him start peeing.. and laughing but that's nothing to do with anything you're thinking about :p It didn't work and just served to make him cry more (he was still burning). They took his temp and it was over 39 degrees which caused them some concern. Thankfully he took a drink and pee'd.. whilst sitting on his mother :)

Next came the blood test and I swear I have never been more scared in all of my life.

Never

He'd had cream on the back of his hands to numb them so he wouldn't feel the needle. He'd had this on his hands for the better part of an hour and when the two nurses came round to take some blood, they couldn't find a vein. They saw one on his arm and asked if they could use that instead and that they could take it now or we could do the cream thing again (would be another hour with his arm in an awkward position and lots of crying) so we said to just take the blood now.

One nurse held the needle
One nurse held his arm to make the vein more prominent (this caused my son to start screaming the place down)
His mother held his arms still so he wouldn't writhe about
Daddy kept talking to him since he was face that way.

Daddy had the worst of all jobs :(

I had to watch his face shiver in fear and pain as the needle went in and he just kept screaming "DA DA DA DA DA DA" over and over begging me to take the pain away from him. I'm never going to forget that moment because I couldn't do the one thing I'd promised him the very first time I held him - to protect him. Here I was, watching him try to get to me but unable to do anything because I knew they needed his blood.

I was almost in tears.

It was over in a minute or so but he took a good 10 minutes to calm down. After that came the snot test which required them to put tubes right up his nose to collect snot. I had to walk out because I couldn't take another reaction like the blood one. I took the opportunity to go to the lobby to phone my sister to let her know how he was but I could hear him screaming from there and I had to head back to him. It was all over when I arrived.

So with all the tests over they started coming back with results and all of them were negative.. thank god. But we still didn't know why he was running a fever.

Scared shitless pt1

It's Saturday morning, just gone 6AM and I'm sleeping off my alcohol-filled birthday nightout when my phones goes off with a txt from the ex. She's worried about my son's temperature saying it's too hot and she's waiting to hear back from the doc. I lug myself out of bed and go take a piss then I sit down to try and get brain working enough to send a reply. I don't even get to start when she phones me saying she's been told to bring him into the hospital.

Oh shit!

So with a renewed panic I got myself a shower and then got ready (minus the breakfast). She picked me up since I was still wasn't completely sober and therefore unable to drive and we headed to the hospital with sleeping boy in tow. He seemed happy to see me when he woke up but his temperature was normal by the time we arrived. Still, the doc checked him out and said he couldn't see anything wrong with him. We both noted however that he wasn't walking properly and was staggering with a few steps but he advised us to just keep our eye on him.

Now I know what you're thinking - paranoid parents but here's why we were both worrying. 3 days prior he'd had his MMR innoculation which has been fairly controversial in this country. It vaccinates against Measles, Mumps and Reubella and they used to give an injection for each but now they have this all-in-one thing. The controversy has come about due to some side-effects but the government's official stance was that it was advisable to get it. His staggering seemed to disappear later on so all seemed fine.