"I'd rather give birth 10 times that go through that again" (Mrs)
Friday 17th July. It has easily been the worst 7 days for us so far this year. My poor other half has had to ensure a terrible time. Actually, I don't think I've felt as emotionally and physically drained myself since the end of 2013...
It all started a week ago on Thursday afternoon when my wife said she wasn't feeling so well. She put it down to her lunch not agreeing with her, but that wasn't the case at all. I had already booked off the Friday afternoon (the day after) as our little lad was due to have his second round of vaccinations. That Thursday evening she had the chills, a high fever and the bed linen was soaked through with sweat during the night.
By the morning she was aching all over and coming out in spots - her temperature was 39 plus and a call to our GP surgery results in an earliest possible appointment of the following Thursday, a week later. This isn't any good at all, but seeing as we're seeing a nurse for our lad's jabs that afternoon, we'll ask whoever we see there.
Come Friday afternoon and we're worried how our little man is going to react. The first time he had jabs, I wasn't present but I'm told he screamed the house down, the poor thing. My wife is understandably anxious and with her feeling unwell, it isn't helping things. Fortunately our boy takes the jabs well (one in both thighs and a couple of does orally), but we're told he's likely to be agitated and might have a fever himself at some point.
This was worry number 1 - our boy's reaction to his jabs!
We ask the nurse about my wife's fever and spots - and she says it looks like chicken pox! By then we had already done a little investigation and thought it might simply be a case of postpartum sweats and changes in hormones. In other words, something new mums might have in the weeks or months after giving birth.
This became worry number 2 - my wife having chicken pox, what it meant for her health and it's affect on our boy since he's already susceptible to fever from the vaccines and that he's being breastfed.
We pay a visit to the NHS walk-in centre on Saturday but only manage to see another nurse. She isn't much help (when we ask about breastfeeding with the condition, we're pretty sure she responds with "I don't have children so cannot comment"!) and advises using calamine lotion - a piece of advice we receive several times over the next days which is no help whatsoever. So, we haven't yet seen a doctor, can't get an appointment with our GP surgery for a week and it's the weekend too. Things are not looking good.
By Sunday, my wife can hardly walk or handle our baby properly. She is covered in spots and emotions are high in the household as a result of the stress and anxiety caused by the illness. I have avoided visiting my folks to help with the weekly shop as we've been worried that I might carry the illness over there. If either of my parents develop a fever or worse, it's not an exaggeration to say it could be life-threatening for them. Their health and well-being is something I haven't updated on for some time - that'll be for another post here.
It was also my mum's 75th birthday on the Saturday of that weekend. She doesn't even realise it's her birthday when I tell her over the phone, but that's not a surprise anymore. I tell her several times that we can't come over because my wife is ill, but she simply forgets it a few minutes later. I wonder had dad is coping but he doesn't give anything away and the tone of his voice suggests he's doing OK for the time being. He's had good news in recent months relating to his hearth condition, but again that deserves it's own post.
Our home is quickly stocked up on calamine lotion, antihistamines, and gels and bath oils to ease the pain. It's amazing how much money you can spend on remedies. The spots are not itchy, but painful. Might it even be chicken pox? What if it's something else? What if she develops other complications?
Sleeping, eating and feeding our baby is difficult for my wife. We've gone so far as to use an old shirt of mine and cut out hole in front so our lad can latch on without being in contact (as much as possible) with the spots! We try to express on a couple of occasions but it's tiring work. At least our boy doesn't reject the bottle.
After a discussion with NHS 111 again (we've made use of the service several times already) we finally manage to get referred to the hospital. This causes its own problems - her face is swollen and throbbing from the spots and hardly wants to be out in public looking like that.
Even the visit to the hospital proves useless. We see someone over an hour after our allotted time and the guy doesn't pay much attention to her condition or the fact that her immune system is low and we have a 3 month old baby boy that she's breastfeeding. We're sent on our way - including that all important mention of calamine lotion again - and all she can do is wait it our and suffer.
At this stage, we're both at a low ebb. We're tired, stressed out and anxious. And as it's Sunday, I wasn't exactly looking forward to going to work. In fact, there is no way I could have done under the circumstances, so had to book holiday days in order to stay at home and help out. I spent most of the next days doing as much as I can around the home - cooking, cleaning, shopping, picking up prescriptions and keeping the house in order, which wouldn't be so bad if I weren't so anxious about having a sick wife and keeping an eye on the little guy. We get so far as having to cut up meals and feed her - at one point she could hardly hold a knife and fork on her own.
Thankfully, our little man appears unscathed so far. He hasn't been as agitated as we feared from the jabs, he hasn't had a temperature or fever and hasn't shown any signs of spots. But, lo and behold, at 3 months of age, he decides it's time that he rolls over onto his stomach on his own.
And so we reach worry number 3 - our baby boy is rolling onto his belly whenever we put him down, and is doing the same during the night.
This might sound like a positive milestone and it is a great thing to know our guy is able to do this already, but when you're trying hard to keep things together without breaking down completely, losing sleep over keeping an eye on a rolling baby in the cot is something we could do without!
This has meant that the last couple of nights have added to our anxiety. It's been a relief that the chicken pox has eased off and my wife is more mobile and able to sleep more comfortably, and without drenching the bed with sweat. Normally, we put our little guy on his back and he sleeps soundly. Now, we're having to keep tabs on him every now and then and have found him half-way up the cot and on his side or his belly. It's really too early for us to leave him to sleep like that. We have spoken to a health visitor who suggests that seeing as he's strong enough to roll over and move his arms and head, he should be OK. But, we're just not confident enough yet to leave him to sleep in that position.
In another week we hope to be able to look back on this and put it down to bad luck. Another thing my wife said was that she wondered what she had done to deserve it. We've been so lucky to have a beautiful, healthy boy but she's had to endure other hardships that are so unfair. Every time we think things are finally improving, something knocks us for 6. I guess this is all part and parcel of our own journey through parenthood, and just our luck.
No comments:
Post a Comment