Unusual week

Forgive me for taking a half-term holiday.

We had a bit of a scare with Mathew. Nothing to worry about now, and nothing too serious, but our GP was involved and we had a little trip to the hospital, just to be sure.

My hat goes off to anyone involved in the medical care of infants. How the Hell do you begin to work out what’s wrong with them? Their bodies are so tiny and everything is so close together. Where do you start?

We knew something was wrong but we didn’t have a clue what it might be. He was very hot and very wriggly, and he wasn’t feeding, but beyond that we were lost. Turned out to be a little virus, so he was given some antibiotics and ‘observed’ for 24 hours and that was it. “Be on your way and forget it ever happened” and they move on to their next case.

This all happened last weekend and I must confess I’ve not slept well since. The relief of having him home and happier gave way to a worry that maybe it would all come roaring back again once the drugs wore off. I know nothing about medicine and illness, but that didn’t stop me expecting the worse. I kept checking on him, putting my hand on his head to check his temperature and trying to monitor his breathing. Any time he snored a little, or rolled over, I would leap to attention in case he was about to have a cardiac arrest or something.

But, of course, nothing happened. He’s fine.

I’m really hoping that parenthood gets less stressful as they get older……….

RC 23-2-19