There is a jinxed spirit we shall be praying for today.*checks again for holy water*. This annoying spirit has been making unwelcome visits to my house and forcing its shameless charisma on my family, particularly my daughter. I have been watching, hawk-eyed at its appropriateness in picking on a few months to her birthday. Damn it.
Last year it planted microbes into something she ate. She was barely 9 and ½ months old and my little girl nearly did a night shift in hospital.
Tear drop.*pulls out creased handkerchief and blows nose*
This particular sunup she woke me up at 6am…let me rephrase; I was woken up by a splatter of puke. Baby was choking on it so I immediately sat her straight and she generously puked some more on her daddy, who was startled awake too. I thought she had eaten too much.
My phone rang.
It was mom, ‘Your father is really sick.’ She stuttered, ‘His nose-bleed won’t stop. He is too weak now. Please call you mom-law to drive us there! We need to take him to hospital now!’ I didn’t think twice, I left my baby with the house help and instructed her to let me know if she continued to puke. I then woke up my other mom and we left. My husband left for work as usual. I was then a stay at home mom.
Dad wouldn’t wait. It was too much already. So he took his car and left for a nearby medical centre. He drove with one hand while the other held mom’s shawl over his nose. He had been bleeding for three days and assumed it was minor. Mom was very helpful. She watched the road as he drove and compressed her urge to cry, all the way to the centre. That’s where we caught up with them.
It was high blood pressure. They said a vein was broken up his nose and to reduce the bleeding they shoved a cotton pad with some medication up his nose. Yikes *cringes*
Back home, my little girl was getting worse. She had added diarrhoea to her activity list and couldn’t keep anything down. I was devastated. I definitely had to take her to hospital. Just as I placed water to boil, mom called again.
‘Dad is worse, we need to go back to hospital’
‘No problem,’ I quipped, ‘I’ll just dress Baby Pesh very fast and we go’
‘Hun, we can’t wait. We need to go now’
Notice, mother didn’t know why I was tagging Pesh along. I left instructions once more and called my husband, then headed out, tagging mom-in law with me. This time we went to a bigger hospital. Jamaa Mission was closest.
There Dad was taken care of well. He collapsed when the Cotton pad that had been stuffed up his nose was removed and mom thought he died. She ran out screaming.
I followed her outside and tried to calm her down. She trembled like a little girl and I could see so much pain in every tear drop. ‘I think he is dead, hun, I saw him fall’ She said as fear engrossed her. Mom in law soon joined us and I left mom with her to see if he was truly dead. My knees felt numb with each step I made as I made my way back into the emergency room. There he was. He lay weakly on the bed, his eyes open and looking all confused.
‘Dad,’ I called as I sat next to him, ‘What happened?’ he didn’t see mom take off. ‘ she is outside.’
‘She was right here’ he explained, ‘Then I felt weak and my head was heavy. Then it went dark’ the doctor walked in.
‘Is he going to be alright?’ I was concerned. He smiled warmly and my heart eased, ‘Yes. He fell because he had less oxygen in his brain when we removed the cotton pad. See his pressure is normal now. He sweated it all out’
I touched Dad’s forehead with the back of my hand. He felt damp. ‘I’ll bring mom in now, ok?’ he nodded.
Outside I met Pesh’s Daddy. He had come over so we could take my little girl to hospital. He took mom to dad and said hi, then explained that we had to take Pesh for check up too. That was when it hit my mom that my girl was unwell- after she had calmed down.
We left my two moms with dad and left to pick Pesh. She was now dehydrated and couldn’t keep anything down, not even breast milk. We went to Mater hospital Buru buru.
It was noon and I had had nothing to eat.
At the hospital Pesh got tested for everything in the book and finally the test results came out. Bacterial infection.
‘I’m afraid we must admit her’ I was advised. ‘Why?’ I probed. ‘She vomits everything and is severely dehydrated. She won’t keep any medicine we give her down too.’ The doctor was a lady. An irritating beautiful lady who wore 6 inch heels and multi-coloured weave that hid one eye. She kept pushing the weave away as she snobbishly and unconvincingly explained why we had to do the night shift.
The conversation slowly turned into an argument when I declined admission and asked that they do everything they can. ‘If we can stop her vomiting then I believe I will do everything to get her to eat’ I argued.
It then turned out that there was no medication for kids below 1 year of age which meant that she still would have to do the night shift. I was getting angry and my baby needed help. Our pockets were already inflated and the ‘F’ing doctor was getting on my nerves.
After several wails and failed attempts to get baby’s right vein, she was put on IUV as the doctor left me to decide on the admission of baby.
I stood my ground.
The IUV was finally over at 8pm.
My father had been discharged and was home already. Mom, mom in-law, my sister and sister in-law came over to the hospital.
I was still very hungry and I sipped some milk I had bought for my girl. She got better after the re-hydration and stopped puking. I told the snob doctor I would not leave my girl with her as her reasoning was not valid. Then I was made to sign a form that shamelessly stated that I rejected medication. I was not moved. Suddenly medication for one year olds reappeared miraculously.
To be continued………
