hospitals etc

Worn out today.
I ended up with a mad dash up to hospital last night for Charlotte, nothing serious. This is a bit of the story, written 17/7.....

Last night from about 2am, Charlotte was pretty unsettled. I went in to her 3 times, she settled easily, but by 5 am she was in our bed. I am kicking myself now, but I didn't think to change her nappy until I took her in to our bed at 5am. Usually she sleeps 13 hours straight.....Anyway, being dark at 5am I just changed her in bed and tried to get her back to sleep with no luck. She was unsettled, but not upset. Ended up breastfeeding her at 6:30 and we were all up before 7. She had a shower with DH and then when I went to put a nappy on to go to childcare I noticed a big welty rash, probably 10x5cm on her inner thigh. Bugger it looked sore. The only nappy cream I had in the house was Paw Paw lotion, so sent that along with her to childcare.I picked her up at 5pm and stripped off her nappy when we got home, and..........


that is what I was faced with!




Thank goodness we live in a smallish town and they haven't got rid of our ED (Yet!) so we got to see a doctor within half an hour.She was screaming hysterically when we left home, but of course was happy as larry at the hospital But the doctor said he reckons it is impetigo (staph) He took a swab (OMG, I can not believe how much fluid came out!) to confirm and started her on antibiotics.
Well, I only managed to get about 1ml of the 3ml dose in to her........Panadol for her pain and a gauze pad for protection. I have decided against putting anything on it tonight. I am breastfeeding her now, so hopefully she will sleep better. The doctor drew in pen a huge mark around the outside of the redness and tomorrow, first thing, I will go see our GP and depending on whether the redness has spread we will see what happens.I just cannot believe had bad it got in such a short time.I agree that it looked like a burn/blister - either from friction and/or ammonia, but the fluid that came out was yellow, so I guess that points to staph.


She totally zonked when I was breastfeeding her, and then woke about 40 minutes later, so I got her up again and fiddled with her dressing and nappy a little bit and breastfed her again. She has been asleep since, so I will be heading to bed now in case it doesn't last.

That was last night. This is today.

Well, she slept all night last night. I only heard a tiny peep out of her at 4am, I then lay awake until 6am listening for her When she stirred at 6:15 I went in and took her nappy off and she climbed in to bed with us. It was still pretty blistery, but by the time she had breakfast and a shower all the blisters had popped. I got in to see our GP at 9am, and she said to leave it 24 hours before torturing her with more antibiotics, as it had improved a lot since last night. I am just waiting for a photo to upload, but in the photo you can very faintly see the blue pen mark that the ED Dr drew on there last night, and it has quite obviously come down a lot from then. Betadine paint for the infection and a barrier cream for protection, lots of no nappy time and we should be right, I think.Here is the photo. Pretty gross looking.
She is quite happy, probably due a nice big nap today.

Phew. I always think about it so much when this sort of thing happens, and can only begin to imagine what it would be like if it was ever anything worse with my babies. We have been so lucky over the years. The worst would have had to have been when Ella broke her arm in March, but even that wasn't an emergency situation, as we didn't get it looked at until the next day :( Besides that we have really only had ear infections and chicken pox and tonsilitis. Pretty good run really.

Oh, and what is it with kids and doctors rooms? Both last night and today I just had wild, wild desperado children zooming around. They just get hit with the hyper-stick, it is unreal (and annoying!!) to watch.

My first blog

Okay. Let's see how I go with this.
My main aim of this blog was to have somewhere to write about stuff that is going on in our family as a way of keeping my brother and his wife (Adam and Eva) in touch with our lives, as in a month they are heading overseas for 2 years. :( We will miss them dearly, and at least this way they can access it whenever it suits the, photos and all.

Today was a blustery Winter day and I took Ella and Charlotte for a walk down the street. Charlotte snugged up in the pram and Ella on her bike. I am immensely proud of how well Ella is cycling now. She has training wheels on still, and I imagine she will for a fair while yet, but she is getting so strong in her legs that I very rarely have to give her a boost up a ramp or hill.

She looks very cute trundling along in her Barbie helmet, ankle length skirt and Mary Jane shoes. Being a Sunday the street was nice and empty - no sandwich boards, nor racks of merchandise to get in our way, so we could just chat as we walked/rode down the street. We had some lovely smiles and encouraging words from various people as we rode past, from teenagers to mums to seniors. It's an interesting slant on human nature though, the fact that we also had a few 'almost negative' comments, such as "Better you than me" or "Gosh, your game" or "Probably seemed like a good idea at the time, hey?" All said in good humour etc, but it's a shame that it seems to be easier for people to talk 'down' stuff instead of talking it up.
Oh well, their issue.

Raff and Ella are outside gardening at the moment, Charlotte is asleep, minimal housework awaiting me. This truly is the life.

May as well attempt to add in a photo while I am here.
This is Ella on a sunny day earlier this week. Too cute, hey? And Carlotte with the sunnies.
I think that has worked.

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