That was due to be our last appointment for a few weeks, til we go to Leeds on 7th February. However we had an unscheduled hospital trip last Monday as Erin had been exposed to Chicken pox the following week. Erin's best friend Kate came down with the horrid pox on Sunday and the girls had been together on the previous Thursday at playgroup, they are very sweet and always cuddling each other so exposure was quite likely. We rang Yorkhill and they wanted her to get a protective Immunoglobulin injection (Vzig). Against my better judgement we agreed for Yorkhill to arrange for us to go to our local hospital in Wishaw as it was supposed to be a straightforawrd walk in, small blood draw, jag, and leave. I couldn't quite face the drive all the way to Glasgow again in rush hour traffic and it meant Jamie could come from his work which is a short drive away.
Why did I think it was going to be that simple?? They had been told by Yorkhill how difficult she is to bleed (they wanted a blood sample to see if she was already immune to chicken pox, erm I think we would have noticed....) but they sent a junior doctor. She was unsurprisingly unsuccessful. It took about half an hour to get a registrar down and even longer for her to get the right bottles etc so Erin was very distressed by then. Then we were told we had to wait on the results of her blood test before getting the jag, not what Yorkhill had arranged, because a mircobiologist in their lab didn't think she was vulnerable enough to need the jag without proof of no immunity according to their protocol.....We told the reg all about her recent neutropenia, how she has been in isolation for 4 months and spent her first 7 months pretty much in hospital but the microbiologist had to be obeyed. An hour later the results came back and showed she had no immunity to the pox, surprise, surprise but then they had to order the jag from pharmacy which took a couple of hours. Erin was getting hungry and I hadn't brought her lunch as we expected to be in and away so I asked if she could get something to eat, toast or anything would have done. You would have thought I'd asked for the nurses own blood by her facial reaction, the response was ''why does she need to eat? is she diabetic or something?''......Erm no but she is a small toddler who hasn't eaten since 7am and its now 1pm....this was in the paediatric ward by the way. Eventually they said they would order her something up. The staff barely spoke to Erin the entire time we were there and there wasn't a toy in sight. Eventually the jag arrived, it was a horribly large amount of fluid to be injected and very painful for Erin, I really hope she doesn't have to get many more of them in the future. We left as quickly as we could, we were there for nearly 4 hours for something that should have taken 30 minutes. I hate hospitals, can you tell? Next time I'll drive to Glasgow. Oh and no food ever arrived for her.
So were are on 'pox watch' as she may still come down with the virus as the incubation period is 21 days, this takes us up to the 9th of February and we are due to go to Leeds before then so I'm waiting to hear if we might have to postpone the appointments there. Not ideal as Jamie has taken time off work and we've paid for a hotel but I would hate to take her down there to a ward with other sick children if she was possibly infectious.
The poor mite has had a nasty cold this week as well so it's been a quiet week in the house. She has used this time at home to perfect a new skill where she spins round and round on the spot until she falls over with dizziness, she definetly gets that from Jamie's side of the family ; ) She is obsessed with books and I am forced to read the same one (Peace at Last) at least a hundred times a day, sometimes it gets 'lost' under a cushion or somewhere.... She is also mastering the art of walking backwards around the house and lots of other general mischief. We are so lucky, she is a great big bundle of fun and keeps me laughing all day long.
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| Still smiling |
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