Rowan Tree and Red Thread

Firstly, thanks to everyone for their sympathy and good wishes. Secondly, the stone passed, and I'm back home now, with a big stack of analgesics to handle any after effects. The pain subsided sometime in the midmorning.

I don't like pain, particularly not pain that takes away my ability to talk, makes me vomit, and consumes my every ounce of attention. I can dimly imagine how someone suffering from chronic pain feels and it's terrifying.

Liveblogging from the A&E room of the Mercy Hospital in Cork. I woke up
about an hour and a half ago with an excruciating pain in my lower back over
my left hip. Willpower and the fear of the pain getting worse got me into a
taxi and down the A&E.

I've had a kidney stone before and I suspected this is another one. Easy
diagnosis for a layman in the circumstances but that also means I have a
good idea how long this is going to take and how painful it can be. (Very
painful, in short).

I'm on a trolley in A&E now, calling down blessings on the medical staff and
the creators of Pethedine. More details as I get them.

And be nice to sammywol if you can. She's at home looking after
our daughter, Rowan, and fighting a bad cold on top of this new worry.

Without wanting to tempt fate, I'd like to say that we're all getting better at last. Not actually better, but getting there.

You know what really annoys me? When you've got a persistent case of diarrhoea so that you're popping to the toilet every hour or so throughout the night and the execrable toilet paper keeps tearing lengthwise rather than across.

I've checked. The stupid toilet paper isn't properly perforated. Each piece is only going to tear slightly less than half way before zipping off in a direction of its choosing, leaving me with a ragged mess.

Crap!

My daughter Rowan has got mouth ulcers. I don't know if she bit her tongue and it has subsequently become ulcerated, or if she had ulcers and started biting her swollen tongue, but for the last three days she's been plagued with it. She's having great difficulty eating. Anything she tries to eat eventually leads to her biting her tongue again, to howls and much upset. Her tongue is now pretty sore and swollen, and her gums seem in poor shape too. I took her to the doctor this morning and got a steroid cream that might help. Otherwise it's plenty of fluids, ice lollies and soft food.

Poor little mite.

I think I'm getting better. It's kinda hard to tell though, as my daughter was awake pretty much on the hour, every hour, last night between midnight and 8am. Shattered? I'd love to be only shattered.

sammywol dropped us both down to the GP on her way to teach this afternoon. The doctor was very sympathetic but confirmed what I suspected. There's nothing really to do for me but wait it out. Luckily it does seem to be fading now, in that, while my throat is beginning to flare up, the bouts of fever have stopped and I'm not so perishingly cold all the time. The doctor wasn't able to find anything wrong with my daughter though; she's had something infectious and misery-making on and off now for over a month. She was a star for him as usual. I think she likes getting a sticker or lollipop and behaves so as not to spoil her chances.

She was also delighted (and I was puzzled) by the pirate flag of skull & crossbones flying from a window opposite the doctor's surgery. Oliver Plunkett Street is a haven to pirates and scurvy sea-dogs it seems.

I stayed home from work today. Partly because I was feeling less than stellar and partly to look after my daughter who was awake intermittently with fever and a yen for handholding in the wee small hours. sammywol and I were interestingly porridge coloured this morning.

My fever seems to be under control more or less, with occasional spikes of elevated temperature and a feeling of fatigue. I'll see how I'm feeling in the morning before committing to a day at work.

And I was so sure that I'd managed somehow to avoid the lurgy that sammywol has been suffering with for the last fortnight. Sigh.

Just as Sam is recovering from a long bout of 'flu (about a fortnight or more wrung out) I came home today and started a fever and felt sleepy and clubbed. I went to bed around 5.30 and got up again at 6.45 feeling a bit shaky but not feverish. However in the meantime Rowan has come down with a high fever, in the region of 39.5-39.8 celsius. The poor little thing is feeling rotten, and is very sleepy.

This comes, of course, at a bad time as I'm supposed to be going to Dublin tomorrow evening for a half-day seminar on Wednesday morning. If I'm not well I can't go; if Rowan's not well I don't want to go. When will this bout of recurring infections p*ss off?

Today sammywol and I took our daughter to her first speech therapy class. sammywol posted about her mixed feelings this morning and I agreed with her assessment. Still, the class seemed to go swimmingly. Rowan was enthralled by the various group games the two speech therapist took the collection of kids and parents through. Rolling a ball, naming and removing parts from an increasingly nude and forlorn Mr Potatohead, singing songs ("Heads and Shoulders, Knees and Toes"), and a period of free play all featured, and she quickly joined in.

I'm not a speech therapist and can't really analyse Rowan's speech except to say she's greatly improved since she was first assessed. I think she was further along in her speech development than the other children (all boys, I note) and I do wonder if she's really in need of the therapy. I also worry that she's taking up a place that another kid could benefit more from than she will.

Still, I enjoyed Rowan's pleased grin when she leapt to her feet for the game of popping bubbles.

Well, the consultant showed up last night around 7.30 and gave Rowan leave to go home from the hospital. The various blood and urine tests hadn't shown up anything, her appetite was improving and he didn't think staying hospital was doing much for her. She's still fairly reluctant to drink enough but we're pestering her for little amounts often. I think the real improvement came yesterday afternoon when the doctor who had admitted her at 2am on Thursday morning, Dr. Eche, came around to have a check on her and said she needed some fresh air and "mobilization". That is, take her outside and work up an appetite. The man's a genius. Trotting about the grounds of the hospital, picking dandelions, placing bits of gravel in long rows and generally exploring the world seemed to perk Rowan up no end.

So we're all home again, and we're to watch Rowan's intake of fluids carefully. There's a slight question of mild anemia, which we can address with an iron supplement later. Apart from that we're none the wiser as to what was wrong with her or whether she's clear of it or likely to go through all this again. Until last Wednesday I would have said she was getting better.

Back in work today after a couple of days out sick with some viral GI infection. A classic 24 hour virus with lots of sitting down in the smallest room in the house. In my absence life continued. Funny that.