It's very bad to go to bed in a down-mouth mood. I need something inane, random and very damn silly to sleep on...
Dramatic Chipmunk. 5 seconds that never fails me...
Sunday 19 July 2009
Swine flu without the flu
Today has not gone well. I found myself once again in A and E, this time with my 4 year old. He currently holds the family record for The Fewest Trips To Hospital (the 3 year old vies with R for first place, pitting some heavy-duty febrile convulsions against his colourful array of rugby injuries) but today necessitated a visit. Yesterday, he had been jousting on the spare bed with a friend and had fallen from his horse, right on to the floor via the radiator. With a wallop. There then followed a night of all the things you are supposed to watch out for after a blow to the head. So ...skipping forward...there we end up. When we arrive in the car park, he is grey and not wanting to walk, and I have that momentary cold-squeeze of parental horror that something could actually be very amiss indeed.
I walk in carrying my yellow-faced, feverish, vomiting boy and I am met by an oh-so-young nurse. I am overly polite and apologetic for disturbing their day by bringing a live child to the A and E and I can't help it - it is the English in me. She is accusing and wants to know why on earth I am here. I tell her I was worried about the possibility of concussion as he had been listless and floppy and complaining of "fuzzy eyes" and "nasty head". "Does he have a headache?" she demands. I say yes, because he banged it - hard. Does he have fever? Yes. Vomiting? Yes.
Young nurse turns to the desk and shrieks "That's four boxes ticked! Swine flu masks!". We are immediately rugby-tackled into a far-flung cubicle and the curtains pulled resolutely shut. They open an inch a second later for two masks to be thrown in. Then shut again. Then open a slit. Young nurse's eye peers at me from the other side. "I might say, "she begins, lecturing to the Idiot "if you thought he had swine flu, why you decided it was a good idea to bring him in here". She tuts and flounces off.
Hmm. Well, I didn't think he had swine flu. I thought he may have a bug, because everyone else seems to have one, and I thought he might have light concussion. And because he was delirious and vomiting and complaining of blurred vision, I thought, and NHS Direct thought, that A and E might be a good place to drop by.
Thanks to my 3 year old, I am very familiar with our paediatric A and E department, and have visited them, unannounced, on many occasion, often in my pyjamas and usually with a child who has become stubborn about breathing. They have always been welcoming and efficient and very good at persuading said child that breathing is good.
But today, they did not want us.
"Gosh," says an older, braver nurse, who's come to do his obs. "He doesn't look well at all."
"Erm, no" I say and we all peer at each other over our masks.
After a few hours and some anti-viral drugs, some rehydration salts and some pain relief, my 4 year old, and I, are returning to normal. So the lovely, kind and patient doctor comes to discharge us.
"I THINK", she says "he has concussion from the bang to the head AND some kind of bug, which you say has been round your friends and his sister." She pauses uncomfortably. "My problem IS that these two things together means he ticks four of the boxes on the Swine Flu Symptom list. So I have to ask you if you want me to prescribe Tamiflu."
I ask if she thinks he has swine flu. She says no, but has no way of telling for sure, because they are not allowed to test for it any more. SO it's probably just a bug? Yes. Like they get off each other all the time? Yes. And concussion? Probably. So why are we talking about swine flu, I ask? "Because", she explains "we have a checklist and if four or more symptoms are ticked off, that's what we have to say it is."
I'm not sure I get this. By this rationale, I think I, and rather a few of my friends, have had swine flu nearly every Saturday morning in memory. R must have swine flu with his meningitis. The children bring it back from nursery on a termly basis. It doesn't add up. Swine flu seems a vicious and potentially dangerous virus, as many strains of flu can apparently be for those at higher risk. But they are saying, our papers, in exaggerated horror, things like "a third of the population could get it!" Well, by what I've seen today, I'm sure they could. Is it any wonder that swine flu is reaching its pandemic proportions, if this is how diagnoses are made and how the statistics are formed? Or is it just round here they are doing it thus?
In any case, I am convinced that sweating pig death, as R likes to call it, has not knocked here. I told the doctor it seemed odd to prescribe him drugs for something she did not feel he had, and she agreed with me with tangible relief. After a few hours, we could go home.
But that nurse.
I know nurses do a wonderful job on very little and I usually cannot fault them at all. And I am not confrontational by nature - far the opposite. But today my gander was up about being spoken to like an uncomprehending nitwit in front of my little boy.
"Excuse me, "I say. She glares. "I didn't think he had swine flu. I thought he had concussion and a bug. And the doctor agrees with me. YOU said swine flu. NOT me."
It was no witty riposte. And I couldn't bring myself to tut-n- flounce either. But I felt as though my honour had been slightly defended. For me, that was a big step and I initially felt pleased...BUT.... but now I think the poor girl had probably just been up all night...
Anyway. And so to bed. I have had enough today.
I walk in carrying my yellow-faced, feverish, vomiting boy and I am met by an oh-so-young nurse. I am overly polite and apologetic for disturbing their day by bringing a live child to the A and E and I can't help it - it is the English in me. She is accusing and wants to know why on earth I am here. I tell her I was worried about the possibility of concussion as he had been listless and floppy and complaining of "fuzzy eyes" and "nasty head". "Does he have a headache?" she demands. I say yes, because he banged it - hard. Does he have fever? Yes. Vomiting? Yes.
Young nurse turns to the desk and shrieks "That's four boxes ticked! Swine flu masks!". We are immediately rugby-tackled into a far-flung cubicle and the curtains pulled resolutely shut. They open an inch a second later for two masks to be thrown in. Then shut again. Then open a slit. Young nurse's eye peers at me from the other side. "I might say, "she begins, lecturing to the Idiot "if you thought he had swine flu, why you decided it was a good idea to bring him in here". She tuts and flounces off.
Hmm. Well, I didn't think he had swine flu. I thought he may have a bug, because everyone else seems to have one, and I thought he might have light concussion. And because he was delirious and vomiting and complaining of blurred vision, I thought, and NHS Direct thought, that A and E might be a good place to drop by.
Thanks to my 3 year old, I am very familiar with our paediatric A and E department, and have visited them, unannounced, on many occasion, often in my pyjamas and usually with a child who has become stubborn about breathing. They have always been welcoming and efficient and very good at persuading said child that breathing is good.
But today, they did not want us.
"Gosh," says an older, braver nurse, who's come to do his obs. "He doesn't look well at all."
"Erm, no" I say and we all peer at each other over our masks.
After a few hours and some anti-viral drugs, some rehydration salts and some pain relief, my 4 year old, and I, are returning to normal. So the lovely, kind and patient doctor comes to discharge us.
"I THINK", she says "he has concussion from the bang to the head AND some kind of bug, which you say has been round your friends and his sister." She pauses uncomfortably. "My problem IS that these two things together means he ticks four of the boxes on the Swine Flu Symptom list. So I have to ask you if you want me to prescribe Tamiflu."
I ask if she thinks he has swine flu. She says no, but has no way of telling for sure, because they are not allowed to test for it any more. SO it's probably just a bug? Yes. Like they get off each other all the time? Yes. And concussion? Probably. So why are we talking about swine flu, I ask? "Because", she explains "we have a checklist and if four or more symptoms are ticked off, that's what we have to say it is."
I'm not sure I get this. By this rationale, I think I, and rather a few of my friends, have had swine flu nearly every Saturday morning in memory. R must have swine flu with his meningitis. The children bring it back from nursery on a termly basis. It doesn't add up. Swine flu seems a vicious and potentially dangerous virus, as many strains of flu can apparently be for those at higher risk. But they are saying, our papers, in exaggerated horror, things like "a third of the population could get it!" Well, by what I've seen today, I'm sure they could. Is it any wonder that swine flu is reaching its pandemic proportions, if this is how diagnoses are made and how the statistics are formed? Or is it just round here they are doing it thus?
In any case, I am convinced that sweating pig death, as R likes to call it, has not knocked here. I told the doctor it seemed odd to prescribe him drugs for something she did not feel he had, and she agreed with me with tangible relief. After a few hours, we could go home.
But that nurse.
I know nurses do a wonderful job on very little and I usually cannot fault them at all. And I am not confrontational by nature - far the opposite. But today my gander was up about being spoken to like an uncomprehending nitwit in front of my little boy.
"Excuse me, "I say. She glares. "I didn't think he had swine flu. I thought he had concussion and a bug. And the doctor agrees with me. YOU said swine flu. NOT me."
It was no witty riposte. And I couldn't bring myself to tut-n- flounce either. But I felt as though my honour had been slightly defended. For me, that was a big step and I initially felt pleased...BUT.... but now I think the poor girl had probably just been up all night...
Anyway. And so to bed. I have had enough today.
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