Monday, April 07, 2008
My Awful Weekend
7-APR-2008:
Friday afternoon, I received a call from the nursery telling me that Dominic had been throwing up. It was 2:30pm when the call came but I had work to do, so I picked him up at 5pm. Besides, I thought it was just another stomach flu like the one he had last time. No big deal, he only threw up after he ate something and he got better on his own.
It was later in the evening that I realized it was more serious than before. This time he threw up even though he just took in plain water. He went to bed early on Friday night and woke up at 12:30am feeling very thirsty. He downed three bottles of ribena and threw up about 4 times between 12:30am and 2:30am. I put a bucket in his room and he went to the bucket everytime he wanted to throw up. He finally settled down at 2:30am and I decided to sleep with him in his room. At 3:30am, he threw up in his sleep all over his pillow and the carpet (we were sleeping on the floor that night). At 6am, he woke up again, had some water and threw up again. It was the longest night I could remember. At 8am, I woke daddy up so that I could have a rest instead.
Throughout Saturday, Dominic continued to vomit although less frequently. And today, I finally have something good to say about the NHS here. :-) Daddy rang the NHS Direct helpline and spoke to someone - I don't know probably a nurse or someone. He asked all sorts of questions - was Dominic drinking fluid, passing urine, was he responding, did he have rashes on the body, did he seem to dislike bright lights, etc, etc. Then about half an hour later the nurse contacted a doctor and the doctor called back - asking about the same questions. Then he said "bring him in now, I've booked an appointment for you" and he gave instructions to the hospital which was only 15 minutes walk from our home.
We went to the A & E department at the hospital and were seen immediately. It was amazing. We just walked up to the reception counter and gave Dominic's name and then the receptionist led us in to the doctor's room. We didn't even have to wait half a minute. I can imagine what would happen if we were in Malaysia. We would go to the paediatrician and wait for at least an hour, or we would go the next morning, really early but would still have to wait for 30 minutes at least.
The doctor at the A & E looked at Dominic and he was fine. No dehydration, nothing serious, no medication or treatment required.
Dominic didn't eat anything for 44 hours until finally at 4am on Sunday he woke up and asked for milk.
The worst part of the weekend was that Dominic was extremely whiny and he did nothing except sleep and cry. If he wasn't sleeping, he would be whining and calling "muuummmeeee ... muuummmeeee ....". I was like ... damn it, can you please stop that? It was so irritating. He would do that even though I was next to him and holding him. And he wouldn't let me go 1 foot away from him. He wanted me to carry him but I got scolded by daddy a few times for doing that (because I'm pregnant you see and not supposed to lift heavy things). How can you expect not to carry your toddler? He expects it. I could feel that Dominic was terrified when we told him that there's a baby inside mummy's stomach and mummy can't carry him anymore. I could feel that he was afraid that mummy won't love him anymore. This morning, he woke up again all whiny and tearful. Finally, when daddy wasn't looking I whispered in Dominic's ear "Mummy pao-pao ... don't let daddy know ... ". And I lifted him up for less than a minute. He stopped whining after that and waved me goodbye as daddy sent him to the nursery.
