Can I come and rant too? Bet mine's the longest rant of them all.
Please don't feel obliged to read it all as its very long, but I'm sure it will feel better to let it all out.
My 20 month old daughter fell and fractured her wrist on Tuesday - cue emergency dash to local A&E involving calling my Mum to sit for my two boys and dh and I missing ds2 parents' information meeting. Waited at A&E for hours where she started using her arm to play, so they sent us home.
She obviously wasn't right, couldn't put any weight on her arm, climb on the sofa etc. But they said probably soft tissue damage, so dosed her up with calpol and sent her home. (This is the same A&E that missed my fractured foot 11 weeks ago!)
Next day, ds2 announced that he was too full to eat - even when he was offered some sweets. Alarm bells rang at that point. Then after he hadn't eaten his tea, he went to get his pjs on we discovered he had a huge distended, rock solid abdomen (think 9 months pregnant
) which was painful to touch. He had just got over what a vomiting virus. Called the out of hours GP who said I was right to call, as he had lots of the warning signs for appendicitis, so to bring him straight down to the emergency doc - at the same hospital as last night!
Another emergency call to Mum to babysit, followed by a dash to the hospital and a long wait. Fortunately it turned out not to be appendicitis, unfortunately it was an impacted bowel caused by the vomiting and not eating for three days.
Oh - and we missed our first ever support group meeting for ds1's SN because we were at the hospital.
Next day, dd was obviously still in pain and not right, so called GP for advice and was told to take her to the city hospital to Paediatric A&E. Cue most of the day spent there with her using her arm and not showing a problem, but screaming the place down every time a doctor or nurse came within 6 feet of her.
They finally decided to xray and found she had a buckle fracture of the wrist that had slightly splintered. They put on a backslab/temporary plaster and arranged for her to come back to fracture clinic the next day to have it assessed by a paed consultant and be fitted with a fibreglass cast.
Left hospital to find several missed calls from the boys' school on my mobile. Then my phone rang again and it was the school. Ds1 had apparently been really poorly all afternoon, his teacher was very concerned about him and they hadn't been able to reach me, could I come and fetch him straight away? By now it was 2.30 pm, it would take half an hour to get to them and he comes out at 3.15 anyway.
Dashed to the school, arriving at 2.55, only to find ds1 seemingly perfectly well and happy.
Fortunately they let me pick ds2 up at the same time to save going back again 20 minutes later. Got home to discover a very cross dh had also been called to come out of work, when they couldn't reach me - this had caused a row with his boss!
We were convinced he was fine, put his bad stomach down to him eating gluten the night before, but the school insisted he stay off for 48 hrs, so that meant he would have to come with me to the fracture clinic the next morning.
As Mum drove me to the fracture clinic next morning (oh yes - I don't drive so have had to beg lifts and babysitters all week) ds1 started to look greener and greener in the back of the car, then started to say he felt really hot and sweaty. Raced into the carpark at the hospital, quickly got him out of the car and he was sick - lots. Couldn't take him into the hospital, so Mum had to sit on a bench with him and try to call dh, while I took dd to the fracture clinic. Fortunately the appointment was swift and easy so we were in and out in less than an hour. Dh hadn't left work by then so we just loaded ds1 back into the car, drove home and put him to bed.
THEN Saturday morning, dd got into our bed with us, rolled over and took her arm out of her cast! Called Mum to have the boys, but she was half way up the motorway to visit my GPs. Fortunately she turned around and came back and we were able to drop the boys with her while we went back to Paed A&E at the city hospital, where they put on a new backslab cast (above the elbow this time to stop her escaping from it). I now have to call the fracture clinic on Monday to arrange to take her back and have another fibreglass cast put on.
Fastforward to Saturday night - ds1, who had been absolutely fine since being sick at the hospital on Friday morning, was so sick everywhere in the middle of the night that we had to condemn his duvet, duvet cover, pillow and pillow case. Then first thing in the morning he had diarrhea all through his pjs (he is 8 and was understandably devastated/traumatised by this).
On top of that, dd hasn't slept properly since she broke her wrist, so I have hardly had a wink of sleep and then this morning one of the dogs came down with a severe ear infection!
What a week! Praying next week will be better - but then again that wouldn't be very hard would it?