Just had a week from hell. 19-month daughter admitted into obs on Monday with high temps, vomiting and diarohea. She had a chest x-ray and after an exhausting six hours where she got better, we were prescribed amoxilian. The nurses who was speaking on behalf of the dr (well we assumed she was..) said our dd couldn't take the prescription until we got a urine sample. 'We need to confirm whether the infection is bacterial or viral' - if it was viral then she wouldn't be able to take them.
So, next morning I spent 2 1/2 hours with her waiting for her to pee. She doesn't like to do anything out of her nappies and usually gets very upset if she has an accident, so she kept it all in for as long as possible. Finally, when it finally came out, I needed someone to check her nether regions as it was looking sore. Reluctant to spend another six hours at the hospital, we phoned them up and they said that we could see the local gp and drop the urine sample off there. So that's what we did. We saw the doctor and I showed him the prescription and he was concerned that she was prescribed a very high dosage. 'Strong for an adult let alone a baby' were his words I think. I consulted my partner and we agreed to wait for the results to come through as we thought that paederitians were more qualified.
Anyway, Thursday came and I had a call from the hospital. They wanted me to come in. As I am a little hard of hearing, I thought that they had the results of the test and wanted to check her over. No apparently, they wanted another urine sample. Getting pretty pissed I asked them if they had the sample that I sent via the GP. They did, but they need another one. So, on my own, I waited five hours for her to pee.
It was exhausting. No doctor came to examine her. We were probaby taking up valuable bed space. She was obviously much better than she was, but she still had a bit of diarohea and could have infected other children.
Anyway, I got back home a wreck. The next day we had a wedding to go to and I hadn't been able to go to any of the hair and beauty appointments for that day. I hadn't been able to tidy up and prepare and dd was very irritable and confused with the complete lack of structure.
She wasn't herself the next day and we had to leave early which was fine. But I got a scall from the GP later that afternoon telling me that results of the 1st test revealed an infection, but 'nothing to worry about'.
So all that time we spent in that poxy observation room at hosptial on Thursday was a complete and utter waste of time. I have a feeling that they wanted to err on the side of caution so much, that other common sense factors just didn't come into it.
Sorry for this long and winding email...does feel good to get it off my chest.