Hi everyone, I'm back!
WARNING LONG POST!
Have quickly scanned list for new arrivals and wanted to say congratulations to looweeza , cheswife and jokat.
No new arrivals here. The reason for my sharp exit was that DS2 was rushed into hospital on Saturday morning last week with a temp of over 40 degrees.
I have been with him in an isolation room every since and we were finally discharged late yesterday.
He has had severe pneumonia which wouldn't respond to the antibiotics. I've been so beside myself with worry I haven't even thought about being pregnant practically the whole time.
Hospital was traumatic anyway but several serious mistakes were made with his care which resulted in not only both him and me being traumatised but also a probable formal complaint. We have already had to put in an informal complaint via patient liaison while we were there.
They finally changed him from super high dose iv antibiotics to 2 separate high doses of different iv antibiotics on Thursday and that's when he started to improve. The antibiotics made him have the worst diarrhea I have ever seen in my life and he didn't eat a thing for over a week. In the end I had to try everything in my power to persuade him to eat anything at all or they were threatening to tube feed him.
He is just skin and bone now, back in age 2-3 clothes despite being a chunky aged 4-5 just 2 weeks ago. He is also very weak and can't walk more than a couple of steps unaided.
Neither of us had any rest, his treatment with obs and iv etc resulted in us being woken every 2 hrs through the night and that was if we could get to sleep with all the noise on the ward.
I had to sleep on the worst z-bed in the world, literally no padding over the springs, just a plastic cover, 1 sheet and 2 very flat pillows! Luckily I coped because I was so focussed on DS I just carried on through the hip and pelvic pain.
First night we were in the boy in the next room died, which was really traumatic, with mum wailing and screaming for hours afterwards at his bedside. On the last night a little toddler went into full arrest in the middle of the night and all hell broke loose followed by a screaming mum demanding she be transferred immediately and telling them she is putting in a formal complaint.
One of the worst things personally, is that the trauma has changed DS2 from a happy, cheeky little monkey into a scared little boy who screams at the mention of the word doctor or nurse, can't sleep on his own, has terrible nightmares reliving some of the procedures they did and reacts to everything he doesn't like (including having to eat) by screaming kicking and fighting.
He is home now though. The thought of putting up the christmas tree kept him going so we did it last night when we got home. He is tucked up on the sofa watching telly and is definitely much happier than he was, although I think it will be a long time until he is anything approaching normal again.
Had lots of problems with DS1 who I spoke to before school and bed every day. He tried to tell me he had a broken leg and so couldn't go to school and would have to come to hospital as well. Fortunately it was nativity week (never did need the sheep costume) which distracted him to a certain extent and I managed to escape for two hours on Friday afternoon to go and see him narrate.
Bubs is still breech. Had to cancel my consultant appointment, but not been able to try 'spinning' her yet. Am very keen to try though and will spend as much time as possible assuming the position this week.
Well must go, just persuaded DS2 to eat a pancake for breakfast and so far so good it seems to be going down.
Once again, congratulations to all the new mums.
Hope everyone else is doing well. x