Not quite the day I had planned

This week things took a little turn for the unexpected.

We had Nanna Freddy & Poppy Mick staying with us when Ol developed a bit of a cold.

Being the meanie mum I wasn't really falling for his big forced cough and his claims of "I'm siiiiiiiiiick!".  It was only on Tuesday morning when he ran up the hallway and started wheezing that I finally agreed to let him off the hook from going to swimming.

When Eve and I came home from our swimming lessons (and a lovely coffee with a good friend) it became apparent that poor old Ol wasn't in a particularly good way.  Plans for a shopping day were shelved.  Doctor's appointments were made instead.

Ol and I left Eve at home with Nanna Freddy and pottered up to the doctor where I fully expected to be either told that he was fine or to be given a script for the obligatory course of antibiotics.

Not so...

After waiting the standard forty minutes or so we were ushered into the doctor who listened to Ollie's chest and then declared "I'm sending him to hospital.  I'll call an ambulance now".  WHAT????????  I honestly got the shock of my life when she said that.  She explained that little people's airway's can collapse very quickly so they didn't mess around with them.  Oooooooookay.

We hung out in the treatment room while Ol had a nebuliser of ventolin to wait for the ambulance.  At this point he was kicking his feet with excitement at the prospect of a ride in an ambulance.  On the other hand I was calling Nick at work in (somewhat suppressed, but not that well) tears trying to explain that we were going to hospital and where to find the car that I had parked nearby. I am just so utterly thankful that Mum was here as normally I would have both kids at the doctor and therefore I would have to have let Ol go alone in the ambulance while I drove Eve and I in the car.  Definitely not my preference.

Anyway, ambulance arrived.  Ol thought it was awesome.  He got to lay on a stretcher in the back beside his new pal Winston while I sat behind him on a chair.  At some point Winstom explained that Ol's little eye had turned out a bit.  Apparently this is quite common when little kids are sick.  He then made an "oh" noise and unbuckled his seatbelt to lean over to Ol.  Naturally I expected that something terribly had happened and he was needing to render medical assistance.  Um, no.  Turns out Ol had sneezed and massive disgusting boogers were dripping onto him.  DIS-gust-ing.  Even as a mother! But such a relief that that was the traumatic part of the trip.

Since Nick is constantly a finalist in the father of the year awards, he was waiting for us as we arrived at the Mater.  He would have been relieved to see that Ol was in super fine spirits and having the time of his life.  Thanks to the arrival by ambulance we were promptly shown to a treatment room rather than having to wait for way too long with the already full waiting room.

At this point Ol started to point out that he was overdue for lunch.  In fact he had already voiced this in the ambulance as we drove past McDonalds's.  He didn't so much ask the driver to swing by the drive thru, but I could read his mind!!!

The next few hours are a bit of a blur of boredom and trauma all rolled into one.  The doctors decided to try Ollie with a few rapid doses of ventolin in a row and then to see how long he could stretch out without needing it again.  The aim was a few hours but after only one hour his breathing was laboured again and his poor little tummy could be seen to be working overtime to breathe.  His desire for food and television didn't die down in this time though.  

We thought it best to send Nick home at this point to get Eve sorted out for the evening and to rescue our car and bring it back to the hospital.  He kindly left his laptop which had many Ollie friendly movies on it which kept him amused.  Unfortunately I didn't have the headphones on so I witnessed way too many child emergency situations that I could happily have done without seeing.  The worst was surely a six month old baby choking on an object which turned out to be a small green star.  I was so worried about this poor baby until she had been stabilised and they decided to bring her back into the other side of our room where she screamed bloody murder for a good forty minutes.  

After a few more tests it was established that we needed to be there for a bit longer so we were moved to the short stay area.  I thought this would surely be an improvement and in some ways it was.  The chairs were so much more comfortable.  But we were essentially in a ward of 10 beds that were extremely close together and directly across from us was a 6-8 week old baby in a cot who had no one there with her.  I had no idea if her issue was contagious but I really struggled not to go over there and scoop her up and make her feel better.

But meanwhile Ollie was doing just fine.  More demands for food and television!!!  Each round of observations seemed to show that he was doing alright and it would only be until 7.30 that night that we would have to stick it out.  Nick came back in after getting Eve organised to find Ol sitting in bed eating ice-cream.  We ticked the minutes off until finally at 7.30 a doctor swung by and gave Ol a bid nod - just another hour now.  WHAT???? Turns out he had to go three hours without ventolin instead of two.  Deep breaths.   Thankfully around 8.15 another doctor swung by.  But the nurse was explaining to him that Ol's oxygen saturation levels weren't super.  

I think Nick and I were starting to lose it just a little at this point.  The doctor was making noises about admitting Ollie overnight, which we would have been more than happy to do if we really thought he needed it, but the kid was bouncing off the walls.  We convinced him that we were really responsible people and that we would keep Ol in our room overnight and give him ventolin etc. good parents etc. not leaving him in the carpark of the casino etc.  Thankfully he fell for it and within half an hour we were on our way with a fancy new ventolin pump and a very super tired little boy.

Sleepy boy (no nap thanks to all the excitement) fell asleep long before we got home.  He slept in our room that night in bed with him while Nick slept on a mattress on the floor.  I had no idea that such a little, supposedly sick guy could take up so much room.  Seriously, he had me on the edge of the bed while he lay starfish style.  This must surely be the definition of love.

Luckily he has been perfect since then.  Is it a one off?  Not sure.  He has a number of indicators to suggest it may not be.  We will most definitely be packing a few puffers before we head off on our overseas trip in a fortnight.

But he certainly seems to be on the mend.  With an awesome story to tell.  In fact, I think a ride in an ambulance might just be even better than a ride on a roller coaster at Movieworld.  Every so slightly.