Sunday, December 10, 2006

36 Hours

In my last blog I indicated that my youngest was ill. In fact, not only was he ill, but he was actually very ill. At about midday, I had to take him to the emergency department whereupon he was connected to a drip and diagnosed as being severely dehydrated due to a gastro virus.

I won't go into the gruesome details, but it was not the weekend I would have wished for him, especially as we were supposed to be decorating the house for Christmas this weekend. Never mind, we'll go to Botanic to buy the tree tomorrow evening, and spend the week decorating little by little instead of all in one go.

We got out of the hospital this evening at 6pm, about 24hrs later than I expected, but it was important to check that the virus was beaten, and that everything had gone back to normal. All I can say is that he is a brave little soldier and that seeing him suffer during the tougher moments was like having my entrails pulled out. I stayed with him throughout - I was fortunate that I could, in 'hopital du jour', sitting mostly in pénombre while my son slept, had lovely medical and nursing staff, and was pretty happy with the treatment we got.

Naturally, the emergency department was extremely busy, and I think we were lucky to get a short-stay hospital room. It was an individual one, with ensuite loo and mother's 'porte lit' (put-me-up bed) and I paid nothing, although I pay every month, of course, towards the Secu. There was even a tele.

We are so incredibly happy to be home, unconnected to a drip, and able to sleep in our own beds. The rest is incidental.

13 comments:

  1. Glad to hear he is better. You appreciate those marvellous nurses when you have that type of problem.

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  2. Thanks Richard. Yes, the emergency pediatric section of the hospital is completely separate from the adult section, with kind, cheerful, competant staff. It's just 15minutes away too.

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  3. Relieved to hear that things are getting back to normal, Sarah. What a trial for you both.

    There's a lot of gastric flu about here as well. I had symptoms on and off for a couple of weeks, as did some friends who were in Antibes recently. I seem to recall reading that there's a regular recurrence of this sort of thing each year in France, at roughly the same time each year.

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  4. Another techie question for you Sarah, assuming you're not totally drained. It's about those RSS feeds etc. They alert one to the appearance of a new post on one's favourite blogs. That much I know. But are they able to tell one when a comment has gone up ? Ideally, one would get an email, as one does with one's own blog.

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  5. Poor old lad - glad to hear he is better. It's awful having to take children to hospital, isn't it? They seem so small and frightened.

    There is often a lot of gastric flu about when the autumn/winter comes and it starts raining - all the pesticides and whatever that have been lying on the surface during the summer months, suddenly are carried by the rain into the 'nappe' and the horrible water then gets into our taps.

    Although everyone is now poo-poohing bottled water, it is wise to use it for drinking until all the rubbish we have sprayed on our fields and gardens has been washed away and diluted by the rain.

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  6. Snap, Louise. I had arrived at exactly the same conclusion, re autumn rains and run-off. But unlike you, I was thinking less in terms of man-made pollution, than what the livestock leave in pastures on the higher ground. I once made the mistake of drinking from a clear inviting looking rivulet in the Lake District, and was ill for days.

    One wonders if the water authorities have thought of adding extra chlorine straight after autumn rains. Maybe not, in which case your idea of sticking to the bottled water at this time of year may be a good one.

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  7. Apparently a child at his school was puking on Thursday which makes me think he probably caught it then as he developed a temperature on Thursday evening, was fine on Friday and then started the gastro symptoms for real on Saturday.

    Colin: I have just been looking through Technorati and can't find the comments feed thing, but I thought I'd seen it somewhere. You could try to Google it, but it looks like being a long job!

    I remember being one of the last people to drink out of a Welsh mountain stream when I was about 15 (nearly 20years ago). We did so and were fine, the next year, the same group (not me) drank from it and were all ill!

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  8. Goodness, glad to hear he is ok now Sarah, ..it sounds like a nasty form of gastroenteritis. I hope you are topping him up with lots of fluids.

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  9. Sounds like one of things that most kids go through at one time or another... Better he goes though it now rather than later I suppose!

    Good to hear he'll be better for Christmas :)

    Happy Christmas to you (joyeux noel?) a bit early !!

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  10. Thanks Zak, yes I'm making sure he drinks.

    Thug, it's not like chicken pox and I certainly was never hospitalised for gastroenteritis. However, many kids have it in a lesser form.

    He's in roaring form now!

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  11. glad to hear the good news sarah!

    christmas pictures coming up?

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  12. Hi Sarah,
    poor him, poor you. What a nightmare!
    Hope you and your other son have built up some immunity!
    And, yes, thank God for the Secu.
    Best wishes,
    Angela

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  13. Thanks for all the good wishes :)

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