Tag: The Life of Lara

The coroner hasn’t found any reason. More results are pending, but no answers yet.

I’m still feeling like a complete train wreck. Disbelief seems to be the dominant emotion, followed by rage, nausea, desperation, and then fear. Because if this can happen to Anna and Rob, the nicest of people and the best of parents, it could happen to me. Or you.

It probably won’t. It probably won’t. And probably is about as good as we’re ever going to get. And though that isn’t nearly good enough, that is all we can hope for. Acceptance, and hope. Hope that it won’t happen to us, and hope that someday Anna and Rob will have joy in their lives again.

So I am taking this opportunity to share some joy.

Five minutes after “that” phone call last night, there was another phone call, from Christine, Mark’s sister, Ella’s mum. Ella is going to have a brother or sister later in the year, and that news couldn’t have been more welcome, or more badly received – due to it coming so hot on the heels of such devastating news. We are absolutely thrilled that Inigo is going to have another cousin. Ella and he are exactly the same age, so this is as close as he will get to a little brother or sister. Unless something radical happens!

Secondly, our family has been tossing around the idea of a holiday, mum and dad, Adam and Sarah, Mark and I, and Alex and Inigo, all in some tropical island setting, with beaches and daiquiris and pool boys relaxation. Yesterday, that became a concrete reality. Mum has booked flights to Bali, and we have 2 weeks here. More info here. It looks too good to be true. Throw in a driver and a childcare worker on top of the staff of seven, and I think I’ll be pretty happy.

And the other news? News so great that on any other day I’d be jumping up and down and shouting from the rooftops? Inigo is cured. No more reflux. No more antibiotics, no more tests, no more month visits to the expensive paediatrician. We have to see her once more when he turns two, and then probably never again.

Cured.

I’m off to drink myself into a stupor. Goodnight.

I read somewhere that if you want children to be involved in household chores, you need to start them young.

Of course, it took longer to clean up afterward than to shuck the corn in the first place, but he had a lot of fun. And that’s the point.

Squishy has had a rough day. But not nearly as hard as last week!

Thanks to Simone for coming with us, and for her superb sock puppetry, and for covering herself with mango lassi for our amusement. What a champ.

The Nursing Unit Manager was able to get the catheter in first time, and though it wasn’t fun, it was a million times less distressing than last week. And he got presents! Enya, the nurse from last week gave him a little toy, and a pile of books as compensation for his suffering. Lovely.

No results yet, but I am confident they got what they needed, so even if it’s bad news, we won’t have to go through that again for at least another year.

As for psychological damage, he is showing no sign tonight. Touch wood.

So. iPhone.

I am so close to having a 3 GS, my head is spinning (and it gives me something to think about that isn’t scary).

So, I need some information. You guys that have iPhones, yes, all of you – can you tell me how much data you use a month, and wheter you use push or pull email, what sort of email volume you have, and how much internets you use?

Having never had a mobile internets device, I am unsure how much I will need, and I am hesitant to go on a plan that has more than I need.

I have an appointment at the Apple Store on Friday, so I hope to get some info before then.

Thanks!

P.S. Nasty test is tomorrow. Please send happy vibes for us around 1pm, and for Fe about half an hour later.

They couldn’t get the catheter in. A nurse tried twice, and then they asked me if the should try again. I said yes, wanting to avoid bringing him back. He was so desperate, panicked and in pain, wondering why his mama was holding him down so they could torture him.

I said yes, and the doctor had a go, and she failed too. And when the catheter came out, it had blood on it.

All afternoon he was spontaneously screaming, while tears rolled silently down my cheeks, and I fought to maintain composure and a soothing calm manner. I sang his favourite songs until my throat was raw.

Eventually, he fell asleep, and aside from a temperature early this morning, is acting as if nothing happened.

And I’m a wreck. I don’t know if my immune system was weakened by the extreme stress of yesterday, or whether I was due for it anyway, but my throat is on fire, and my head is full of snot.

I think I’ll take a day off life.

Oh, and we have to go back on Thursday.

We booked in to have Squishy irradiated two months ago. He has to have a dye injected into his bladder (up the urethra), and then x-rays taken while he pees to see if he still has the urinary reflux.

Cue two months of increasing anxiety about a nasty medical procedure that I have to hold him down for, anxiety that increased day by day as the day grew ever closer.

Then on Tuesday, the day before the test, Westmead Childrens Hospital rang to say that they had run out of radioactive isotopes, and wouldn’t be getting any more for at least 6 weeks. And would I like to reschedule for late July?

When I expressed surprise at the late notice, she said, “well, I tried to ring you this morning”. I felt sick.

So I rang another hospital, spent almost an hour (no exaggeration) trying to convince the nuclear medicine people that if a test involves radioactive isotopes, then it is a fair bet that it’s done in Nuclear Medicine, not Urology or Medical Imaging. Really.

Finally, I was able to get through, and the test is booked for this afternoon. It will be painful for Inigo, and no doubt terrifying, and it will be my job to stay calm and soothe him. I just have to remind myself why we are doing this – because hopefully, hopefully, he’ll have grown out of the dicky bladder, and he can stop taking the antibiotics that he has been on for over a year now.