Hi all,
Many thanks for your thoughts and prayers, well wishes and blessings for Austen. My family and I are very appreciative of your calls, sms-es, emails and FB postings/messages.
Austen is finally discharged from KKH today (he was admitted on Friday through A&E, we brought him in coz the GP told us to – he had a high fever of 38.5 degree celsius). He was diagnosed with UTI which is a bacterial infection of the urinary tract (kidneys, ureters, bladder and urethra). The UTI is from Escherichia (E.) coli, which is the bacteria from poo poo, and could be caused by hygiene, physical or structural condition of my boy, or any other unknown reason. We have to go back for an ultrasound in a month’s time and another test where they will inject some dye into his blood in 2 months’ time. I really hope it is not due to the physical or structural condition of my boy, PD warned if that is the case, he will have to perform a more invasive test.
The whole experience was horrid (and poor hubby happened to trip on the stairs and had a swollen ankle) - long hours of waiting, same questions asked by different teams of nurses/doctors (we were not informed when they change shift) and worse of all, no single-bed avail and we were thrown into a 4-bedder for the first night after putting our name down for a single-bed room (I will go more into that later).
Ward 85
Baby’s blood was taken at the A&E and the prick was def less painful than the squeezing of blood, the nurse was squeezing his finger so hard and then putting in a little into the container and wiping the rest away with a tissue, and I was thinking why is she doing that? Poor baby was crying so pitifully and there was nothing I can do. This was mild compared to after admission when the nurses in the ward were trying to find his vein to put the needle in so they could put his anti-biotics in. Because he is so small, it is very hard to find hid vein, I get that, but the nurses actually took more than half an hour to do so! I could hear him screaming the entire time (they refused to let me in), I was nearly in tears myself. When I next saw him, the needle was in and looked fine but when I saw his other hand, which was bruised, I realised they must have tried on that hand first, cannot and then do it on the other hand. Can you imagine how heart-breaking that is?
Dh went home to shower and packed his stuff after admission so he can stay the night more comfortably. While he was gone, PD/nurse came and told me what they were gonna do, and one of the things he said he needed to do is to collect a clean urine sample and it could be via a clean catch method or via a catheter. I said under no situation is the second method to be used. When I left KKH at 3am to go home, I gave dh a summary. Dh waited and then after some time, asked one of the nurse what they were doing for so long and she said they are trying to insert a catheter for austen. Dh blew up at her, something along the line of “Didn’t my wife gave strict instructions NOT to do that?”. Terrified nurse went in to check and came back to said it was her mistaken impression, they were NOT inserting a catheter, just trying to comfort him. Some fine job they were doing.
Bathing – the nurse only bath austen on Saturday coz after seeing her attempt at bathing him, I did it myself the next 3 days. So ill-prepared, towels not laid out, asked me for diapers, etc.
Ward 86
Things got better when we transferred to another ward. This was how it happened. In the first ward, in the 4-bedder, when one child cried, mine woke up and joined him/her. My dh stayed since I gotta pumped (baby refused to latch + super low appetite) and slept for only an hour on a narrow, hard, uneven and awful-smelling foldable bed. I went round the ward and found 3 empty single-bed rooms and demanded to be given one, only to be told two were isolation rooms and one for fits patients. I wouldn’t take no for an answer and tried to convince the admission officer to give up one of the isolation room for me, but she would not budged either. In the end, late on Day 2, someone vacated the only Deluxe Room in another ward (basically a single-bed suite) and made us very happy.
The doctors were pretty good at explaining the procedures, causes, trt, etc. The nurses in this ward were all a lot better, fast to respond, listen carefully to instructions, etc. Though I am very sick of KK's food, I am super grateful we manage to get transferred to Ward 86, and that we bought insurance for austen early.
Okay, I better go now, dh asking why I am writing essay. Good night, people!
