Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Sickie

Caleb’s cold developed into the usual chest infection. He was running around outside yesterday afternoon, because Maddy was here, and it was Kay’s birthday, so we couldn’t really keep him indoors unless we tied him up. It was just very unfortunately timed. Last night his chest was badly closed up and he was having difficulty breathing. His asthma pump was having no effect, so at about 2 am we steamed him in the bathroom, running a hot bath and filling the handbasin with three kettles of boiled water. It helped somewhat, but we had to do it at 5 am again. In between that there was a lot of coughing, crying and nose blowing, so none of us got very much sleep. I took Caleb to the hospital first thing this morning, and they nebulised him which helped considerably, but I could only get a doctor’s appointment at 12. I had to do the grocery shopping anyway, and needed to get into the manse for our nebuliser and some other things. I got to Elza just after 11 for a short visit. By 11.30 Caleb was wheezing badly again and desperate to get to the hospital to be done again, so we left Elza (with Caleb practically pushing me out of the house, poor thing) and got to the hospital just before 12. The doctor, Herr Gunther, had a patient with him but he was ready for us quite quickly – we waited for literally about a minute! He wasn’t particularly helpful, but I think that other than treating the symptoms, there’s not too much more to be done. He had Caleb nebulized again and prescribed the brown asthma pump, which is the preventative pump, and then sent him for another round of nebulizing. I remembered that I wanted an anti-histamine as well, so we went back in quickly after Caleb was finished and I asked for Phenergan, as well as some sort of cold medicine. He was happy to prescribe all that I asked for. Once I had picked up the meds from the dispensary we went home, where I found a sick little Aaron looking very miserable – he has also picked up a cold, but it’s just a runny nose, watery eyes and a flushed face.

Yesterday, Nick and I went for an early morning walk in Longwood, along the edge of the golf course to a bus-stop, and then turned around and came back. The return walk was all uphill, a very gentle uphill, but taxing nonetheless. It was bitterly cold and my ears were hurting – I could definitely have done with the beanie yesterday! We had to be in town at 10 am as Nick had a meeting regarding the removal of rocks from various properties, and I wanted to do a bit of shopping. Pam, Jeff and Maddy came for a picnic-style lunch, comprising my home-made bread, French loaf, boiled egg and mayo, tuna and mayo, cut up sausages, quiches and tomatoes – quite an excellent spread.

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