Monday 31 March 2014

If you're happy and you know it!

I have a mental image of the mysterious 'blood test lab' at St George's it's underground and looks a bit like something in an episode CSI. I imagine a team of beautiful, lab-coated, bespectacled scientists sitting around an enormous back-lit glass table, heads in hands saying 'For the love of God run it again, there is no way a child of two can have a sodium of 182!'. I suspect the reality is somewhat different.

So there we were, once again with a very poorly Mojo, on the 5th Floor staring out at the view and waiting, endlessly waiting, for the result of blood tests. It's the ultimate test of my personality. I'm sure I've said this before but I'm entirely non-confrontational to the point of cheerfully letting things go that have upset, angered or hurt me for the sake of avoiding a 'scene'. It's not a personality trait I'm especially proud of, I so wish I was stronger, more assertive, less inclined to cry when I'm angry and more able to stand up for myself. So the internal battle is pretty epic. The battle between the everyday me who smiles and empathises with the insanely busy hospital staff while they tell me test results are very slow at the weekend and the sleep-deprived, stress laden parent who wants to flip tables and punch walls until people understand the importance of rapid and appropriate care for the sick child lying in the cot. My sick child. My baby.

Exhausting is an understatement. It's funny really because I never do less than when we are at the hospital. I sit still almost all day. This stay was slightly different to others primarily because we 'caught it' earlier than we would have done were it not for a routine blood test on Friday morning. This meant that rather than arriving at A&E when the sodium reached it's height we were already in the hospital and it was still climbing which scares the daylights out of doctors who don't know us. When your base line levels are significantly higher than would be tolerated by any 'normal' person your dangerous levels would be considered fatal in most.

It took five days for her to recover her normal levels and despite the fact that the underlying problems which turned out to be TWO cold viruses were still present we were able to come home. A cold. It's not a fun place to be when you realise that it could be potentially life-threatening every time your daughter catches a cold! Anyway we have new plans of action in place for prevention in future, we learn something new about management each time we go through a hospital stay. Every cloud.

Not one to dwell on these adventures Mojo was ready to play out again by day two at home and has decided her new trick will be to make great strides in her use of Makaton. It's such a brilliant way of her communicating. It allows her expression which would otherwise be almost impossible. What I especially love is the spontaneity of this progress. She now does signing along to both 'happy and you know it' and 'Head, Shoulders' as well as a rapidly expanding repertoire of animals. It's so much fun to sing with her even when you are so tired that being happy and knowing it seems a long way off!!