I wish I hadn’t said the bit about a&e in that last post. I didn’t meant to put that out into the universe.
I called the patch team (they’re our out-of-hours nurse team, who are on call in those hours when no one else is available), just for some reassurance that we were doing the right thing and she immediately suggested we call an ambulance. Despite us keeping his O2 stats up in a good place, his heart rate is too high. His respiratory rate is too high. He’s working so hard to breathe.
So here I am, blue lights flashing, in an ambulance. I can’t figure it out. He’s got a cold, but his chest is clear. We saw the gp 6 days ago, the paediatrician 4 days ago, and now today we are being blue lighted into hospital.
Why is he working so hard to breathe? Why why why?!
And then we’re down the rabbit hole. How do I prevent this from happening again? How do I take care of my boy? How do I do this?
(And then, if we’re getting really dark together, how do I manage if it turns out I can’t do anything, that I can’t help him breathe, that I can’t help his heart beat slower, that I can’t stop him from being ill).
Kai’s just vomited all over the ambulance. Fuck.
——-
After a few hours in the a&e, I’m in a showdown with the registrar. Bloods have been taken and don’t show anything of concern. The chest X-ray is clear. We’ve taken swabs cause clearly he has cold of some kind, but it will take a few days to grow those cultures.
The registrar wants to admit Mikaere for observation. I want to take him home. We have everything they have up on the ward, we have a night nurse tonight and he’s more at risk of catching something else on the ward than he is at home. Home is safer. It’s also only an 8 minute blue light ambulance away from the hospital.
I know I’ve won the stand off and he’s coming home when I ask what they would do here that we can’t do at home, and she doesn’t have an answer. What would they do if he got worse? No answer. Depends on what the ‘worse’ is, apparently.
The registrar has gone to speak to the consultant. We’ll see. I might be be in a showdown with the consultant next. But I genuinely believe that the best place for him is home. That it’s safer than on the ward. I get the impression there aren’t that many parents who fight the authority of the registrar, but here I am. Let’s hope the consultant on call either see’s common sense, or is too busy to want to cross words with me.
Update: We were discharged, with strict instructions to come back if things get worse. They gave us loose definitions of what ‘worse’ looks like, but really it’s just if he doesn’t improve, if his heart rate stays “too high”(but again, didn’t give a firm definition of what “too high” looks like and he can’t hold is O2 levels, we’ll go in again. Our community nurse will come see him tomorrow, and the day after, and every day until it’s clear he’s on the mend. We’re going home! Thank fuck.
