Children's Hospital

What a week it has been! The week started normally enough, with Alex showing signs of improving, but on Tuesday we received a call from nursery to say that Alex had really bad conjunctivitis and needed to be taken to a doctor as he had been unable to open his eyes for nearly 30 minutes after his lunchtime nap. It didn’t look like conjunctivitis to us so we decided to take him to the NHS drop in centre where we were told it was blepharitis, but there was a chance that it was developing into periorbital cellulitis (inflammation and infection of the eyelid and areas surrounding the eyes) so we were given some oral antibiotics and told to go straight to the Children’s Hospital if his eyes started swelling up and looking purplish. Well you can see from this photo what we woke up to on Wednesday morning!
We went straight to the children’s A&E (at 6am!) and he was diagnosed with periorbital cellulitis and admitted to hospital for a vigorous treatment of intravenous antibiotics (three different types). He was then seen by the ENT doctor who prescribed nasal drops and the Opthalmologist who prescribed chloramphenicol eye drops. The worst part as far as Alex was concerned were having the cannula put in because they were holding his arm and wouldn’t let him see what was going on. I think he would have been much happier if he was allowed to watch. Once the cannula was in, the only bad parts were having to sit still for the i.v. infusions when all he really wanted to do was run around (the actual infusions didn’t bother him at all – just the sitting still), and having the eye or nose drops administered. This photo was taken as we put him down for his lunchtime nap on Wednesday. The best part for Alex was definitely playing with the other children in his room, playing with loads of new toys and running up and down the length of the corridor with a wheeled box. Apart from his eyes he didn't look or act ill at all, chattering away non-stop, playing happily and running round the place.I must have walked miles chasing him round! He charmed all the nursing staff with his cheeky grin, and cute ‘Bye-Bye’ every time they left his bed, even at 11.30pm on Wednesday, when this photo was taken and he should have been asleep. He learnt a few new words in hospital including 'syringe', 'drip' and 'nurse'. Needless to say sleeping on the ward was tricky...he was up for three hours from 9.30pm until 12.30pm the first night, and was up following his 4.30am drip this morning telling me very firmly ‘nurse No’ to mean that he was fed up that the nurse had come and wired him up to the drip again! The swelling round his eyes came down dramatically over the first 24 hours so that by Thursday morning when this photo was taken he could open his eyes much more, although they still looked bruised, and by the evening his eye shape was back to normal.We were allowed to come home today, thank goodness. Alex went straight to bed having exhausted himself running round the ward this morning and Tim and I took it in turns to have an afternoon nap as well. Alex loved the fact that after his nap it was nice and sunny so he could play in the garden, climbing into and out of the car, running round the lawn, crawling into the wigwam and pushing the tricycle round. He then spent the evening sat on my lap drawing a picture before bath time. Crafting in hospital was impossible as Alex did not have a ‘staying in bed’ illness, so all the crafting I have done this week was done on Monday and Tuesday evenings. These four trading cards are for the ‘Oriental symbols’ swap on the CM&PC forum. I used my new background papers, which are Origami papers by Hanko Designs, and Oriental writing peel-offs. I also joined a ‘Your favourite childrens TV’ swap and have to make 4 ATCs for this, all of different shows. The slight difficulty for me is that it is supposed to be my childhood memories, but I never had a TV as a child so didn’t really have a favourite show, which meant that I have done ATCs of shows that I remember! The first one is ‘He-Man’, the image of which is highlighted with sakura stardust, and the He-Man symbol layered on top as well as adding peel-offs. The second is The Smurfs and for this I have decoupaged the central large figure and added sakura stardust highlights to his feet and hat, as well as layering the image on blue card and adding white letter peel-offs with the title. I have two more left to do over the next few days so that’s all for now...got to go and give Alex his eye drops now. Have a good weekend everyone.
Love,
Caro
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