Good morning!
Thumper has woken me early again so I thought I would try and do a quick post before the day really starts!It feels like ages since I wrote but I think that is because we have had quite an intense couple of weeks since Rosa's birthday and time has done strange things! Mostly Rosa has been poorly, which has been exhausting, frustrating and at times scary. I am only able to actually write this because yesterday was the first day since the day after her birthday that I genuinely felt she is feeling better and on her way back to us properly. Not only has Rosa been poorly but there were also the milestone of staying at Little Bridge House (the children's hospice) for the first time, which in itself was a bit of a roller coaster for us all. Lou and Tom also came to visit which was lovely but was literally straight after we had come home from Little Bridge so our feet didn't really feel like they'd touched the ground. We went down to Cornwall to Bex and Jon's beautiful wedding, which was lovely but also hard as Rosa wasn't feeling very well at all and we do always find gatherings with other children, but particularly little girls Rosa's age difficult in places. I still wish with all of myself that she could be on the bouncy castle and tripping over her pretty frock with the rest of them. I don't suppose that'll ever go away but Rosa doesn't know any different and that's what I must always remind myself. These things are always more difficult when she isn't 100% and the poor lamb was really far from it on that day. It had actually been touch and go whether we would go to the wedding at all as on the Friday night she went in the blink of an eye from being fine and chirpy happy Rosa, to pale, faraway, passive falling asleep Rosa. We had thought she had fully recovered from the cold she had after her party and this was very sudden and overwhelming. She wouldn't eat or drink anything and fell asleep in the bath. In the morning we decided we would base whether to go on whether she at her breakfast or not, she did so we went. She really wasn't well though, she slept on me or in the van the whole time and had that fuzzy farawayness about her which is so scary. I think if we hadn't seen her like that before we would have been more worried but we reassured each other that it is her way of dealing with bugs, she wasn't sick, she didn't have an upset tummy, she barely had a temperature, she was just withdrawn and sleepy and didn't want any nourishment, or even liquid which was tricky as the weather was warm. However we were glad we'd gone as it was a lovely celebration and the sun shone, glad to be part of it even if Rosa and I were a bit peripheral. After we got home she did seem get to get a bit better but her temperature went up and she had another faraway day of not eating and sleeping lots (we hate it when she doesn't eat, it's so unlike her, she is a Hancock after all!) By Monday evening she definately seemed a bit more perky and was able to eat a bit of supper. At some point on Monday Alison from Little Bridge phoned to say they had a cancellation and would we like to come in for a stay. Having said last time they phoned that we would go in no matter what else was going on I felt we must accept despite Rosa being poorly, they are after all absolutely geared for poorly children. We also felt it was a big milestone and the sooner we got passed it the better. On Tuesday morning Rosa did seem quite a bit better, the sun was shining and although full of nerves we set off optimistically on the 7 minute drive to the hospice....Its time for the day to start, more soon.
So now more time has passed its Tuesday the 1st of June, early in the morning again about a week after I last wrote and as I was awake anyway I thought I would try and finish this post.I just had one of those beautiful but sad dreams where she was running around and talking......After I last wrote Rosa actually got more poorly and scared us enough that we ended up on the childrens ward at the hospital on Sunday. She had been awake all night on Saturday and seemed to be in a lot of pain. She hadn't wanted to eat or drink anything and by Sunday morning we thought we should take her to he Dr. if only to rule out other things like appendicitus or a blockage or something. We had to go up to the hospital anyway as it was Sunday so out of hours surgery. The Dr. there didn't know what was wrong and so didn't like to send us home without having her checked a bit more thoroughly. He sent us up to he childrens ward where we spent about 5 hours in the end while it seemed a lot of people including a Dr and a consultant asked lots of questions and felt her and measured her temperature and looked in her ears. They were also not sure what the problem was, the pain seemed to come in waves and poor babe was quite inconsolable when over taken by it. The weather was really hot as was the hospital and Rosa was sweating and writhing a lot. We were all desperate to go home and it seems hospitals have a different way of measuring time than everywhere else, it gets stretched so while you wait to see someone the hours slide by. Eventually we managed to get a wee sample and they took her blood samples. As usual it was pretty hard for them to find a vein and by this time Rosa had melted down so far there was no coming back, they eventually managed to get one in her foot and I had to hold her so tightly while they collected it drip by drip. The Dr.s conclusions were that she didn't have appendicutus or a blockage or anything else very usual, there was mention that we do have glands in our stomachs which can become inflamed like any other glands, especially after an illness, and they wondered if it was that. We had decided after they had got all their samples we were just going to go home. None of us had slept or eaten and we all felt shell shocked and exhausted. We felt Rosa would have a much better chance of sleep at home and as we only live 20 minutes away from the hospital we could be back in no time if we needed to. We were greeted by the surprise that Dr's and consultants show when you don't do what they tell you but we are starting to get used to that! Home was wonderful and Rosa did eat a little bit and went to sleep.I must just mention all of the Dr's we saw were lovely, very patient and gentle which we all really appreciated. Thet phoned late in the afternoon with the blood sample to say that everything looked pretty normal apart from she had slightly elevated calcium levels and also her white blood cells were up. This was not much of a surprise as she had obviously be fighting something off for over a week. Not sure what the calcium levels were about but may well be to do with her condition. We were relieved they hadn't found anything else and felt justified in our decision to come home. The consultant did still want us to bring her back in for an overnight stay so they could observe her but there was no chance of that! We are at last really over it though, it took her until about Thursday but she has been fab the last few days and apart from the odd (possibly terrible twos?!) moment it's been like she is on happy pills....hooray!
So much more to write but it is time to start the day. I think I'll post this as a work in progress and catch up more when I can xx