Attempting to do a super quickie post (but failing of course!)......Rosa is in very fine spirits again at the moment although suffering from perennial tummy pains which has caused much marching and wriggling in the last few days. This makes her really hard to hold and also often very adverse to being put down, especially in seating. Not great for our backs or states of mind but as I said at least she is mostly very cheerful.This is a real relief as Rosa had to be admitted into hospital all be it briefly a short time after I last wrote. It was dramatic but quick at least, she had been heading down for a couple of days before , we knew something was going on as she went off her food and drink and was pale, her usual signs that she is fighting something off. On the Thursday she went rapidly down, throwing up quite dramatically anything we managed to get in her. She was pale, drifty and faraway and even suggesting she have a drink was enough to make her gag. Not good at all, we got through the day dripping honey water into her mouth to try and stop her dehydrating and just telling ourselves this is what she does when she is fighting a bug and we just had to ride it out. We put her to bed at normal time and by some horrid bad coincidence Gareth looked at Right move and saw the place we thought we had pretty much secured re-advertised. We were gutted and couldn't think why it would be on there other than they had decided we were not right for the place. Sad and cross we went to bed and neither of us slept very well, anxious about Rosa and about where on earth we were going to live if not there. In the morning when Gareth went to get Rosa out of bed he was shocked and scared to find her with dark brown goop coming out of her mouth, he called me and it felt like we span round for endless moments not knowing whether to call an ambulance, call the surgery (too early), or just take her to hospital. I felt fairly sure it was blood, we ended up, after what was probably seconds and not the long minutes it felt like calling NHS direct. As we suspected they told us to go to A&E but at least we had spoken to someone who hadn't freaked out when we told them what ws going on. All this time Rosa was out of it, burny hot, white as she never is and dark shadows around her eyes. We both separately wondered as we always do, if this is it. We drove to hospital, glad for not the first time we live so close. As a terrified Mummy A&E's reception was dreadful. G dropped us off and went to park and I carried her in limp and to a layperson unconcious. I was shakey and not very coherant but I explained to the receptionist what had happened and she told me to take a number and wait to be seen. Outrageous, I was so scared for my baby, I didn't know what was going on, was she dying in my arms?? Completely melodramatic I know but that's where I was, while waiting for our number to be called. G came in with Ithan with a blast of clear thinking he went to speak to reception, he told them she would almost certainly be admitted to the children's ward, could we go straight there? They said phone and see, curse procedure. Procedure said we had to be referred through A&E because we don't have an official piece of paper (which Rosa is entitled to) to allow us direct access to the ward. This is one of the many things we learnt from this visit which we will amend for the future. So two and a half hours later after triage which was pointless and two very lovely Dr.s who were kind and listened well but freely admitted we knew much more about what was going on with Rosa than they did we were finally admitted to the children's ward. We were actually much more relaxed by this time as I had overheard a nurse talking about Rosa on the phone mentioning 'coffee grounds' vomit and asked what this was, she said that when a person has been retching a lot that can cause a tear in the throat or pipe and then the blood leaks down into the stomach to be vomited back out, not nice but a much more manageable issue than other things our imaginations had come up with. So once up on the ward time turns to treacle but we had a lovely young paediatrician who took the time to get Rosa's notes and have a look. He tried to establish what her bloods look like normally as they were not coming back normal but we agreed that her normal is not the same as everyone else's. I really appreciated how much time he found for us as the children's ward is a really busy place. We were not on the ward but in a side room because she had been vomiting they couldn't rule out a bug but we were really grateful about this especially as we were almost forbidden to take her home, advised in most strong terms to stay in overnight so that she could stay on the drip and get properly re-hydrated, in retrospect this was absolutely right and she made a remarkable improvement overnight but we were loath to let them keep her in, it is such an alien environment. But anyway we did, I spent the day with her while G looked after Ithan and went home and got some things and ate something and then we swapped and I came home and put Ithan to bed and fretted and slept which is more than poor G did. In the morning I took porridge in as there didn't really seem to be anything on offer that Rosa could eat and to our relief she ate some of it and wasn't sick, the transformation in her was wonderful, she was still pale but her eyes looked like Rosa again and we even had a sneaky eyebrow raise! We established that the cause of the whole saga was a throat infection, poor love it was red raw and also probably what had been bleeding. That had mean't she didn't want anything orally and her swollen sick trigger (uvula) had made her gag on anything that tried to go down, hence her vomiting and dehydration. Once again we talked about gastric tubes and how helpful it would be in a situation like this but once again came to the conclusion that we are not there yet. By lunchtime we were out of there and all so happy to be going home. Rosa was still poorly and didn't really make a proper recovery until the end of the week but the worst was over and we had all made it out the other side, some wedding anniversary, we'll try and forget that one I think!
In terms of life and everything else we finally signed the agreement on our new place on Friday. It is such a relief as in that moment when we thought it wasn't going to happen we realised how much we wanted it. It was a decision of heart not head but we felt it may be the last time we can chose a home without having Rosa's requirements as our main consideration. We can still carry her upstairs comfortably, so we will, for the sake of a wild garden with a river at the bottom of it, south facing sash windows, a green gas rayburn in the big kitchen, all these things are still more important than ground floor accommodation and wheelchair access for now, it might not always be so. We actually collect the keys this Friday. We are all really excited, Rosa is loving the chaos and noise of packing and Ithan finally seems to have settled into a lovely sleep routine (although G and I are on the sofabed in the sitting room at the moment to facilitate this but worth it for him to go 12 hours a night WOOHOO!) So we are all feeling positive and even (dare I say) a bit ahead of schedule! Cornwall Education Authority phoned me the other day to officially offer Rosa a place at Curnow school Yay! We met Dr.Bob Rosa's new headmaster who seemed warm and energetic, he said he was deleriously optimistic which I think is very important in a head teacher!
I know there is much more to post but that will have to do for now x
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