by Papa Ngai
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Finally I have a moment to post about today (well, yesterday). I woke up to the voice of Mama Ngai telling me that little Alba had an elevated temperature. We called the community nurse and the dialog was something like "Does she seem lethargic? No. Is she having trouble feeding? No. Does she seem particular cranky or irritated? No. Etc..." and despite little Alba not having any of the many problems she asked about, she ended by telling us "I suggest you take her straight to the emergency ward at your nearest hospital. (-_-)
Just to be safe, we proceeded with that advice and drove little Alba to Westmead Hospital. The medical staff here were very nice and did some quick tests to make sure there was no emergency, and then directed us to Westmead Children's Hospital down the road and told us that any children up to 16 years of age can go straight there next time.
We waited quite a while to be attended to at Westmead Children's Hospital, but once they finally started taking care of us, the medical staff here too were very nice. The only major negative from the experience here was that they had to take blood from little Alba THREE times! The first time was a heel prick, and apparently the amount of blood they took wasn't enough for their machine to get a reading. The second time was a needle in the arm, and they failed to get hardly any bloody at all, so they decided to heel prick the other foot, and fortunately they were able to get enough blood in this third attempt. After another long wait to get the results from the blood test, and yet another long wait to give some time for them to observe (by "observe" I mean they pretty much left us sitting there for a couple of hours and then sent a nurse to check little Alba's temperature and heart rate) little Alba, we finally went home.
Papa Ngai then had to rush off to his mum's birthday dinner (mum doesn't know about this blog, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM anyway!), while Mama Ngai tried to get some well-earned rest at home. After Papa Ngai arrived home, Mama Ngai could finally rest more peacefully knowing that little Alba would be well looked after while she was asleep.
It is now well into the next day, and both Mama Ngai and little Alba are sound asleep (Alba, stop urinating each time the moment I take off your nappy!). After posting this post, replying to some work emails and paying some bills, hopefuly it will be Papa Ngai's turn to get some sleep. If not, I've got plenty of Nespresso coffee capsules provided by the wonderful Sam Yoon to keep me going (little Alba, forever remember that uncle Sam provided you one of your first boxes of Huggies Nappies to keep you dry and comfy!).