Archive for the 'Layla’s sick days' Category

Mondays. Gotta Love Them.

Published on January 19, 2010 in Family, Hospital, Japan, Layla's sick days and Parenting. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

I woke up today at 5am. I was in Shinjuku before any of the stores opened. The last time I was in Shinjuku that early, I was catching the first train home after being in Tokyo all night (not that I’d blog about it after the reactions I got from some mothers out there. You know who you are =) Why was I there at such an ungodly hour? So I could leave early to visit Layla in purgatory.

I got to the hospital around 17:30 to find that Layla had been shifted into another room. Instead of being one of three kids in a spacious room with a view of the nurse’s station she was crammed into a corner of an 8-cage room with no windows and barely any light. The 5x3ft crib that is her prison is about all the space we were afforded, plus a foot or two beside the bed to sit on a stool. Definitely a step or two below the Ritz.

As for Layla, I wish I could say her spirits were up. At least I can say her oxygen levels seemed to be. The poor kid seemed depressed and withdrawn, not wanting to do much of anything but be held and stare at the other coughing/crying/sleeping/etc babies she shared the room with. There were glimmers of the little kid at times, but more often than not she was pretty down in the dumps.

Every time a nurse walked into the room, the words “DOCTOR SCARY!” echoed through the halls of the hospital. I’m not much one for doctors or hospitals either, but to say Layla was hysterical upon seeing nurses would be an understatement. On the bright side, I know I don’t need to worry about having to pay her way through medical school – the psychological scars she’s getting from this experience all but guarantees that she won’t want to work anywhere near a hospital.

Unfortunately, despite my initial hopes that her oxygen levels were up, I heard some bad news. The doctor told us we should consider upping her daily medication because she isn’t responding well to the hospital treatment. That’s something we’re going to have to discuss and think about.

The other bad news, especially for Layla, was that the nurse wanted to switch her nostril tube for a full face mask covering her nose and mouth. After she settled down, she seemed perfectly okay with the new mask, but for the first 5 or 10 minutes she complained that she couldn’t get her finger up her nose.

By 20:00, the lights went down and all the kids were getting tucked into their beds to sleep. She didn’t want us to leave, but determination gave way to exhaustion and despite a death grip on my shirt, I eventually worked my way free.

1 down, 4 to go…

Longest Weekend Ever

Published on January 17, 2010 in Family, Hospital, Japan, Layla's sick days and Parenting. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Saturday, we had a regularly scheduled doctor’s appointment for Layla to see how she is doing with respect to her asthma. Unfortunately, we found out she wasn’t doing well. In fact, she was doing so poorly that she was going to have to spend the next week under the care and supervision of the doctor’s at the hospital. Again. Talk about getting the wind taken out of one’s sails, eh?

So we checked her into the hospital Saturday after getting a battery of tests done. The final verdict was pneumonia. I think. It’s hard to get a good understanding when I don’t even understand basic Japanese. Doctor language, even in English, is difficult for me to follow.

Her blood/oxygen level was hovering between 90-95%, which is low. Anything below 95% and she gets oxygen from a mask, so she’s got one on now, full-time. Saturday night, the nurse asked me which mask to use – one that feeds into her nose or a full mask that covers both her nose and mouth. Last year, she used the nose version so I opted for that one. I guess they tried out the full mask on Sunday morning, but, after trying it for a while, decided not to use a mask that covered her mouth because it blocked access to her thumb.

Layla’s a tough kid but also a coward. Anytime a nurse comes into the room, Layla’s eyes track them like a hawk watching their prey. She’s terrified of them. Even when they just bring her food, she starts crying, trying to get away from them. I think the only thing she doesn’t like is when they have to stick a tube up her nose that ends up going down her throat to clear out any phlegm she might have. I can’t say as I blame her, it is not at all a pleasant experience to watch – I’d hate to be the one actually going through it.

Today was a little bit easier as we’ve moved a couple more things to the hospital for her. She’s got her lucky bear, her miffy, a couple puzzles and colouring books. Even her laptop so she can watch her Elmo shows. I wouldn’t say she’s a spoiled kid, but I certainly wouldn’t argue if someone else did.

As the day wore on, Layla was obviously getting tired but the poor kid refused to fall asleep. I’m not sure if she thought we’d bail at the first opportunity, or just didn’t want to close her eyes while the nurses were still milling about, but she was determined to stay awake. At one point, she sat at the edge of the bed, her eyes almost closing as she stared out the door watching the nurses at work. “Getting sleepy?” I asked her, thinking I should lay her down. “Just peeing,” she answered without missing a beat.

Some time after 8pm, the nurses turn the lights out to try to get the kids to sleep. Layla’s sharing the room with two other kids, much younger than her, who like to cry when their parents aren’t around. One of the kids fell asleep and her mom left. Unfortunately, that kid woke back up not five minutes later, only to start crying. And not stop.

The previous night Layla refused to go to sleep even after the lights went out, wanting to play well past 9. Visiting hours are over at 9, so after the nurse came and told us, I told Layla that we had to go and she had to sleep. She accepted it, but I don’t think she liked it. Tonight, when the lights went out, Layla laid down and closed her eyes. I’m sure she knew we were going to be leaving soon and didn’t want to be awake when we did. Smart kid, eh? Or maybe just exhausted. In either case, she shut her eyes tight and despite the noise of her crying neighbour fell asleep in short order.

And now is when things get interesting. Trying to balance work and visiting hours should be fun – my plan is to go to work as early as possible so I can leave as early as possible. Tamie’s parents are going to help out, visiting Layla from noon. Tamie will head to the hospital as early as she can, and I’ll probably be the last to show up.

Hopefully she’ll be out of her jail-like hospital by Saturday. Only time will tell, I guess.

Another Short Week, Unfortunately…

Published on January 16, 2010 in Family and Layla's sick days. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Last Friday, Layla was sick. Sick as in the throwing up all over her dad when he’s carrying her because she doesn’t want to move kind of sick. It wasn’t pleasant, but luckily grandma was available to take care of her so we dropped her at her grandma’s and she stayed there with Tamie overnight.

Saturday, she seemed better and we did our shopping thing (Costco this time — saved a bunch of money by buying 20000yen in bulk products?!). At dinner, she opened her mouth and spit out a piece of vegetable she was eating… only to be followed by the rest of the dinner she’d eaten prior. Not missing a beat, though, the kid looked up, said she exploded, apologized and then asked for ice cream as we (and the restaurant waitresses) scrambled to clean up the hot mess.

The reason I bring this up? All week she’s been coughing like crazy – it sounds like we are living with some kind of seal barking through the night. Tamie seems to have caught whatever it is she has. So far, I’ve been lucky. But today, our luck ran out. She had a fever. Anything past 37.5 and the daycare won’t accept her. The poor kid’s was up at 38.6 when we checked this morning!

So, with grandma unavailable and Tamie taking the last turn in the game of who takes care of the sick baby, it fell on my broad shoulders to stay home with the coughing bundle of joy. And joy we had…

Actually, it wasn’t so bad in that Layla slept most of the day. The only thing was that she slept on me. I did try to lay her down once on her futon but not five minutes after I finally got her back asleep did her cough return and she woke up crying, running over and climbing up into my lap before falling back asleep. I’m not complaining – makes me feel like she actually needs me for something other than to carry her… kind of. It just makes it hard to actually accomplish anything other than watching the same 30 minute Thomas the Tank Engine DVD. Over and over. And over again.

We did go out for a little while to get some fresh air and some food, but despite her shopping instincts of buy everything, she didn’t want to actually eat anything. Luckily, with ice cream, I can convince her to do almost anything.

Eventually, she went to bed and I was able to write a blog entry.

Sick and Tired… But Mostly Sick.

Published on October 1, 2009 in Japan and Layla's sick days. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

I woke up this morning to the sounds of a crying baby… before sunrise — it’s always a bad sign when Layla is awake before we are on a weekday. I went and grabbed her and brought her back into our bed in the hopes she’d get some sleep and allow us to do the same. Unfortunately the sweaty, feverish baby also had a bug bite on her leg that she insisted on scratching so despite her silence there was constant movement as she was determined to stop that itch. Eventually, after several warnings and Tamie grabbing her leg, Layla finally slept.

Hours later, we all woke up and scrambled to get ready as we got up later than expected, as usual. I wonder, if one always gets up later than one expects, shouldn’t one’s expectations eventually change? I’ll let you know if/when mine do. It was with little surprise that I found Layla had a fever and, as a result, could not go to daycare. Thankfully, Tamie’s mom was available to take care of her so we were able to go to work.

Since I didn’t have to drop Layla at daycare, I had the wonderful opportunity to get in an even more crowded train than usual (ie. an earlier one). The general strategy I employ when getting on such trains is to find an old lady or a young student sitting on a seat and stand in front of them. They are usually the ones that get off the earliest leaving me with a place to sit down and sleep for 45 minutes. Luckily for me, I found a plum old lady sitting alone watching the time closely on her cell phone. Unluckily for me, her apparent eagerness to get off was not a sign of her impending departure and I was forced to stand for the whole trip.

Stinky salary men on my flanks and at least two elbows in my back, I was having a great time on my commute. The only bright side was the train was running late due to a fierce drizzling of rain meaning even more people tried to cram their ways onto the coach at every stop. At one stop a guy got literally stuck in the door. These aren’t your friendly elevator doors that reopen if they bump into someone – he was seriously stuck. It took two train employees to open the door enough so that he could cram himself into the sardine can with the rest of us. The funny thing is, I’m sure that in the time it took to dislodge him from the door and get the train moving again, the next train would have come.

A busy workday later, I got a phone call from Tamie. Her mom is concerned about Layla and thinks she might have swine flu so she’s taking her to a clinic. Say what? It was during this phone call that I found out that one of the daycare staff had caught the virus. Better safe than sorry, I guess.

I told Tamie I’d go and meet her and Layla in Ebina, and at just after 9 we met up. Layla, hopped up on drugs, seemed absolutely fine, although she hadn’t eaten anything and was still boiling. On the way home, I grabbed a light double quarter-pounder meal at McDonald’s and we got Layla some bread to go with her water, at her request. We shared the food which, looking back, might not have been the smartest thing to do given her high fever and my not wanting to get sick.

It wasn’t long after we got home that Tamie started feeling a bit sick. And then a bit more sick. She went to lay down while I stayed up with Layla, who refused to go to bed but instead laid on me trying not to fall asleep. It was a losing battle that she eventually gave up — I put her to bed with little trouble, thankfully. At this point, Tamie emerged from the bedroom looking ready to keel over. She was planning on working at home but those plans obviously changed to planning on not dying. I told her to her to get back to bed and rest but she refused and instead laid on me trying not to fall asleep. It was a losing battle that she eventually gave up… it’s sometimes scary how similar my two girls are…

… and then there’s me. The pillar of health, tapping out this blog entry in my vain attempt of not going to bed and exposing myself to whatever it is that those two might have caught. Is it swine flu? Who knows — not the doctor, that’s for sure… turns out you (or at least he) can’t properly diagnose swine flu in the early stages so Layla needs to go see a doctor again tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes.,

Happy Hump Day

Published on August 27, 2009 in Family, Layla's sick days and Parenting. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

This morning we woke up, as usual. Tamie got up, as usual. I got up a bit later. As usual. Layla was reluctant to even consider getting up. As usual. Seemed like another normal weekly Wednesday.

Today, however, was not as usual as it should have been. Layla’s reluctance to get up was followed by a reluctance to eat or even move. A quick check of her temperature showed a steamy 38.4 degrees under her sweaty armpit. (Japanese thermometers go either in your ear or your armpit – consider yourself warned if you ever find yourself in a hospital here. Do NOT stick it in your mouth). Luckily she’s not coughing at all, so it shouldn’t be asthma related. I hope.

So I took the day off to take care of her in her time of need. Taking care of her mainly consists of being a comfortable place for her to lie down on while she watches Sesame Street (over and over and over and over again), sleeps and sweats out the fever. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.

By noon, Layla finally woke up and was starting to get a bit house-happy, if not hungry, so I took her out to get some air. We went down to Vina Walk (the local shopping area) and killed some time running up and down stairs and escalators. Even sick, she never slows down.

I tried to get her to eat something, but everything I offered she refused. Then she said she wanted ice cream. Who am I to argue with a sick kid? Especially when it’s 40 degrees outside and I know Baskin Robbins is having a sale this month. So we got an ice cream snowman with a very, berry strawberry body and an orange sherbet head. Unfortunately, Layla only had a couple bites and I was forced to eat most of it (wouldn’t want to waste food now, would I?)

Some time after the lunch that we didn’t eat because Layla still refused to eat anything, Tamie called. She felt guilty for abandoning us and decided to come home, so we met her at the station and went for lunch. Soba and tempura for us. 13 soba noodles and three and a half dangos (small balls made of some kind of rice) for Layla.

After lunch we did some quick shopping before coming home. Layla was ready to pass out again, and Tamie got over her guilt fast enough to want to go jogging. So I was relegated to being a cushion again while Layla slept, this time without the sesame street!

Once Tamie got back, she went about making dinner while Layla went about trying to get comfy and I did my best to make her comfy. We ate. Layla watched. I think she might have had a couple grapes, but I can’t say for sure. I do know she refused to drink the strawberry-banana concoction that Tamie whipped up — made me wonder who’s kid she was because I certainly didn’t turn down the cup of delicious!

After Tamie finished eating is when things got even more interesting. Her stomach started doing somersaults and she crawled to the couch to lay down and die. Layla, ever helpful, thought it was a good time to practice tickling her mom. Mom didn’t laugh much, but I sure did. I can still hear her creeping up on Tamie saying ‘tickle, tickle, tickle‘ the way I do to her. Makes me so proud. I just hope she doesn’t ever plan on being a doctor with that bedside manner.

Shortly after that, I sent both girls to bed. I’m left here alone and awake, wondering if I should risk my own health by going over to the other side of the apartment with the feverish little one and the gut-wrenched wife. I guess I should… at some point.