I appreciate no one likes visiting the doctor or the hospital but I had serious anxiety problems with having to attend any medical appointment.
Having a baby means having lots of new medical experienced. Midwives, health visitors, labour wards etc.
After our eldest son was born I found myself sitting in the GP surgery waiting room on many occasion, whether it be for routine immunisations or new baby/mummy issues that I was completely clueless about and wanted checking out.
This however did not seem to improve my comfort levels with attending such appointments and when I was expecting boy number two I still had all the anxious feelings when it came to seeing the doctors/nurses/midwives.
As of August last year all that changed.
Take yesterday for example...
The day started with all the usual toddler and baby chaos. Playing, eating, pooing etc.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
However, on the journey back from a lovely visit to the Grandparents house I noticed some marks on the littlest little dudes legs. On closer inspection the marks looked like broken veins underneath his skin. I could only see them on his legs and feet and they weren't too prominent but they hadn't been there earlier on in the day.
Next I did the thing that I get shouted at for doing....I googled it! Turns out this was the right thing to do. I was pretty much non the wiser after looking it up on t'internet but it did prompt me to phone the GP's and ask if I could take him in to be seen at the end of surgery.
Within an hour I was talking to the doctor and when we stripped the little guy I could see that the number of marks had increased.
Turns out it was a non-blanching rash. Now we've all heard of these and I for one instantly thought meningitis. I had never seen one of these rashes before and actually thought it was something to do with his blood pressure.
The GP reassured me that she didn't think it was meningitis because he was well but advised that we take him straight to the hospital.
So once again we found ourselves packing up a bag full of nappies, bottles and spare clothes in case an overnight stay was required and off we went to A and E.
Five hours later and we were non the wiser as to what was causing the rash. However, the little man had no other symptoms suggesting he was unwell and the rash had not got any worse so the doctor took some blood and we were allowed to go home. Our little guy has been hooked up to more machines, been on more medications and had more tests and procedures than you'd think possible for someone so young. This one was new on us though, bandages on the feet covering the numbing cream that had been put on. I thought he looked like a little kick boxer with them on. We've gone from plastic cups taped onto his head when he weighed only five pounds to bandages on the feet. I would prefer that this be the end to his fascination with trying out all medical fashions.
He is on top form today, the rash is fading and the blood tests were all normal so I don't think we'll ever know what caused the strange rash.
Coming back to the original point (I have one in here somewhere) it is quite surreal how comfortable my husband and I are with hospital settings now. Obviously we would rather not be there and any health issues with the little ones cause great stress and upset. It's nice however, to not have the anxiety of being in the surroundings of the doctors/hospital on top of this worry.
My other half sounded like a hospital pro yesterday when the first thing he located when we were sent up from A and E to the assessment ward was the kitchen and the kettle.
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