Day +8: Easter Bunny + Bondi Lifeguards = Lots of Chocolates!

Lights. Camera. Action!

Today turned out to be one of the busiest days we'd had to date. Even as I'm writing this, I'm amazed at how we fit everything in to the last 16 hours.

Easter was upon us, and judging by the flurry of activity on the ward today, it was going to be hectic. There were doctors a plenty, specialists and consultants and other medical personnel, and they were all trying to see their patients and get on with more work. Our team came in and told us how great Sean was doing, and that he was tracking along just as they had predicted and expected. They kept telling us this same story every day, and every day, we were thankful and happy to hear it.

Because this weekend is the Easter weekend, the doctors wanted bloods to be taken from Sean to test his cyclosporin levels today instead of tomorrow. After the little mishap a couple of days ago, bloods will need to be taken not only from Sean's red lumen, but also peripherally, meaning the blood sister was going to come in today, nick Sean's finger, and squeeze some blood out into a tube.

Adam also noted that Sean's platelets count was low, so he was going to have to have a transfusion of platelets today. Something new! We'd not had platelets before, so I was definitely going to have to take a photo of this.

Megan came by with our ward granny Jenny, who was going to spend a bit of time with Sean. Jenny wasn't able to come and see us last week as she was feeling a bit sick, so it was nice to see her today. Knowing she was coming today, Jonathan and I had planned an outing for the two of us, and we had been eagerly waiting for her arrival.

We asked Megan to look into finding a genetics counsellor to come and talk to Jonathan and I about our options if we were to decide to have another baby. We weren't really in a position to make a final decision about adding to our family yet, and we really wanted to talk to someone first before doing that. There were so many things we wanted to ask, and if we were to go ahead with planning for Baby No. 2, what kinds of things we should be thinking about right now, and what things we should be doing right now. For example, with my 40th birthday looming large, if we did decide to have another child in a few years time, should I be getting some eggs harvested and frozen for future use? Megan said she would ask around and find a suitable person to come and talk to us. In the meantime, she mentioned that we should talk to our private health fund HCF to find out if we had coverage for reproductive medicine, as a future baby would need to be conceived via IVF, and while those costs are pretty huge, some health funds do cover a lot of the medical costs.

Sean took to Jenny immediately, and with him being so happy, Jonathan and I all but sprinted out the door. We went up to the shops on Belmore Road and wandered around the Royal Randwick Shopping Centre after a short visit to the NAB. We had a parcel to post to New Zealand for Jonathan's brother Dave's birthday, so we went to the newsagency to get a card before braving the Post Office to post the parcel. It would have been nice to have had something to eat while we were out, but we were still full from breakfast and it was too early for lunch, and we were saving ourselves for a nice refreshing treat from EasyWay.

After posting Dave's parcel, we went in search of some chocolate Easter eggs. I wanted to buy a bunch of Easter eggs to give to our medical team as well as the nurses and the auxiliary staff on the ward. We went into Woolworths in our search but found their display had been decimated by other shoppers. So we went up to Go Lo, which had plenty of stock. We wandered through this giant store for a while, before heading over to EasyWay for our icy drinks.

It was really nice to be out of the hospital with Jonathan. It was the first time we'd been out of the hospital, together, in over 2 weeks. And it had been 15 months since we'd been out, together, without the baby, or the pram, or the nappy bag. It was really nice - just us, holding hands, strolling along to the shops, and enjoying the fresh air and the sunshine.

By the time we got back to the hospital, Sean was asleep and Jenny was breathing a sigh of relief. Sean had become quite upset when he got tired, and it took quite a bit of comforting before he would calm down enough to fall asleep. Jenny handled everything well and now she knew what to do to settle him. This would come in handy next week, when Jonathan and I have lunch time plans with our friends Niall and Loey, who are visiting from London and have plans to meet up with us for lunch.

The busy activities continued with a visit from our friend Daisy from Mothers Group. Daisy works as a pharmacist at the Prince of Wales Hospital next door to the Sydney Children's Hospital, and she'd paid us visits during our previous stays. I'd not seen her in over a month, so it was lovely to see her and catch up. Sean was asleep for much of Daisy's visit, which was nice as he allowed us to have a conversation without needing to care for a bored and wriggly baby.

Grace was to come and visit us today too, but she encountered a lot of car problems all day long - her car was basically being held hostage by the panel beaters, who had promised to deliver the car by yesterday, only to not have even started work on until this morning. Poor Grace - she was running around all over town to try and collect her car and run errands, and in the end, something had to give, and she promised to visit tomorrow. I told her to try and not worry about missing today's visit, and hoped her night was better than her day.

We noticed in the afternoon that the nurses were thin on the ground, and wondered if it had anything to do with the Sydney Roosters and Bondi Lifeguards paying a visit to the hospital as part of their annual charity work. A BBQ was to be held from 4pm for all the parents and carers, where the Sydney Rooster football players were to be present and signing autographs and having their photos taken. Neither Jonathan nor I had any interest in meeting these people, but we did want a nurse, any nurse, to come to our room shortly after we push the buzzer. It was taking ages for Irish Jo to appear, and those damn machines kept beeping at us.

The Easter Bunny made his rounds in the hospital, and came past our room and were asked by Jo to stop and wave. Sean saw the Easter Bunny from the cot and almost launched himself out of the cot to try and get closer to the Bunny. I carried him all the way to the door and held him up to the glass, and he waved at the Easter Bunny with the biggest smile on his face. Considering how much he hated Santa Claus when we had our Santa photos taken last year, I was a little bit surprised, but nevertheless pleased, to see how delighted Sean was to meet the Easter Bunny. The Bunny was accompanied by a group of volunteers, who left Jonathan and me some lovely Easter Eggs to enjoy.

The day of visitors was rounded out by a visit from the Bondi Lifeguards. After entertaining the masses at the BBQ, they too did the rounds in the hospital, and stopped at our door to say hello. Again, we took Sean up to the glass so he could see the lifeguards and wave to them. The lifeguards all waved back and smiled at Sean, which was lovely to see. They too left a large amount of chocolate for me and Jonathan.

The excitement of the day wore Sean out and he was in bed and asleep just after 7.30pm. The night shift were having all sorts of issues meeting the call bells - it must have been a complete nightmare of a shift tonight. By the look of things, I can only assume that they were short staffed, and the patients were all showing to require higher levels of care than the nurses had first anticipated. They were looking pretty frazzled every time they came into the room, and that was when they did finally come into the room, 5 minutes after I rang the bell to have Sean's machines looked at. I'm hoping that once I go to sleep, things will also quieten down for the nurses on the ward, and it won't take them forever to come when I buzz.

It might have been a busy day today, but it was a lovely day. I look forward to spending more Wednesdays with Jonathan, away from the hospital and enjoy some alone, "just us" time again.