Day +35: Clinic Day!

We have finally settled into a routine of sorts.

Tuesdays and Thursday now arrive without much fanfare, but with the weather becoming colder, it was now harder and harder to get out of bed in the mornings.

The house was a flutter with a flurry of activity by 6.30am, after Jonathan's superhuman efforts to get me out of bed before getting Sean dressed and ready to head out the door. I had packed Sean's cooler bag the night before, with food for breakfast and lunch, milk and water for his boluses, as well as his cyclosporin and his water bottle, so once we were dressed, we were ready to leave.

As usual, Sean had a little nap on our way to the hospital. The traffic was a bit thicker this morning than last week, then again, we did leave a few minutes after 7am. What a different a few minutes made to the traffic. Leaving at 6.50am, the traffic was a lot more free flowing and the journey would take around 50 minutes. Leaving at 7.10am, and it took us just over an hour to get into the car park at the Sydney Children's Hospital.

We raced upstairs, and were seen to by the very lovely Ally, who processed our admission for the day quickly and efficiently. Ally was the very experienced ward clerk in C2 North, and I was so glad to have her look after us over the rather new and inexperienced clerk from last week. Not knowing if Sean would require another IVIg transfusion today, I asked for us to be put into a room with a television. An IVIg transfusion usually took around 3 hours, and if we were allocated the Recovery Room again, without a TV, those 3 hours would feel twice as long without something to distract Sean during the transfusion. Ally was most understanding, and led us to Isolation Room 1.

Iso 1 was a lot smaller than the Recovery Room, but it had a TV, and that was all that mattered.

We settled in, and Sean had his bloods taken by the nurses, and we waited for Dr Trahair to come around to see us. Sean had breakfast, and we were in the middle of Sean's bolus when Dr Barbaric and Laura came in to see Sean. Dr Trahair was otherwise occupied, and Dr Barbaric reviewed Sean from top to bottom. She was really happy with Sean's progress, so I asked if Sean's overnight feeds could be reduced from 45mL per hour to 40mL per hour. I had good reason to ask the question, as Sean's nappy was not able to contain the amount of fluids he was getting overnight, and he was waking up wet and cold and upset at 5am. With Sean's nose blocking up overnight, him waking up screaming at 5am was the last thing we needed.

As Sean had put on a good amount of weight and was eating quite well, Dr Barbaric decided we should be fine to reduce the rate. We had wanted to consult with Heidi the dietitian, but as she was away, Dr Barbaric was happy to give us the go ahead.

Sean's blood tests all came back without any real signs of worry, however, Dr Barbaric wanted us to increase Sean's fluid intake, and she suggested that we gave Sean more water with the boluses of milk, and to give Sean a bigger water flush with his cyclosporin dosages as well as the flush in the morning after Sean's overnight feed was disconnected.

We were finished a lot sooner than expected, so we came home and continued our day. We had to stop by the chemist to pick up some more Fluconazole for Sean, so we paid Maiwand at Middleton's Pharmacy a visit. Maiwand had kept in touch with us during the hospital stay to check on Sean's progress, and he and Helen were thrilled to see us when we went in to fill the script. Sean ran amok in the shop, and Maiwand had a fantastic time chasing Sean.

Once we were home, Sean took great pleasure in walking around the driveway, and enjoying the fresh air for a bit. We had arranged for some cleaners to come and clean our house, having set off a few bug bombs through the house in an effort to fumigate for winter, and Shalley and her crew of two arrived promptly at 2pm. Whilst the house wasn't filthy dirty, it needed a good clean by professionals, and Shalley's pamphlet in our letterbox a few weeks ago was the exact thing the doctor ordered.

Shalley and her crew cleaned the house from top to bottom, and they took down all the blinds and gave them a good clean too. Our oven needed a really good scrub, and Shalley's colleague did such a great job on it that I was too afraid to use it - it was too clean!

I tried to keep the little man away from the hustle and bustle of Shalley and her crew, a frenzy of activity throughout the house. There might have only been 3 of them, but it felt like there were 10 of them, all busy cleaning, dusting, scrubbing, mopping, vacuuming and sweeping. By 5pm, the house was clean and Shalley and her crew were packing everything back into the car. I was so pleased with the results. It was a little bit expensive, but it was well worth it.

So that was how Sean and I spent the day Sean turned 16 months - attending Clinic and chilling out at home. After Jonathan got home, I went out to the supermarket to pick up a few more jars of baby food for Sean. It was kind of nice to be out, by myself, without having to worry about Sean. I took as long as I needed to collect the few things from the supermarket, and when I got home, our neighbour Jessie and her family had just pulled into their garage. Jessie and her older daughter Tiffany came over to say hello, and asked after Sean. I invited them to come in, but Jessie had just finished work for the day and wanted to start dinner for her family, so they promised to pay us a visit tomorrow. Tiffany also wanted to visit, so we agreed to have afternoon tea together after Tiffany was home from school.

Yay for visitors! I think I might bake something for afternoon tea. Now, I just need to see what delicious treats I can make!