Day +42: A Mini Meltdown

Today was not a good day.

Yesterday, I was fine. I had a nice day at home with Sean, and a nice evening out with my friends. It was a lovely day.

Today, I woke up not wanting to do anything. I didn't want to get out of bed. I didn't want to go to the hospital. I didn't want to drive the car for an hour, to go and sit in a room for hours, and wait for things to be done. I didn't want to be a mum today.

I felt off. I felt on the verge of tears. I felt very fragile. I didn't feel like me.

It took everything I had to get out of bed, get dressed, drink a strong coffee, back the car out of the garage, put our bags into the boot, strap the baby into the car, and drive safely in traffic for an hour to the hospital. We were shown to Isolation Room 2, and Luke, the obstinate nurse from last week, was assigned to look after us. Great. Just what my fragile state needed.

Fortunately, Luke did what he had to do quickly, but he still irked me along the way. I swear, if he is assigned to us again later this week when we return on Thursday, I will be asking for another nurse.

We waited and waited and waited for a doctor to come and see us, and as usual, no one came for hours. Sean was getting a bit antsy, and I tried my best to keep him entertained while he was confined to the little cage that was the cot. Just as Sean was settling down and happy to watch TV for a little while, we were told to move to another room by the nurses, because they had a patient who needed a clean room, and we were turfed to the Recovery Room, where there was no TV.

Since there was nothing to entertain us in the Recovery Room, I allowed Sean to run around and pull and tug at everything within his reach. Eventually, he became tired, so I put him in the pram and Sean had a nap. Dr Barbaric finally came to see us, after Sean had fallen asleep, and since Stephanie (our new junior doctor shadowing the oncology consultant) had already reviewed Sean, Dr Barbaric agreed to not wake Sean for another examination.

Dr Barbaric went through the blood test results, and everything seemed to be fine. Except for one thing. Sean's urea levels were high. Not life threateningly high. Just high enough that Dr Barbaric thought it worthwhile to mention to me.

I lost it. I started sobbing, and felt like I was a complete failure. And even though it was never said, I felt like Dr Barbaric was accusing me of not doing enough. That I was doing it wrong.

I don't know what made me hear those accusations. At no point did Dr Barbaric nor any of the medical professionals accuse me of not looking after my child properly. At no point did Dr Barbaric nor any of the medical professionals call me a bad mum. However, all I heard was just that. That I wasn't looking after Sean properly. That I wasn't doing it right. That I was a bad mum. That I was a complete failure.

I sobbed. And sobbed. And sobbed.

Sean was thankfully asleep and unaware that I was inconsolably sobbing my eyes out. Dr Barbaric, Stephanie and Laura all stood there, looking at me, and wondering how to comfort me. I had gone from being interested in what they had to say, to an emotional and irrational mess, in a matter of seconds. It was completely unexpected, by all parties involved.

I was now mortified by my outburst, on top of everything else, and that just made me even more upset. The sobs were now loud and heaving, the tears were rolling hot and fast down my face, and I was a total wreck.

I sobbed that I didn't know what else I could do to make sure Sean was getting enough fluids. I felt like I was already feeding Sean all day long, and the repetition of trying to get the food and fluids into my son, the stress caused by said son who often refused to eat or became extremely difficult at meal times, combined with the claustrophobic environment that came with the isolation period, was all getting the better of me. Dr Barbaric suggested that I gave Sean a bolus of water in between meals and milk boluses, or give him a water ice block to eat, as a way of getting more fluids into Sean.

Fantastic. Why don't I just chain Sean to his high chair all day long? More water boluses. Great idea, but I didn't want to give those to him. It was hard enough getting him to sit still 6 times a day in order to get 3 meals and 3 boluses into him. Another bolus or two of water on top of all of this was not going to work, especially when Sean was starting to become wary about sitting the high chair. And the water ice block idea was great, but I already knew for a fact Sean would refuse to hold the ice block, with it being cold and wet and all, and he would only lick the ice block a few times before he got bored with it. So that wasn't going to work either.

Everything seemed like too much of a hassle. If only I had a fairy godmother who would come and make everything better.

I felt very alone. I felt like there was no one in the world helping me. I felt like no one understood the hardship I was going through. I felt like I was doing everything and getting nothing in return.

I felt like a whinger.

After a while, I calmed down enough to stop crying. I had kept Dr Barbaric, Stephanie and Laura for ages, and now felt not only upset by the world as well as mortified and embarrassed by my outburst, but also guilty for keeping them from other patients. Laura told me she would look into having someone call me to check on my seemingly fragile state of mental health, and just as we were about to leave, Sean woke from his nap, opened his eyes and smiled at me. Totally oblivious to all the commotion surrounding him.

Having sufficiently worried everyone, I was now too embarrassed to stay any longer. I was quite dismissive towards the ladies, and now that Sean was awake, I wanted to get us home to get on with the day. We still needed to go to Macquarie Centre to pay the Green Slip and Registration for our car, so we packed up our gear and headed to our next destination.

Sean was so awesome. He was cooperative when we got to Macquarie Centre, and not once did he complain or whinge about having to wear the mask and being strapped to the pram. We headed up to NRMA first to pay the Green Slip, and the lady who served us tried to upsell some increased insurance package to us. I was so not in the mood to listen to her sales pitch, and asked her to speed things up as I still needed to fight the queues in the RTA before going home. She offered to help alleviate some of our chores by paying the registration on-line while we waited, which I happily agreed to. This whole thing probably saved us at least 20 minutes of waiting time in the RTA, and as soon as everything had gone through, we hurried out of NRMA and headed to Woolworths to pick up a few jars of baby food for Sean.

We were having dinner with my parents tonight, so we weren't home for very long before we headed out again. I wanted to get to my parents' place a bit earlier, so they could play with Sean and I could have a small nap on their couch. Sean had a great time playing with Por Por, while Gong Gong was busy cooking in the kitchen.

Mum looked at me and asked if everything was OK, and I had a bit of a cry in front of her. Mum always felt a bit uncomfortable whenever I or my sisters cried in front of her, and she tried her best to reassure me that I was doing everything right.

Jonathan arrived shortly before 6pm, and we had a nice meal with my parents before hurrying home to get on with Sean's night time routine. I tried to explain to Jonathan how I was feeling all day long, but he was tired too, and I didn't want to make it sound like he did nothing around the house and didn't lift a finger to look after the baby, so I didn't really go into it much.

I think I'm a bit hormonal. Maybe a good night's sleep will help to stem some of these tears.