Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate!

“It could be due to H1N1 or a chest infection…” The doctor at the clinic suspected after examining Darius yesterday, which happened to be New Year’s eve.

Darius had been running a fever since Monday and Catherine and I had been giving him the paracetamol syrup constantly to bring down his fever. His temperature was fluctuating but seeing that his condition was still not improving, we decided to bring him down to the doctor.

“39.9 °C?” The receptionist was shocked when she took Darius’ temperature over at the clinic’s counter. We were quite taken aback too as the highest temperature I’ve taken back home had so far been 38.5 °C. We didn’t realise his fever had gone so high all of a sudden. With his condition, he was given priority to see the doctor immediately.

40.0 °C was displayed on her thermometer when the doctor took his temperature again. Like us, she looked worried at the readings, despite Darius still being active and behaving normally. She then listened to his lungs and heard some blockage in them, which led to her suspicion of possible chest infection. Fortunately, his lungs became clearer after Darius gave a cough so she thought that might not be too likely afterall. She had also noticed a few ulcers in his throat.

The doctor suggested two possible follow-up actions for us: We could give him Tamiflu (a medicine for H1N1) to see if his condition would improve, or to send him straight to the Children’s A&E department at KK Hospital. She would prefer us taking the latter option so that a more accurate diagnosis could be provided by the hospital with the help of swab and blood tests. Taking the Tamiflu might help bring down Darius’ temperature, but we could be putting him into risks of any contraindication of the drug unnecessarily if it turned out that he was not having H1N1. The doctor was also concerned that tomorrow being a public holiday, medical help might be difficult to get if Darius’ condition was to worsen.

Not wanting to compromise on Darius’ health, Catherine and I left for home to pack up the stuff needed for our hospital trip. We even brought some books along, thinking that it would be a long wait at the A&E department, from our experiences from other hospitals.

When we reached there, we were glad to see there wasn’t much of a crowd, at least not at the triage area. Our number was called shortly and we walked to a counter where a nurse did some basic examination of Darius, like taking his temperature, heart rate and blood pressure. The nurse was very friendly and patient to Darius, and we could see she enjoyed what she does. ^^

A safety mechanism to prevent children from accidentally opening the door to the road

We were then ushered to the registration counter and upon registration, we would need to pay the basic consultation fees of S$80. According to the hospital, this would also cover the basic examination and tests performed on the patient.

With that, we proceeded on to the waiting area, where there were slightly more children and parents waiting for their turns. We were quite glad to see that many doctors were available too though.

The place is nicely furnished with a colourful ocean theme

Just shortly after we sat down, Darius’ name was mentioned through the announcement system for us to enter Room 11, where he would have his blood test done. Darius was brave during his injections (see Separate or Combined?) — would he be so for this too? I wondered.

Once again, the nurse who attended to us was friendly too, and tried to distract Darius with a plastic jar of sweets in preparation for the blood test. It seemed to be the norm to use the sweets because the nurse at the Triage area also used a similar jar. What they didn’t know is that we had not introduced sweets to Darius so he did not even know what they were. Therefore, he wasn’t interested in the jar and started to get restless.

I then took out our iPod Touch and played a story video to him and that sure caught his attention while the nurse performed her task. When his middle finger was pricked, Darius did jump slightly but didn’t bother with it as he continued watching the video. The nurse was squeezing out blood from the puncture point to fill up a small vial for the blood test and it took some time. Once again, Darius had shown his tolerance to pain.

When she was done, she placed a plaster over Darius’ finger. It was an adult-sized plaster. We thought they could have used a children-sized one so it wouldn’t look so bulky in his hand. Darius was curious what just ended up on his finger and kept fiddling with it, moving it across a surface, fussing and wondering why he couldn’t get it off. ^^|

"Anyone here can help me get this off?"

We were told that the test results would only be out around 45 minutes later but the doctor could call for us earlier to examine Darius first. True enough, within minutes our number was called and we entered another room to meet a young lady doctor. As with the nurses, she was friendly too and would tease Darius a little as she asked questions about his condition and examined him.

Nothing about H1N1 was mentioned, so we presumed she didn’t find it to be a possibility at all. Instead, she focused on examining his lungs and throat. We were relieved when she said that his lungs were indeed clear but his throat was quite badly inflammed. She believed that would be the cause of Darius’ fever — throat inflammation. Still, we needed to wait for the blood test results to ensure that he did not suffer from any other bacterial infection.

Catherine and I were glad the diagnosis so far had been encouraging, as we had feared he might have contracted some kind of chest infection which could lead to serious conditions. We were however quite surprised that Darius was suffering from a throat inflammation as he had not been rejecting any food we fed him during his fever outbreak. Guess he strong tolerance against pain and discomfort had once again played a part.

Meanwhile, we headed to the food court at the hospital for our lunch while waiting for the test results. We ordered fish porridge for Darius and he had his fill without much fuss.

One wouldn’t be able to tell that he’s not feeling well by looking at him since he was still so jovial and active despite his fever since Monday. When we let him down from our arms, he sped off like a bullet running along the long pathways, laughing happily. Looks like his condition did not deter him from being his usual self. ^^

As jovial as ever!

Back at the waiting area, we waited for a while before Darius’ name was called. Once again, we were relieved to hear that there’s no abnormality from the results and he was prescribed with medicine for his fever and cough, including a 7-day course of  antibiotics to help him combat his throat inflammation.

With that, we proceed to the pharmacy to collect his medicine while the tired Darius finally dozed off in his stroller. He didn’t had a morning nap since we brought him out to see the doctor at the clinic. Anyway all the medicine and blood test were included in the initial consultation fee we paid.

Back home, we wrestled with feeding him the pineapple-smell antibiotics syrup with a syringe because it was a lot, 7.7ml each time and thus we had to fill the syringe two times. He always cries hard when it’s medication time. He hates the sweet stuff and especially dislikes the cough medicine. He would thrash about and cry, “不要。。。be… BE… YAAOOOO!”

After finally swallowing the medicine, he would immediately reach for the water-bottle and gulp down lots of water through the straw to wash down the sweet stuff. When it was time for dripping the medicine for nose block into his nostrils, he would even thrash about and cry his heart out in total fear. He is very fearful of anything that goes into his nose. That’s why we had been unsucessful in sucking out his mucus from his blocked nose. We thought just dripping the medicine into his nose would be easier but he was still afraid. Still, we insisted to do it so he could sleep better. After the whole feeding episode, he would still complain and keep saying tearfully, ‘no-no’ in Mandarin and his complaining cries would last about 10mins… Sigh.

So far, his condition has improved though he still whines at night, either wanting a sip of water or due to having some nightmares. Hopefully he will recover fully soon for the new year ahead because we had not been sleeping well, trying to deal with his crying at night and more crying after the feeding of medicine. The good thing is that he’s totally fine during the day, laughing happily and playing about as long as he wasn’t sleeping or taking his medicine.

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