Feb Photo A Day - Day 4 "A Stranger".

Here is my photo today. The title is "a stranger".
It really seems that I have become a stranger with my bed lately. Let's see, a few weeks of gastro (when I was sick I was on the sofa, when Poppet was sick I was in her bed, when Husband was sick I was running up and down stairs - and in circles). Then we went away for a week, then Poppet was sick again. We went out last weekend and had a particularly late night, and our child is also a very early riser (usually by 6am). Husband has been in Africa, making me the only up-at-nighter and early-morning parent. Last week I had a spate of nightmares too.

And then last night, at bedtime, Husband's eyes went nuts. It started with a dot in the centre of his vision and quickly turned into flashing and then he lost the sight in one eye. And there were no other symptoms at all. We called the Healthline number (thank goodness that exists) and whilst speaking to the nurse his eye just got better.
Even so, she advised him to seek medical care within the next four hours. It was 11 pm. Goody.

That lovely friend who brought me bread and milk the other day came to our rescue again. I rang and woke her and she walked over and stayed with Poppet through the wee small hours whilst we partook of the joys to be found in the hospital emergency department.

The triage nurse made us feel bad for even being there. After half an hour they'd finally taken our phone numbers and whatnot and we were sent through the special doors to the real waiting room. Believe me, it was packed. There were at least four patients in wheelchairs waiting for IV's to empty into their systems. There was a couple of English blokes who had stumbled across one another and become pals, sharing tales about the weather in Europe (which is mental, no?!) and I was rather happy to eavesdrop on their conversation to relieve the boredom. There was a Polish guy with his pregnant wife/girlfriend who was dressed in clothes which couldn't possibly be his, could they? He look nine months pregnant himself and his belly nicely hung over his jeans, which in turn fell down to display his rear end constantly. He also had slippers on and looked pretty bewildered. Bless, he didn't have much English so it was all pretty challenging for him.

Then there was the crazy girl. She apparently arrived screaming of a brain tumor (as I heard the Poms discussing later) and then spent the time we were near her giggling hysterically.

By this time (about 1am) Husband really felt we should leave as he was fine and we were surely wasting the hospital's time. He found a different triage nurse, said as much, and was suddenly whisked into a waiting room and seen immediately. They do at least pay attention to their duty of care, if we'd left and he'd had a stroke or whatever that would have been embarrassing. As it is, he needs to see an opthomologist "urgently" within a week, as it still could be a problem. Though most likely it's going to fall into the "just one of those things" category and be left unexplained. Which would be fine with us.

We were home at 2am, dropped lovely friend back to her place and relayed the whole evening's events to Poppet's amusement in the morning (when she woke at 5.45!).

So here is my "stranger". I hope to become better acquainted with it very soon.

Of course, after Poppet woke this morning she started coughing. I told her that if she coughed or even considered vomiting tonight, she will go straight to Time Out!

She thinks I'm joking...