Hospitals are like a new parents’ best and worst friend.
It’s a place where we go to have all our fears – whether silly or serious listened to by Doctors and Nurses with straight faces. But the long wait almost kills as we wait for our precious bundle to be seen by a professional and keep reassuring ourselves in the meantime – by Googling symptoms so that we can nod enthusiastically when the Doctor explains possible causes (well,I do that anyway,I am a Google parent – more on this later)..
Anyway my little one had been making odd choking sounds all of last week where he appeared to have something lodged in his throat. After Googling his symptoms, I decided to take him to our GP who assured me it was normal and that he would grow out of it eventually. Her diagnosis was accompanied by bub’s numerous giggles. Come the weekend, hubby and I decided to take the LO to the Children’s Hospital for our peace of mind as he appeared to be choking more frequently.
We arrived at the hospital on a Sunday afternoon and were confronted with a whole queue of harassed looking parents and sick children of various ages with baby paraphernalia littered around the area. Only the Doctors seemed relaxed despite dealing with all types of panicked parents. Bub had fallen asleep on my shoulder and was the calmest baby in the room. Other babies were coughing, crying and vomiting with sleep deprived parents fighting to stay awake or fighting with each other. I felt almost guilty for coming to the hospital when bub seemed ok and we didn’t look sleep deprived in the least.
Meanwhile hubby, the engineer that he is, was busy observing how poor the signage in the hospital was and suggesting ways to improve it to make things easier for parents. Fascinating conversation! (He was determined to mention it to the triage nurse and he did).
A couple next to us looked like they had been through a war. Their baby kept crying non-stop,wouldn’t feed and mum looked desperate – she had come to hospital in her pajamas. The hospital is the one place where you will find people wearing their most daggiest outfit – nowhere else would this dressing be acceptable!
Finally, they called our baby’s name and we entered the examination area to be met by a doctor named Fernando..No sooner had he started talking then bub decided the doc was too funny for words and out came the loud giggles. He giggled so loudly I couldn’t even hear half of what the Doc was asking us.
Anyway the doc started the physical examination and out came the loud giggles again. The stethoscope brought out another round of laughter as did the leg and tummy exam!
The diagnosis was to be expected – nothing wrong with bub as our letter showed. As for the choking? Caused by excess production of saliva and a coordination problem!
Handy tip for new parents: Take videos of your baby when he is showing concerning behavior which needs to be looked at by Doctors. It will be much easier than trying to explain using words.
I have a ‘little’ problem that I ‘forgot’ to mention to my husband when we got married; well actually two ‘little’ problems. Under extreme tiredness and extreme stress I sleep talk, or sleep-scream (depends on how cluttered my brain is during the day) or I sleep walk. Like I said, little problem for me but a gigantic one for my hubby who already suffers from insomnia and gets very little sleep as is!
