Day 236 22/2/12 Hospital

Wed 22nd

Sorry no picture today for reasons that I think you´ll understand

We took Michael to the hospital this morning as soon as it opened. I was so happy that Rocio has her Peruvian right to preferential treatment as we jumped all the queues and got ourselves an early appointment with the Paediatrician. Registering for the for time t the hospital was made complicated by Michael not yet having his National ID card. The woman entering his details kept reading from Rocio’s ID and putting her info in. Also she could not accept that Michael’s first sir name is Jenkins and she spelt it wrongly even after several repetitions of how it goes. When we got through to see the Doctor he was a terrible rude and ignorant man, who hardly looked in Michael’s direction at all and sent us to get an analysis of Michael’s nappy contents. This all turned out to be another encounter with rude arrogant officious staff who wouldn’t accept nappy contents from a nappy and wanted us to go buy a small plastic container and wait until Michael somehow chose to fill it for us. We went and hid and gave them the nappy contents we already had from an earlier change and they analysed this for us. It proved to be an all clear and after another visit to Doctor Ego we went home. We spent all day looking after Michael and he seemed to be doing well and we went to bed happy that he was getting better but in the night we noticed that he was really hot and weak and just not as responsive as he normally is. He was breathing fast and I listened to his chest and his poor heart was racing away. This really really frightened Rocio and I and we got up and rushed out to the emergency hospital. We didn’t really know what to do and decided to go straight to a private hospital by taxi only to be turned away as they don’t have a paediatric section. The next hospital happened to be the one we had gone to earlier and was just up the road so Rocio and I jogged up there only to find it all closed and locked up. We ran around and banged on all the doors to no effect. We were desperate by this time but no one seemed to be in. I noticed a security guard in a doorway across the road was watching us, though not saying anything and we went over to him to ask if he knew where the emergency room was. It turned out that he was in the door of the emergency room and had watched us searching with desperation without saying anything. So we were led in and from then on we met nothing but kind caring efficient hospital staff. Michael was taken and examined weighed and temperature taken, breathing and heart checked. At every stage that they could they returned Michel to Rocio for some comfort feeding and love. I thought this was very wise and caring of them. The very worst of it all for Michel was that they decided that he couldn’t breathe properly though his nose and I helped hold him down whilst they unblocked it for him. Michael never likes even having his nose wiped for him and having cotton buds poked up his nose made him scream and scream. We were sent home with Ibuprfen liquid to give him for his temperature and instructions to go back to the hospital again in the morning for the paediatrician to check him over again.
When we got home we found we were locked out as neither of us had the keys and we had to wake Paolita us next door by phoning her mobile and get her to jump the garden wall and open he street door for us. We had about two hours sleep before going back to the hospital again.