Good day.

The highlights of today.

1) Tidied loads of the house whilst waiting for Chris to get here. It was so great to see him - he's not the 18yr old rugby player he once was, but the twinkle is still there. He's a lovely lovely chap.

2) Lovely lunch and walk and coffee in the park (well, I had tea) with Chris.

3) Dr A's appointment went really well. He-Ex had brought his chart of AC's temperatures during the day and when he had had nurofen, and how his temperature hadn't dropped. Dr A informed him that was because he had given AC nurofen, not paracetamol. Dr A turned the AC almost inside out and said that in his opinion, this wasn't croup. Ok, what is it? He had a temp of 38.9, obliged by coughing for the doc, a lot, and the doc said he thought it was an infection of his trachea (more info here) and prescribed a basic antibiotic but said if we had any concerns. if he worsened, if his breathing was odd in anyway, get him back or to A&E in a hurry. And he wants to see him next week on Thursday. Dr A also thought that the middle-of-the-night doc had over prescribed the steroid for the AC, even if it was the right thing to give him, which in Dr A's opinion, it wasn't. Dr A and I went through what I've been doing with him, and he said that I've been doing all I can to get his temperature down, that he's happy that we don't give AC anything until he goes over 38.5, that's a good plan, that what we do to help the cough is the right thing, and basically we had done all we could for him. That was nice to hear. (I'm not sure He-Ex was too pleased though!)

4) Crablady came to get the computers that CP had left here to take them to PJ in Norwich to be recycled into working machines. I'm calling her Crablady, because I think she deserves a name as I think (and hope) we'll be seeing a lot more of her. She's lovely. She thinks Dave is gorgeous.

5) Dave has moulted again, and now he's a serious size! LOL. There's more to come though I think - it should be every 6-8 weeks, so he is right on schedule.

6) AC is in bed, coughing a little bit, having had his medicine around 5.30. 3 doses a day, 5 days. Paracetamol took his temperature right down, which was fantastic, and he perked right up and was reluctant to go to bed! HURRAY!

7) Random phonecalls and messages from the She-Ex who is being very nice. Do I go with it? I want to, but we've been here before. :-( I just don't know. She wanted us to send her the pictures of BG at the zoo as her phone is broken and she can't get the pictures off. I told her we'd had 6 pictures of the BG all year, and the only on of her at the zoo was of the back of her head. I asked her straight if there were more, and yep, there were. She just didn't send them to us. Like I said. I don't know.

Snuggling on the sofa time at 9. Eleventh hour is on. I think.

I sang....

.....

I wish I was a Punk Rocker (Sandi Thom)

All Cried Out (Alison Moyet)

Something in the way she moves (Beatles)

And I rocked All Cried Out.

I love that song, some days because of the lyrics, some days because the tune soars around and really tests my voice. Today is a good voice day - by my standards lol!

The way I feel

This is how I feel today.

Definately.

I can't write it any better than this lady, but this is how I feel today.

So I shall plaster on a happy smile, sing in the shower to get myself laughing, dance my way through the house picking up the worst bits and hoovering, and then giggle through lunch. Being jolly.

No doubt I shall be being perfect and Mary Poppins and earth mothery as well.

Ha.

See. I'm laughing already.

The AC has a doctors appointment at 4.10. We are going to get this cough-that-needs-steroids looked at completely. With a Doctor who knows what he is doing. Dr A is a lovely Dr, who has been patient and kind and understanding already. So now he can do the same for the AC. As a result of seeing Dr A I got physio, I got me sorted quite a lot. Now he can do the same for the AC.

That's a lot of trust to put in one Doctor, but today, that's also the way I feel.

steroids

So all was well last night, I was tucked up in bed after speaking to R briefly, who had managed to speak to BG on her birthday, and off I go to sleep.

1.09am we're popping into outpatients for doc to listen to AC.

0109 Ok, let me know if you need me or want me to come

0135 Doc given dose of steroid. AC happy. Off home.

0136 Just a case of taking it easy over the next few days. What did he say AC has?

0146 Croup

0148 well get all to bed and I'll catch up in the morning. Speak to you in a while! Lots of love and cuddles to AC.

I'm still waiting to hear from him, but I suppose it is only 0735.

I'll call there around 8am if I haven't heard. But it makes me laugh because I deal with this every time. We use steam, we use propping, and he gets through it, without the steroids in the vast majority of cases. His Dad has him for one night, and bam, straight to the doc, straight with the steroids, in the middle of the night, when he *knows* that this is just croup, and we deal with it repeatedly, and you cannot stick steroids in a small body on a repeated basis.

Oh well.

Lots of oh welling today I think. I've texted R and let him know as much as I know.

BG's birthday

BG had a birthday!

YAY!

We spoke on the phone!

YAY!

She spoke to her Daddy on the phone!

YAY!

The telegram has mysteriously disappeared!

Boooooooooooooo!

The e-card has not been viewed.

Boooooooooooooooooo!

But she sounded happy on the phone, and that's what matters.

N.B. This is not discussion, just a statement of facts. Discussion is private!