My Weekend away in Hospital

Its 00:05 am and I am sitting in a dark room. Surrounded by soft humming, beeping and blowing noises. The room is so quiet I can hear the keys I type on my laptop echo around me. I am sitting on a lounger with my feet up and the only light in the room from my laptop adding a soft glow to my face and arms. I am awake, I should be asleep, but I can't. This place is foreign to me. Its not my home, this is not my bed and I am away from my other half. So Instead I am chatting to my sister on whattsap and thinking my thoughts.

We are in hospital. The second time in two months with Jesse. He lays in the cot next to me with a drip in his arm, fast asleep. He loves to visit this place, he loves just being here. I on the other hand would usually be still and relaxed, but this time is different.

Finding out that I was Pregnant with Jesse was a big surprise for us. I was still breast feeding Aspen who was only thirteen months old at the time. I was timing my ovulation perfectly and monitored my body quite successfully until it decided to pull a fast one on me. I ovulated earlier than expected and within three days, just knew that I was expecting. My hubby was not impressed with me at all, and throughout my pregnancy and birth, he was very distant. Jesse was born in a beautiful water birth which you can read about in my Birth Stories, at Genesis Clinic. The labor was fast and relatively easy. He was chubby and light skinned. So sweet, for about a week. Then he started screaming, most of the time. He was just unhappy. I became depressed and we were both simply just unhappy together. At three months, he turned into the happiest little person in the world, and things changed for us.

When I stopped breastfeeding him at eleven months, I noticed that he would become ill more often than his siblings. He was always coughing and always had a runny nose. I took him to the ENT specialist who hardly looked at him, gave us steroids and sent us off. The Medicine would help and then just not help anymore. We went to the GP numerous times, ended up at a new ENT specialist who decided he needed a Tonsillectomy, Grommits and his Adenoids removed because he now had leaky ears. He started to change, became more upset more often, cried a lot of the time, held his ears at noise, and always just had a bad chest. He got Chicken Pocks that created a Skin infection on his Stomach, and just as that cleard, he developed Shingles. All of these things, under the age of four.

Last week was the final straw for me. He was miserable at Gold Reef City, held his ears most of the time and closed his eyes in the tunnels. Something was wrong with my baby and I have been trying to tell everyone who just took our money, gave us meds and sent us away. I eventually started to ask people to refer me to a doctor that was good at diagnosing problems and that would actually pay attention to us. I expected it to be expensive, and I expected us to have to pay for tons of different out patient tests.

Our Appointment was Friday, and within five minutes of sitting with the Dr, she already knew what we were dealing with. 'He has asthma and Allergies" I was shocked. All my google searches said that when I checked Jesse's Symptons, but not one doctor took the time to tell me that. Then she examined him and as I described Jeese's other issues, she got more and more concerned. Before I knew it, we were being admitted into the hospital because his chest was weazing, his heart rate was up, his oxygen levels were low, and she was going to make sure that we find out what really was going on with my poor child.

So now I sit here, wondering what the battery of tests being done to my sweet child will reveal. I am so relieved to have found someone who can help bring my happy boy back again, but at the same time I am so worried that something serious could be going on. I sit and ask myself also why it took so long for someone to take us serously? We wasted so much money on so many doctors who could help us find any answers. Nobody believed me. Nobody trusted my instincts the way that I did, and now four years of struggle will finally be revealed.

I always thought that having children would be a hard, but never did I think that it would actually make me grow up. Right now, my wants, my needs and my desires don't matter. Who I want to be and where I am going with his life are miniscule to how much I need my baby to be well and happy.  This is what being grown up means, willing to give the world to someone who may never understand the lengths that you would go...

Mwah