Update

Wednesday +34 and Thursday +35 (5 weeks!)
Well its all go as usual here. William ate some carrot (and only threw a bit of it up again!) and I had a Square Pie lunch with Dad and Phyllis (which, apart from me knocking over and breaking (the fortunately, empty) wine glasses)) went very well. (ooh the bracket count is quite high already this evening). Jack has the same virus as William and that’s a bit of a concern as they have never been in contact with each other, but it is quite a common and the nursing staff are meticulous with their hand washing and apron wearing. There’s lots of talk this end of the ward about transferring to local hospitals (or hopefully going home) so that’s encouraging. William took his own nappy off this evening whilst he was in his cot, supposedly trying to get to sleep!!! Fortunately I spotted his bare buttocks before and leakages occurred. I was suitably straight faced as I explained that taking nappies off is not a fun new game! William ate a few teaspoons of chocolate soya pudding today but was also sick (quite a lot, but not the NG tube (phew!)). His milk is up to a massive 33 mls/hour which everyone is very pleased with. Certainly one vomit a day would not prevent us from leaving, neither will a few sizeable runny nappies apparently, but will mean that our washing machine has to earn it’s keep! I will miss the hospital and Granma Curtis laundry service very much!!!! William has a nasty dose of oral thrush which we spotted today and this may well be another reason why he is so off his food. He is on an antifungal medicine which should help and they may give him some other stuff too in due course (he is asleep now and the doctor has been otherwise tied up for the last 3 hours apparently and unable to inspect his wide awake mouth, well perhaps I should just be glad that they don’t want me to wake him up to have a look!!!!) I went on a trek to the nearest argos today and came back laden with storage boxes (Rob is planning our great escape and storage boxes play a key role in the packing and loading/unloading section of the plan) and digital bathroom scales (so that we can keep track of William’s weight when we get home) which were pretty cumbersome (ooh, like that word, must use it tomorrow) (the boxes, not the scales, obviously) to carry miles (a tiny exaggeration) around the streets of London with my beloved laptop on my back and I did get an odd look as I burst (literally) through the door of the internet café. Anyway this evening I was quizzing our poor nurse about the capacity of the tubing and working out how much the flush needed to be depending how long the tubing was, as it does seem to vary in both length and external and internal diameters for each thing and then I realised I really have been here to long and need a new hobby! Which reminds me. this morning our lovely night shift nurse, who is still having her IV training, had the (slightly scary, although not the scariest by a mile) senior nurse go through with her what she needed to do and then left her to it and the poor girl was mortified shortly afterwards when she realised she had taken the blood for his morning counts from the wrong line (they get odd readings if they use the one that has had a certain thing going through it) and hooked up the IV drugs to the other one incorrectly (although not started them, it wouldn’t have done anything bad, they just routinely us certain lines for certain things) (cos by default, if there are only two choices and you choose wrong once, you will choose wrongly again, assuming that the second time the first choice has been eliminated, leaving you effectively without a choice, confused? Me too but I have a feeling the more pedantic amongst you (and yes I do mean you, Nick might find (and still might) find a flaw in my reasoning (and if that’s not laying down the gauntlet I don’t know what is)). Anyway as I was saying before I was interrupted by one of my many alter egos (yes alright, Harriet (it’s a HPPC thing!)). The other nurse came back with fresh drugs, flushes and all that marlarky and it wasn’t a problem. I popped to the desk a bit later to hear her telling all the other nurses how awful she felt but really she handled a genuine mistake very well and I did reassure her that W didn’t mind giving her a tiny bit of blood for nothing.
Well I really must stop rambling now, no, Harriet you can’t have a turn, before they send for the men/women in white coats or wake up my son.

Friday +36
We waited most of the morning for the consultants round. They finally pitched up about 2. We can’t go to Bath, they couldn’t manage his level of care as it stands now but Bristol may be a possibility although they are not actively recruiting new patients, the consultant is going to call them himself and use his west country links to see if they can find us a room (we would need to be isolated because of the virus). It is a possibility for the week after next…but who knows by then Master Curtis may be feeling much more like eating and drinking?! He ate about 8cm of banana (he was only offered that much, portion sizes are necessarily small) today hoorah, but nothing else (actually he did eat about 20 rice crispies this morning but was immediately sick!) Williams blood counts are a bit on the low side again but with a bit of luck he will be busy making some more ready for tomorrows recount. I had a terrible nights sleep, just one of the nights and he had his Immunoglobulins which didn’t start until after midnight and necessitate extra coming and goings but he slept pretty well. He (and I!) had a late nap this afternoon and as a result he is bouncing around his cot (literally) shouting “uh oh” and “baa” at top volume trying to attract attention, oh it turned out that 2 of his cuddly sheep had jumped overboard and he wanted them retrieved, silly mummy for being so slow on the uptake! Not sure if I have mentioned it but William is getting pretty good at waving and even says bye now, it’s all the extra practice from all the comings and goings. Still trying to establish please and thank you with no success yet.