Something that has been at the back of my mind since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak here is what will happen if any of us experience any kind of medical issue while hospitals and clinics are busy with Covid-19 patients. Thanks to DB2 and her periodic super high fevers, I found out.
Just over two weeks ago, she started to develop a fever, which happens every other month or so. The familiar scenario of a small, sleepless and cranky child with no appetite emerged, and we survived on coffee for us and regular doses of paracetamol, followed by Nurofen when paracetamol did not even touch the fever, for her.
By Tuesday, she was no better, so I booked an appointment with a pediatrician at a well-known hospital as this has been happening more than I am comfortable with since she was born, with a particularly nasty episode when she was aged six months when she had to be hospitalised. During prior episodes, my local doctor had shrugged her shoulders and said it was most likely her older sister bringing home bugs from school. Well, I reasoned to myself, her older sister has not been near the school for getting on for two months, so something must be up. It did not occur to me to think it might be the c-word, as we have been observing all the lockdown rules.
I asked for a telephone consultation to avoid having to venture out, but the admin staff said no, with a a fever you have to be seen by a doctor. But, once we were there, we were screened for fever and travel history by a security guard on the way in, although the forehead thermometer did not pick up DB2's temperature. Then, the doctor who was assigned to see DB2 would not see us once the nurse established she indeed did had a fever, as he was not seeing any fever patients, due to the risk of him being infected with Covid 19. I understand it, of course, the hospital must operate some kind of system where certain staff members have no contact with potential Covid patients at all to ensure they can keep running in the event of an outbreak among staff, but I did not feel particularly understanding being shunted off to a remote part of the outpatients section and left to wait in a corridor with a sick one year old while they decided what to do.
We were then dispatched to the accident and emergency department, while DB2's fever climbed, so she was given the usual fever reducing medicines and after having the life scared out of her by a doctor in full personal protective equipment of, gown, mask, visor and gloves, and following a series of complicated manoeuvres to get her to give a urine sample, we were sent home with a suspected ear infection and a prescription for Augmentin.
It was getting towards the evening by this time and the hospital started to take on an eerie quality as most of the day's outpatients left. There was no busy cafe open to sit and nurse an over priced machine-produced cappuccino and bribe fractious children by feeding them chunks of diabetes-inducing chocolate muffin while waiting for prescriptions.
Perspex screens surrounded the pharmacy, so one had to shout not only through a mask, but through a small gap between screens to be heard. The only people there besides us appeared to be those with acute pain relief needs, and a guy inquiring about a supply of alternative medicine to his usual brand, which was unavailable in the UAE, as he was unable to get back to the USA to see his doctor.
The pharmacists were run off their feet as even though there were relatively few patients, they had to spend much longer than usual on hold to insurers, with some of them on hold to two different insurers for two different patients on two different phones at a time. I expect health insurers are among the busiest people on the planet these days. The pharmacists were in full protective gear of gowns, hairnets, protective glasses, gloves and masks, making communication even harder.
While we were waiting to see the triage nurse earlier, we had seen a Covid-19-related episode which I imagine is fairly typical. A crew of a passenger ship turned up in reception, wearing the obligatory protective masks, saying they had been told to come to the hospital to get tested as they had been exposed by a passenger who had contacted them after disembarking to let them know they had tested positive. "We need to get tested so we can find out our status so we can get back to work," the guy in charge told the manager, who had to be summoned after the receptionist told him there were no tests available.
The hospital advised them to stay at home for 14 days to see if symptoms emerge, and then contact the health authority or a clinic if they became serious. Obviously, that would not be possible for a ship's crew on a sailing schedule. The discussions continued back and forth for a while, before the boss got on the phone to try to sort out tests for them. DB2 and I were called to see the nurse before I could earwig enough to find out what their next move was.
Our own hospital experience complete for the time being, we headed home. The kind A and E doctor tried to reassure me that it was most likely nothing to worry about, as even though DB2's big sister has not been near school, the little one could still acquire an infection as the tiny, narrow tubes that make up the pathways inside the ears, throat and urinary tract of a one year old are absolute breeding grounds for bacteria, so the slightest sniffle or incidence of being under the weather can lead to an infection.
On Thursday, after a couple more sleepless nights with fever spikes of nearly 41C, I took her back to A and E, as the doctor said to do so if she did not improve within 48 hours. After a stressful hour waiting for the online movement permits that we were using at the time for everything, and a tearful phone call to the service centre who told me to just go and show the police the "pending" message on my phone if they were to stop me, off we went.
By the time we got to the hospital, DB2 was clinging to me like a limpet and burning up. Even the triage nurse, who had been kind but a little abrupt on my first visit, called her a "poor child", and cleared the route through to the emergency ward as a fever for an extended period is one of the key signs of the c-word.
Intravenous antibiotics were prescribed and those of you with small children who have experienced similar will know how nightmarish that is. It involves two nurses holding down your screaming, sick and distressed baby to put the cannula into their hand. All I could do was bend over the hospital bed with a cartoon playing on my phone, acting like having her hand pierced and strapped to an IV drip was absolutely fine, totally par for the course, and attempting to sing silly songs to distract her while trying not to burst into tears myself.
An X-Ray was taken using a portable machine, to check for Covid-related lung infection, and I was asked to get her to provide another urine sample. I sighed heavily at this. Thanks to her history of high fevers and suspected urine infections, I know by now that getting a toddler to do this basically involves following your nappy off toddler around for hours and gradually getting covered in your own child's p*** as you try time after time collect it, while they employ a series of tactics to outwit you. as follows:
Sitting on parent's lap, waiting until they least expect that familiar warm sensation, usually when they are answering a phonecall or speaking to a doctor, commence peeing making sure parent has no chance of getting the cup ready on time.
Walk around appearing to be reasonably content, with parent following closely behind, get into a corner to squat down and pee, it is even better if you are behind a piece of furniture, so your parent has no chance of catching any pee. Then if you are feeling really special, slip over in it and bang your head immediately afterwards, so your parent has no choice but to scoop up your pee-covered self and comfort you while also standing in a pool of pee aforementioned pee.
When your parent does succeed in getting the cup under you at the opportune moment, immediately desist from peeing and burst into tears, hold on to remaining pee if possible to maximise the chance of actually getting a urine infection if you don't already have one.
The A and E doctor could see I was about to lose it, particularly when DB2 decided to go and pee in the corner of the cubicle while I was busy Googling "how to get a toddler to give a urine sample" on my phone. Of course she did.
The doctor took pity and let me use the pediatric urine bag which fits in the nappy and does the collection job all by itself.
No such luck on the Thursday night. DB2's blood test results came back, and her infection markers were extremely high. In addition, having eaten pretty much nothing all day, she decided right before the cannula was fitted that it was a good time to eat a tangerine that I had shoved into my bag before leaving the house. Unfortunately, she then got so upset that a bit of orange went down the wrong way, and she started coughing violently, barely able to catch her breath. I could feel the tension in the room when she started displaying a second key Covid symptom.
So we were admitted. The nurse saw my face and said don't worry about the urine test, just get her to do it when you get to the ward. She was swabbed for Covid-19, so it turned out tests were in fact available in the hospital, the men I had seen in reception earlier in the week obviously did not meet the criteria. We were then taken up to the children's ward.
As we arrived, the duty doctor told me that they suspected she had Covid-19, despite the fact that I had no idea how she could have caught it if she did as we had been at home as directed by the UAE government.
I am not going to keep you in suspense, she tested negative and we received the results on the Sunday morning, one week after she first became ill. The stronger intravenous antibiotics did the trick and sorted out whatever infection it was, so by day six, Saturday morning she was her old self, wondering around the hospital room, shouting "Bah" at the top of her voice, twerking to the Hokey Cokey played repeatedly on YouTube and eating handfuls of hospital pasta bolognese while covering as much of the hospital room as possible in the sauce.
The time prior to this was pretty grim. As a suspected Covid patient, she was not allowed to leave the room, so neither was I, and we were allowed no visitors. The doctors for the most part did not come in at all, but called us on the room telephone when they needed to speak to us, the nurses, cleaners or ladies serving food were dressed in full protective gear, and it was only towards the end of the 66 or so hours that we were there that DB2 found that any less terrifying.
And then the urine sample. The saga of the goddamn sample. I am not joking when I say it took me the best past of 40 hours before I managed to collect it from her. The consultant in charge refused to let us use the urine collection bag in her nappy because he said they risked the urine being contaminated and therefore gave false positives. Far be it from me to suggest that they could test two or three samples if they were so worried about the false results, and save carers of children hours and hours of getting covered in gallons of pee.
After 24 hours of worry and very little sleep and being stuck in a stuffy hospital room with a toddler who was still sick and feverish and chasing her round and round with a small plastic cup, both of us getting more tired, stressed and upset in the process, I ended up demanding to see the doctor and had a row with her, which ended with me angrily refusing to let her ask the nurses to insert a tube into DB2's bladder collect a sample that way. I am not going to recount the conversation here, as it was not my proudest moment, but the general gist was "over my dead body will you do that to my child".
The nurse came to see me shortly after that, and said forget about it now, it's too late for the laboratory anyway, just try again in the morning. And sure enough, once DB2 was feeling better, by half way through the next morning, the job was done.
Our pseudo-Covid experience was mercifully short and obviously it turned out fine. But the stress of being alone in a room like that with a sick child is not one I would wish to repeat. She is fully recovered now, although various test results did not tell us what kind of infection it was that gave her such a high fever this time. We have been told that the super high fevers are not a particular worry, some children have them, some don't. It's just that some bodies react differently to illness than others. Although we have been told to keep an eye out for any similar episodes along with unexplained bruises or any more losses of appetite.
I do not regret taking her to hospital as the need for intravenous antibiotics showed that she was sick enough to be admitted, and that I didn't expose her to potential Covid risk unnecessarily. I had read an article not long before she got sick saying that if your child was sick enough to need hospital treatment, you should not hesitate in taking them even if you are nervous about the the virus as clinics have measures in place to protect them. Although I was anxious about taking her, and I felt the staff were a bit to quick to assume it was Covid-19, they only had my word for the fact that she had not been exposed, and of course they cannot be too careful.
Seriously, though, friends, you need to avoid exposing yourself to even the suspicion of having this illness if you can. DB2 and I got off lightly, obviously, but being stuck in a room only visited by people who look like they are working on a nuclear waste cleanup is no joke, even for 68 hours.
Disclaimer. This is a subject hat comes up in one form or another reasonably regularly on here, but it is rather more serious at this rather difficult time. I have access to good private healthcare, I live in a rich country, even though I am as poor as a church mouse compared to some of the super rich types that frequent Dubai, I am unimaginably privileged compared with many both in the UAE and around the world. This blog is in no way a complaint about the standard of healthcare in my adopted homeland, and I realise that I very, very lucky to have healthcare cover at all, and no, I do not think I am badly off compared to those who are very sick, dying, died of or have lost loved ones to Covid-19, so please don't send me angry messages about that. Thanks.
Just over two weeks ago, she started to develop a fever, which happens every other month or so. The familiar scenario of a small, sleepless and cranky child with no appetite emerged, and we survived on coffee for us and regular doses of paracetamol, followed by Nurofen when paracetamol did not even touch the fever, for her.
By Tuesday, she was no better, so I booked an appointment with a pediatrician at a well-known hospital as this has been happening more than I am comfortable with since she was born, with a particularly nasty episode when she was aged six months when she had to be hospitalised. During prior episodes, my local doctor had shrugged her shoulders and said it was most likely her older sister bringing home bugs from school. Well, I reasoned to myself, her older sister has not been near the school for getting on for two months, so something must be up. It did not occur to me to think it might be the c-word, as we have been observing all the lockdown rules.
 |
| Starting to feel better. |
We were then dispatched to the accident and emergency department, while DB2's fever climbed, so she was given the usual fever reducing medicines and after having the life scared out of her by a doctor in full personal protective equipment of, gown, mask, visor and gloves, and following a series of complicated manoeuvres to get her to give a urine sample, we were sent home with a suspected ear infection and a prescription for Augmentin.
 |
| A bit peaky. |
Perspex screens surrounded the pharmacy, so one had to shout not only through a mask, but through a small gap between screens to be heard. The only people there besides us appeared to be those with acute pain relief needs, and a guy inquiring about a supply of alternative medicine to his usual brand, which was unavailable in the UAE, as he was unable to get back to the USA to see his doctor.
The pharmacists were run off their feet as even though there were relatively few patients, they had to spend much longer than usual on hold to insurers, with some of them on hold to two different insurers for two different patients on two different phones at a time. I expect health insurers are among the busiest people on the planet these days. The pharmacists were in full protective gear of gowns, hairnets, protective glasses, gloves and masks, making communication even harder.
 |
| Getting ready to be discharged. It took my until 24 hours after we arrived to realise those cupboard doors open by pressing them inwards. Prior to that, I had been levering them open using hospital cutlery. I was quite sleep deprived. |
While we were waiting to see the triage nurse earlier, we had seen a Covid-19-related episode which I imagine is fairly typical. A crew of a passenger ship turned up in reception, wearing the obligatory protective masks, saying they had been told to come to the hospital to get tested as they had been exposed by a passenger who had contacted them after disembarking to let them know they had tested positive. "We need to get tested so we can find out our status so we can get back to work," the guy in charge told the manager, who had to be summoned after the receptionist told him there were no tests available.
The hospital advised them to stay at home for 14 days to see if symptoms emerge, and then contact the health authority or a clinic if they became serious. Obviously, that would not be possible for a ship's crew on a sailing schedule. The discussions continued back and forth for a while, before the boss got on the phone to try to sort out tests for them. DB2 and I were called to see the nurse before I could earwig enough to find out what their next move was.
Our own hospital experience complete for the time being, we headed home. The kind A and E doctor tried to reassure me that it was most likely nothing to worry about, as even though DB2's big sister has not been near school, the little one could still acquire an infection as the tiny, narrow tubes that make up the pathways inside the ears, throat and urinary tract of a one year old are absolute breeding grounds for bacteria, so the slightest sniffle or incidence of being under the weather can lead to an infection.
On Thursday, after a couple more sleepless nights with fever spikes of nearly 41C, I took her back to A and E, as the doctor said to do so if she did not improve within 48 hours. After a stressful hour waiting for the online movement permits that we were using at the time for everything, and a tearful phone call to the service centre who told me to just go and show the police the "pending" message on my phone if they were to stop me, off we went.
By the time we got to the hospital, DB2 was clinging to me like a limpet and burning up. Even the triage nurse, who had been kind but a little abrupt on my first visit, called her a "poor child", and cleared the route through to the emergency ward as a fever for an extended period is one of the key signs of the c-word.
Intravenous antibiotics were prescribed and those of you with small children who have experienced similar will know how nightmarish that is. It involves two nurses holding down your screaming, sick and distressed baby to put the cannula into their hand. All I could do was bend over the hospital bed with a cartoon playing on my phone, acting like having her hand pierced and strapped to an IV drip was absolutely fine, totally par for the course, and attempting to sing silly songs to distract her while trying not to burst into tears myself.
An X-Ray was taken using a portable machine, to check for Covid-related lung infection, and I was asked to get her to provide another urine sample. I sighed heavily at this. Thanks to her history of high fevers and suspected urine infections, I know by now that getting a toddler to do this basically involves following your nappy off toddler around for hours and gradually getting covered in your own child's p*** as you try time after time collect it, while they employ a series of tactics to outwit you. as follows:
1. The stealth lap pee
Sitting on parent's lap, waiting until they least expect that familiar warm sensation, usually when they are answering a phonecall or speaking to a doctor, commence peeing making sure parent has no chance of getting the cup ready on time.
2. The wanderer
Walk around appearing to be reasonably content, with parent following closely behind, get into a corner to squat down and pee, it is even better if you are behind a piece of furniture, so your parent has no chance of catching any pee. Then if you are feeling really special, slip over in it and bang your head immediately afterwards, so your parent has no choice but to scoop up your pee-covered self and comfort you while also standing in a pool of pee aforementioned pee.
3. The stop/starter
When your parent does succeed in getting the cup under you at the opportune moment, immediately desist from peeing and burst into tears, hold on to remaining pee if possible to maximise the chance of actually getting a urine infection if you don't already have one.
4. The p***taker
The A and E doctor could see I was about to lose it, particularly when DB2 decided to go and pee in the corner of the cubicle while I was busy Googling "how to get a toddler to give a urine sample" on my phone. Of course she did.
The doctor took pity and let me use the pediatric urine bag which fits in the nappy and does the collection job all by itself.
No such luck on the Thursday night. DB2's blood test results came back, and her infection markers were extremely high. In addition, having eaten pretty much nothing all day, she decided right before the cannula was fitted that it was a good time to eat a tangerine that I had shoved into my bag before leaving the house. Unfortunately, she then got so upset that a bit of orange went down the wrong way, and she started coughing violently, barely able to catch her breath. I could feel the tension in the room when she started displaying a second key Covid symptom.
So we were admitted. The nurse saw my face and said don't worry about the urine test, just get her to do it when you get to the ward. She was swabbed for Covid-19, so it turned out tests were in fact available in the hospital, the men I had seen in reception earlier in the week obviously did not meet the criteria. We were then taken up to the children's ward.
As we arrived, the duty doctor told me that they suspected she had Covid-19, despite the fact that I had no idea how she could have caught it if she did as we had been at home as directed by the UAE government.
I am not going to keep you in suspense, she tested negative and we received the results on the Sunday morning, one week after she first became ill. The stronger intravenous antibiotics did the trick and sorted out whatever infection it was, so by day six, Saturday morning she was her old self, wondering around the hospital room, shouting "Bah" at the top of her voice, twerking to the Hokey Cokey played repeatedly on YouTube and eating handfuls of hospital pasta bolognese while covering as much of the hospital room as possible in the sauce.
 |
| Settling down for a two and a half hour nap at the exact point we were meant to be being discharged, because that's how she rolls. It was probably her longest sleep during our entire stay, including night-time. |
The time prior to this was pretty grim. As a suspected Covid patient, she was not allowed to leave the room, so neither was I, and we were allowed no visitors. The doctors for the most part did not come in at all, but called us on the room telephone when they needed to speak to us, the nurses, cleaners or ladies serving food were dressed in full protective gear, and it was only towards the end of the 66 or so hours that we were there that DB2 found that any less terrifying.
And then the urine sample. The saga of the goddamn sample. I am not joking when I say it took me the best past of 40 hours before I managed to collect it from her. The consultant in charge refused to let us use the urine collection bag in her nappy because he said they risked the urine being contaminated and therefore gave false positives. Far be it from me to suggest that they could test two or three samples if they were so worried about the false results, and save carers of children hours and hours of getting covered in gallons of pee.
After 24 hours of worry and very little sleep and being stuck in a stuffy hospital room with a toddler who was still sick and feverish and chasing her round and round with a small plastic cup, both of us getting more tired, stressed and upset in the process, I ended up demanding to see the doctor and had a row with her, which ended with me angrily refusing to let her ask the nurses to insert a tube into DB2's bladder collect a sample that way. I am not going to recount the conversation here, as it was not my proudest moment, but the general gist was "over my dead body will you do that to my child".
The nurse came to see me shortly after that, and said forget about it now, it's too late for the laboratory anyway, just try again in the morning. And sure enough, once DB2 was feeling better, by half way through the next morning, the job was done.
Our pseudo-Covid experience was mercifully short and obviously it turned out fine. But the stress of being alone in a room like that with a sick child is not one I would wish to repeat. She is fully recovered now, although various test results did not tell us what kind of infection it was that gave her such a high fever this time. We have been told that the super high fevers are not a particular worry, some children have them, some don't. It's just that some bodies react differently to illness than others. Although we have been told to keep an eye out for any similar episodes along with unexplained bruises or any more losses of appetite.
I do not regret taking her to hospital as the need for intravenous antibiotics showed that she was sick enough to be admitted, and that I didn't expose her to potential Covid risk unnecessarily. I had read an article not long before she got sick saying that if your child was sick enough to need hospital treatment, you should not hesitate in taking them even if you are nervous about the the virus as clinics have measures in place to protect them. Although I was anxious about taking her, and I felt the staff were a bit to quick to assume it was Covid-19, they only had my word for the fact that she had not been exposed, and of course they cannot be too careful.
Seriously, though, friends, you need to avoid exposing yourself to even the suspicion of having this illness if you can. DB2 and I got off lightly, obviously, but being stuck in a room only visited by people who look like they are working on a nuclear waste cleanup is no joke, even for 68 hours.
Disclaimer. This is a subject hat comes up in one form or another reasonably regularly on here, but it is rather more serious at this rather difficult time. I have access to good private healthcare, I live in a rich country, even though I am as poor as a church mouse compared to some of the super rich types that frequent Dubai, I am unimaginably privileged compared with many both in the UAE and around the world. This blog is in no way a complaint about the standard of healthcare in my adopted homeland, and I realise that I very, very lucky to have healthcare cover at all, and no, I do not think I am badly off compared to those who are very sick, dying, died of or have lost loved ones to Covid-19, so please don't send me angry messages about that. Thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment