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    Friday 26 February 2010

    My perfect child

    People talk about Jude's peaceful and relaxed personality like he's a miracle of nature. Unlike pretty much every other child his age he has never once pushed, poked, hit or bit any other child. He never misbehaves or throws temper tantrums. He doesn't grab other childrens' toys and he's always happy to share. He's quite simply a perfect angel.

    While it's true that Jude is a wonderful little person with kindness and beauty to match the greatest saint to ever walk the Earth, there's also some good parenting technique thrown into the mix and I'd just like a little credit where credit is due for helping to raise my little prince charming.

    A little aside: Many years ago, long before Jude was even a twinkle in my eye, a friend came over to my house with his wife and toddler. Their little boy grabbed a golf ball and started smacking it into my coffee table. Neither parent reacted so I stood up, picked up their son and moved him away from the coffee table. I took the golf ball out of his hand and gave him something less damaging to play with. I didn't say a word or raise my voice to their son, I simply moved and distracted him.

    However, my actions mortally offended my friend and particularly his wife who thought my response to their son's destroying my furniture was completely insulting, so they stormed out and I lost a friend.

    My point? Yesterday I remembered that event and I realised my response to such a situation hasn't changed over time or by having my own child. When Jude is doing something we don't like, we never yell at him or give him timeout (at this age), but simply give him something else to do. In this way we've never once drawn attention to his bad behaviour. We always shower him with praise and kisses when he does something good. He's so used to being praised that when he does something he is proud of he gives himself a little clap.

    The bad behaviour doesn't exist because we don't let it be an issue. Jude doesn't even know when he's done something we don't like, in fact he's forgotten all about it 5 seconds later.

    So yes my son is perfect, but Jeremy and I, as his parents, have played a role in that and I'm sick of people thinking we're just lucky to have a good child, we're damn good parents!

    Friday 5 February 2010

    Jude in Hospital

    On Sunday, January 31st we were winding down the afternoon after lunch on my 33rd birthday. My sister, Josie, who had arrived earlier that morning and had just met Jude for the first time, made us all some tea. She sat a cup of freshly brewed boiling tea on a table in the living room and in the blink of an eye Jude ran across the room and grabbed the cup, spilling scorching water down his chin, neck, torso and right arm.

    He cried, but didn't scream. He's never been one to complain loudly. Even as a newborn his cries were barely more than squeaks. As I reached down to pick him up, I didn't realise the extent of his injury until I lifted his t-shirt and saw his fragile skin dripping off his little body. I freaked out and we decided to rush him to hospital. In retrospect we should have called an ambulance, but we thought it would be quicker to drive.

    We arrived at Robina hospital at about 5.30pm on Sunday night and the available staff didn't seem to know anything. You'd think burn treatment would be covered in Medicine 101, but these people were hopeless. They doped him up on painkillers and pretty much left us sitting around waiting for answers.

    After several hours of them trying to contact a burns specialist, they finally learned he was supposed to be under cool running water, so we held him under a tap for about 15 minutes. Jeremy and I were completely soaked and it was freezing in the hospital, I was also in shock and hadn't eaten anything since lunch. It was now about 9pm.

    The burns specialist had them put silver dressings on his burns, but I could see they weren't done particularly well. They really didn't know what they were doing.

    Eventually we were told we had to head to the Royal Children's Hospital in Brisbane, which is apparently the only burns unit in all QLD, NT, Northern NSW and the Pacific Rim. There was no private hospital option. The only good news being that the RCH is a world leader in Burns treatment.

    Jude and I went by ambulance and arrived around midnight in Brisbane. Jeremy drove up via home to pick up a few things. The emergency staff there were wonderful. They were the first people to realise I was in shock (almost 7 hours after the accident occurred), so they got me a blanket (I was freezing) and some sugary cordial. Jude was ok on painkillers. He was incredibly tired, but had only slept about an hour in the ambulance since his sleep before lunch. No one had eaten.

    They kept telling us they would redo his dressings, which I was happy about because I knew they weren't done well. Around 2.30am we were taken up to the burns unit, but we learned his dressings weren't going to be replaced. Now we found ourselves in a pickle. Jeremy and I didn't have any beds to sleep on. We also had very minimal personal items with us. We were so exhausted and I couldn't cope.

    They wheeled in a recliner and I went to hunt down a bed in the parent's room. No one could tell us anything. No one at RCH had even seen Jude's burns, other than some photos that Robina sent.

    After night #1 of no sleep, I got up before everyone and returned to Jude's side. We then proceeded to wait out a day of nothing happening. The staff at RCH decided they wanted to leave the dressings on as long as possible, because they're supposed to be left on at least 3 days before changing. There were little tubes placed around them to add water, because they treat burns by keeping the wounds wet, but the little tubes were falling out and by now there was only 1 left, so I was a bit concerned and really wanted the dressings changed. I think I just wanted something to happen.

    Then a bunch of therapists started coming round to talk to me. It started to become apparent that the process of changing the dressings was going to be quite traumatic for Jude and me. There was a psychologist, an occupational therapist, a physiotherapist and even a music therapist (whose job was to distract Jude with melodic songs).

    They patched up his falling-apart dressings and put new water tubes in on Monday, but we basically sat around all day really doing nothing. Jude was doped up and slept all day.

    During this time we were in a room with 5 other children. One of the little boys, named Tyson, was about 10 months old. He had been in a very serious accident and both his legs had been amputated. It was very overwhelming and humbling to constantly be in his presence. The poor little boy didn't have his parents with him, apparently they came by every few days. I don't know what the story is, but people travel a long way to go to RCH and they probably had other children, so I guess if Tyson had been there a long time then they simply couldn't be there all the time.

    It was quite heart breaking, but Tyson did have a lot of people looking after him. The poor little boy, he was happy and gurgly most of the time but he didn't like it when they came in the give him a sponge bath or change his dressings. I can't imagine what life will be like for him. It made me very aware that Jude will recover.

    There was also a little boy, Ty, who had kidney failure and was in and out of RCH travelling down from Cairns with his mum. She was a such a strong lady and really helped me, offering me support and sharing her crosswords and sudokos so I had something to do. I know she was struggling, though, because I overheard her talking to a psychologist. She was having trouble explaining to Ty what was happening to him and why he needed yet another operation. He didn't want to hear it. It was hard for him. He was only 4 and a half years old.

    There were so many people, real humans in these really overwhelming situations and there was so much strength and love. Mums and Dads staying by their children's sides, no one getting any sleep. Everybody simply falling apart but holding it together for their children. It was really fundamentally human. I started to feel bad that we would be able to go home after Jude's dressings were changed, only 2 sleepless nights in hospital for me. It was almost like I cheated.

    I cried a lot, just tired and overwhelmed and hating seeing Jude in pain. He would wake up when the pain killers started to wear off and cry, and while he slept he whimpered constantly. He's also become very clingy and wants to be in my arms constantly and he isn't very fond of other people. For the first night and day, he refused to sleep in the hospital cot and would only sleep in our arms.

    On Tuesday he finally had his dressings changed. It was pretty yucky but I'm a doctor's daughter so I think I've grown up with yucky stuff and can handle it pretty well. Jude was on strong pain killers but he didn't enjoy it. The music therapy was really helpful. Afterwards we had to stay in the hospital until the drugs wore off. When he was coming down he got quite cranky, and he's been a bit strange hitting his toys from time to time, I think he's just frustrated. He's covered in bandages and I can only imagine how annoying they are.

    By Thursday he was in pretty good spirits. He is playing with his musical instruments and walking around. He's incredibly sooky and slingy when other people are around and the poor little thing is wiped out. The healing process is incredibly exhausting for him.

    He really is just tired all the time and wants to sleep constantly, so we won't be going anywhere or even leaving the house for a while. The heat outside distresses him and makes him uncomfortable. I'm really not too sure how long it will be. No one's been able to give me any indication how long it will take for him to heal. I have to go back to RCH every 3 days to change his dressings. I don't know how many weeks I will be making that trek.

    We went back yesterday and it was an all day ordeal. My dad was visiting and drove us to Brisbane, but in the future I'm really stuck. My husband needs the car for work and I don't have any transport. The hospital thinks it's perfectly acceptable that we should have to catch public transport. That's 5 hours of bus and train travel each day (there and back). Plus another 2 hours or so in hospital. How they think that's a reasonable expectation for a little 16-month old to go without sleep and to subject his overwhelmed mum to such an ordeal is completely beyond me. I'm feeling pretty angry because they won't recommend me for non-urgent ambulance transport because they think there's a public transport option. It's not an option, and I'm going to have to pull out all stops and call some serious favours of friends (favours I don't feel reasonable asking for) to make it work.

    This is the worst experience ever. A few things I've learned that I'd like to share (but I hope you never need to use):

    No matter how natural it is for you to always keep your child out of danger, other people may not have developed those same motherly instincts, so always be vigilant when other people are around. Watch out for hot liquids, especially tea or coffee and pots of boiling water on the stove.

    If something happens, call an ambulance because they will take you to the right place and you won't end up in some po-dunk hospital for hours and hours with staff who can't do anything.

    Put a list on your fridge today of things you would need for an overnight stay in hospital including clothes, shampoo, soap, lip balm, any medications you take and where they can be found in case someone else picks them up for you. You might end up 2 hours from home with nothing, not even your wallet and your Medicare card. It's not a fun situation to be in.

    Include food on your list. They feed children but not parents in children's hospitals, and you can barely leave your child's side to pee let alone go for a long walk to the nearest food outlet, so it's very difficult to get something to eat. Try to take biscuits and things to keep you alive (but you'll find yourself with no appetite anyway).

    Children with burns, broken limbs, or that need an IV drip need clothes that are easy to get on an off. Make sure you have some button-up shirts. T-shirts are useless to try pull over an upset child's head or fit over heavily bandaged arms.

    Take care and give your children a big big hug.