A Trip to A&E

Well what a weekend that was... s'pose I'd better start from the beginning.
PJ's been ill for the last 5 weeks, mixture of cold, runny nose, cough and chicken pox. Now chicken pox doesn't last 5 weeks I know, but we kept taking him back to the doctors and they insisted that chicken pox was what it was. Giving us various drugs to help him get over the cold and pox. Over last weekend, things started to get worse, with PJ going more off his food and being sick when he did eat. Even worse he wasn't drinking.
On Sunday he started writhing around the floor with what appeared to be stomach pain, so we gave him some of his prescribed paracetamol and when he'd calmed down a bit put him to bed for a nap, he slept normally. When I got him up he was OK for a bit but started to roll around again in pain. We gave him some more paracetamol and this time phoned NHS direct who advised us to take him to A&E with 'abdominal pains', something we'd been thinking about.
We got there about 4-5pm, and were taken straight through to the children's emergency area. After numerous tests, and much speculating as to what could be wrong, including them scaring us to death with the possible diagnosis of Nephrotic Syndrome, it was decided to take him to the paediatric unit in St. Mary's hospital for some checks as he was very 'dry' and his urine sample show some abnormalities. High proteins and ketones.

So off to St. Mary's we went, this was about 8-9pm by then. A&E had neglected to tell them that PJ had chicken pox, after which we where taken to our own private room. PJ had perked up a little more but that was after us managing to get drink inside him so he had a bit more energy, much better than he was earlier that day when he was just laying on a pillow.

After an initial examination: temperature in his ear, pulse oximeter on his toe, spatula down his throat (all this he just loved having done) they decide to admit him. About 4am when we EVENTUALLY see the doc, he had to have a cannula placed in his hand for a drip, which meant me holding him tight and Jax distracting him with his arm tucked behind me, while the nurse and doc did their job... Not a pleasant experience, but he was good and did cry a bit. The nurses got the job done quick and well. By this time it was about 5am. We took the very tearful little baby back to his cot in the cubicle, then tried to get some sleep ourselves on the tiny little fold down bed we pulled down from the wall cupboard.