Another Glory-related hospital drama

She'd had a fever for a couple of days and was very pale. Not that I'd paid much attention: I was too busy staring into my green plastic sick bucket. The Switzergent showed his usual over-concern ("is it a brain tumour?"), which I countered with my usual understatement ("it's probably nothing!"). I agreed to at least take her to the doctor.

11.15 appointment. I staggered down the hill to the surgery, dizzy and nauseous, running late, with my ashen-faced little girl in the pushchair, clutching an empty plastic bag. I got to the surgery door and was immediately sick. The receptionist led me into a room, gave me some water and relieved me of my no-longer empty bag. Gloria stared vacantly.

The doc examined her. At the time her fever wasn't too high, but she looked terrible: dark-eyed and still extremely pale. She did a blood test. "She has a very high white cell count," she told me. "I'd like her to have further investigations in hospital." Oh. I had left Emma with the maman du jour, and only left the house with my health insurance card. No phone, nappies, wallet, nothing. "Never mind about all that," said the doc. "Just get there first. I'm sending someone with you as you're in no fit state."


We walked to the hospital - 500 metres away - at a snail's pace. Anything faster would have made me sick. Very efficiently they whisked us into a consulting room. All of a sudden, Glory went from being "unwell" to an obviously very sick baby - 40 degree temp, colourless, blue-lips, arched-back and crying a terrible, heart and gut wrenching cry. This was not good. They took more blood. They put a venflon in her hand. They gave her suppositories to bring her temperature down. None of which she liked at all.






"We think it might be a urine infection," said the blonde, impossibly-young looking doctoresse. "We need a sample." We were transferred to a bay. Glory lay in her steel-barred institutional cot breathing rapidly and looking grey. We waited. No pee. An hour passed, then 2. No pee. 5 hours passed. She was put on a drip. She peed. "Definitely an infection," said the doc. "Only we need an uncontaminated sample for culture. We have to put a catheter in." Poor Glory. I couldn't watch.


I spent the next 24 hours in a bed next to my little girl, watching her floppy body and listen to her plaintive wails. Sometimes her skin was so hot the room would heat up, her breathing like machine-gun fire. She didn't want to be held, except on the occasions she fell asleep in my arms, exhausted. And there was the matter of her smell. Normally she smells of caramel custard - it's my favourite smell in the whole world. Now she smelt of yeast; sour and anaerobic.


There was an upside to this. I got to lie in bed next to her all day - I didn't want to leave her side anyway - and do nothing, while kind nurses brought me bread rolls and patted me on the shoulder when I was sick. Nausea cures are overrated: but someone to pat your shoulder, silently understanding your moment of misery. I was grateful for that.

A bad night. Then the 2nd dose of antibiotics. Then...an improvement. She woke up a bit and flirted with Antonio, one of the nurses. This was the Glorymouse of old, and it made my heart sing. Then the urine results came back. "E. Coli," said the doc. Now it was just a matter of waiting for the antibiotics to work. "And she needs to drink." She hadn't eaten or drank for two days, so was receiving IV fluids as well. We all took turns - Emma included - offering bottles of milk and apple juice, pleading, cajoling, in Emma's case barking "DRINK THIS, GLORIA!" No joy. Her tongue was covered with a white film and her lips were cracked.

Day three. She slept through the night without a fever. She had a few bites of bread and jam for breakfast, and she followed her sister into the hospital corridor, rather wobbly, but tottering nonetheless. We breathed a sigh of relief - a corner turned. When can we go home? I asked, a bit half-heartedly. I wasn't ready to face the washing up and making my own sandwiches yet. Tomorrow, came the reply. But only if she drinks.

The next few hours were spent waving a bottle or a cup or whatever under her nose. Calm turned to exasperation as she kept refusing. But then, about 5 pm, she whimpered "appur-joose". I gave her the bottle, and she drank 200ml in one go. We were going home.

It's nice to be home. It's still chaos, I'm still sick as a dog, but it's a pleasure to see my girls fight over the dolly pram and play hide and seek. G still gets easily tired, and getting her medecine into her is a twice-daily fight, but I feel a huge relief just to hear her giggle or ask for a bi-cit. Normality, sort of.