Rough Night in the Hill Home

Tuesday, May 27, 2009

Last night was quite bad for all of us here in the Hill home. Mark, after his long day yesterday plus the beginnings of a bad laryngitis, opened his e-mail to find trouble lurking with an upcoming trip we have planned to Australia. Getting to and from Darwin for his Emergency Medical conference in late June was a hassle in planning to begin with, as flights in and out of there are few and far between on the daily schedule. Plus, our stopover in Sydney to see the Opera House at the end of the conference took some time putting together as well. After he'd spent hours online Saturday night making arrangements (spurred on by the fact that we thought Sherry's wallet was lost and we might have to cancel a credit card), he received an e-mail Sunday evening stating that two of our Air New Zealand flights had been cancelled. Turns out, he had to stay up Monday night until midnight to call Expedia (making it 8 am Monday morning US time) just to sort things out.

While Mark spent the next hour or so on the phone, knowing he had to get right back up at 6 am and repeat another long day in the ED, Ronan started to whimper around half past midnight, unable to breathe through his stuffy nose. Sherry entered his room, armed for battle. She'd fought this war before, so she employed the usual weapons of good old Vick's VapoRub and saline spray, helped Ro blow his nose, and gave him water for his nasty coughing. She propped him up on two pillows (oh, for that humidifier back home right about now), and got him to return to sleep, albeit fitful. Ro reminded her of a dreaming puppy, with his hands and feet moving as he alternately coughed or sniffled. Around 3 am, Sherry awoke beside a wet and crying, shivering Ronan. All that water he'd downed for the coughing fit earlier had to come out. Ooops. He was also burning up with fever of 102, complaining of a head and stomachache. And then, the nasty coughing.

After a bed change, medicating and cleaning up Ro, and taking a soy milk and banana break in the kitchen, Sherry settled Ro back down with a cold cloth on his forehead for his headache. He fell asleep finally around 5 or 5:30 am holding the cloth over his eyes and forehead. And then he slept...big time.

Mark woke Sherry up at 7 as he was getting ready for work. At 7:30, Ro was still out, and rather than wake him, Sherry sent Mark on to work and called Ro out for school. At 10 am Ro was still sleeping. Sherry phoned the clinic where her doctor was (conveniently located two blocks from The Anchorage) to see if they could squeeze in Ro. At 10:35, Ro finally woke up, and Sherry hustled to get him to the clinic for their 11 am appointment.

Ro immediately engaged Dr. Strider, a kindly Kiwi chap who loved Ronan's "accent", and indulged every question Ro had about a spine model on the desk demonstrating a bulging disc. Ro had wheezes and crackles in his left lower lobe, and with his pneumonia history this past January and fever spike last night, Ro left with a script for Augmentin. He used his best charms to try and get Dr. Strider to give him the spine model, but alas, left with only a hearty chuckle from the Doctor and the script.

He spent the rest of the day lying around watching Scooby Doo or playing his ABC games on the computer. That is, until Mark came home. Then, Ro suddenly sprung to life, begging, "Daddy let's wrestle!" After dinner, Mark worked on the computer and Sherry and Ro watched the weekly anticipated viewing of Man vs Wild. We are happy to report that everybody slept well Tuesday night. Ahhhh.