10/05/13 - Needles, and Impressed with our Doctors

The dreaded four-month needles rolled around almost as soon as we were home from Ellie's surgery. I'm not one of those mums that gets upset about needles, but I do have a problem with how unsettled it makes them. But its far better to have a couple of nasty days rather than them catching some horrible disease, and I'm a staunch advocate of child immunisation.

Our appointment was at 3pm, and we were going out for dinner afterwards. The timing sucked, but I was hoping that the intial sleepiness might help us through dinner. Her last needles had left her sleepy for two days.

It was Doctor Naiker's first time seeing Ellie after her repair, and he had a look at the incredible work that Doctor Kimble had done.  He asked a few questions and then it was time to jab my poor little girl. With all of these blood tests that she's had, I think she might be getting used to the needle, and she only cried while I was holding her arms down. Once the needles were in she started to calm down straight away.

After the jabs there was a bit of medical housekeeping to be done. We needed a refferal for Doctor Kimble's private rooms, a refferal for an opthomologist that the hospital had requested, and a new script for zantac. We got through all of those and headed off.

When we got back to mum's I bathed and fed Ellie, and gave her a dose of panadol. Miraculously, she did sleep all the way through dinner, and only woke up for a little bit in the car on the way home. It was only the third time that we'd taken her out for dinner, and she behaved perfectly. I was getting better at breaking our routine occasionally, but it still stressed me out the whole time we were away from home.

When I got home there was a package in the mail from our speach therapist, Sarah. She had sent us a heap of information on starting solids because we'd been unable to see her while we were in Hobart. She added that we could call her if we had any questions during the journey.

One thing I've discovered with Ellie is that we have an incredible medical team. We see the same doctors every time, instead of the endless line of locums that we've seen with Sophie. And on top of that, they all care about her, and want to make things as easy as possible. It's good to know that these people who'll be a big part of our lives, of Ellie's life, are there for us the whole way.