Percy's week in hospital

It's been a crazy week of highs and lows as last saturday we were in hospital holding our screaming baby hoping it wasn't meningitis (spoiler alert) he got better and this Saturday we were celebrating the first birthday of our adorable happy boy.

It all began last friday when I took Percy to the walk-in centre and they told me he had a chest infection and sent us back with antibiotics. The next day he had been sick about 5 times so we took him back and this time they were worried about his temperature and a few spots he had, there was a potential for it to be a really nasty illness like meningitis. So Percy had his first ride in an ambulance to the brand new Alder Hey hospital, which is beautiful by the way.

I'm gonna go sledging on that roof when it snows

Poor Percy had to have a million tests to find out what was wrong with him we were moved around several different rooms and endured many questions followed by Percy being poked a lot and then more waiting.  One of the questions I was asked was "is there anyone you don't want to visit the hospital?" the first two people who came into my head were Hitler followed by my PE teacher from secondary school Mrs Lumley- I really dislike that woman. Luckily I realised that this is not the kind of thing that they were actually asking and so I was able to give a normal answer. Later when Dan had gone home to get pyjamas they asked me "who's at home?" I though me and Percy were obvious so I said "my husband" The doctor said "Is he your first?" to which I replied "yes he's my first husband"

We were super impressed with the NHS the staff were almost all lovely apart from the nurse that came in at 1am and told us that two parents aren't allowed to stay overnight, she saw Dan sleeping on the sofa and didn't tell us that it pulls out into a bed. Thanks to the cleaners for that helpful bit of information they shared in the morning.

That morning we had the difficult task of getting a urine sample, which involved holding Percy completely naked for hours with a wee catching scoop close to hand for when the time came. Well done to Dan for being the wee catcher.

An x-ray revealed that Percy had a bad viral chest infection and as Percy had perked up a bit we were given medication and sent home. Hooray!

Two days later Percy was no better so I took him back to the walk in centre. This time his breathing was really bad and some ambulance men came to check him out, they said we need to go back to Alder Hey. I asked if I could go to the loo first and they said it was ok, then we got in the ambulance and they put the Nee narhs on. If I'd have known they were going to do that I wouldn't have gone to the loo! Good job I did though because it was hours before there would have been an appropriate time to go.

This time they said it was pneumonia which is a kind of chest infection. They were worried about his oxygen levels, he was working super hard to breathe, the problem was he hated having the oxygen mask anywhere near his face. They made four attempts to get the IV in. 12 months old is the worst age, very strong very able to fight, but too young to understand that the doctors are trying to help and too young for bribery. He is also really chubby so it's hard to get to his veins.

The nights were tough, Percy decided he only wanted to sleep on top of us which meant we had to take shifts so for example on the last night I slept at home from 8pm till 1pm and then drove back to the hospital then swapped with Dan and was a human mattress from 1am till 7am. Our friends and family were amazing throughout all. Our Christian friends and a muslim friend were praying for us, we had visitors, people bringing us food, people feeding our rabbit and a lot of texts. It's like actually a full time job to communicate with everyone when your child is in hospital. So we would love to say a massive thank you to all our wonderful friends. xx

Percy spent the morning of his first birthday in hospital, luckily by this time he was fairly happy and almost ready to go home, so he was crawling about charming all the nurses. He's such a flirt.

He didn't have a great birthday evening, he came home, we gave him his medicine and he was massively sick all over me and 10 minutes later all over Dan, but thankfully he was feeling much better by the weekend for his birthday party. Which I might write about in another blog.

Welcome home PJ we love you so much xx