HOW TO BEAT A MEDICINE TERRORIST

You'd think that by number five, they wouldn't be able to outsmart you but when it comes to medicine Amaia has us well and truly beaten. Fortunately she is seldom ill because getting medicine into her is impossible. We've tried the usual methods of coaxing, coercing, pinning down, mixing with food, drink, wrapping her in a towel and tickling her - but all to no avail. Last time she got a chest infection it took Thomas, Marcel and I a whole hour to administer each of the three daily doses of 5ml of amoxicillin. First she'd clamp her jaws, then she'd try flailing arms, if we did manage to approach her mouth she stuck her tongue fully out and finally if all else failed she'd accept it all into her mouth then spray spit it all over the room staining all three of us and the walls in the process, screaming her outrage. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a taste issue, merely a control one. If I leave a spoon on her high chair with a drip on it, she will happily pick it up and lick it, but not if she doesn't want to, so getting 15ml into her a day takes all day. Also given your are meant to finish a whole course of antibiotics to make sure it works, having 75% of each dose land on your head and drip from your fringe doesn't exactly inspire confidence. When she has a temperature, no matter how high, we go through the same thing with both calpol and nurofen. She drives me to distraction. I can't wait till she is old enough to be bribed! Anyway last week she needed some oral medicine again for an ear infection. I felt like crying when I heard because of the emotional strain trying to medicate her puts on me! Fortunately when I mentioned our problems to my friendly doc, he came up with a stronger version of amoxicillin which meant she only needed to be given three 1ml doses a day. What a relief! 1ml is a manageable amount and very little has hit my ceiling this time. So if you too have a medicine terrorist at home, do bear this solution in mind.

LÉON

You may just have noticed that I've stopped ranting about Léon's spots. Since he turned two, he had been plagued by sore little cysts under his cheeks that no number of trips to Yorkhill seemed to get to the bottom of. He had a total of four or five days in the last three years without a sore or bleeding spot on his face. Round about August, I started to notice that the spots were becoming less and less frequent. They had always said he'd grow out of them but I was afraid to blog it, or even say it out loud to my family in case that put a nail in the coffin of his recovery. Today he had his six-monthly check-up so I couldn't exactly not mention what I had noticed! The consultant was so pleased with his skin, she has told me she no longer wants to see him, unless he has a relapse. So maybe, just maybe, we've reached the end of the spot crisis! :-)

WHY THEY SHOULDN'T RINGFENCE THE NHS BUDGET

I'm all in favour of the NHS having a decent budget but I don't believe corners can't be cut to make it more efficient. This morning I took Marcel to the orthodontist because (as can be seen in this photo) his upper jaw is too small to fit in all his adult teeth, so some work will need to be done in there. We had originally been called up ten months ago but at that time he still had some milk teeth so they delayed treatment. Today his consultant looked inside and said he was ready to begin treatment. Perfect! So, what happens now do you think? Well, he makes a report to his assistant, who fills out the NHS funding forms and sends them off to apply for payment for Marcel's treatment. These will of course be accepted without question as he's an under-16 UK citizen, so after eight weeks the funding department will stamp and return his forms with the money and his consultant will then have his secretary write to us calling us for our first appointment. He said this without blinking, as if this ludicrous bureaucracy was completely acceptable. (Mind you, he is Greek so maybe he fails to see the wastage in this system). I have a better idea for my NHS tax money. The orthodontist looks in Marcel's mouth, decides he needs four teeth out and braces so pulls out four teeth and sticks in braces, fire the assistant, fire the funding rubber-stamper, fire the secretary and spend those three salaries on NHS funding. Am I a genius or what? Maybe I should charge them £30K for my one-page report...

TOO FEW BIRTHS

One of the problems with the low birth rate in Western countries is the fact that women don't have the experience to know what their bodies are capable of. Also women are unlikely to know someone personally who has a lot of children and who can offer real advice. Women end up listening to health officials and believing what they say. Back in December I was told I had to have a caesarean, which I refused because I knew the limits of my body but had Amaia been my first or second baby, I'd probably not have had to confidence to argue and win my case. I was told on at least five occasions that I probably wouldn't be able to have her naturally as they tried to frighten me into signing up. I am becoming more annoyed at stories I am hearing. How often do we hear - I won't be allowed to go more than X hours past my due date or they'll induce me. Given they can check blood flow, oxygen etc to and from the baby these days (they did it with Amaia), it seems to me that setting average deadlines is not in our interest. Of all the people I know who've been induced, 80% have gone on to have a caesarean because they have not dilated. I find it hardly surprising they don't dilate if the baby isn't ready to be born. I hate the dictatorial vocabulary too. Another friend's baby was breach till near the end of her pregnancy. They won't allow me to try to give birth naturally, she told me despite the fact that she already had several children. Advising women is one thing, telling them what they can or can't do is another. I wish they'd spend more time trying to avoid such traumatic surgical outcomes. And I wish women trusted their own instincts more.

A COPER

Anna has proved herself to be one of life's copers over the past three weeks. On the day her stookie was put on she sat on a chair in the garden and didn't move or play. By day two she was dragging it around the house bum-shuffling and by the third day she could roll and lower herself from the couch. The middle of the first week saw her develop the bravery to drag in along the patio outside on her bottom. Last Monday (day nine) she got out of bed and decided if it was going to be on for what I assume feels like forever in her timescale, then she'd just get on with it, so she got up and started walking. By Tuesday jumping, running round the garden and climbing had been added to her repertoire and I have to say today's shopping expedition in Glasgow which saw her walking unaided around shops in Sauchiehall street drew some funny looks, particularly in Primark when Brita was shopping for socks for Ursula and I actually found myself shouting Anna will you stop running, you have a broken leg! It will be interesting to see how she re-adapts to normality on Wednesday when it finally comes off.

SIMULTANEOUS STOOKIES?

Well - almost. Anna broke her leg nine days ago as you know. Today I got a call from Marcel, who was meant to be with his father but when he was left with an injured foot after a football tackle today couldn't initially get through on his house phone, so rang me instead, leading to me spending another two hours of my weekend in casualty. (What did we do in the old days before kids had mobile phones?) I'm beginning to think I need a season ticket! It turns out he's pulled a few of the ligaments on either side of his left foot and won't be able to take part in any sports for four weeks. Having done that myself four or five years ago, I seem to remember it was about fourteen months before I could comfortably walk on my foot for a whole day. Hopefully he'll heal quicker as he's younger. Especially given he tried out for the school football team two days ago! Fortunately the East Renfrewshire school sports' competition was last week, otherwise he'd have missed out on becoming the region's bronze medal shot putter for the year. And Anna was a little disappointed his tubigrip wasn't pink, of course!

THE BOTTOMLESS PIT

The WHO says I shouldn't start feeding Amaia (remember the 10lb baby) till she is 26 weeks old - ie in another 5 weeks. The WHO is barking mad! If I hadn't started her on solids I fear she might actually have eaten a member of the family by now - possibly Anna as she is currently the least mobile and the second smallest. Take today for example: it started with four rounds of breast milk from 2am onwards, then she had a cereal bowl full of porridge with blueberry compote at 9am, followed by more breast milk, at 1pm she was screaming again so had cauliflower, broccoli and cheese sauce with water, at 5pm she downed a jar (I didn't have time to cook her anything - she wouldn't let me!) of beef and root veg of some sort - I heated just half, then she demanded the other half, then a whole cereal bowl of yogurt with fruit and more of my milk (twice more). At 9pm I went up to change the other kids' bedding and came down to find Thomas feeding her a rusk dissolved in milk as she had declared famine once more. After another feed from me she fell asleep - no doubt to work up the strength to be up all night drinking again. She is a bottomless pit! Could I even contemplate not giving her any solids yet???

THE PINK LEG

I went to a charity book sale that my friend was holding in aid of breast cancer in her back garden yesterday afternoon. Both she and her husband work for the NHS ironically. As the women sat around chatting, the many toddlers took turns on the big trampoline. All the kids except Anna were brave enough to have a shot. After everyone left I made to leave myself but my friend suggested I stay an extra hour as we hadn't got round to chatting. With only Léon, Amaia, Anna and her own four year old left, Anna finally decided she was brave enough, not to jump on the trampoline but simply to stand on it. Léon and my friend's son walked across the trampoline towards the exit to let Anna stay there alone. They were quite slow and quiet so as not to frighten her. The movement under her feet however made her wobble and fall to her knees on the surface of the trampoline. She didn't fall off, but started to cry. I figured she was just feeling a little scared as she often is around such things. My other friend carried her over to me, she cried for five minutes then sat on my knee hugging me. When we got up to leave she refused to walk but it had been a long, hot day so I carried her to the car and drove home. At home she still refused to walk. I made dinner, gave her calpol and thought that after an early night she'd have forgotten all about it. After all it wasn't swollen or bruised. This morning just before 8am we were awoken by a happy little voice shouting in Danish as always that she was awake. Thomas went up and took her out of bed as usual and tried to stand her down and she started to scream again. This just wasn't normal so I bundled Anna, Amaia, a buggy and a papoose into the car and was in Yorkhill by 8-30am. No one else was there so we were taken straight away. She refused to weight bear. No amount of coaxing worked, so she was x-rayed and they believed they could see a tiny hairline fracture above her knee. She was quizzed as to what colour of plaster she'd like and she agreed to pink. As soon as the doctors started to apply the five layers on this hot day she started wailing at them in mixed English/Danish My will ikke want that! She became ever more frustrated as she shouted ikke over and over to no avail. Eventually she calmed down and I took her home. She looked a little fed up most of the day as she was completely immobile. She didn't seem to be in in pain but was quite sad and clingy. She had seemed to be cheering up towards bedtime though we didn't put our finger on why until Thomas came in holding her pyjamas At last I can take this off she announced, assuming that the pink leg was part of the day wear that would be discarded along with the flowery dress. An inconsolable little girl was then carried up to bed wailing Why? over and over as she tried to get her head round it staying on till next Wednesday at the earliest.

ANOTHER SEASON ANOTHER SPOT

As we enter our third year of visits to Yorkhill still no closer to resolving Léon's ever-changing spot issue, it is with a mixture of despair and resignation that I watched today as his entire body broke out in spots, lumps and scratches from simply running barefoot across the grass. He wasn't allergic to grass last summer but this summer it looks like grass is going to be added to the ever-growing indeterminate list of mild but upsetting allergies - egg, marshmallows, shampoo, soap, various sweets, grass etc etc. Despite the fact that he is on a daily dose of 20ml of antihistamines all year round, the grass took less than ten minutes to do this to his legs, arms and feet (check out the picture full-size). When he used to show an allergic reaction to something, I'd rush for the antihistamines - now he has the reactions after his daily dose, I'm at a loss for a plan B :-( It is so frustrating to have no obvious solution to his painful and distressing problem.

WHAT A PAIN IN THE ARSE WEEKEND

André was having the three big kids this weekend. I was looking forward, therefore, to advancing leaps and bounds on our book-moving project given we only had a two year old and a newborn to look after! I quickly rushed to ASDA before getting the biggies from school on Friday. With Anna and Amaia in a baby/toddler trolley and Léon walking by my side I started to slowly tick off the items on my list. It was about 2-25pm. Suddenly I realized I didn't have till 3pm to shop because Marcel gets out early on a Friday. I picked up Léon and threw him in the trolley along with my shopping and started running round like a mad thing. A trolley full of goods and three kids is quite heavy to corner with at high speed. My back is still a little delicate given it is only 5 weeks since I had a baby elephant but I got to the checkout with five minutes to spare.

I threw the shopping in the car and lifted in kids 3, 4 and 5 then zoomed round to the high school just in time for kid 1, then down to the primary for kid 2. On the way home I heard a crash and realized my box of eggs, thrown precariously into the boot, had upended and smashed. On arrival at the house I found my parents had dropped by for coffee so didn't want to dwell on mopping up the car. I ran out quickly with a pack of baby wipes. Three eggs had smashed and run from the boot, between the two back seats and under the three middle seats. I couldn't be bothered opening the side doors so stretched in as far as I could, hurting my back a second time. Eggy disaster was minimised.

I came in and went to change Amaia's nappy. My back, I thought, gave a little twinge. By an hour later I couldn't sit down. My bum/back/tail bone was in agony. I have been unable to sit, stand, turn in bed all weekend. Moving books has been impossible, in fact sitting drinking a coffee has even been a complete 'pain in the arse'. What a bloody nightmare! I have no idea what I've done or whether tomorrow will be any better :-(

MEDICINE INSTRUCTIONS

Don't you love medicine instructions? We've all had the cough mixture for four year olds that warns them not to drive or operate machinery if the medicine makes them drowsy. Poor Amaia (aka the mushroom factory) has been suffering terribly from oral thrush since she was a few days old. We're on our third bottle of Nystan suspension and she's only five weeks old. I had to laugh though when I read the label. Unlike the other two bottles where the pharmacist had typed 1ml four times a day, this week's bottle says: 1ml four times a day, shake well before use, finish the course, keep in mouth for at least two minutes before swallowing! Now I know at five weeks Amaia is more advanced than she was at three or four but I am not sure she is able to follow this advice to the letter just yet!

CHASING WILD GEESE

When Amaia was born last week, the paediatrician discharging her wanted me to have her hips checked as he suspected a minor problem. He wrote in her notes that she was to be checked at Yorkhill by ultrasound when she reaches six weeks. When she was three days old a letter turned up inviting her for a hip scan today. How efficient... With Marcel and Lots at school we loaded the three wee ones into the car and set out for the hospital. This was made all the more stressful by Anna being on her second day of potty training, and so being nappiless at the very time of the afternoon she often falls asleep if taken on a car trip! They scanned Amaia on arrival and agreed the hips seemed both shallow and immature. I was then asked her age (given she's big enough to be six weeks). When I replied that she was born last week, they sent us home again telling us she was too young to be checked and asking us to return when she turns six weeks! I just love all these NHS goose chases I seem to end up on thanks to my kids! I wonder where I can apply to have my petrol refunded in the meantime?

POOR BABY

One of the things newborns seem to be prone to is oral thrush. Obviously the problem with that is that it is easily transferred to the mother too as the baby suckles, leaving the mother's breasts in the same painful state as the baby's tongue. Though all of my babies have developed this to some extent in the first days of life, Amaia definitely has the worst case by far. From a distance you'd swear she already had teeth, her mouth and gums are so white and furry. Fortunately after a day of her on Nystan suspension and me on Daktarin gel, things seem to be starting to die down just a little. Soon I'll be able to feed her without my eyes watering!

THE CRUELTY OF NATURE

As I said on 11-01-10, sleeping on my stomach is one of the pleasures I miss most when I am pregnant. The first night after having a baby I lie there on my (wobbly) stomach feeling all is right with the world again. Of course, what I always forget is that the very next day, when the milk comes in you can no longer sleep on your stomach because your boobs hurt too badly! Waaaah. Nine days on and I am still too sore :-(

HOW DO THEY KNOW?

I've been reading with curiosity in the media about the latest swine flu figures for Scotland. Apparently last week 21,500 people are estimated to have caught the virus in Scotland up from 17,500 the week before. Unless you are hospitalized or you die, to my knowledge no one is actually tested and if you go onto the NHS website you are told not to contact your GP unless you are in a high risk group so where are they getting these figures from? When you check the NHS symptoms page you are told: If you or a member of your family has a fever or high temperature (over 38°C/100.4°F) and two or more of the following symptoms, you may have swine flu: * unusual tiredness, * headache, * runny nose, * sore throat, * shortness of breath or cough, * loss of appetite, * aching muscles, * diarrhoea or vomiting. So, given all four of my kids have been sick for the best part of a week, all with the necessary temperature, tiredness, cough and loss of appetite, the two biggies also with headaches, the three youngest with runny noses and the two middle ones with diarrhoea, am I to conclude they all may have it, or as I suspect, they all have a bad cold? It seems to me no one can count real swine flu cases and these guidelines could cover all viral infections so no one is any the wiser.

WELL WHAT DO YOU KNOW!

The Pudgeman woke up spotless despite the Scottish climate today. For the first time since February 2008, his face is spotfree. Of course I haven't the slightest clue what I have done, so fully expect the next one to start hatching by Friday at the latest but it is such a relief to see the wee guy happy instead of watching him scratching and bleeding and distressed for once. If only the dermatologists could get to the bottom of it all...

THE PROBLEM WITH PARENTING

Marcel fell downstairs at school on Wednesday. Between periods at school, he tried checking the time on his mobile phone (kids seem to think watches are largely unnecessary these days, but I'm not so sure), tripped upstairs landing in a way that resulted in a twisted left arm, a cut right ear and a lump on his head. I was summoned. It was 2pm. I suggested we go straight to casualty as it was only 6 weeks and 6 days since he had last broken that arm. He decided as he had full mobility and no swelling, he'd leave it to the following day and given Scotland were playing a world cup qualifier less than a mile from the hospital that evening I certainly wasn't going to argue. He seemed fine, ate normally, played XBOX etc. Thursday he said it wasn't as sore, so went to school as normal. This morning he woke up complaining it felt worse. I assumed he'd been lying on it or hadn't taken a paracetamol but suggested casualty again and he agreed. The timing wasn't great. Having been nursing a chesty cough and temperature for the best part of a fortnight, I had allowed myself the thought of phoning my GP first thing this morning to get myself some antibiotics. Obviously knowing that casualty can take between 2 and 4 hours, offering to take Marcel to casualty ruled out my fixing myself :-( Off we trotted to A&E at the Vicky. Of course after parking at the new building and going to the old building, we were then sent back to the new one after half an hour's wait. I was beginning to wonder if the weather was very hot today or if I was just suffering a chest or throat infection combined with a wild goose chase. Obviously Baked Bean made it impossible for me to come for the X-ray so Marcel went in himself and by midday they were explaining how he had 'bent' rather than snapped his wrist bone - something fairly normal in that age of child. A cast was put on and he was sent home just in time to have missed an entire day at school. He was happy - a mix of skiving and imagining the sympathy all his little female friends would be heaping upon him by Monday. I was still feeling shite :-( The afternoon didn't improve any. Given it was sunny for the first time in what feels like months we had coffee outside. Anna was sitting on the trampoline eating chocolate buttons when she burst into tears. I looked over in time to see her panic as a wasp walked across her face. She tried to bat it away with the obvious result - a wee stung nose. So it was back to tlc for a different child. Some sugary water on the wound, a spoonful of piriton and a spoonful of baby nurofen later she calmed down bravely. Poor baby is only one and this is the second time a wasp has attacked her face. I was 35 the first time I was stung! So I guess the problem with mothering is you just don't have time to look after yourself. Maybe I'll get to the doc myself some time next week...

COMTÉ OR BRIE PHYLLIS?

Now here's an interesting one...
Anyone who has ever been pregnant knows the literature you get loves to bombard you with lists of food items that will cause you and your baby to drop dead if you so much as look at them sideways in the supermarket. Instead of assuming you have a brain that can understand the concepts they are throwing at you, you get a list of banned substances. I've always taken these lists with a pinch of salt - for two reasons. Firstly, being part of a multicultural family, I know the taboo list is quite different in both France and Denmark - that gets you wondering for starters. Also the taboo list has changed a bit over the last 12 years so I tend to figure finding a happy medium is sensible.
The other problem I have with it is that by oversimplifying it, they are actually making things more, not less dangerous. Take cheese for example. I have been advised by the NHS that I should avoid soft cheeses but hard cheddar-like substances are fine. So I buy a brie and a comté in Makro today. Obviously following NHS rules I am headed for comté and biccies tonight after dinner BUT when I read the back of the brie it says 'made with pasteurised milk' and when I read the back of the comté it says 'made with unpasteurised milk' so if it is indeed listeriosis they want me to avoid, then I should be avoiding the comté and devouring the brie... wonder how many pregnant women are caught out because of their oversimplified rules?

WHEN DID SENSE DROP OFF THE RADAR?

Sometimes people make up new rules and no one stops to ask why? No one has the courage to say to the rule-maker: this is utterly stupid, or this is a waste of peoples' time or a waste of money.
What in particular am I ranting about this time? The NHS of course.
As you all know I am not exactly what would be classed a spring chicken on the childbirth front, so it (sadly) came as no great surprise when the ante-natal blood tests came back telling me I was fairly high risk for Downs and other genetic problems. Although I have had one amnio before, I can easily say it is one of the most stressful experiences of my life. It isn't overly painful having a needle the length of a knitting needle stuck through your abdomen into your womb without anaesthetic but the risk of miscarriage coupled with the waiting for test results and of course the knowledge of the decisions those results may engender are heart-stopping.
My appointment was made for Tuesday at 11am. I left Anna with mum explaining I expected to be back within the hour. On arrival at the Queen Mum's, the doctor announced I could only have an amnio after they took a blood sample to determine my blood group as anti-D would be necessary if I was rhesus negative. She was holding my notes, stamped in pink on the front: Patient is Rhesus negative! Problem solved... we pointed out I had had four babies at that hospital over the last 12 years. She leafed through my notes and sure enough page after page mentioned my B negative blood group and every time over the years I had been given anti-D. It mentioned their testing of my blood type every pregnancy and the fact that (funnily enough) I seemed to always be the same blood type! However the new hospital policy is to check the blood type on the day of an amnio so I had my blood taken. I had a half hour scanning and amnio procedure at 11am followed by a wait till nearly 2pm in the waiting room, starving while the lab checked my blood type so they could authorise my anti-D. And you'll never believe it... at 2pm the lab confirmed I was indeed B negative! So glad my tax money is being put to such good use!

MYSTERY DEEPENS

After nearly 18 months of spot problems with Léon we went on holiday to Tuscany. The weather was great, sunny and generally not under 30C except during three afternoon thunderstorms and nights when we got down to a chilly 27C. We were not within walking distance of a shop so his fresh milk intake diminished, though his ice cream intake increased so maybe one cancelled the other out... His diet wasn't wildly different - we'd more pasta and tomatoes than usual, more salami type cold meats but in general the same. He drank mainly water though had a few fizzy drinks. Suddenly as if by magic, my wee man was spotless. Excellent! Problem solved...
Of course we had to come home again. We arrived back on Friday night and just two days later they started to reappear as if by magic :-( What is causing this? Is he allergic to Scotland?