Saturday, 1 October 8am– Sean woke up with a swollen eye and lots of pus in his eye. He called the ambulance but the paramedics on the phone said his condition did not warrant an ambulance. Now, I wonder why we subscribe to the ambulance service when we can’t use it when we need it.
9am - We reached the clinic at 9am and the doctor (Dr Karen Head) examined Sean ‘s eye. She said that she could not prescribe any medicine for him and instead, referred us to the ear and eye hospital in East Melbourne for further examination. Great, I just paid AUD30 for a piece of paper. And Sean was still in great pain.
10.30am - So, we went back home, got Shannyn’s bag, the map and citylink tag before driving off to the hospital. On the way, Sean popped some panadol for pain relief.
11am – We reached the hospital at 11am. Sean went in to register at the emergency department while I went hunting for parking.
11.15am – Finally found parking nearby. Didn’t have enough coins to pay for the parking. Tried to use my credit card but it wasn’t working. It didn’t really help with Shannyn crying and shouting beside me and me shouting back at her to put on her hoodie as it was drizzling. So I inserted all the coins and it is enough to last for an hour.
11.30am – It was finally our turn to see the doctor, or so we thought. It was in fact the nurse who was checking Sean’s swollen eye. By this time, Sean was in pain and shivering. And Shannyn had gone to the toilet 20 times.
12pm - Parking time was almost up. I went back and realise that I only need to insert some more coins. But I only needed less than $2 for the remaining time (the parking is free after that). Then a woman happened to be there and I managed to break some change with her. She was such helpful. I wasn’t sure how to read the parking machine and she helped me with it. It was drizzling at that time and we were wet, not drenched just a bit wet.
12.30pm – Now that I didn’t have to worry about the parking, I begin to look after our stomachs. So I wondered around for food and tried to look for McDonald’s. I know that there must be a McDonald’s somewhere. The fast food chain is well-known for being everywhere, isn’t it? I asked at least three to four strangers before I finally found McDonald’s down the street.
1.00pm – After wondering for half an hour in slight drizzle with Shannyn, we finally found McDonald’s! I placed our heavy winter jackets on a seat and went to order food. As I was ordering food, I saw the staff taking our jackets away. I called to her and said “Hi, those are our jackets and that is our seat, we are trying to order food here”. So she went back, told the other customer that the seat was taken and placed back our jackets in the seat. After a long walk, I need comfort food and soft sofa seat, not some wooden, plastic chairs. How dare the man try to ‘steal’ my seat! The cashier and the manager couldn’t accept my order as I ordered a kids meal with fish burger rather than hamburger. We had been ordering that for years and in this chain, manager said firmly “Kids meal do not come with fish fillet”. What nonsense. Maybe I should write a complain letter to show my displeasure. Oh well, forget it. I won’t be going back there again for sure.
Fine!! “I will have fish burger meal plus a toy please” I said. The cashier said “No, we can’t give you a toy because you did not order a happy meal! By then, I was really not happy! So I said “How can we have the toy?” She went to ask her manager and pressed $2 for the toy into the cash register. I asked her what the toy was and luckily, it was the smurf’s toys. Shannyn chose one of the toy and was happy. I wasn’t so pleased myself.
When I went back to my seat, I realised that the man who ‘tried to steal my seat’ had four kids with him. Instead of being angry, I sort of symphathised him. It is not easy to look after one kid, let alone four! My anger subsided and I began to enjoy my chicken burger.
1.30pm – Sean called to say that he had seen the doctor. The doctor said he needed to scan his eye and we had to wait an hour for the guy to come.
2.00pm - I went back with Sean’s lunch. Gave him more panadol. Glad I grabbed a pack of panadol at the last minute.
2.45pm – The guy arrived from home to do his work, scan Sean’s eye. By this time, we were all tired. The doctor said we had to wait another hour for the radiologist to come and analyse the scan result. The first guy had such an easy job, scan and go home. I think I want his job.
3.45pm – The radiologist came and analysed the scan result with the doctor. I asked the doctor whether he would be hospitalised, the doctor said he was not sure yet. He needed to make a few calls before deciding.
4.45pm – The doctor said he was going to give Sean the drip. I told Sean and he said he needed to go to the toilet. In case you were wondering about Shannyn, she dozed off at 2.30pm on the bench. There was a nurse there who happened to be a Singaporean. She was very jovial. She brought Sean to the toilet in a wheelchair as he couldn’t walk properly himself and I was looking after Shannyn.
When she came back, she told everyone that Sean had to pass motion and kept shaking her head. Her actions made me laugh. She said to me “Da Hao, bu shi xiao hao”!! It was hilarious. When Sean came back, I told him that the whole hospital know he was in the toilet.
5.00pm – The doctor told me that they would admit Sean into the hospital. By then, Sean was so weak from the ordeal. The nurse asked him what was the pain rating and he gave it 8/10. Poor Sean.
By then, I was in shock as I realised that I didn’t know my way home. The sky was getting dark and still raining. I was in distress as I didn’t know where I was heading. Exhibition Street, Swanston street, Elizabeth street passed by… trams, taxis and big buses everywhere. OMG, where the hell was I??
I decided to u-turn and drove back to where I left – the hospital, and start all over again. Shannyn was crying and shouting “I want daddy” continuously as I tried to find my way out of the city into M1 (the expressway).
At one point, I reached a road block due to the AFL game and had to turn back.
I was totally lost. After 10 minutes, I finally found a possible way to M1. Shannyn was still wailing at the back seat. After 30 minutes on the road, Shannyn was tired from the crying and we started to talk.
As we were reaching home, she said she wanted pasta for dinner so we went to a nearby shopping centre and buy back our dinner.
6.30pm – We finally reached home.
8.30pm – Shannyn slept.
10.00 pm - I went to bed. End of the day, or so I thought.
12.00am – Shannyn woke up crying. To my shock, she had vomited most of her pasta on the bed. Luckily I had placed a towel where she slept. Hence I changed the towel and cleaned her up. We went back to sleep after 45 minutes.
3.00am – Shannyn woke up crying for milk. In the dark, I tried to make milk and spilt water on the table. Not thinking, I gave her the milk.
3.05am – Shannyn woke up crying, vomiting. This time, she vomited all over herself and me! She couldn’t sleep on the bed anymore and I had to change the bedsheet.
3.45am – Finally managed to coo her to sleep.
4.00am – Cleaned up the bed and checked my phone. There was a missed call from a stranger at 3am. I was so scared that it was the hospital. Tried calling back but the guy wasn’t picking up.
4.30am – I couldn’t sleep as I wasn’t sure who had called me earlier. Was it the hospital?? Had something happened?? I called Sean immediately. First call, no pickup. Second call, he finally picked up the phone and told me that he was sleeping. I went back to sleep when I found out he was all right.
Sunday8.00am – Shannyn woke up and said he wanted to go see daddy. I did some laundry and cooked some porridge to the hospital for our lunch.
Our kind neighbour came over and offered to help. So I asked him to push the heavy rubbish bin out as it was usually done by Sean. They also invited me and Shannyn over for dinner if we wanted.
Sean’s eye was even more swollen, he could not open it. We stayed in the hospital till 4pm and went home.
Dinner was leftover porridge from morning, added some pork floss for taste.
Monday
11.00am – Reached the hospital in the city. It was not easy to find parking on a weekday. It really is a miracle to be able to so do. I guess a miracle did happen as I did find parking, the last one available. But the tricky bit was I couldn’t park it. It was one of my weaknesses, parallel parking. I wound down the window, as I was getting hot & a little impatient with myself. A lady who had just parked her car in front of mine came towards me and gave me instructions to park my car! I guessed she was afraid that I would bump her car. After eight minutes, I finally did it.
Sean was beginning to show progress. I spoke to the doctor about his condition. She was such a graceful and elegant doctor. Her explanation was convincing as she told us that the infection was a local infection and would not be likely to spread. She also said that the blood test was bad on the day he was admitted. But today, it was good.
3.00pm – Left the hospital.
It was not a bad day after all as Sean was beginning to recover.
7.00pm – My neighbour came by and we talked for a while. If not for her, I would not know that I had left my side gate open. If I had not closed it, anyone could walk into our backyard which could be dangerous.
7.30pm - We finished dinner. I turned on the tv and was glad to see the 'X-factor' show. I needed some tv therapy anyway.
9.00pm – I called home as parents had not called us for a few days. They seemed fine and that was all I wanted to hear.
Tuesday
8.00am – Sean called home. He said that he could be discharged. Wohoooo!!! I was over the moon. I told Shannyn to pack the living room and ‘clean up’ the room as her toys were all over the place. She did as told and by 9.30am, we made our way to the hospital.
As we were leaving the house, Shannyn said “Mum, you forgot to cook porridge”. I had been making porridge for our lunch for the past few days. And Shannyn wondered why I didn’t prepare porridge today. So I told her that we were fetching dad from the hospital and would probably be going out for lunch too.
10.30am – We reached the city. Same thing, parking was a headache. As I tried to squeeze my car into the street parking, the car behind me happened to move out of the slot! He signalled a ‘thumbs up’ to me. Yes!! I reversed all the way to the slot behind and moved forward. Just one move and I’m right on spot!
A big red car came reversing and parked into the slot behind me.
The driver (apparently a local) came out of his car, smiling and showing his white teeth. As he came towards me, he said “You win, I win too!” I replied with a loud “YES!!” It is really hard to find parking in the city.
The road which I parked had two parking lanes on either side of the road. On one side, the parking is $2.40 per hour and you can park for only an hour. On the other side of the same road, it is $1.30 per hour and maximum four hours.
I found that out from a stranger as I was wondering around the area on Sunday, scouting for cheap parking. She was smoking as I approached her, apparently she was a staff working at the hospital opposite our hospital.
I patted myself in the back as I managed to park in the four hours zone.
11.00am – Sean was discharged after three nights stay in the hospital. As he was craving for some Vietnamese hot beef noodle, we went to Springvale. I had the traditional Vietnamese rice, yum!!!
1.00pm – We reached home. The doctor had given Sean two weeks mc.
Everything came to a halt when Sean was hospitalised. We came to realise that health is the most important.
I didn't know how I had the strength and determination to go through this. As what my friend described - Strength of a Mother. I had no time to think, just act. That was what kept me going.
We are also grateful to all who have showed your concern towards us during this difficult time.
And my confidence in driving has gone up several levels. I have clocked in some mileage these few days.
As my friend put it, it is no longer a 'Mickey Mouse' license - license which only allows you to drive in disneyland. AAhhaaa!!!
This was a photo taken by my friend when we went boat riding a few days ago.
