Happy Mother's Day

Today is mother's day here in North America. In Sweden mother's day is on the last Sunday of May and in the UK it falls on one Sunday in March I can't remember which.

Funny story about the UK mother's day. As you may or may not know I lived for some years in the UK. I spent about a year and a half in Brighton first studying for six months, then bartending and living in a hostel for about a year. It was fun. Then London for six months and then Sweden for six months and then back to London for a year and a bit before moving here.
I have never been good at remembering such occasions as mother's day or father's day so I usually went by the advertisements for flowers that tend to show up a couple of weeks before the event. So my first year in England I did just that. It's early March and everywhere signs for mother's day are showing up in flower shop windows so I promptly buy a card for my mom write something sweet in it and send it off thinking I've been good and have done my duty as a good daughter. A couple of days later I get a phone call from mom asking me why I'm sending her mother's day cards in March when mother's day isn't until May. Well I told her I like to be early so I'm just making sure she'll have her card on time. I ended up having to send her another one in May anyway.

Because mother's day here in Canada and in Sweden both fall in May just on different Sundays I have been told I will not get to celebrate both since my hubby is clearly too cheep and too lazy to do special treats for me twice in one month. Father's day is another thing though. Father's day here in Canada is in June. I know this because W was born on Father's day thereby saving me the hassle of having to buy something for hubby since I had already given him the ultimate present. About four months later we went to Sweden to show off our new baby and have him baptised. It was November and we scheduled the baptism for the 10Th which was a Saturday since the church had decided to do baptisms on Saturdays rather than Sundays. We get there and what do you know father's day in Sweden is in November. The 11Th of November that particular year so apparently we have to celebrate both. Now how is this fair. W is born in June so both Canadian and Swedish (and UK's for that matter) mother's day are gone but hubby gets 2 father's days!

Well today is my second mother's day. Last year I got a flowerbed with a flower and this year I got a beautiful homemade card from W.






So to all mother's and grand-mother's Happy Mother's Day! May you be pampered and loved all day (and everyday).

a long and scary night

I know it's been a while since I wrote anything here. I'd like to say I've been busy but I don't know if that's really true. Anyways. I guess I haven't had anything important to say.

Yesterday my baby was diagnosed with pneumonia and got started on antibiotics. Later in the afternoon he started breathing super fast. Like he's just been out running laps and his fever went up to 39.4°c so I took him to St Justine children's hospital. There we got to go straight to the triage and then got moved instantly to observation. We spent 4 and a half hour in observation while Wilhelm was given 5 rounds of asthma inhaler treatment as well as cortisone. He also had to do more x-rays. Then the doctor sat with us for 10 minutes just watching Wilh breath, since his breathing was still very fast we got admitted to the respiratory bloc in the hospital and then the night from hell began.

We got to our room just before 10 p.m. Wilh usually goes to bed at 7 p.m. so he was already exhausted. I finally managed to speak to my hubby and told him to get his ass to the hospital asap cause the nurses were bugging me to go downstairs to do the admission and leave Wilh alone upstairs with an orderly. I was not going to leave my 16 month old, sick baby with some stranger for anything, he already have issues with me leaving him even if he's with his dad. I rocked Wilh to sleep and refused to put him down in the prison style crib provided just in case they'd force me to do the admission if he was sleeping. An hour later or so my hubby showed up and did the admission and got the update of what had happened up until that point. Then the first of what felt like a million interruptions of Wilh's sleep came.

We had a special nurse come every 2 hours to give Wilh his asthma inhaler.The asthma inhaler is a torture device in Wilh's eyes and he will do anything to get away from it. He was given 4 doses every 2 hours and it was horrible, he's scream and cry and kick and hit every time. I had a couple of the poor nurses be very surprised by how strong he is even with a high fever, breathing difficulties and after being rudely awoken.

About half an hour after the inhaler came the general well being and temperature check. Every 2 hours or so all night.

Then the resident showed up and she was very nice. She evaluated him and decided to put an IV on him and to give his antibiotics intravenous. She also told us that Wilh's symptoms were that of an asthma crises and that they would treat him for both pneumonia and asthma crises. Hubby got into a discussion on the topic of which causes which bronchilitus causing asthma or asthma causing bronchilitus...

After she left the team came to put the IV in and I have never felt so helpless in my entire life. They held him down and it took forever and his poor little hand was bleeding and they put this cardboard thing under his wrist and hand and taped his hand and wrist to his so he couldn't move it at all. Then they wrapped the whole thing in a towel which they also taped to his hand. It looked like he broke his hand and was wearing a cast. It was so sad to see him try to do things with just one hand. Poor lilla bus bus.

Me and hubby go no sleep, maybe 3 hours all together and Wilh didn't get much more, poor baby. He was so tired and feverish when the morning came. He didn't eat anything. Then there were more checks and treatments and then the head of paediatrics came by and did an evaluation of Wilh and told us he didn't think bus had pneumonia at all and that he would speak to the radiologist to get an expert opinion. The radiologist agreed with the paediatrician that Wilh did not in fact have pneumonia but rather a partially collapsed lung caused by a viral infection and an asthma crisis. Apparently this is good news. Wilh got taken off the antibiotics and got prescribed and anti inflammatory liquid for his airways and lungs and we got sent home.

We got back here at 3.30 p.m. 23 hours after we left for the hospital. Very tired. Wilh fell asleep at 6.30 and I think we'll follow him shortly.

Pictures from the hospital will follow later.

"Now it's time to go to sleep
so we will sleep with our pet zeep
Today was good today is gone
tomorrow is another one
Every day from here to there
funny things are everywhere"
-Dr. Seuss