Three Ring Circus

In the spirit of the season…

A big thank you to all my new friends out there in the Aussie Community.

This idea originally came from Sue.

Stay tuned for the International linky love Christmas (coming to a blog near you).

T’was the night before Christmas,

And all through the house,

You could hear the blogger typing and clicking her mouse.

She wanted to sho - ow how much she did care,

So she sent linky love into the blo - og - esphere.

There is Trish and Tracey, who give her new life,

Mountainmama and Kelley (who is always in strife)!

She loves to read Kim and  Ka - ate and Joh,

Three Aussie chi - icks who go with the flow.

Me - eg and Snoskred have taught her so much,

Abou - out Community and keeping in touch.

Cellobella and Karen, Leigh and Megan too,

Their writing lifts you u - up when yo - ou are blue.

Veronica, with Amy has slee - eepless nights,

A ki - indred spirit in sleep deprived writes.

Mad Goat Lady and Kate and their animal friends,

Kee - eeps this mum from going around the bend.

Andrew and Kim are grea - eat new reads,

Julia has two blogs that fill my prem baby needs.

Thank you Aussie blog friends, may you season be bright,

Happy Christmas to all and to all a blog filled night!

I won’t show you the photos but trust me it was bad. So bad that when the paed got the email with said photos attached, he called me straight away.

Those who have been reading my blog for a while will know that when our paed calls us before 6pm, when you’ve called at office opening, it’s a big thing.

Over the course of the weekend her nappy area had turned into one big blister, those blisters had popped and the skin sloughed away. She was sick and miserable but had come good on the return of her trusty Erythromycin.

The good doctor said hospital and I argued.

Because she was ok.

Because she was happy.

Because it’s her birthday for goodness sake and who wants to spend their birthday with a drip in their arm?

Not to mention the party and the guests. What do I tell them?

He called back three times, so I took her in.

When we arrived, no one knew we were coming. The nurses were at their bitchiest and sent me to admissions, claiming they would not touch her until they had the paperwork. So I went to admissions who knew nothing of us either and sent us away until they could contact the paed…whose office was closed until 1 pm.

I arrived at 11am. It took me an hour to find a parking spot, people. An hour.

Anyway we went back down to the ward and the nurse boogieman sat us in a corner and said she would not do one thing until we were admitted properly and then whined about how inappropriate it all was.

I just wanted to go.

The doctors came and checked her out, the paed came, the dermatologists came. They all had differing opinions but none of them involved IV antibiotics. At 6:30 pm they let us go. They couldn’t say what the blisters were so they gave us antibacterial cream, anti fungal cream and a barrier cream in case it was contact dermatitis. UGH.

At least we are home. Ivy is tucked up in bed and after a very eventful day that had nothing to do with organising a birthday party, I think I am going to bed too.

Just wanted to say thank you to Mary, who helped to juggle the day, I would have struggled without you.

I was reading an interesting post by Dr Rob the other day. He was speculating the possibility of doctors and patients being friends and, in that context, disclosing information when having a particularly bad day. He wondered why patient’s asked how he was and attempted to probe into his life outside of his practice. He noted that he felt uncomfortable being dishonest and telling his patients that his life was fine, if it was not but in giving any personal information about himself  asked if that was crossing the line of professionalism.

I haven’t been able to shake this post for several days and have been going through it in my head.

Now, I know I have had a go at our paed for speaking about his hectic week, when mine was falling apart at the seams. I am willing to concede that I was stressed at the time and clearly feeling selfish and sorry for myself. As is usually the case when you are trying to contact a doctor.

I’m sorry for that, I am, because when I thought about it, I would much rather know if the twins’ paed is feeling out of sorts, so I know where we stand. 

I responded to Dr Rob’s post. I said that I knew when our paed was not feeling great because of his body language, his concentration levels and his ability to elaborate on things without being prompted.

Having thought about it, obsessively, for the last 48 hours, I have come to the conclusion that his disclosure of his difficulties and struggle to balance his professional and his home life means alot to me. It kind of puts us on even ground. Makes him human.

I know that we are not friends. We do not socialise but we do have a relationship. We talk. I am very open and honest about how I feel about doctors (he laughts it off). I have to say, I have come to feel comfortable with him, like an old slipper, really. I will question him if I am not sure about what he is proposing and I have sometimes challenged him too (I said sometimes, Mary, Tracey). I am one of the people who ask how he is and, I guess, I do like to get an honest response.

After all, he knows all about my babies. He knows my obstetric history, he knows our family and genetic history. He knows about my parent acopia and he has phoned me in the middle of complete and utter breakdown and listened as I bawled down the phone without hanging up in fear. The other day he saw me in the hospital, in trackies and a spew/snot/tear stained t - shirt with my hair like a birds nest and dark circles of worry under my red rimmed, tear filled eyes.

Now I don’t know about you but there are only a few men who have seen me that way… and he is one of the three on my list.

So to hear a bit about his life seems to balance things out.

This brings me to Andrew. The doctor who was there when William was born and was also the doctor who I trusted with the birth of Ivy and Noah. Things were weird between us for a while. After everything we went through together with William, I considered us friends. We spoke as friends. We shared things that friends would. He knew how I was feeling at a time when I was really bad at letting them show. If we were in town, we would drop in to see him. I have worked with him too as a midwife and we have shared a continuing ‘friendship’ through our work.

When I came to him pregnant with Ivy and Noah we instantly changed back to the professional relationship of doctor and patient. I hated it and all my trust in him evaporated because I thought we were friends and he was clearly not reciprocating. It was getting close to d - day and I was not sure I wanted Andrew to care for me any more because I felt he was putting up a fascade, not being honest with me.

Until there was an intervention by our mutual friend, Carolyn, and Andrew and I actually talked. The relief was instant (for both of us, I think). Things have been ok since and we have been able to find some balance.

Again, with Andrew, we don’t really socialise but I still feel that we are friends; because of what we went through together, because of what I have disclosed to him. So, our relationship is different again from that of the paediatrician. I appreciate him immensely.

What do you think? Is it possible to be friends with a doctor?  Does it change things too much? Should we keep our distance and not ask how our doctor is feeling, want to get to know them in the same way that they know about our lives?

For me, those questions have definately been food for thought.

Just on a side note; I suppose I’m thinking alot about this because I am going to read William’s and my hospital notes today with Andrew and straight after that we have Ivy’s sleep study interview…

My friend Tracey has started her blog over here. She has written about amazing moments in her life and has invited people to tell her about their own amazing moments. I hope you’ll pop over there and have a read. She’s just new to blogging and needs a bit of love sent her way.

Amazing moments in my life:

* The weekend when David’s and my relationship changed from ‘just friends’ to something more.

* That first kiss.

* When David gave me Mosby, our first dog. A white ball of fluff, that fit in the palm of my hand.

*Finding two heartbeats on ultrasound after three years of infertility and two miscarriages.

* That first touch of my own babies’ soft skin, that earthy smell and the realisation that I was their Mummy.

* Graduating as a registered nurse.

* Lily’s birth. All that hair!

* The first time Imogen and Madeline met Lily.

* Building and moving into our first home.

* The first birth I attended. Placing my hands on new life.

* Letting go of my babies on their first day of big school.

* Graduating as a midwife.

* Every birth I have had the honour of being involved in since.

* Realising I did have the ability to love someone elses children.

* Standing on the scales and realising I had lost 58kgs.

* Those two blue lines on the home pregnancy test after two more losses and four years of subfertility.

* Renewing our wedding vows after 10 years of marriage.

* Finding out the baby was a boy.

* Labouring and birthing my son.

* Realising my baby was not going to survive and letting him go.

* Living through those first twelve months afterwards.

* Having a new understanding of my mother.

* Discovering I was pregnant again.

*Finding out that there were two babies, one boy and one girl. Hearing those heartbeats.

* Watching them win the battle of prematurity.

* Learning to enjoy life again.

I’m sure there will be many more.

Why don’t you write down all your amazing memories and then leave a comment for Tracey, linking her back to your post.

Yesterday we made a day of going to Sydney. We left at 6am, dropped David at work and then went to Macquarie Centre to do some food shopping for our picnic. I had asked David only one question before we made our way to the shops. Would there be a place to park the bus? Of course there was, otherwise that would be the end of this traumatic tale of the (once city savvy) now country hick, who had a panic attack because the centre, that she once knew like the back of her hand, had grown to an enormous, mind boggling size. Oh the shame!

We parked in the minibus area and I unloaded the seven children, one of whom had the world’s most disgusting poo smell radiating from her lower half and another who had decided the car trip down would be a grand time to do the biggest wee of his life and soak through his nappy AND through his shorts. (I should have seen this as some sort of omen right then and there). Of course I had not packed any spares because that is just the way it goes… you never think to and that is when you need them the most.

On a little side note, I’ve proven this many times. For example the time we went to the paediatrician and Noah got car sick… you’d think a mother of seven would learn, wouldn’t you?

Anyway, we enter the shops after the standard "We already get alot of stares because we are a big family so please don’t do anything to draw more attention to yourselves with bad/odd/scary behaviour or we will never go out again" lecture. Our first stop is to the baby change room. It is modern and sparkly,with top of the range changing areas. To my left a fenced play area called to the kids while I cleaned up masses of… stuff you really don’t want to know about. Really. We were the only family in there. I mean, for about 30 seconds another child and her father came in but when he saw my gaggle he grabbed his daughter and ran for the hills. It was then I started to sweat. A feeling of inadequacy swept over me.

As we stepped out from the relative safety of the parents room, I tried to remember where the supermarket was. It was 8:30 in the morning, so it was still pretty quiet.

We wandered up and down levels and half an hour later we happened upon Woolworths. I see myself as a seasoned shopper, pride myself on it, even but this Woolies was confusing. I swear we only needed some BBQ chooks and some rolls and salad but an hour later we were at the checkout, ringing up our goods. It could have had something to do with the fact that five of the seven children were running all over the shop, overcome with it’s size and variety, or the fact that I spent a large part of  the time telling kids that, "No, they couldn’t have garlic pickled peanuts/caramel flavoured chips/bacon topped donuts and to please go and put them back where they found them".

More likely, it was that one isle of this store was as big as half of my local supermarket!

My heart was palpating now, the shops crawling with hundreds of shoppers and I just wanted to go to the bus and be on our way. I couldn’t find our exit though. We went from level to level searching for our original point of entry.

As we walked around and around…and around, dodging cranky, abrupt, city dwellers and trying to find our car park, I realised two things. Firstly, that I had gotten used to the country lifestyle, the slower pace and secondly, that I was very lost… in a shopping centre of all places! Me! Queen of retail therapy!

I had to call David, who directed us to our level, between his chuckles. The sunlight was wonderful, the sight of the bus better. We all piled in, a little stressed from our (my) ordeal but with nourishment(and a new pair of shorts for Noah) in hand for our picnic.

We met up with Trish and her boys and had a lovely day. The big kids played hard, the little ones harder. We ate and talked and had a wonderful day at Rouse Hill Recreational Park. The day went so fast and soon it was time to say goodbye to our friends.

On the way home the girls twittered about how cool the Sydney area was and were full of wishes to move. Not me though. I think I’m a country girl at heart.