The doctor has advised this morning that Victoria will need to stay in hospital for at least most of today, and will be reviewed again this afternoon. She is well within herself, and has managed to do some spelling this morning. The hospital school teacher bought down some air-drying clay for her to model with. Thanks for continuing to uphold her in your prayers.
For anyone who is interested, here is the general process that happens when Victoria has to come into hospital with a high temperature ....
We have pre-packed 'hospital' bags at home for Victoria and myself, sort of like the bag you prepare for hospital when the birth of your baby is impending. Victoria's bag includes a few pairs of pjs; some of her favourite books, including 'Angels watching over me', given to her by her Prep teachers last year; some of her favourite toys, like little plastic figurines that she plays imaginery games with; and a change of clothes to wear when she is discharged.
My bag is mainly filled with electronic gadgets to enable to me to keep communicating with the outside world! Chargers for my mobile phone, laptop, wireless modem, photo chip reader etc! I have a folder in which I keep all my current paperwork for our business, so I can just grab that when we need to go, as sometimes there are ideal conditions in hospital for getting a lot of bookwork done! I have also realised after the last couple of recent visits, that there is the potentially the opportunity to do a few self-beauty treatments such as pre-packed facials and hair conditioning, so will be on the look out for some of those this week to put in my bag!
We also have another bag, the 'foodie' bag. The hospital provides Victoria with food, however I have to provide my own. So I bring some Uncle Toby's porridge satchets, bananas and my tupperware heating container and that takes care of breakfast. Around lunch-time I am normally ready to have a break from the hospital room, so take a walk down to the cafeteria for a wrap of some sort. For dinner I have been enjoying some of the more exotic Healthy Choice frozen meals, followed by a chocolate bar from the fundraising box at the nurses station!
Now back to the process.... When Victoria's temperature reaches the trigger point of 38, we phone the J1 ward at the John Hunter Hospital and advise them of what is happening.
At home we then put the anesthetic cream on Victoria's port. It takes about 30 minutes for the anesthetic cream to work. It takes us about 30 minutes to get to the hospital, so it means that Victoria's port can be accessed as soon as we arrive at hospital, and the blood can be tested to find out her blood count and some put aside to see if a bacterial infection is present.
When we get to the hospital, we go directly to the J1 oncology ward, by-passing the Emergency Department. Normally we go into the treatment room in J1 where the nurse does the accessing, and a doctor comes to do an initial assessment. Once those tasks are done, Victoria can go to her assigned room. These are all single rooms with their own bathroom, TV, playstation and a parent bed for myself or Ken to sleep in.
Sometimes, depending on varying factors, the doctors will decide to start antibiotics via the port, or they wait to see what transpires. And then we pray and wait.
Now that Victoria is at school, when she is well enough, she normally gets a visit around 9am from the school teacher who plans out some activities for the day.
And that is generally how it all happens. As for what happens back at home whilst Victoria is in hospital, that is another story for another day!
No comments:
Post a Comment