WORRIED SICK ~ written by Babah Sarah

We had to bring Amar (our usually happy & "no-frills" 1 year old) to the hospital today. It all happened when we were vacuuming the house and probably because the house became dusty, Amar initially started coughing mildly. The coughing became increasingly more severe and he began to cry unconsolably. We noticed he became extremely wheezy and it occured to me that "Amar is having an asthma attack!!!"

Amar has been wheezy before, and we had seen our doctor. But our GP suggested we wait and see as she thought that Amar wasn't that wheezy. Today, Amar's chest sounded like a sandstorm; a classic sign that his airways were severely constricted and he was crying and struggling as if he was drowning.

We really panicked! A call to our GP was useless - the darn business was closed. A call to NHS Direct also proved useless, it took them 10 minutes not to answer our call. A smashed phone later, we thought of creating a makeshift nebuliser, by putting Vicks into lots of hot boiling water in a small pail. I was hoping that the warm steam and the menthol from the Vicks would help buy us time while we got ready. We had no medications for asthma in the house at all ... and I had seen asthma killing a 17 year old before, so you could forgive me that I was thinking of the worst (although noticed Amar did not turn blue to indicate he's deprived of oxygen).

All of us jumped in the car and I drove (as best I could to stay calm) to the hospital. It felt like a long journey, and Amar was still wheezing and spluttering in Nisak's clutches. Sarah was also apprehensive as she had never seen Amar in such an agitated state before.

Today was the first time I'd experienced the NHS from the "receiving" end and goodness did it &%^$. We had to wait around 2-3 hours to meet the doctor. The doctor saw us for 5 minutes, then we had to wait another 1 hour for the pharmacy to dispense our medication! I thought to myself "kalau betul2 serious, dah lama mati!" However, I am familiar with the system and the delay was all but expected. Amar was triaged (a process where they categorise the severity of your condition based on objective measures like your blood pressure, pulse and temperature) as not serious. In the end, Amar's wheeze subsided in the waiting room, around one hour after we registered in.
The astute doctor who saw us recognised me as another and she prescribed Amar a salbutamol inhaler, a medication crucial to most asthmatics. I was relieved. My worst fear was at the end of the 3 hour wait, the doctor would just say "go and see your GP, your baby is perfectly healthy." By the time he was seen, Amar had perked up and the wheeze had long dissipated.
We were so relieved Amar had gotten better that we almost didn't mind the one hour wait for the inhalers to arrive. And Sarah was so behaved that it made the wait that more bearable. Poor Amar, who had to suffer through the ordeal, missing his bedtime and lunch fell asleep in Nisak's arms. We drove home in silence...

Afterwards, looking at the children playing happily at home we let out a heavy sigh of relief while offering a prayer in gratitute.

posted by mynn @ 8:48 PM