Home Ed and Pneumonia

Monday 26th January

I started feeling a bit better on Friday, all apart from when I went to bed when my cough seemed to suddenly get a lot more 'chesty' - to the point that I felt like I had a tight band around me (oy! Gerroff whatever that was!!). The room spun a bit on Saturday morning but despite that, being a hard North East Lass, (and more to the point a North East Lass with a date on the calendar since last October to spend the day with friend S briefly back from Oz), I found myself staggering into town to the usual bar my friends and I frequent (hahaha about twice a year), taking with me a suitcase of medication and making everyone laugh when I produced little bottles of this and that to add to my coke. After assembling we went to see 'Slumdog Millionaire' which more than deserves all the accolades it seems to be receiving, then went for an Indian which cleared my chest a treat. Then on to another bar by which point I was asleep in the corner.


Despite the Indian my chest was really bad again once I got to bed, and I woke coughing several times. Once again I felt a bit wuzzy in the morning, I think I spent it coughing in the bath more or less while Dad took the kids to church. By afternoon I was ok just coughing so I took the kids to their gathering with S and the others with the children this time.


I was ok while I was there but when we got back I began to feel as if there was a solid lump of something stuck in my chest, almost as if I'd inhaled a floret of raw broccoli. My cough changed and became a bit scary - to give you far far too much info I stopped coughing anything up and was kind of just dry retching. I got no sleep whatsoever.Thankfully first thing Monday the GP had an appointment left for 11.25 - and while I'm blessed with a particularly good bunch of docs it was the head honcho. When I described things like tight bands around my chest and feeling like immobile lumps were stuck in there and how I'd had a temp for 10 days he didn't look brilliantly impressed - it began to dawn on me that maybe I'd left it a little bit late?? Hmmmmm. What can I say - it stepped up a gear on a Friday night! Who wants to go to the drop in and wait hours to see a stranger of very varied quality when they're still standing?


Anyway the first thing he suggested was pneumonia -I was horrified, I'd googled the symptoms and ruled it out as I apart from the cough I really didn't feel unwell enough I thought - and after various bashing me, putting things of my finger and arm and listening to my chest he confirmed his diagnosis. This was when the fun began - he wanted me to go to the treatment room to go on the nebuliser. Bear in mind all my kids were with me, groan. We all trotted up and joined the huge queue in the waiting room, the poor girl next to me turned right away when she heard me cough, the other thing that stands out in my memory is this fab poster 'Drinks of Britain' ... I want one for my wall ;-))


Thankfully it didn't take anything like as long as I'd expected, or maybe everything had gone a bit surreal, and then it was my turn. The big three were behaving really well so rather than cramp up in the room I left them outside - bad bad bad move. Rosie absolutely howled in her buggy when I had the mask put on my face, both because she wanted to be on my knee and because it was damn scary I would imagine, I must've looked ready to blast off into space with all the breathing apparatus. The nurse tried to comfort her, bad move though well intentioned, she doesn't like strangers peering into her face. Being a sensible woman she invited my big three into the room, and Martha immediately and instinctively got her out and hugged her, which worked. all great ... except I'd just read this really stupid list of Nice Guidelines which Clare blogged about - it really is a stupid list just about every family I know must be abusing their children. But we'd failed it rather badly on three counts - Rosie has bad separation anxiety, Rosie is frightened of medical procedures, and Martha instinctively went to help her so must be adopting an inappropriate care taking role for siblings.


Strangely enough both the doctor and both nurses we saw seemed impressed with my kids. They probably hadn't read those guidelines, and were also blessed with a reasonable amount of common sense. In fact the whole experience of going to the doctors restored some of my faith in doctors and nurses generally, I've heard some pretty horrific stories of negligence recently form the breastfeeding women I've worked with, general negligence not just breastfeeding related, so I was relieved to be treated well. He's not sucha bad guy, my head honcho GP. We went back down to see him and he prescribed strong anti biotics and dismissed me 'Ring us on Wednesday and dial 999 if you feel any worse' ... joy! There was an absolutely hilarious moment which made me laugh and therefore cough when he weighed me 'you're looking really well apart from you being ill!!' and we'd had a sensible discussion about home ed, or at least as far as I was up to such a discussion, so hopefully he'll think twice when he sees the ridiculous stuff about forced marriages and abuse in the press this week. My kids are seen more often if anything because we're home ed - they would've been tucked away in a class of 30 instead of paraded in front of a GP and two nurses had they gone to school.


So ... it's taken me a few days to write this in stages, Thursday's nearly out, we've got through four days of pneumonia with kids at home. I can breathe a little more easily, that happened by Monday night but hasn't really got any better since, and I was a bit delusional yesterday, kept forgetting which room I was in. Two friends had the kids for a bit on Tuesday and Wednesday, they're a bit mushy in my head especially yesterday when thankfully they were out for 6 hours. Today I've managed by myself but my head's a little bit clearer. Back to the doc's to have my chest listened to tomorrow.


Some people have made comments about how hard I've made life for myself by pulling the kids out of school and now I'm ill. Believe me, it's so so so much easier than trying to keep up with the programme of getting them to school and back! Ironically they are right though when they say home ed caused my pneumonia ..... explanation below cut and pasted from an email I sent on Monday -


'Good grief I was right to cancel seeing you I've got pneumonia - 'dial 999 if you feel any worse at all' - that's shaken me up a bit. Maybe I'll go to the doc's quicker next time.It's just so easy though with home ed kids they've all just been getting on with it and Rosie sort of follows them , there wasn't the urgency to get well that there was when I had to dash about in the cold all week to school.'


Maybe I'll try to remember next time I'm ill that it does still matter and I should try to get myself sorted out sharpish! Not that I plan on being ill again for a while - when this is over I've got a whole world out there to go and re-explore with the kids. Can't wait.


The only other thing to add is that the little picture of me that pops up on blogger is really annoying me - I look so well! Maybe I'll take a new one in the mirror of me coughing with dark circles under my eyes, unwashed hair, no makeup and a vacant expression in my eyes ..... on the other hand I don't want to frighten you all off ;-)