柠檬奶茶: Melody’s hospital stay

Melody celebrated her full month last Sat where we only invite the families and a few close friends to our house for a mini buffet. Towards the end of the celebration, we decided to bring her down to KKH as her nose was seriously blocked. Megan has got flu and cough from her classmate and passed it on to Melody, who is too young to know how to breathe thru her mouth. Her condition did not improve, in fact, got worst after I brought her down to her PD on Wed. She has difficulty breathing and is affecting her milk feed each time, dropping from 100ml to only 50ml per feed. It took her so long to finish just the 50ml milk. Doc suspected that she has Bronchiolitis, (a common illness of the respiratory tract caused by an infection that affects the tiny airways that lead to the lungs. As these airways become inflamed, they swell and fill with mucus, making breathing difficult) and told us she has to be admitted due to the very young age.

At the children A&E, the nurse perform the nose suction on her and chase us out explaining that this is a painful scene for parents. Poor Melody was crying hysterically and I can’t help but peeked from the curtain what they did to my 3 weeks old. They put tiny long tubes to her nostrils and also to the throat. I can fully understand how uncomfortable and painful this is recalling how the ENT specialist put the same tube down to my throat when i got a fish bone stucked few years back.

She was finally admitted and was later sent to the isolation room as she has not had many of the vaccination yet.

Due to the very severe blockage of the nose, the hospital continue to perform suction every 4-6 hourly and put her on some medicated oxygen to open her airway. An oral medicine to loosen the phelgm was also administered.

The frequent suction had injured her tiny nose and I saw blood being sucked out on the tube from one of the nostrils. Poor little one was wailing loudly and bitterly when they collect blood sample from her two heels to run some test. Just when Melody thought the worse is over, they came back saying they need more blood sample to run the test.

After 3 days 2 nights at the hospital taking care of Melody, poor Richard was both physically and emotionally drained. He can no longer stay in the room to see how her precious little one struggle and cry each time they perform the suction on her nose.

Finally the long awaited test result shows negative and we were told she can be discharged today’s evening. Little one was finally back home but that would mean Megan, who is still not fully recovered from her flu and cough will be separated from her sister (lesson learnt: if only we knew this earlier, to have them quarantined). Richard brought Megan to my mum’s place and they will only return home after the 2 gals recovered. Haiz…being parents is really tough, esp when you have one more to handle.