Grotty spotty...

The pox has invaded our house...

So Saturday night was one of the most miserable nights of my life. Maya has been a little unsettled over the last few days, woke up at 4am on Friday and 5am on Saturday, so sleep has not been on tap in our house and we are looking rough! Saturday night was a totally different kettle of fish though - the little minx tricked us into thinking we would be having a good night by settling straight away and sleeping til her late feed. However a bottle of milk later saw screams echoing through the house. Maya screamed the house down from 11pm until 2.20pm. We tried everything, rocking her to sleep and settling her back in her cot, cuddling her to sleep in our bed and even offering another feed (something we have not done since she was three months old). But nothing worked. She was happy to sit up but once we laid her down she screamed bloody murder. It was hideous - I had had no sleep and James had only had about half an hour so we were feeling crap enough anyway without having to cope with all the screaming. In the end we resorted to putting her in the buggy where she did sleep from 2.20am until 5.15am, which was something.

Unfortunately throughout the night by car alarm was also randomly going off for no reason at all - and decided to do it again at 2.40am - we had been asleep for all of 10 minutes. James trotted out in his dressing car, left the car unlocked and rolled his into position in front of it to prevent anyone stealing the car!

From 5.30am onwards we bought Maya into our bed and tried to settle her again, which didn't really work. However I did then spot the spots! At first I thought she had got hand, foot and mouth, as her little friends have had it over the last week. But they didn't seem to be suffering with it, whereas Maya had a high temperature, a poorly tummy and was obviously in lots of discomfort. When a more decent hour of the morning came round I changed her nappy and spotted all the horrible blisters on her bottom, spots just seemed to be multiplying but she also had a rash all over her stomach.

As usual Maya had got ill over the weekend so once again we had to call upon the out-of-hours GP service. Anyone who has used this will know that it is rubbish and staffed entirely by idiots. So before 8am we were on the phone trying to get an appointment at the Riverside Clinic (one of my least favourite places in the world!). We waited ages to get through and then had to relay all of the details to a man with limited intelligence, who I am quite convinced could barely read, as he was asking all of the inane questions so slowly. It took ages to give him our details - which we had to keep repeating - the service is so frustrating. He then told us there would be a significant delay in the time it took a clinician to get back to us - but couldn't give any indication of what this might be, but would probably not be within an hour. Usually you then don't get an appointment until several hours later, which is then always running really late anyway as they give the same appointment slot to three different patients, so we knew Maya wouldn't get seen until the afternoon. I got very cross with him (apparently babies are not a priority!) and he suggested we should take her to A&E instead. 

James took Maya out with him and Paddy for 20 minutes or so, just so she would get a little sleep, as we figured she would be very grumpy at the hospital without it. By 9.30am we got to the hospital and were quickly taken through to the children's emergency ward where we were seen by a triage nurse immediately. Straight away she spotted it was chicken pox but needed to confirm with a doctor, the diagnosis meant we had to stay in the private room rather than return to the waiting ara, so she wouldn't infect anyone else. Maya was great throughout, and once we had the diagnosis confirmed we were given some medicine and were on our way - and home by 11am. This would have never happened at the Riverside Clinic!

Maya was grumpy throughout yesterday whilst more and more spots erupted. However her combination of medicines (paracetamol, ibuprofen and piriton) seemed to do the trick - she was asleep very quickly last night and slept until just after 11pm as normal. We had already had three hours sleep at this point as we went to bed ridiculously early in expectation of another miserable night. After a quick feed laced with medicine she was straight back to sleep - which is better than normal! However she woke again just before 2am, once again she went straight back down after rocking for a few minutes. But before 2.30am she rolled over and woke herself up, at this point she wouldn't go back to sleep - we took it in turns to settle her but she was getting more and more awake and had started to cry.

At 3am we gave up and tried to get her to sleep in our bed. She was very unsettled to begin with so we kicked James out so he would get sleep before school. However within a few minutes she had calmed right down and was asleep within 10 minutes, and then slept until just after 6. When she woke up we saw a much smilier happier baby than yesterday who seemed to be coping very well, despite even more spots coming over night.

This morning has been a good one, she played happily in bed for an hour or so while I watched the TV, bounced merrily in Tigger while I showered and got dressed and ate breakfast well. Piriton has knocked her out nicely and she has been napping for an hour and a half - she normally humours me with about 20-30 minutes in the morning!

So yesterday I feared the worst - I was annoyed it had happened this week instead of last when James was at home to help, and was expecting a week of non-stop crying (from us both!) and massive frustration as we can't do our normal activities in case she spreads it to other babies. But hopefully she has started as she means to go on and we can embrace this 'stay at home' week as a lazy and relaxing one!

We'll see...