On Sunday school was relatively non-productive. I tried to continue to get my classroom sorted and into some kind of routine, but my brain was divided and scattered. In the afternoon, I worked on learning centers but was interrupted by poorly behaved children and it seemed there was no one around to help. Ugh!
On the way home from school I decided to go to the grocery store. The weather was horrible, and naturally I was hoping for a downpour that would flood the streets and prevent us from going to school. This double job thing is really getting to me. We had rugby practice for Jack's team, but Millie's team canceled rugby. Jack's team actually had about 8 players show up. They played in the drizzle for a while and then cut it short when the wind got to be too much. Naturally, as we have made a habit on Sundays, we ate at the club. I met Sean's girlfriend from Thailand. She seems nice, but doesn't speak a great deal of English so I think she gets lost when we start talking to each other. I'm sure she understands more than she is comfortable speaking. Once dinner was over, it was home, baths and bed for everyone.
Monday morning I got up and walked on my own. Lara wasn't feeling well, but since I am a part of a Fitbit challenge, I couldn't afford to not walk. I got to school and worked on some computer based programs for all of the teachers. We had a senior leadership meeting at 9 am, and at that time I was told I would be evaluated this term on my teaching. Considering I am a cover teacher and I have a different evaluation tool than the teachers, I wasn't sure of the reason for this. But I decided to suck it up and get on with it. When things like this happen it makes it easier to look forward to my transfer at the end of this school year. I spent the afternoon teaching, which I have come to prefer. It seems to make the time go quicker.
Tuesday I went to school for a few hours. Then I had a Head of Faculty meeting. We usually meet at a school, but it seemed that everyone needed a bit of a break from the formality, so we met at our house. We had an agenda, went over the minutes from last month, and actually talked about what the plan was for the remainder of the year. We also might have had a small gripe session.
When the kids got home they worked on their homework, and then we were off to the rugby club for training. I was bent on beating everyone on the Fitbit contest this week. I walked until my legs nearly fell off. I really need to cut back on the competitive nature of things. We decided to eat at the club again. It's cheap and I am not a cook. The kids got to play for a bit and then their food was ready.
Wednesday we woke up to a not so well Millie. As good parents do, we drugged her up and sent her to school. I had meetings at school and attempted to get some much needed paperwork done. Just as I was going in to teach my afternoon classes, the nurse from Brighton called to tell me Millie had a 39.3 Celsius temperature (104 Fahrenheit). I immediately called my Arabic Vice Principal who does class coverage and told her I had to go. She wasn't very pleased, but I couldn't worry about it. My baby was really sick. When I got to the school, Millie was in the clinic, lethargic and hot as a pistol. Her breath could have killed a small animal. Because her neck had hurt that morning, I just assumed we were dealing with strep throat. We have been down this road too many times with Jack. We got to the urgent care and they took her back to see the doctor. The doctor did a strep culture and we were told they would call us when the result was back. Clearly from her rank breath she had an infection, so why they didn't give her antibiotics immediately was beyond me.
I took Millie home and then went to pick up Jack from school. He was really excited about the following day as it was World Book Day. He was going to be Harry Potter and Millie was going to be Little Red Riding Hood, that is if she was not bound to the house because of her infection. Since I had not heard from the hospital, and it had been almost 2 hours, I decided to drop by and see what the results were. When I got there the nurse at the desk informed me that the results were negative, which I knew couldn't be right. I asked her if the doctor had prescribed something and she said no. Then I was baffled. I asked if I could speak to the doctor and the nurse informed me that the doctor was on a split shift and wouldn't be back for 2 hours. Well, of course I couldn't wait. So Jack and I left. Once I was home I continued to nurse Millie, giving her pain reliever every two hours. Jack went out to play with his friends for a while. Millie had perked up once the tylenol had set in. Jack took a shower, and the kids sat down to watch Moana while they ate dinner.
Once the kids were ready for bed, and in fact Millie was in bed, Cathy and Mandy came over for a cup of tea. As we discussed Millie's illness, they insisted I call the hospital and have the doctor call me. I could have simply gone to another hospital, but I wanted this hospital to make things right. This is the hospital that is really good with children, usually. They also have the most western doctors I have encountered at a care facility. When I called, the nurse left the doctor an email and said I should hear from her soon. In fact, it was less than an hour when I heard from her. Stuart was at rugby, so when he got home I headed to the hospital to pick up Millie's antibiotics. Visiting this hospital three times in one day was not my idea of fun, but it had to happen. I did, however, write a formal complaint about my experience that day. Once I was home I had to wake Millie up and give her the antibiotics. This could have gone either way. Fortunately, she was sleepy enough to just swallow without thinking. I was wiped out from all the fun, so I took a shower. As I was drying my left leg, I discovered a cyst on my left ankle. It then started making my foot feel numb. Lovely! I fell asleep on the sofa and woke up in a bit of a state and decided it was time to head to bed.
When Millie woke up Thursday morning we decided to have Kayleigh come over and stay with her. Kayleigh didn't have to be at the university for that day, so it worked out perfectly. I got up to walk, even though I could have easily hit the snooze button. School was productive as I got a lot done in the afternoon. Once 9:45 amreaches me on a Thursday, I am virtually done with school, or at least with teaching. Usually my Thursday afternoons are very productive. When I left school, I got home and Millie was feeling better. She didn't get to participate in World Book Day, which initially made her sad, but she got over it when she discovered Kayleigh was staying home with her. Jack, on the other hand, was a huge hit at school on World Book Day. His costume was very impressive, according to him.
Once Stuart was home, he talked me into going to the cyst checked out. Had it not been causing numbness I probably would have let it go. Instead I headed to Oasis, the hospital that had not impressed me the previous day. My file is there and I know if I have to have a procedure done, those are the people I trust to so it correctly. We had invited Gemma, Fechin and their kids over for dinner, so I needed to get to the hospital and back before they arrived. Stuart was making pork belly and I was making nothing, in true fashion. I ended up having an ultra sound on my ankle where they found a couple of cysts. I was informed that the doctor would look at the film and they would give me a call when they knew the next steps. Naturally, I had my foot already amputated before I got home.
I got home about 45 minutes before Gemma and Fechin arrived. Millie was still feeling okay, but she started to droop again just as they arrived. We ate and had a good laugh, sharing stories of school and family. We decided to take the conversation out to the garden after sitting in the kitchen for an hour or so while I cleaned up the dishes. Millie came in to the kitchen and I felt her head. She was burning up. She had already had three doses of the antibiotic since picking it up the previous night. But she seemed to be declining. Gemma decided it was time for them to go so we could deal with what was happening with Millie. Just after they left, Millie got really upset and wouldn't take tylenol. She leaned over the sick and said, "I'm going to throw up!" She was not quiet about this fact. As her sausage came rolling back up out of her belly, she proclaimed, "I'm going to die!" She kept repeating this statement while I tried to calm her down. I really believe she convinced herself that she was going to die. It broke my heart to hear her say this. Then, upon reflection, I realized that little girls can pour on WAY more drama than little boys. Jack was the kid that would throw up, and then ask for a sandwich. Whereas, Millie is the kid that thinks this may be her last breath. It was a crazy few minutes. I decided to take her back to the hospital. It was about 9:30 pm when we arrived and she was like a rag doll. She hadn't had any tylenol for several hours so she was roasting. They immediately gave her a suppository, which was not something she was expecting nor did she want, as you would guess. Then after speaking to the doctor, she decided to rule out influence by doing a nose swab, which initially made Millie laugh. That laughter quickly turned into tears and it wasn't quite so funny. Following the nose swab, I had to bribe her with a new toy to get her to pee in a cup. Then I took her to the blood lab, where they drew blood to check for the bacterial infection that the strep test might have missed. They put her through the wringer. It was not a nice time! While we were waiting for the results, I received a phone call about my cyst results. As I was talking on the phone, I could hear the nurse speaking to me out at the front desk. Because it was the same hospital and I had been there earlier in the day about my cyst, the nurse calling me back was also the nurse working emergency for the evening. I told her I was in the hospital and I would come out and talk with her. She kind of got a kick out of it. She let me know I would have an appointment on Sunday at noon to see a surgeon. Our wait for the test results was two hours. The tests came back showing a bacterial infection, as was suspected. Why did it have to be such an ordeal? I was by far her favorite parent at this point. Once we were finished at the lab we told we could go. We got home just before midnight and we went to bed.
Friday Stuart and Jack were up and out to Dubai for Jack's match. We had planned to go as a family and putz around afterward, but it wasn't wise with Millie being ill. So I stayed home with her. She woke up around 7:30 am and was pretty chipper. I immediately gave her fever meds and her antibiotic. We just sat around all morning. When Stuart and Jack got home, just after noon, we all watched the film Sing, which was adorable. What ever will I do when my kids get too old to watch these films? I'm going to have to borrow some children to go with to the cinema. Jack had taken a shower when he got home from his rugby match, and was all clean for his disco party at Eleanor's. I took him to the party just before 4 pm, but prior to that I purchased our Legoland tickets online. We had planned to go months ago and had just never gotten around to it. Millie was significantly better, so since it was already planned with the Richardsons, it was a go.
Millie relaxed at home and put together her first Lego, virtually on her own.
Once Jack was at his party and Millie was bathed and fed, Kayleigh came over to babysit. Stuart and I went out for dinner with Sean and his girlfriend, Manal. As much as I tried to think of things to talk with her about, I found it tough to get to know someone when you don't speak the same language as me. So mostly I just talked with Stuart and Sean. We had decided to go to 101 Cafeteria to eat and smoke sheesha, which always makes me a bit ill, so I'm not sure why I do it. However, it's cheap at 101 and if I just have a few puffs then I don't feel I've blown a lot of money. I left the cafe just before 8 to pick Jack up from his party. On the way home I asked him what he ate at the party. He said he didn't eat anything. Then we had the conversation about when you go somewhere during a meal time, you need to eat what they have there. I think he might have been too busy playing. I dropped him off at the house and then headed back to 101. Jack showered and went to bed. We were back to our house before 10 pm.
Saturday morning we were up and sorting ourselves out for Legoland. We left around 9 am. When we got there I felt the need to say, "Sorry folks. Park's closed. Moose out front should have told you." (quote from Vacation) There were not very many cars in the parking lot. We had heard the attendance since it had opened in November had not been great. There were more staff there than patrons. It was weird. Stuart had dreaded the whole experience because he hates crowds so badly. In the end we were all pleasantly surprised by the lack of people there. It wasn't as big as the Legoland in California, but the kids still had fun. We decided to finally get something to eat around 4 pm, which was a bit late. The kids were tired, hungry and became a bit cranky. But once there was food in their system, everyone was a little cheerier.
We left Dubai just after 5 pm. On the road home Millie fell asleep, which is not usually a good thing, but I hoped since she had been a little under the weather it would not effect her going to sleep once we were home. Sadly, I was wrong. Once we were home, both kids got cleaned up and hit the hay. Millie was presented with her antibiotic, which took her about 40 minutes to take. Needless to say, she is stubborn to the core. There were tears and gnashing of teeth, but I won! Jack was almost asleep before his head hit the pillow. I showered after wrestling Millie to take her meds. I watched a little television, then went to bed myself. It was a busy, yet crazy week.
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