Not the weekend I had planned!
It’s the first weekend of Steph going back to work after the end of her maternity leave and it was certainly not the weekend I had planned!
I came off nights Saturday morning and managed to get a decent 3.5 mile run in before going to bed but I had to be up at 1 so that I was ready for when Steph left for work. As it was my first weekend with the girls on my own I had a few things planned.
The first of those was a trip to Weston Super Mare to visit my gran, or granny Mary as Isabelle calls her! We don’t see my gran anywhere near as much as we should which is quite sad seeing as she’s on her own now. Her and my granddad both still lived in their own house in a lovely little village called Hutton until last year despite both being 89 years old. No mean feat in my opinion!
Unfortunately, that all changed at the end of last year when my granddad was diagnosed with lung cancer. As he was the one who did most of the chores, being the more mobile of the two, the hard decision was made to give up their home of over 30 years and move into a nursing home. Sadly, my granddad was only there for a matter of days before passing away just after Christmas.
On a brighter note, my gran was the happiest I’ve seen her in a long time when we arrived. However, the fun and games were about commence!
Poppy was due a bottle so I’d brought with us formula, a bottle and boiling water in a flask. The flask is one of those that has a button on the screw top to release the water rather than undoing the top. After taking the exterior cup off there was water everywhere, so assuming it was open I pressed the button. Can you see where this is going yet?!
Having made the bottle I left the seemingly safe and closed flask on the floor. It wasn’t long before Poppy, our little grabber, had found it and pulled it over. To my horror, the top was actually open and she now sat in a puddle of boiling water! Panic stations!!!!
Now, you would think being a qualified first aider I’d have maintained the ability to remain calm and know exactly what to do right? Wrong!! I panicked! I picked her up and took her trousers off to be greeted by an angry looking red mark on her little leg and took her straight to the sink to run her leg under the cold tap. So far, so good right?
Poppy’s lovely blister
The thing that got me was obviously worrying about our normally placid youngest child while she was screaming the place down but also how embarrassed I felt that this had happened in front of my gran and on my first proper day with the just the girls on my own! Mind you, it probably didn’t help that my gran kept asking if I’d be “sacked” from looking after the girls, because, you know, that’s really going to make me feel better isn’t it?! Bless her!
Thankfully Poppy started to calm down and after one of the resident nurses gave me some ice in a flannel, (hmm, ice on a burn anyone?!), she finally had her bottle and within about 20 minutes was crawling around like nothing had happened. She’s a resilient little trooper is our Poppy.
So despite it still looking a little sore I let her carry on playing and when it was time go home for tea we left my gran in peace and promised not to leave it so long before our next visit.
It wasn’t until I was getting Poppy ready for a bath that I noticed a delightful looking blister on her leg and the rest of the area not looking too pretty either. So off to A&E we went.
Looking a little bit better
Isabelle is 5 and Poppy is now 9 months and in that time, neither of them have ever needed to go to A&E for an injury or accident. So it was somewhat of a shock when the triage nurse asked if we have a social worker, the doctor I saw made a point of asking where mum was and then wanting her completely undressed when the only affected area was on her leg. Not only was it a horrible feeling to have medical professionals almost question whether I had abused my own child but it also highlights child abuse being a real issue as they were obviously only taking precautions having possibly seen similar incidents with maybe some less than savoury characters involved, which to me is really sad.
All sorted
Anyway, she was eventually sorted out by a nurse but I was then informed we had to take her to Bristol Children’s Hospital to have it assessed by the burns unit. So it was an early start this morning to get there for 9.15. We were thankfully told that it wasn’t as bad as it looked and it was only superficial burning and wouldn’t permanently scar. Remember the ice earlier, yeah, it turns out ice direct to a skin burn is a big no no. As soon as the doctor told me that I remembered it from my training. Thankfully the flannel between the ice and the skin meant we got away with it but it’s been duly noted! Although hopefully I wont need to use that information again anytime soon!
The staff at Bristol Children’s Hospital were amazing
So all in all, this was not the kind of weekend I had planned and the hospital visits aren’t over as we have to go back to Bristol to have her leg redressed on Tuesday.
In light of my disastrous weekend, have any of you ever had any parent fails?
