Baby is sleeping, ssshhh...

Ashley is napping at her usual time at the moment. Its nice outside, cool breeze, stopped raining. This calls for a cup of coffee (nescafe), some nice keropok (I know, junk food) and reflect on the day...the day that got me pissed MAD!!!

Ashley's fever came on and off for the past 3 days since she received her jab last saturday. The fever hits only in the evening/night but thankfully, its slight and she's still manageable i.e no fuss, no waking up in the middle of the night...But I thought, this can't be cos everytime she has her jabs, her fever will be gone completely the very next day.

Late last night, her temperature was high again and not wanting to wake her, we decided to take her to the doctors this morning. Which we did. Her paediatrician is from the hospital where I gave birth, haven't changed yet. Anyways, since Ashley temperature has been yo-yoing like a yo-yo, the doc recommended for a blood test and urine test just to play safe that there's no infection, dengue etc...

I was there with Chek (luckily) and we took her to the other section of the hospital to get the blood and urine test done.

First, urine, I'm not about to go through explicit details on how you get a baby to urine with her diaper on but let me say that the method they were using, didn't work. Lets just say that we could be there the whole day and they wouldn't be able to collect any urine.

I'm not mad about the urine test...Its the blood test that I'm furious about. The lady, I am not sure if she's even a nurse or just simply someone they hired to mechanically extract blood for testing. Lets call her the Blood Lady. I wasn't perturbed or apprehensive at first cos Ashley is not afraid of needles. Trust me, she's not. So, I thought it could just be a few cries and that would be it. Ashley was on my lap and the Blood Lady struck a needle at her heel and went on to squeeze blood from her feet onto a tiny container??? Is that how you draw blood from a baby? Its my first time so I really don't know. That wasn't half as bad, the worst was when she began squeezing the bejesus out of Ashley's tiny feet, twisting it cos the Blood Lady wasn't in the right position. With each squeeze Ashley screamed and cried louder, the Blood Lady was even at one point seemed irritated with her cries which made it worst. The squeezing went on and on, blood dripping everywhere, on my pants.

Those who know me, I mean really know me, would know that if I wasn't holding on to Ashley, the Blood Lady wouldn't see daylight. I was amazed that I could be calm trying to soothe my poor little girl and not frighten her anymore by not reprimanding the Blood Lady. I was fuming inside. Really, if they had taken my temperature at that point, they would probably have to send ME to get my blood checked!

Chek and I, we were dumbfounded. To react or not to react? Anyway, as soon as the Blood Lady was done, I promptly got up and went away from there with Ashley. We didn't wait for the test results and just asked the doc to phone me with it. We didn't even bother with the urine test cos I told the doc we didn't want to do it anymore.

When we got home, the doc called and told us Ashley caught some viral fever that will last from anywhere between a week to 10 days. Nothing we can do except to give her water and fever medicine.

For what its worth, we got a proper diagnosis on Ashley and we can now stop worrying about her.