Oct. 4th, 2006 01:15 pm
Other people's illnesses
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vin_petrolSome thoughts on how other people being ill seems to have affected my life a lot over the last few months.
First of all, when you have a child in the house, you have a huge disease vector there. There's a little human, with practically no immune system, that goes out to nursery and playgroup and brings back all manner of germs. Colds are a favourite, as children regularly stick their fingers into other children's mouths and noses, and later into yours. If an adult near you has diarrhoea, it's pretty easy to avoid contact with their faeces. If your child, still in nappies, has diarrhoea, it's almost impossible, and you could well be in for a bout yourself.
When there are no children about, being ill is pretty simple. You lie in bed, skip work, and groan till you get better. Once there's a baby or toddler around, things change. I "go out to work", so if I'm ill on a weekday I can stay off work and that's not too much hassle. But if Trash is ill on a weekday, somebody has to be there to look after Evie, so arrangements have to be made (which sometimes involves parental leave, and me taking time off work to look after Evie). If she's ill at the weekend, then she could well be incapable of being a "responsible adult" and looking after Evie, so I have to stay at home.
An ill child also doesn't sleep well, so when they're ill you could well be in for some bad nights, so it's best to get an early night and be ready for the worse. If a child is being sick, it's also better if there are two of you around to sort things out afterwards. I've had to do it on my own, and it's very sub-optimal. There are nearly always two separate things that need to be done: a small child needs to be comforted and cleaned up, and a bed needs to be changed. Trash isn't very good with vomit, so it's best we work as a team on this, and she does the former whilst I do the latter.
So when Evie is ill it sucks up a lot of my time, and I can't necessarily go out to things I would like to. I'm not complaining about this, just commenting on it. It's kinda what I signed up for when Evie came to live with us. However, it is one of the reasons I perhaps do go a little wild on things like Whitby Goth Weekend and Infest. When I get the chance to go out and listen to music and alter my brain chemistry, I have to take advantage of it!
Then other people's illness affects me too. Trash's mother has non-Hodgkins lymphoma. She started a course of chemotherapy yesterday, and she will be well below-par for the next few months. This means she can't look after Evie, which she enjoys doing from time to time (we enjoy getting Evie off our hands for the day). We also need to visit her sometimes now, as she does like to see Evie.
Trash was ill, to some level or another, for about seven weeks over the summer. My unqualified diagnosis is that the stresses of getting our bathroom sorted out (which was something of a nightmare) left her run down and depressed her immune system. This lead to an infection on one of her fallopian tubes, which got quite gruesome, and required two sets of antibiotics. Then, on a weekend when Evie was away, and she was looking forward to relaxing on her own, she stood on a bee in our back garden and got a nasty sting on her toe. She had a nasty reaction to the sting and that got infected too! She needed a third set of antibiotics for the sting.
Curiously, Evie had missed one chance to go away for a few days earlier in the year when my Dad had an infection and so grandparents couldn't look after Evie. Then Trash was ill and stung her toe and didn't really enjoy this weekend when Evie was away. Then, when we arranged a night away for just the two of us recently, leaving Evie with Trash's parents, this was just when Trash's mothers lymphoma was flaring up again, and she had to go back into hospital (fortunately, Trash's dad did look after Evie for the night so we did get our night away.) From Trash's perspective, pretty much every time it's been arranged that Evie will go away for a few days, some form of grim illness has afflicted someone involved in the arrangement (apart from me - I've always been fine - so far!)
If you don't see me out and about, it's highly unlikely that I'm simply sat at home thinking "I can't be arsed to go out tonight." It's far more likely that somebody in my family is ill, and the knock on effect is that it would be (in my view of the world) irresponsible of me to go out.
This is also why my future plans are somewhere between fixed and fluid. I have a calendar full of things I could be going out to. It's only in the last few hours before they happen that I can ever be sure I can be there.
First of all, when you have a child in the house, you have a huge disease vector there. There's a little human, with practically no immune system, that goes out to nursery and playgroup and brings back all manner of germs. Colds are a favourite, as children regularly stick their fingers into other children's mouths and noses, and later into yours. If an adult near you has diarrhoea, it's pretty easy to avoid contact with their faeces. If your child, still in nappies, has diarrhoea, it's almost impossible, and you could well be in for a bout yourself.
When there are no children about, being ill is pretty simple. You lie in bed, skip work, and groan till you get better. Once there's a baby or toddler around, things change. I "go out to work", so if I'm ill on a weekday I can stay off work and that's not too much hassle. But if Trash is ill on a weekday, somebody has to be there to look after Evie, so arrangements have to be made (which sometimes involves parental leave, and me taking time off work to look after Evie). If she's ill at the weekend, then she could well be incapable of being a "responsible adult" and looking after Evie, so I have to stay at home.
An ill child also doesn't sleep well, so when they're ill you could well be in for some bad nights, so it's best to get an early night and be ready for the worse. If a child is being sick, it's also better if there are two of you around to sort things out afterwards. I've had to do it on my own, and it's very sub-optimal. There are nearly always two separate things that need to be done: a small child needs to be comforted and cleaned up, and a bed needs to be changed. Trash isn't very good with vomit, so it's best we work as a team on this, and she does the former whilst I do the latter.
So when Evie is ill it sucks up a lot of my time, and I can't necessarily go out to things I would like to. I'm not complaining about this, just commenting on it. It's kinda what I signed up for when Evie came to live with us. However, it is one of the reasons I perhaps do go a little wild on things like Whitby Goth Weekend and Infest. When I get the chance to go out and listen to music and alter my brain chemistry, I have to take advantage of it!
Then other people's illness affects me too. Trash's mother has non-Hodgkins lymphoma. She started a course of chemotherapy yesterday, and she will be well below-par for the next few months. This means she can't look after Evie, which she enjoys doing from time to time (we enjoy getting Evie off our hands for the day). We also need to visit her sometimes now, as she does like to see Evie.
Trash was ill, to some level or another, for about seven weeks over the summer. My unqualified diagnosis is that the stresses of getting our bathroom sorted out (which was something of a nightmare) left her run down and depressed her immune system. This lead to an infection on one of her fallopian tubes, which got quite gruesome, and required two sets of antibiotics. Then, on a weekend when Evie was away, and she was looking forward to relaxing on her own, she stood on a bee in our back garden and got a nasty sting on her toe. She had a nasty reaction to the sting and that got infected too! She needed a third set of antibiotics for the sting.
Curiously, Evie had missed one chance to go away for a few days earlier in the year when my Dad had an infection and so grandparents couldn't look after Evie. Then Trash was ill and stung her toe and didn't really enjoy this weekend when Evie was away. Then, when we arranged a night away for just the two of us recently, leaving Evie with Trash's parents, this was just when Trash's mothers lymphoma was flaring up again, and she had to go back into hospital (fortunately, Trash's dad did look after Evie for the night so we did get our night away.) From Trash's perspective, pretty much every time it's been arranged that Evie will go away for a few days, some form of grim illness has afflicted someone involved in the arrangement (apart from me - I've always been fine - so far!)
If you don't see me out and about, it's highly unlikely that I'm simply sat at home thinking "I can't be arsed to go out tonight." It's far more likely that somebody in my family is ill, and the knock on effect is that it would be (in my view of the world) irresponsible of me to go out.
This is also why my future plans are somewhere between fixed and fluid. I have a calendar full of things I could be going out to. It's only in the last few hours before they happen that I can ever be sure I can be there.
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Adding a young child to the equation must make things 10 times more difficult. I hope you're set fair for a spell of good health and socialising now.
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Starting tonight, I have three possible nights out in a row, currently looking unaffected by illness. Let's see what happens!
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With 2 kids, one gets it, then the other goes down with it after the other gets better.
I have to also deal with the dual onslaught of kids bugs & patient's bugs!
Since my Mum was diagnosed with breast cancer 2 years ago & had a mastectomy & radiotherapy, she seems to pick up everything going, & has no stamina, so she hasn't been able to look after Jess or Ryan since then :[
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Hope everyone is well chez Petrol.
Tom of York.
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We are very fortunate to have Custancia & Paul, and also Neil (Cossey) who you will remember from Rock-Soc (who is Henry's god-father) and his wife Rachel, the latter of whom we do a kids-weekend-swap with twice a year.
I guess what I'm trying to say is if you wanted to, we'd be fine to have Evie overnight, and she probably wouldn't come to too much harm here. She'd share a room with Maisy who is currently listing AC/DC as her fave band and wandering around in an oversized "The Cult" t-shirt that I picked up for her a couple of weeks ago. You could late night it at the Wendy House (or something) and then pick her up the next day. Likelihood she'll be swigging fruit-shoots, chewing biscuits and watching Shrek, along with Henry!
Patrick x
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The good news is if (when) no.2 comes long, from about 18 months old no.1 will go and play with no.2 in the morning so you don't have to wait nearly as long to get back to a half-decent lie in and your morning conjugals. For example, today (Sunday) I was actually woken by the plasterer banging on the door at 8:30am as opposed to Henry shouting "mummy, where are you" at 6am. Still a comparatively early morning but not nearly as demanding.
P xx
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