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Lazy Day and Back to Melbourne


24 Dec

Posted in Camping, Health, NSW | No Comments »

Yesterday was another lazy day with a very cranky Toby. It was a very warm day too, but all Toby wanted to do was sleep on the bed which was quite a hot place to be. Andrew set up the fan to help move some air around which helped. Nathan also had a sleep in the afternoon which is very unlike him.

Both Andrew and I had had enough of Toby being clingy and cranky, and just wanting Mummy to sleep with him all day, and only having very short happy periods throughout the day. It was very windy this morning and the forecast was for showers and cold days for the next couple of days, so we made the decision to go home a couple of days early. We are onto day 6 of sick Toby and it hasn’t really been a lot of fun. Now that he has a rash all over his body I’ve finally diagnosed him as having roseola which is caused by a herpes virus (of course I could be wrong, but it looks the same as when Nathan had it when he was little).

We packed up the trailer, said goodbye to the two couples we have got to know, had a last visit to the river and started driving back to Melbourne via the Barry Way and Cann River. We have never been back this way and it is really very pretty.

We made a couple of stops on the way back for the kids to stretch their legs at playgrounds at Bombala and Cann River, we had a short walk on the beach at Marlo along the mouth of the Snowy River before it started to rain, and we had fish and chips for dinner (Toby’s choice) at Bairnsdale. The rest of the trip home was uneventful and we got home around 9 pm.

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In the playground at Bombala

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In the playground at Bombala

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The playground at Cann River

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Roseola rash on Toby’s foot

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Marlo

Toby Turns 3


21 Dec

Posted in Birthday, Camping, Health, NSW | 1 Comment »

Toby’s birthday wasn’t a great one for the little boy. Both he and Nathan slept a really long time. In fact Nathan slept over 12 hours which is, for me, a reason to be concerned that he is getting sick. Nathan doesn’t generally sleep more than 10 hours, and if he sleeps more than 11 hours it is typically a sign that he is coming down with something.

When the boys were awake, Nathan stuck up all the decorations he had made and he put out the sign on the camper to tell everyone that it was Toby’s birthday. He was very excited to be putting them up, and Toby was pretty pleased with them as well. We had two lots of people visit to wish Toby a happy birthday, so Nathan was pleased that his sign worked, though in reality they were all people we’ve had a bit to do with and their visit was nothing to do with the sign.

We made pancakes for breakfast but Toby didn’t feel like eating them, and he had jelly for breakfast instead. We made the cake and put it in the Weber and then we opened a few presents. Pretty much as soon as that was done Toby wanted to go back to bed and that’s where he spent the rest of the day. He was so very miserable that we rang the medical centre at Jindabyne and were told that if we wanted Toby to see a doctor we had to be there before 4 pm.

So we packed up the campsite and headed into town. We had to wait a while to see the doctor, and when we got into his office Toby didn’t want to have anything to do with him. He tried to bribe Toby with stickers, but there were no train ones. Then he tried lollies, but the first one Toby got was a caramel one and he thought it was chocolate and didn’t want it, so the doctor went looking and found a green snake for him. Toby didn’t want to eat it, he just held onto it while the doctor listened to his chest and looked in his ears and mouth. He still had an elevated temperature, and after getting a quick glimpse of his mouth he decided Toby had an infected throat and prescribed some antibiotics. Before we left I asked the doctor just to take Nathan’s temperature as he seemed a bit hot to me and hadn’t been himself all day. The doctor said he was fine but humoured me, just to discover that indeed Nathan also had an elevated temperature and further discovered that Nathan also had red ears and a red throat. So Nathan was also prescribed antibiotics.

We went to the chemist to get the prescriptions filled, then down to the supermarket to get more jelly, back to the chemist to pick up the medicine and finally made it back to the campsite. Toby was looking a little better, so we quickly iced the cake, sang happy birthday and Toby opened his last present. He played for a bit with his new toys and then I tried to give Toby his medicine before dinner and Toby refused. The idea of having medicine, or my attempt at giving him some medicine, upset him so much that he went back to bed and went to sleep.

As far as I could tell from Toby’s cries all night his sleep was full of nightmares about Nathan doing things Toby didn’t want him to do, not getting his watermelon the way he wanted it, and me trying to give him medicine.

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Hospital visit


13 Aug

Posted in Health, Nathan the preschooler | No Comments »

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On Friday, about midday, Nathan was running around outside. He was going up and down the driveway (to the unit behind us) and around the car onto our front lawn. And back again. I was packing some things into the back of the car, so the back (boot) door was wide open when Nathan ran past, misjudged in his running and ran into the edge of the door. He hit the left side of his face and his collarbone/shoulder.

He was in a lot of pain, particularly at his shoulder, so I took him to see our local GP who said that it just looked like bruising and that he would be sore for a few days, maybe even a week. He didn’t think anything was broken.

Nathan pretty much stopped using his left arm, which was pretty obvious since he is left handed, and being touched on the shoulder was painful. If he knocked it, or it was bumped in play, he would be crying and in pain again.

Sunday morning, after yet another bump and an episode of crying and Nathan was really miserable, we felt that his shoulder just wasn’t right so Andrew and I took Nathan to emergency at Monash Medical Centre to be checked out. Two hours later we were out again, with x-rays showing no breaks. So, it is just a matter of waiting for Nathan’s shoulder to get better….and trying to keep Toby from jumping on his brother,

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Soy allergy


16 Oct

Posted in Health, Toby's second year | 1 Comment »

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I think Toby has a soy allergy. For a long time now he has had patches of dry skin on his back and tummy that seem to be impossible to get rid of. They appeared at around 7 months of age. I noticed them first just after he had the high fever for which we took him to hospital. At the time I didn’t know if the two were related, but the dry skin continued long after Toby was well again.

After a while the dry skin also started around his mouth, and seemed to flare up and go red when he ate certain things. I may be a bit slow really, and though I realized that miso soup seemed to cause it to get red and angry looking, it didn’t occur to me that he could have a soy allergy. It also flared up when he ate sushi, amongst other things.

At his 18-month checkups with both the doctor (for vaccinations) and the early childhood centre (for weight and height), I brought it up. Both told me that it was a form of dermatitis, and to put moisturizer on it. I tried that for several weeks, but to no effect.

I do the grocery shopping on Mondays, and I have found it is getting harder and harder to shop with both kids. Usually when I take them, we do the shopping and then we have sushi for lunch before heading home. The kids love it, and there are tears if we go without stopping for sushi. Both kids adore dipping their sushi in soy sauce, or just their fingers and licking their fingers. However, the last few weeks I have done the shopping without the kids, they stay home with Andrew and I can get it all done really quickly. So there has been no sushi, and for whatever reason we just haven’t had anything else with soy sauce in it lately. The dry skin on Toby’s back and front cleared up for the first time in a long, long time and there has been no red rash around his mouth.

We were out one day recently and the kids were hungry, so we got sushi for them and within minutes Toby had the red rash around his mouth again. Although I had had a niggly idea for a while that the rash was food related, the light went on that day and I did some googling. Wikipedia told me that soy allergies are common and that products containing soy protein include miso (der…why didn’t I think of that earlier?) and soy sauce. It also says that many people with a soy allergy can tolerate a small amount of the protein, with the typical dose to obtain an allergic reaction being 100 times higher than for other food allogens. This means that most sufferers don’t need to avoid small quantities of soy protein, which is good because soy is added to a huge number of foods.

So, without testing for confirmation, I have concluded that Toby is mildly allergic to soy, and I will attempt to keep him away from soy sauce, miso soup and anything else containing a high amount of soy protein in the future, and I hope that the red, angry looking rash around his mouth doesn’t return.

The Cough


15 Oct

Posted in Health, Toby's second year | No Comments »

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I had a cold while we were away, and i still have a lingering cough though it is almost gone now. Nathan was sick while we were away, but thankfully he was able to travel even though he had a terrible cough. It was worst at night, but he only had one night of fever. Andrew got a bit of a cold but he probably had the least symptoms of any of us….so far, that is.

Toby came down with it last week. He had the cough and a husky voice from about the time we got off the boat, and it got worse. He had three days of fever and was miserable and lethargic. All he wanted was to breastfeed in bed and be held by me. We tried giving him some baby pandadol to help him feel a bit better when he was at his most miserable, but it made him throw up. Andrew made another trip to the chemist (our baby panadol was out of date so he had already made a trip to get some more) for another baby analgesic that Toby might be able to keep down. He came back with a couple to try out, and although Toby was upset at being given more medicine, he was at least able to keep it down. And we now have a fridge well stocked with baby analgesic….at least until sometime in 2012 when it will expire, probably not having been touched again if past history is anything to go by. Toby shivered through his fever and it looked like he barely able to stand at the worst of it. I’m just glad he didn’t get sick like this while we were away.

But that cough! That terrible hacking, phlegmy cough that keeps Toby (and me) awake at night, and just distresses him during the day. It’s awful.

A rough week


04 Apr

Posted in Health, Nathan the preschooler, Toby's second year | 1 Comment »

OK, this is really just for the record sort of stuff, so if you are queasy with any mention of bodily functions or excretions, then I would advise you to click away now.

I guess it started last Wednesday, which isn’t quite a week ago. On Wednesday night we had an accident that I would prefer to forget. As much as we are careful with the kids and hot things, I guess accidents still can happen. Nathan did the unthinkable and jumped off his step (the one he stands on at the end of the kitchen bench so he can see and be involved in cooking), knocking me as I was carrying a casserole dish full of steaming hot pumpkin soup. It splashed onto my foot which was horrible enough, but poor Nathan was nearly drenched in the soup. I picked him up and rushed him to the bath, and started putting cold water onto his lower legs and feet because that was all I could see at first that was burnt, but as his screaming continued I looked elsewhere and found that over half his back and bum was also bright red. The plug went into the bath so his burnt feet would be covered with cold water, and I sat him down on a small step with his back under the tap so that the cold water could run down his back. Oh, how I wish I’d noticed his back first. After an hour under the running cold water, hoping that he wasn’t getting hypothermic (he didn’t seem to be particularly cold), I finally hauled him out and dried him off. Nathan’s feet were fine, with maybe just a touch of red on one of them. Most of the redness had gone from his back and bottom, but there were a few nasty looking patches with blistered skin.

The next day, Thursday, we visited the doctor to discuss how to look after his burns. He gave me a prescription for some ointment and told me to smear it onto non-stick absorbent patches and put over the blisters. It is easy to put one on his back and bandage it in place, but I’m finding that keeping a patch on his bum where there is so much movement is really hard!

Also on Thursday we went to our regular playgroup and one of the children was sick with gastro. He had had diarhoea but the mother brought him because he had seemed fine for 48 hours. I didn’t even know he had been sick when I saw him sharing popcorn from a big bowl with my two kids and other kids as well. And then he had a bout of diarhoea at playgroup with poo running down his legs. All I could hope was that I didn’t end up with two sick kids.

Friday night, about 36 hours after playgroup, we were at Chadstone shopping centre when Nathan did a projectile vomit or two or three inside a shop! How revolting! We took him home as soon as we could, and was sick several more times during the night. We stayed home all Saturday, not wanting to repeat the experience of a child vomiting in a public area, but Nathan seemed to be ok.

Perhaps I jinxed us when I suggested to Andrew on Saturday night that if it took 36 hours for Nathan to come down with some sort of gastro illness after playgroup, then Toby might get sick Sunday morning since it was 36 hours after Nathan was sick. It was sort of fortuitous that our plans for Sunday had been cancelled because Toby had diarrhoea on Sunday morning and we weren’t keen to go out if there was the chance that we’d have to deal with diarrhea or vomiting.

So now we are up to Monday and have barely set foot out of the house in three days. I am thankful that Toby wasn’t burnt with the hot soup. He so easily could have been because he was also in the kitchen area when I dropped the bowl. I’m also thankful that though I have had two sick kids, they don’t seem to have been sick at the same time. I just hope that Toby is better soon because, quite frankly, I’m over all the cleaning associated with poo and vomit.

Black eyes


07 Nov

Posted in Health, Nathan's third year, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

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The day before we got the furniture delivered, Nathan was running around the empty house and fell over. He hit his forehead on the lounge room window sill as he fell. He immediately got a huge lump at the site of impact…it really looked nasty.

In the days that followed he got swelling around the bridge of his nose, and black bruising around his eyes. Some 4 weeks on, he still has a bit of a lump on his forehead and the bruising around his eyes is finally disappearing.

Hospital Visit


10 Aug

Posted in Health, Toby's first year | 1 Comment »

Nathan was sick last week with what we think was hand, foot and mouth disease. When I say ‘sick’, he had the illness but it didn’t slow him down much. It is the second time he has had this illness, though they both presented quite differently. This time he had a fever for 24 hours and then had a rash all over his body though it seemed worst on his knees, lower legs, feet, hands and wrists. He had some blisters, many being on his face. The virus that causes the illness is very infectious, so as Nathan was getting better I was just waiting for Toby to come down with it.

I fully expected Toby to catch it, so was very surprised as the days rolled on that Toby seemed fine. Then, on Saturday, I noticed that he felt quite hot. When we got home in the afternoon we checked his temperature and it was close to 39 degrees. Here we go, I thought, expecteding see the rash appearing very soon. Sunday there was no rash, and Toby was still hot. While he was a bit clingy, he didn’t seem too bothered by his elevated temperature until Sunday night when he started to get cranky. I decided to give him his first ever dose of Panadol at 6 pm, and by 9 pm he was really unsettled, wouldn’t sleep, was very hot, shaking and practically panting.

Why do kids always get sick at night, and on weekends? Andrew and I were a bit worried by the shaking, not knowing that it is common with high fevers. I rang Health Direct Australia to see what their advice would be, and it was that we should take Toby to hospital because of his rapid breathing.

So off to hospital we went. Andrew insisted on coming, so that meant we dragged Nathan out of bed and drove to the Children’s hospital, about a 15 minute drive away. We arrived around 10 pm, and were told that it would probably be a long wait. Toby’s temperature was measured at nearly 41 degrees.

I didn’t keep track of the times after that. Toby was given some panadol at one stage because he was a bit upset. We waited for quite a while, and when we were finally seen by a doctor who couldn’t find anything wrong with Toby besides the fever, which had reduced to 38 degrees. He decided that, although Toby isn’t a really small baby, it was still worthwhile looking further to see what was causing the fever. That means that they wanted to take some blood and urine fir testing. Urine…..that was the easy bit as far as I was concerned, having been pottying Toby since birth. Blood, well I didn’t like the idea of that.

I took Toby’s nappy off and was dismayed to find it wet, which means he’d done a wee recently. I cued him to wee and got nothing, so figured we’d get the wee later. A nurse came in and started syringing warm water onto Toby’s genitals.  Apparently the theory was that babies often wee in the bath, so she was trying to simulate those conditions.  She wasn’t successful, and we finally told her that we didn’t think he was ready for a wee yet.  Then I had to take Toby into another room where the doctor tried to insert a cannula into the back of Toby’s hand.  He looked at both hands closely, chose one and then poked around with the needle while Toby screamed and screamed and the nurse with the specimen container stood at the ready to catch any wee.  The doctor finally got so;me blood out of the needle, but could not insert the cannula, so syringed the blood out of the end of the needle, squeezed Toby’s had and syringed again….repeat until he had enough blood.  I just wanted to grab Toby off the bed and take him home, it was so awful listening to him scream.

Back in the room with Andrew and Nathan, I fed Toby and he fell asleep.  I felt relieved, mostly because I knew that we’d get that wee sample when he woke up.  The doctor came by to ask if we were successful yet, and I said we would be when he woke up.  Sure enough, about half an hour later he woke, I made the cue noise that we use and caught a wee.  I guess that 99.99% of parents don’t have a clue about their baby’s weeing patterns and so they need to try some innovative methods of collecting a sample, but we know how to get a sample if we need one and the antics of the nurse still make me laugh when I think about her.

Suffice to say that nothing was wrong with the blood or urine samples, and both were sent off for culturing which would take about 48 hours to get a result.  The doctor came to see us and said that they’d prefer to keep Toby overnight for observation, but since we lived so close to the hospital they were ok with it if we wanted to go home.  Sounded good to me!!  We took that option, received a heap of advice from the doctor as well as some paperwork/information on fevers, and the phone number to get the microbiological results in a couple of days.  I had a sneak peak at the report that the doctor typed up for the GP (I was recommended to take Toby to a GP the next day) which had a spot for diagnosis, and what do you think it said there……FEVER!  I just had to laugh.  We got home at nearly 3:30 am.

I don’t enjoy being in hospitals, but they are  necessary at times.  I’m glad I know about fever induced shaking now, so it won’t worry me so much if it ever happens again to either of the kids in the future.  Both times we’ve been to the Children’s hospital (the first ime when Nathan had croup), we’ve met with helpful and supportive people.

No more pin…


09 May

Posted in Health | 1 Comment »

…though it was a good 27 hour ordeal to achieve a pin-free toe.

Tuesday morning we rocked up at the medical centre to have the pin removed.  The GP tried to block the nerves in half my toe, but it wasn’t enough (as I was experiencing some pain when he cut) so he had to block the whole toe.  It took ages to get the toe numb, then the GP started looking for that pin-in-a-toe (similar to needle-in-a-haystack).  He couldn’t find it, so he sent me for more x-rays with instructions for the radiologist to mark on my toe where the pin was located.  The radiologist simply stuck a metal spot to my toe as a marker on the x-rays for perspective (she wanted to put it on the bandage…how useful would that be once you take the bandage off to cut into the toe???  She actually argued with me over it too!).

Then it was back to the medical centre for yet more anaesthetic and another attempt to find the pin. On the way back I said to Andrew “we’re going to end up at hospital, aren’t we?”.  If I had known then what I know now, I would have just gone straight there and avoided a significant amount of pain.

The GP spent ages trying to make sense of the x-rays and finally decided on where to cut after asking his nurse to work out where the pin was.  Again he had used extra anaesthetic on my toe, and he had blocked the entire toe again, but the end of my toe didn’t seem fully numb.  And guess what….it wasn’t!  The GP basically cut a flap of my toe and it was quite painful.  He kept apologising, over and over again.  He finally admitted defeat, asked the nurse to bandage up my toe, wrote a referral letter and sent me off to the emergency section of the hospital of my choice.  Once again he apologised, he was about 2 hours behind schedule for the day, and he told me that he wouldn’t charge me for the day’s activities.

During all this Andrew had been looking after Nathan, and had Toby as well for quite a bit of time.  Nathan spent most of the time in the pram since it was the only way he could be managed especially when Andrew had Toby as well….way too many interesting things to touch and play with in a doctor’s surgery.  When we told him we had to go and see another doctor, he kept saying over and over again in the car “we’re seeing ANOTHER doctor”.

We got to Emergency at Price of Wales Hospital at around 5:30 pm, and we saw the triage nurse pretty quickly.  She said she didn’t like to see young kids in the waiting room for any length of time, and she’d try to find us a room which she managed pretty quickly.  I had a drip put in because I was terribly thirsty after not drinking much all day, and a registrar had a chat with me about how they’d go about getting out the pin.  He said they’d do another nerve block on the toe, but they’d also put some compression around my thigh (like the bag that gets pumped up when you’re blood pressure is taken) to stop the bleeding. He said that it’s very uncomfortable and can be quite painful, so I’d be sedated a little to help me cope with the pain.  That would allow me to get back to Toby the quickest way possible.  He couldn’t rule out a general anaesthetic, though, so the whole exercise (including recovery) could be around 4 hours.  This was a bit of a problem for us, since Toby feeds regularly and I had no expressed milk for him.  They tried to get me a pump from the Womens Hospital (which was right next door) but were unsuccessful. At the time they were telling me this, I was told that there was a surgery booked in for 9 pm and I was scheduled to be next, assuming that nothing more urgent came in (and the reality was that a pin in a toe is about as low as you can get on the priority list.  The timing gave Andrew time to drive home and get some bits and pieces including my breast pump.

I wasn’t very successful at expressing milk for Nathan when he was a baby, so I didn’t have any great expectations as I unpacked the pump, given I’d been feeding very frequently all day, it was night, and there wasn’t much time to get some milk.  I had a go but got next to no milk, so I waited for Toby to wake up so I could try pumping while he was feeding.  That was always the way I got the most milk the most quickly when Nathan was little, and I did manage to get a few millilitres that way but Toby was sleepy and didn’t really get the milk flowing with his sucking.   I gave up after about an hour of trying and I had barely 20 ml in the bottle.  I felt miserable and worried that Andrew wouldn’t cope for 4 hours at night without me.

Nathan was beside himself with exhaustion, but resisted sleep and cried and screamed when we tried to put him into the pram to go to sleep. It was an awful situation really.  He finally did go to sleep in the pram while I rocked it and read aloud from a book at the same time.

Nathan woke up at around midnight and screamed until we got him out of the pram and I cuddled him.   He didn’t want me to leave his sight and went back to his wailing scream while I popped to the toilet!  Then we were advised that my surgery was cancelled for the night and that they’d try to find me a bed for the night.  I told Andrew he should take Nathan home and get some sleep and come back in the morning, but Andrew wanted to find out where I ended up and Nathan started screaming again at the idea of leaving me and going home.  So the boys stayed and waited with me and I was finally allowed to have something to eat (a sandwich) as I was starving having not eaten since breakfast.

I was finally moved to a bed on a ward at around 3 am.  Andrew and Nathan came with us to see where I was being moved to, and since there weren’t many beds in use that night the nurse kindly offered to make up a bed for Andrew and Nathan as well.  I’m really very glad that they didn’t have to drive home, because Andrew was absolutely exhausted and I would have worried about them.  There was one bed per little room, so Andrew and Nathan were right next door.   I don’t think Andrew got much sleep though, because Nathan didn’t go back to sleep easily and at one stage he wanted the whole bed to himself.  I could hear him saying “all mine, all mine”. I thought he was talking about a pillow, but apparently it was the entire bed!   Otherwise Toby and I slept well in our bed

I was woken at 6 am to have the drip reconnected and be given antibiotics, and was taken to surgery just after 8 am.  We had no warning that I was going to surgery, so we quickly put Toby into the mei tai on Andrew and I said goodbye and good luck! By then I had managed to express nearly 60 ml of milk which seemed like an ok amount  to leave.  Toby also generally sleeps quite well in the mei tai in the morning if I keep moving, so I was hoping that he would do the same for Andrew.

I was wheeled into surgery after repeating my details a million times to ensure I was me, I’m not allergic to any drugs, and that I was having a foreign body removed from my toe.  I recall anaesthetic being put into my toe, but nothing after that until I woke in recovery.  I was told that I was wriggling too much so they’d had to knock me out.  I asked how long I was going to be there and they said 1hour.  I think I snoozed a bit and when I woke up I felt fine.  I asked again how long I had to be there, was told 20 minutes.  I said I was anxious to get back to my baby, so they said “ok, 5 minutes”.  hehe.

I was sheeled back to day surgery where I had spent the night.  I was given a bed (after first being taken to one of the comfy chairs that are called ‘beds’, but for some reason they changed their mind, maybe because of the kids).  Andrew wasn’t there, and I waited anxiously for him to get back.  When he did, he showed up with flowers, a delicious sandwhich, for which I was so very grateful, and two happy kids.  Toby had slept most of the morning, and had quite happily drunk about 20 ml of milk after his first little nap.  Andrew was so happy that it had gone so well, as he had been absolutely petrified of looking after Toby for a few hours. I totally understand his fear, as his first time alone with Nathan when he was a baby was terrible and he wasn’t looking forward to hours with a screaming baby.

We got home around 2:30 pm, tired but pin-free. Andrew and Nathan had a nap for a couple of hours, and I played with Toby and rested my foot.  The hardest part of the previous 2 days was juggling two small children.  The hospital didn’t seem to be particularly breastfeeding friendly, but they did try to accommodate my needs when I expressed them.  I only had a couple of comments about how it would be ok to give Toby formula, and while I acknowledge that if he was starving and had no other options then I would be more than happy for him to have it, but if there is any chance to provide him with breast milk them obviously that would be preferable and I would do my best to provide it for him.  I was advised to express the first feed after the general anaesthetic and discard it, but since I am so terrible at expressing I ignored that advice figuring I’d only remove such a small amount of milk that it wouldn’t make any difference.

It is 4 days later now, and my toe is feeling pretty good considering what it has been through.

Half a pin


03 May

Posted in Health, Sewing | 3 Comments »

Sewing pins do not belong in any body parts…not that I ever thought that they did.  It is just that when you do have a pin (or half a pin) somewhere that it doesn’t belong, like your right big toe for example, the statement is made perfectly clear.  It hurts!

Last Thursday night I took a lunge at Nathan to stop him getting into some paints in a craft box that I hadn’t put away.  Eh, to put it away is a major operation so it tends to get left out, but Nathan can easily take the lid off.  Anyway, I lunged and felt a pain in my big toe.  I looked at the toe and couldn’t see what was causing the pain.  I looked on the floor to see if there was anything there that would give me a clue as to what happened, and couldn’t see anything.  I told Andrew that it felt like a pin had gone through my toe and asked him to take a look, but he couldn’t see anything other than a tiny pin prick of a red mark.

Friday my toe was a bit swollen and was painful to walk on.  I hobbled around all day, and when Andrew got home that night he told me that the swelling seemed to be in a line, and really did look like something like a pin could be in there.

Saturday morning I presented at the local medical centre.  The doctor prescribed antibiotics and sent me for an xray which revealed that there was, infact, a pin in my toe! The radiologist rang the GP and asked if he wanted to see me again that day, and was told ‘no’ and I had to book in for surgery early this week.  That’s where the next problem came about….I don’t really have anyone who can look after the kids nearby except Andrew, so I had to juggle Andrew’s work commitments with the available appointments and finally settled on a time tomorrow morning.

I’m looking forward to soon not having half a pin in my big toe.

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