Parents please read and share - might save you some heartache

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a while, but you see the last 10 days have been the worst of my life.

My husband and I unfortunately came down with a nasty flu bug, no doubt a result of us both being teachers and mixing with many different people from day to day. It was your typical nasty bug (must have been nasty as we'd both had flu jabs), made worse by the fact that our 4-month-old son seemed to be coming down with the same.
We took him to the GP as his temperature overnight had hit 41. The GP checked his breathing, ears and throat, and advised us to try piggy-backing Calpol and Nurofen to reduce the temperature and assured us he would get better soon. Three days later, he was still poorly, so we returned to the GP for a further examination. We saw a different doctor this time, who performed the same exam and found nothing, but suggested we should maybe try the local hospital as our baby was so young and a high temperature is concerning.
Once at the hospital, things went from bad to worse. Having been examined, the doctors starting muttering the word 'meningitis' - every parent's worst nightmare. Our beautiful boy was promptly admitted where he had to endure blood tests and an horrendous lumbar puncture. This involved bending him practically in half to insert two needles (it didn't work the first time) into the base of his spine. It was so nasty, we weren't even allowed to be present for the procedure.
We were also asked if we'd managed to get a urine sample from him. Of course, whenever I'm at home and change a nappy, my LO wriggles and giggles so much that he inevitably wees everywhere in the process. Tonight, however, it wasn't happening. They gave up on that idea and went on with the tests, blasting with antibiotics in case of meningitis.
48 hours later, blood cultures confirmed that it wasn't meningitis, merely a simple infection (phew!). However, the lack of a urine sample meant that the results were inconclusive and we would never fully know the true cause of our son's illness. We were finally sent home with a bottle of oral antibiotics and told to keep an eye on his temperature for a few days.
The consultants at the hospital said that if the GP had taken a urine sample originally, the whole traumatic hospital experience might have been avoided; the problem was that GPs are not in the habit of taking routine urine samples from children.
We were lucky, but I am urging all parents out there to push for urine samples up front, perhaps to save themselves the stress of a hospital stay and their little ones the trauma of unnecessary procedures.  If you have to, get a sample yourself in a sterilised container and get it to someone to analyse straight away.  Hopefully, this will help you avoid the stresses and strains of the week we've had.

When did we all stop caring?

On saturday afternoon I found myself in a supermarket at the lower end of the price range (see The women we love to hate). I had decided to push munchkin around for the afternoon to give him something new to look at and so arrived looking like a cross between a bag lady and an airport porter, pushing a huge and rather strange combination of buggy, trolley etc. complete with cuddly toys and changing bag. I needn't have worried - I was not the oddest one there.

I'll skip straight past the compulsory shoppers in their dressing gowns (when did that happen?) to the hoodies, tracksuit bottoms and flip-flops-with-socks combos that were on offer.  Sure, as a new mum i'm sometimes caught out running to the door in my slippers...and there was that time when I remembered the shoes but forgot to pick two that matched, but still.  It got me thinking: when did people stop caring what they look like?

Flash back to the fabulous 40s.  In my grandmother's heyday, it was considered unacceptable to go out with a ladder in one's silk stocking.  The outfit was not complete without matching red lipstick and the heels had to be at least 3 inches high.  Back then, ladies really made an effort, and it was rewarded by men reacting like gentlemen - holding doors open and pulling chairs out.  If a lady of the forties could have been confronted with a skinny-jean-wearing teenaged girl of the 21st century, she would no doubt have fainted into the arms of the nearest kind Sir.

Are we supposed to blame our mothers who famously burned their bras in the 60s?  If so, surely after all their fights for equality between the sexes, it should be us women in the sharp suits, holding doors open for gentlemen and so on.  And yet, equality meaning 'women can dress like men' seems to have become 'women can dress like scruffs' and to hell with the consequences.

And yet, here we are in the "open-minded" twenty-first century, with parliament still arguing over same-sex marriage.  If they're not sure which way to go when casting their votes this week, they should simply take a trip to my local supermarket.  In there, the women dress like men, the men dress like children and the children dress like superheroes.  Pick any two customers at random to be united in marriage, and see if they will make the effort there instead.