The culprit - THROAT INFECTION

We went to the clinic last night and the doctor confirmed that her throat is infected. The infection causes fever. As Hayley is at a stage where everything is food to her, we are not the least surprised. Doctor said we just have to try and keep her toys and hands clean as much as we can to avoid this from happening again. Poor girl had to be on antibiotics for 3 days (or 5 days if fever still persists) for once a day and Ibuprofen which will treat her fever and sore throat. No wonder she woke up in the night crying, I guess her throat must have been dry and it hurts.

We gave her the antibiotic for the first time last night. Boy, that was like mission impossible. I don't understand why she hates 'sweet' medicine. I envy those moms whose babies will ask for medicine. Envy Envy.. She cries and cries and twist and turn. I dread each time when I have to give her the med.

I also want to mention about the experience we endured at the so called 'Child Specialist Clinic' last night. The doctor checked on her and what appears to be something she is familiar with scared the hell out of her. I used to check her temp using the ear thermometer and she is always fine but of course I got to tell her that I am going to check her ears (I dont know if she understands :-)) but the doctor simply just took out her tool and insert it into her ears and asked me to grab her hands while another nurse grabbed her head. Imagine what my little girl would be thinking? She immediately started crying and wrestling to break free. I was caught off guard as well and was so tempted to tell the doctor off. Being a doctor who deals with kids, she needs to learn the tricks and have a little more patience. But I guess she has a lot of patients waiting outside and can't afford to be patient. Sigh...

After the ear check, she went on and pressed her tummy, checked her eyes, her hands and feet and finally she checked her throat (all these while she continues to cry). As she uses the wooden thingy (sorry I dont know what it's actually called) to press on her tongue she must have gone too deep that my little girl vomitted. She vomitted for like 5 mins non stop and she was crying and howling and coughing and vomitting all at the same time. She was so scared that the moment the papa came to the rescue, she immediately clung on to him and continued to vomit onto his shirt. I have never seen her this scared before. I controlled my temper else I would have given the doctor a piece of my mind!

After the whole drama, she told me we had to take her out for a while and let her calm down. Give her a little bit of water to wash her mouth and then let her check the throat again to confirm. WTF! Anyway, for the baby's sake, we took her out again, played with her for a while and sent her in to be tortured again. As expected she cried the moment she sees the doctor's face. The doctor did it quickly this time and carefully and confirmed her throat is red. We left after paying them for torturing our baby.

When we got home, we also wanted to check her temperature and the moment we insert the ear thermometer into her, she cried. This is the first time she cried when we take her temp.

All the experiences a baby has to go through will leave a deep mark within them and I always believe that we have to make the first experience pleasant so it won't frighten them. I wish all the people out there who deals with babies ie caretaker, paeditrician, baby sitters, teachers etc would at least be professional enough to know what they're doing or at least to know this simple rule. SIGH....