Gracie’s Life Experiment

Poor Evie had to have yet another jab this morning (after last week’s round). She went over to the Bangor practice to have her Hep B jab on catch up because we’ve moved from the UK and they don’t give Hep B there. She always sees Lisa the nurse. Evie absolutely adores Lisa even though she’s always there to have an injection. After last week’s 10 mins of crying and snivelling after her injections today she didn’t even shed one tear. She made some angry noises for a minute and that was it – she went back to grinning at Lisa. She also confirmed that this was Evie’s last catch up jab (just 3 Hep B shots not 4 like the GP in Brighton-le-Sands insisted).

Evie went for her 12 month immunisations. She had 3 jabs in total. Not impressed with the new GP. A friend from church recommended them but I found him a little too old-school. First he has no digital records – no computer at all. His desk is covered in files and apparatus. He prepares the 3 needles on his desk (no tray or anything) and after giving her the first two he lost the last one amongst all the paperwork and folders on his desk (yikes and the needles was exposed it’s amazing he didn’t prick himself). So poor Evie got 2 jabs and screamed, I managed to settle her and then she got the 3rd jab 5 mins later and screamed again. Then she was measured with a tape measure. Just held up against her while she was standing on my lap. Then they weighed her and I asked whether I should take her clothes off (she was wearing massive trainers) and he said no. She was 8.5kg and the doctor said she’s too light for her age and that she should be at least 9.3kg as he said it had to be 3x the birth weight. Later looking at her growth charts at her current weight she’s following the same growth curve she always had – he didn’t even bother looking. Also he forgot to fill in any of her blue book! Don’t think I’ll be going back to him again!

We’ve now been to 3 Saturday’s worth of open houses looking for our next home. We went for a second viewing at a place we really liked on Saturday and today I sent off some questions to the estate agent. 2 hours later the agent got back to us, the house had just sold. They agreed a price and managed to exchange contracts at the same time. Wow they worked quickly. Well, I guess it was just not meant to be. I’m not too worried though as there are houses which fit our criteria coming onto the market everyday.

Evie has been having a funny turn this last weekend. Friday morning she woke up and she was burning up. Took her temperature and it was 37.9. Over the next 24 hours it got higher and higher till at 5am Saturday she was over 39 deg C. 2 hours later she woke up and it was back down to 37.3. Other than the extreme temperature she was perfectly normal, happy and smiling away (even when I gave her a cold bath). She had quite a few doses of baby paracetamol too to help control it. By Saturday evening she was getting warmer again. Sunday morning she was back down to normal temperatures and stayed that way. It was quite scary as it’s the first time she’s been ill and I was panicking away. But cos of the lack of any other symptoms we felt she was ok. Sunday she was off her food a little (well, she was still eating most of it, but not her usual ravenous ways). This morning she was fine but she got a little heat rash on her neck. Over the next 1/2 hr she suddenly seemed to develop plenty of tiny red spots on her chest, back and some on her face. Bathtime made it worse. Then she had a nap and the spots went down. Thinking it was just heat rash we just let her sleep it off. Searching on the internet it would appear she probably has got Roseola Infantum – sudden fever for 2-3 days followed by rash once the fever subsides. My parents made me worry a bit as they thought she had developed measles, but she had no other symptoms. We’ll see tomorrow morning if she is any worse then I will take her to the doctors.