Thursday 17th June: Gumnuts

I've been given a lovely alpaca wool beanie to keep my head warm as the weather gets colder. It's soft and by far the warmest hat I own, and I wear it to bed on cold nights. When X or K put it on they look like cute May Gibbs gumnuts. When I put it on I look like an idiot in a tea cosy. I still wear it though. I even treated the boof-heads at the gym by wearing it there last week. I am sure my desirability rating shot up even higher, if that's possible.

It's been a stressful few weeks here. K's croup became a lingering chesty cough, which became an ear nose and throat infection, and then started to head in a pneumonia direction. Then we gave her some stronger antibiotics, and now she is rapidly recovering and she'll be fine. Along the way were 10 nights of poor sleep for her and I. On Tuesday night the stronger antibiotics kicked in and K and I got a better night sleep than we had for ages. My stress levels went down, so my adrenalin level went down and so... I got sick. Now K is bouncing around her childcare as usual and I am coughing like a 2 pack a day smoker.

Here are some triggers for my anxiety that I have discovered over this last 12 days:

• Worried-doctor vocal tone: This is the tone of voice that doctors use when they want you to listen and take them seriously but they also want you to stay calm. On Tuesday our GP used worried-doctor vocal tone to say 'K is pretty sick. You were right to bring her back in today. She needs stronger antibiotics. You need to watch her closely. I will want to see some significant gains by Thursday at the latest or you bring her in on Thursday. At the latest. And if she gets a temperature from here on in, you need to get her assessed as soon as possible." Hearing him say that in that tone did my head in. I was like a cat on a hot tin roof until K started to improve. I took her temp so many times she got the shits with me.
• Contemplating presenting at JHH for assessment: If K has gotten worse, we would have been advised to take her to the hospital where Salome died, to the A and E. I could have and would have done this if required, but it would have been stressful. I have been back on site since Salome's death a number of times, and every time it gets easier (except for the time I took myself into NICU and got stuck staring at the corner where Salome had been until Matt found me and sternly suggested I take myself elsewhere). If we had needed to take K in, we would have gone nowhere near NICU. I think the idea of taking K or X to JHH is worse than the actuality would be.
• Lack of sleep: I started getting ratty after about the 5th night. My sleep was nowhere near as broken as it would have been now if Salome had lived, but I think it is the combination of lack of sleep and anxiety that leads to more tiredness and therefore more anxiety etc.

Given the circumstances I think I got through the last 2 Weeks pretty well. The fact that I did so without consuming every one of the chocolates in that stupid fund-raising chocolate box from X's school is a miracle.

Never mind, tomorrow we are off on a long-anticipated family holiday for 2 nights and 3 fabulous fun-filled days in Melbourne where it is much colder and wetter than here. I intend to rid myself of this chect infection with verdelho and chocolate cake.

If you want to treat yourself have a listen to the worst football song ever:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANekGmySvPM

If you do listen, trust your own judgement. It really is as bad as you initially thought. Don't be tempted to listen again because I can tell you it doesn't improve with repeated listening. This song won a competition when the Dockers started. Imagine how shit the other entries were!