Hospital Visit
"I'm taking my daughter to the hospital."
Emerency? Panic? Ambulance?
In our Western/American culture, any mention of a hospital sounds as if there is some major life threatening illness going on ... she has just broken her arm or is having surgery or is in some dire need of urgent medical care.
However, here in our beloved South Asia, it is synonomous with a simple well-child visit to the doctor. There are few independent doctors' offices and so all the doctors have 'consultant' hours in the local hospitals.
Yesterday we took Claire to the hospital. But sadly, not just for a well-child visit.
She had woken up in the night having great difficulty breathing and experiencing a seal/dog-like barking cough.... What could it be?!?! I had no idea, but was a little worried because I knew it could not be treated with Children’s Tylenol…
So, I prayed. I asked either for 1) healing; or 2) guidance.
And then, in the absence of immediate healing, I reached for my handy dandy Focus on the Family guide to parenting which has a whole bunch of medical stuff in the back and has helped me on many occasion. I opened the book hoping to just page through it ‘til I figured out what was going on. The first page I turned to was the right one. She has croup. All the symptoms were there and the middle-of-the-night home remedies. Praise God. That was amazing.
The next day I made an appointment with our pediatrician and took her in right away. After seeing Dr. Sharmila we were sent over to the emergency/triage room where they gave her a nebulizer mask full of a steroid/antibiotic combo. Claire hated that, but I sang to her and told her stories about how when she was born I had to wear one of those masks with oxygen flowing and I also hated it. Thankfully there were no extreme trauma cases in the emergency room that day… not like the day my dear friend Crystal and I took Tessa to the emergency room and someone died…
After 15 minutes we returned to the doctor’s office and she gave us a slew of syrups to take and we made an appointment for another nebulizer that evening and another doctor’s appointment this morning.
Today? Other than being hyper from all the meds, Claire is doing very well. Her breathing is almost back to normal and she’s sleeping well. No coughing.
So praise God for trips to the hospital, for good medication, good doctors, and for my delightful medical manual. And praise God for a sense of calm, peace, and a clear head… even in difficult situations when I have no idea what to do.
~lk
Emerency? Panic? Ambulance?
In our Western/American culture, any mention of a hospital sounds as if there is some major life threatening illness going on ... she has just broken her arm or is having surgery or is in some dire need of urgent medical care.
However, here in our beloved South Asia, it is synonomous with a simple well-child visit to the doctor. There are few independent doctors' offices and so all the doctors have 'consultant' hours in the local hospitals.
Yesterday we took Claire to the hospital. But sadly, not just for a well-child visit.
She had woken up in the night having great difficulty breathing and experiencing a seal/dog-like barking cough.... What could it be?!?! I had no idea, but was a little worried because I knew it could not be treated with Children’s Tylenol…
So, I prayed. I asked either for 1) healing; or 2) guidance.
And then, in the absence of immediate healing, I reached for my handy dandy Focus on the Family guide to parenting which has a whole bunch of medical stuff in the back and has helped me on many occasion. I opened the book hoping to just page through it ‘til I figured out what was going on. The first page I turned to was the right one. She has croup. All the symptoms were there and the middle-of-the-night home remedies. Praise God. That was amazing.
The next day I made an appointment with our pediatrician and took her in right away. After seeing Dr. Sharmila we were sent over to the emergency/triage room where they gave her a nebulizer mask full of a steroid/antibiotic combo. Claire hated that, but I sang to her and told her stories about how when she was born I had to wear one of those masks with oxygen flowing and I also hated it. Thankfully there were no extreme trauma cases in the emergency room that day… not like the day my dear friend Crystal and I took Tessa to the emergency room and someone died…
After 15 minutes we returned to the doctor’s office and she gave us a slew of syrups to take and we made an appointment for another nebulizer that evening and another doctor’s appointment this morning.
Today? Other than being hyper from all the meds, Claire is doing very well. Her breathing is almost back to normal and she’s sleeping well. No coughing.
So praise God for trips to the hospital, for good medication, good doctors, and for my delightful medical manual. And praise God for a sense of calm, peace, and a clear head… even in difficult situations when I have no idea what to do.
~lk
Comments
Oh, and way to go with not eating any scones! ;-)
Thanking HIM for His protection and for the fabulous Focus on the Family Guide to Parenting. We have found it to also be very handy!
Are you gonna share the scone recipe? Or keep our mouths watering. ;)