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Old 07-20-2004, 05:40 PM   #14
DanaC
We have to go back, Kate!
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Yorkshire
Posts: 25,964
When my niece was 4 she got sick. She had a nasty temperature and a bad chest. Her mum ( my sister in law) took her to the Doctors and he gave her pretty short shrift. Unfortunately this doctor was rather old fashioned. His attitude to women left a great deal to be desired..He wouldnt make eye contact with my sister in law and basically told her her little girl would be fine, it's just a cold....

Jen ( my sis-in law) went back home but continued to be worried.....she took Amelia back to the doctors this time with her husband( my bro) in tow....The doctor adressed himself mostly to my Brother and offered reassurances and a mild course of anti biotics. They werent happy about it...But this was their first child and the doctor was adamant that nothing serious was amiss. Not totally unreasonable given Amelias tendency towards colds and bad chests.....Though obviously it would have been much better had he listened to the worried mum who was fairly sure this was not the usual cold or flu. Alas his attitude towards Jen made her feel as if she must just be a neurotic first time mum...

Several hours later having put Amelia tobed and having hovered every sooften on the stairs to listen for coughing , breathing changes etc etc.....Martin reassured her and told her not to worry so much, she couldnt spend the whole night just hovering on the stairs and landing.....*smiles* 'course he didnt take his own advice and found plenty of excuses to go upstairs every so often and just pop his head round the door to check on the littleun.

On one of those visits upstairs he discovered Amelia, with her jaw locked tight , the tip of her tongue protruding from her between her teeth, her face was blue, she wasnt breathing. Jen was on the phone at the time to my mum, who said later she heard Martin shouting to Jen to call an ambulance. He was shouting that out as he carried her limp body downstairs.

I know from talking to him that the time it took for the ambulance to arrive seemed a lifetime. It took some time time to get her breathing again. She spent several days in hospital with a dangerously high temperature and pneumonia on both lungs. The reason she had stopped breathing was that she had had a "febrile convulsion"

The whole trauma could have been avoided had the doctor listened to the "neurotic" woman in his surgery.

Last edited by DanaC; 07-20-2004 at 05:48 PM.
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