Snapshots #Weekend #Postingonthe29th

I couldn't help but write a blog post on this, the 29th of February, but actually it's really about snapshots from this weekend:

Fingerling showing when she's not happy

Eléanor - Fingerling's bestie

Small Fry's besties: Wendy and Asher. They've known each other since they were weeks old.

Small Fry with Charlotte - a new generation takes over the merry-go-round

Marine-themed cupcakes for Pacotio's birthday

A long week #testresults #skiweekinterrupted #reunited

So while I went back to the sick kids hospital with little Fingerling, her big brother was ruling the slopes.

Here she is, waiting to be examined. The bone infection diagnosis was confirmed, but the antibiotics have already worked brilliantly and the infection is no longer in her blood. She'll need to stay on the antibiotics for another 5 weeks to make sure the infection in the bones (which is much harder to reach) is truly gone. 

Although she got her cast off, they decided she needed an MRI to double check what's happening in that dark hollow in the biggest horizontal bone. Apparently it's a bit unusual but it also appears on the two earlier x-rays, so it could just be the way she's made. So that, and another blood test to check her liver is coping with the high doses of two different antibiotics, are on our horizon next week.

Here is Small Fry enjoying lunch at the top of the mountain:

And here he is on the last day of ski school (he's the guy in red in the middle with the lime green helmet. The adult guy on the right was his teacher and the lady on the left was one of the helpers).

 And here he is in the car, on his way home to mama:

It was great to all be together again, and despite all their fighting, apparently the siblings were happy too. Here they are all snuggled on the couch together watching some cartoons:

All about glow in the dark poop #scintigraphy

There are key points that mark my improving abilities to speak and understand French. I remember early on with my inlaws feeling proud when I could follow a family conversation over dinner without having to watch people to see if a question or comment was being directed at me. Another feeling of achievement was when I conducted my first interview fully in French. And negotiating the French health system before, during and after Fingerling's birth was yet another level deeper with all that medical and gynaecological jargon! The next step seems to have been keeping on top of what is happening to Fingerling now through a whole new set of vocabulary, procedures and acronyms.

Today, Fingerling's osteomyelitis was confirmed via a bone scan. This morning they injected her with a radioactive tracer that binds to the bones in her body. It took FIVE attempts to inject the tracer into her and she HOWLED at all the stabbings. Even I was starting to get very distressed by the incompetence of the nurse who was doing the procedure* and was at the point of asking if someone else could have a go, when she got it in and injected the tracer. 

And that was the worst bit over, although Fingerling now has a plaster on each of the insides of her elbows and 3 stabbings under a bandage on one hand. Poor soul.

This is attempt 1 when I was trying to show her some videos on my phone and instead took her picture.

 And this photo pretty much sums up how she was the rest of the day i.e. energetic!

We had to wait for 2 hours for the tracer to bind to the bones, so we were both able to have lunch and Fingerling a nap before being called back in. She then had to lie still for 25 minutes (they have a DVD player for just this purpose!) while the gamma camera took the pictures. The idea is that the tracer bind to infected bones in different ways to healthy bones and that way the doctor can see whether the infection is localised.

For Fingerling, although the diagnosis of osteomyelitis was confirmed, it's only in her heel and is already getting better thanks to the strong course of antibiotics she is on. And all that took us until 1730.

I knew she'd had a tough day as she went to bed without complaining at 1915. And I knew I'd had a tough day as I ate mars bars like they were going out of fashion. Still, I'm grateful the results came in so quickly, the doctors took it all so seriously, and that it's nothing more serious. AND she has radioactive nappies for the next 12 hours!

*She blamed restricted veins on Fingerling's distress which is possibly feasible, but the nurse at the hospital last week did it first time under similar conditions. They advised me to buy an anaesthetic patch that would take away some of the pain of that initial 'prick' as the needle goes in, but I have also been told that the patch restricts the veins and makes it harder to get one....so bit of a double edged sword. 

A world of good #FreshAir #FrenchAlps

Doctor's order or no, I really needed a break. And that's how we ended up setting our alarm for 4.45am on Saturday morning, packing the car and sending Abuelo, El Puma, Pacotio and Small Fry off on an almost 700km journey to Albiez in the French alps. And then I went back to bed.

The girls left at the far more decent hour of 4pm in the afternoon, and by train, which took us half the time.

Albiez is a titchy ski station not so far from the Italian border. Having tried out the popular and large resort of La Plagne last time, we thought a smaller village would suit us better this time: we didn't ski far or wide enough to make proper use of the expensive lift passes in La Plagne, plus in Albiez everything was cheaper, including Small Fry's ski school.

Moon rising

He took to it well on his first day. All they did was go round in circles - walk up the magic carpet and ski down the gentle slope on the other side. Half way they got a break and then went back out for the final hour. He was much, much less keen on the second day and wailed loud and long. Until we left. And then he was fine. We watched him a bit from a distance and although he's one of the smallest in the group he did really well. Although his crying continued each morning, he was really chuffed with himself by the end of each session, so we knew he was basically ok.

Starting early before the sun hit the slopes

In the sun

 We skied for the 2 hours he was in his class and then played a bit with him on the beginner's slope before lunch. We all had a little nap and then some of us went back out for a final hour or so, depending on the weather - we had quite a range from brilliant sunshine on the first day to fresh snow falls over night and even a half day of rain in the middle.

For the past 15 years or so, my 'ski holiday' has actually been about snowboarding. I've really enjoyed it and felt I had advanced quite well. I even boarded for 4 days 2 years ago when I was pregnant with Fingerling and felt safe and comfortable. For some reason this year, I caught The Fear. Maybe I'm getting older and stiffer or maybe I'm just too afraid of breaking something, but I didn't enjoy my half day on the board at all. Instead, I maybe didn't look good, but my 2 full days on skis were much more enjoyable (and an awful lot easier on the body and mind). It probably didn't help that on my first turn on the snowboard I slipped on ice and landed sharply on my rear end (I'm still having trouble sitting), but mostly I just felt more confident on skis. An individual lesson reminded me of all those rules I learned years ago on the dry ski slopes of Tillicoultry.

Fingerling also got her first taste of snow, so to speak. And looked as non-plussed as her big brother did at the same age.

And then it was time to go home...at least for Fingerling and I. The hospital had called and we had a bone scan scheduled for Wednesday morning. We took the train back to Paris Tuesday night, sad to leave the mountains and half the family, but happy to have got away at all.

Small Fry felt sad too until he got his new toy. 

Thank you especially to Moon, Abuelo (and Pacotio) i.e. chefs, babysitters and ski buddies, for a wonderful stay.

Outpatient #Notamomenttoosoon

As I had a home birth, I wondered how long it would take me to actually have to use a Parisian hospital. As it turns out, I had hoped it would be longer than 17 months, although retrospectively it should probably have been a little sooner.

Fingerling woke up with a limp just over 2 weeks ago. Within 2 days we had seen the doctor and within another 2 days we had the results of blood tests and an x-ray. The blood work showed elevated levels that signal an infection, but the x-ray was clear. This meant that she probably had an infection rather than a fracture. Of course then it was the weekend and we didn't get back to see the doctor until Monday. She explained about the infection bit and told us to keep an eye on it - it should improve over the coming week but if her temperature started rising then we should take her directly to the hospital.

We left it a week as she had no fever and, if anything, the limp got worse. She wouldn't put any pressure whatsoever on her foot and resorted to crawling to get around. El Puma noticed on Tuesday that her foot seemed to be sensitive and that led me to call MDFR (My Dear Friend Rosanna) who is a Dr Dr (both the academic and medical kind) in New Zealand. Despite the time difference she called me back straight away and it was her who consulted with her paediatric colleagues and then recommended I see the GP again. No need even for that in France: it's handy having your doctor's mobile number and email address.

The doctor directed me to go to Necker, the hospital for sick children. Well, I had to be a little bit practical about it all (work, day care etc) so I decided to go first thing Thursday morning. And that is how both Fingerling and I crossed the threshold of a French hospital Emergency Department for the first time.

Necker opened at the turn of the 19th Century as a paediatric hospital - the first of its kind in the Western world. It hosts around 300 000 consultations annually, of which around 20% are from outside Paris itself (including foreigners). It's both a teaching and research hospital, which means it has all the labs and equipment it needs on site, which makes for speedy test results, as we found out.

We 'checked in' first to the Emergency Department and I had just about enough time to snap this photo before we were called through. 

A junior doctor took Fingerling's history and did the initial check while Fingerling lay on the gurney. I could see that she was a bit scared but she was trying not to cry. Every so often a little whimper would come out, but she was really brave, especially when they stuck a canola in her hand in order to do a blood test. They left it in just in case she needed more blood tests later. Anyway, the junior doctor pretty much found nothing, which didn't surprise me.

The junior doctor then brought in her consultant who was the one who did a proper check while Fingerling sat comfortably on my knee - and it was her who found that the problem was not in the hip (as we all first thought) but in the left ankle. And once she had pointed it out to me, I could also see that it was quite swollen.

The blood test was sent away to be analysed and we were taken directly for an x-ray of the ankle. I'd hardly had time to get my bags together before we were given the films by the radiographer and sent directly to the ultrasound lab. There we also didn't wait more than 2 minutes before we were seen, and got those results in less than 5 minutes too (and they played nursery rhymes to her on a tablet during the procedure...bonus). 

Plenty of energy for a sick kid

Between the x-ray and the ultrasound

The longest wait was to get the blood results (around 1 hour). Here is Fingerling not impressed at all at actually having to do some waiting. It was so warm that she could stay comfortably in only her nappy but she wasn't allowed to eat or drink until after all the tests were done. I couldn't either (didn't seem fair) and I was bright red in the face by the time I could get any water inside me (stolen from Fingerling's bottle while she was sleeping...ahem).

And then I stopped taking photos because we got sent home. The consultant reviewed everything and said the next step was an MRI, but the machine wasn't available, so we were free to go (and wait for her call telling me when the MRI would be free). Fingerling had fallen asleep in the hot waiting room and so I decided to go to the hospital café for food and drink. When she woke up she had some lunch too. We then bundled ourselves up nice and warm as it had just started snowing.

So la di da, we headed on home. I'd gone 3 metro stops when I got a call from the consultant saying she had reviewed Fingerling's case with the orthopaedic consultant and he wanted us to come back and be admitted. So back we went.

By this time the waiting room was full and we didn't get seen for an hour. He went through everything with us while the senior doctor joined us in order to join in. He told us that he suspects a bone infection and the protocol is to admit Fingerling for 3 days of strong IV antibiotics. However, he also said that if we were willing to take on a slightly larger share of the responsibility in terms of organising her treatment, then we could go home. This seemed preferable to me and so we got another blood test done (that would be used to grow cultures to see which bacteria it was) and then she got a cast on her left leg to immobilise the ankle.

And then finally we could go home - with a mound of paperwork of instructions, prescriptions and test results. We got home around 1830, Fingerling very proud of her cast and bandages on her hands, and Small Fry very jealous of all the attention not going to him.

So he found his own way: 

Today the senior doctor called us to follow up with how Fingerling was doing and to let us know that the cultures are growing something. This will help specify the antibiotics she needs. Either way, she'll need to be on them for 6 weeks as bone infections are apparently hard to get rid of. Apparently they are worried about long-term damage to the bone if it's not treated, and as she has already been limping for 3 weeks, they want to make sure treatment is fast.

The next step is to do a scintigraphy test, which will tell us whether the infection is localised to the ankle or has spread to other bones. I was hoping we could get it done today, but it looks like it will be Monday at the earliest. That's a bit frustrating as we were meant to go skiing tomorrow for a week. At the moment it looks like the boys will go by car with Abuelo and Pacotio, while the girls will stay here with Moon. As soon as the test is done we'll try and get some fresh mountain air for a couple of days, before coming back to Paris on Thursday for another X-ray and ultrasound, follow by the appointment with the orthopaedic consultant next Friday. He wants to see a drop in her infection levels in her blood and will hopefully take off the cast. Whatever, she's pretty happy:

Love #life #love #insomanyways #Valentines'day

Breaking through #Firstdaffies #favouriteflower #spring

Before and after #springclean #thechop

This is how we roll #30kg #upperbodyworkout

That would be one 15kg kid and another tipping the scales at 10kg, plus a scooter, scooter helmet, school bag, garderie bag and snack bag (i.e. my hand bag).

And that's how I've lost my remaining 4kg (with a little help from bronchitis).

Best Valentines ever #notthehubby

Catch up #lifefilesby

And Shrove Tuesday is upon us again! It wasn't quite this, or even the Pancake Party of yesteryear*, but I'm still pretty impressed I made pancakes at all. And this year I had a little helper.

And to catch you up on all our other news:

i) I am really enjoying work. Apart from the lovely break, the work is interesting and colleagues are kind. I met with the Director today who reminded me to have fun. And fun I will have! (and what's not to like about lunches with friends and coffees with...more friends). That is the cool thing about the OECD - we have built our lives around the place and it holds a large proportion of our Paris-based friends! I've branched out with the kids and all, but now it just makes both work and non-work time fun.

Still, I can't believe that on this day 10 years ago I was in the very same organisation, pretty much doing almost exactly the same job. I wonder where I'll be in 10 years' time.

ii) Fingerling is still limping. As it's a viral infection, there's nothing to do but wait until her body gets rid of it. The doctor's advice was 'rest'. Try telling that to a 16 month old.

iii) And we've been hit with a massive storm (if there wasn't one about the weather, I wouldn't be a Brit): high winds, driving rain, and the metro a sweaty damp mass of people. Can't win 'em all.

*The first year I moved to Paris I hosted a Pancake Party Birthday Party at my place, which became a rather large annual event.

Dr Dr #It'snojoke

You know, I promised myself that I would be very strict about my 'working from home' hours, which is only fair. But I didn't calculate that ALL of the hours covered by daycare, I'll be working. When someone pointed out that there wouldn't be time for 'me' I sort of laughed it off - after all, I'm not working Thursdays at all.

But today as I was trying to make regular gynaecological and dermatological checkups, beautician and physio appointments for myself and regular doctor appointments for the kids' ongoing health checkups, I did realise that actually there is NO spare time built into my week at all. There are so many appointments that I just cannot take Fingerling along to with me - both for her sake and mine - and the rest of the week I am either working or not working because I am doing something like picking up the kids from school.

I had to work appointments around when I know family will be staying with us so that they can do a school pick up or look after Fingerling. But that's meant the morning of my birthday will be spent at 3 different locations just doing the things I can't do when I am either working or have Fingerling hanging around with me.

What brought it all home to me was our ongoing health disasters. Thanks to the antibiotics I took to help me get over my bronchitis (and associated retching) a few weeks' back, I managed to develop oral thrush. El Puma is only just hanging on to his health thanks to a seriously overburdened workload, while Fingerling's little limp has required an x-ray of the joints in her leg plus a blood test.

She potentially has something called a 'rhume de hanche', which literally translates as a cold in the hip, but has nothing to do with colds. It's basically an inflammation of the joints in the leg (usually the hip) and even my English websites told me it was very common in 1-3 year olds. The x-ray was to make sure she hadn't done something more serious, while the blood test was to establish whether the inflammation is viral or bacterial. Bacterial is serious and will require antibiotics (great) while viral should gradually disappear although it may flare up again in the future.

All in all, a bit of a grim start to the year. Especially because out of the blue Fingerling has developed a deep aversion to doctors. Honestly, until last month she was TOTALLY fine and now she clings to me like a little monkey and screams, before the doctor's even started anything. I'll say it again: I'll be looking forward to going back to work on Monday just for a break!

Fingerling's little legs

Working from home #recovering

Aaaand that's my 2 days of work in the office this week done. I had to come home and lie down to recover. It's definitely not the work itself. More the rushing around and galactic levels of organisation required to keep us functioning (food on the table, clothes washed, the right school bags packed with the right 'equipment', the right child dropped off and collected at the right location by the right person...and preparing everything the night before...and then a full day of work or so too...plus related administration which is s t i l l ongoing). 

And now I begin my two mornings of working from home, and I might even actually miss the friendly work atmosphere (division coffee breaks).

Although Fingerling has developed a bit of a funny limp. She woke up with it this morning and it was clearly causing her some pain. Didn't stop her wearing daddy's shoes though...

. 

OECD Official #Backtothefuture

After 7 years and 31 days I officially returned to the world of of the OECD today. I've been working on and off on various consultancy contracts for them ever since the end of my PhD, but today I actually did my work in my new office, instead of my living room-office. 

And it was quite a nice feeling, once I got there. El Puma drops off Small Fry at school at 08h15, and I drop off Fingerling at the garderie at 08h30, but the metro station is closer to the garderie than the school, so we took the same train to the same building. Aaah, sweet. Well, sweet to be with him, but not the other 20 people in our personal space on the train. So I might try and bike it in the future.

I found my office, found my password, and found my new colleagues, who are a lovely bunch of people. First stop: a coffee break. I could get used to this work malarky.

The rest of the day was spent doing all those important administrative things that come with a new job: finding my way around the building (really not that simple. I almost always end up on the wrong floor or turn the wrong way or simply go round in circles. It's apparently not that uncommon in this building), finding my way around my computer (hello Windows after 7 years of Apple), finding my way around OECD procedures (badge, benefits etc), and finding out how subsidised the internal cafés are.

Somewhere in there I even had a work meeting, but I can tell you, none of it was as hard as dealing with Fingerling's teeth. That was El Puma's job today. Instead, I arrived home at 1930 to my dinner on the table and the kiddies ready for bed. And what a welcome: they ran to me and I got the best cuddles ever. Now I know how daddy usually feels. The downside was that I only got about 20 minutes with them, the upside was that I only got about 20 minutes with them...just kidding...

Of course, after we'd eaten it was time to prepare all the lunches for tomorrow, make sure all the right bags were filled with the right nappies/doudous/slippers/snacks and make sure all the right clothes were ready. I'm tired, but overall really happy to be back at work where I feel part of something purposeful and important.

But I am also still very, very glad that it's not every day.