Hospital: Days 2 & 3: Tests, Tests, Tests!

Day 2: Blood Test

Heel pricks are no biggie. Well, they are. They involve a little cut to the heel before a very thin tube is filled with blood. Frankie cried but she's had a tonne of them and they're over pretty quick. A full blood test however is much more traumatic. It takes forever and the screaming is non-stop. Poor bubba gets so upset and is inconsolable both during and after. This one in particular was the worst yet. It literally took about seven minutes. Seven minutes feels like a damn eternity when you're holding a screaming baby who's trying to pull their leg away from the pathology lady who had a vice grip and is squeezing the damn thing like no tomorrow to fill three, yes three, little blood collection tubes.

Day 3: Barium Swallow

At 12:30pm Frankie and I were loaded into a wheelchair and zipped through the back alleys of the hospital to Medical Imaging. With wind in her hair, Frankie drew the attention of each passer-by with her wide eyes, taking in the new sights and grateful to be outside the four walls of her room. We were put in a holding bay where we waited, and waited and waited. The bouncing and rocking around was punctuated only by a wardie who came over multiple times to poke and smile at and talk to Frankie. Lovely...until he touched her bare hand with his. Covid! I couldn't help but wonder how many wards that hand had visited today. Finally we were taken into the x-ray room where I donned the lead skirt, vest and neck shield. The bouncing and rocking of Frankie continued as I tried my best to entertain an increasingly tired and hungry baby who had now been stripped down to just a nappy and was being held in my arms against the armour I had on. Frankie, a lovely radiographer and an even lovelier nurse made small talk while we waited for the doctor. Eventually she breezed in and started casually filling me in on what was to come and checking medication while Frankie became harder and harder to distract from her hunger and exhaustion. Even the nurse muttered "Oh, just get on with it," and I couldn't have said it better myself.

The scan itself was tense. Frankie was holding onto her sense of calm with an increasingly slim thread. Her favourite crab toy worked overtime as her little red eyes glazed over and tears gathered at their corners. For the most part she didn't cry, just lay there terrified as they rolled her onto her side, held her down firmly and rolled her back again while pushing barium down her tube and watching as her reflux bought it back up again making her cough and splutter. Her eyes got more and more sad and a look of betrayal filled them as she looked up at me. Eventually she cracked it so they finished things up and I grabbed her while the nurse worked to strip the lead off me as I tried to comfort Frankie. Over the screams of a baby the doctor attempted to talk to me about how the scan showed reflux (duh!) and that perhaps I could try medication. Oh, and that she'd "grow out of it." What she didn't know was that we had been on medication for months and that this kid just wasn't growing at the rate she should be. I couldn't hold it in any longer. "She can't stay this size forever!" I snapped before the nurse grabbed my bag and took me out of the room.

Frankie is unimpressed by all of the tests.