Madison's 3rd round of vaccinations

The time has finally arrived for the dreaded "V": vaccination...

I have been dreading this all month really, and contemplating whether to give her the pneumococcal vaccine at this visit. It's an additional injection, but considering that we take her regularly to the swimming pool now, I felt it would be prudent to protect her against invasive pneumococcal disease. The Prevenar vaccine is a 7 valent vaccine covering almost 90% of the strains of Strep Pneumoniae that cause invasive pneumococcal disease.

I think Madison knew somehow that something not right was up... I suppose it started quite innocuously when I gave her the liquid paracetamol in the afternoon by surprise. Her mood changed from chirpy to moody. After her nap, Pa dropped Madison, Nancy and me at KKH. In the car she was already teary and crying! Which she almost never does anymore in the afternoons because she usually knows we're going out shopping!

At the Private Children's clinic, Chris met us there. I tried to distract Madison by walking around with her, then we sat in the waiting area while she twiddled with my handbag. Once we were in Dr Yong Yin Peng's clinic ( appt at 1500h) she became more nervous. She was still fine up till the point when she was prepared for the injections. She was made to straddle Chris and he held her down while Dr Yong and a staff nurse simultaneously gave her the 2 injections : 6 in 1 and the Prevenar in each thigh. The Prevenar went in the right thigh. Before the needle touched her she was already screaming in fear... and the cries crescendoed when they stabbed her. Madison nearly went purple crying in anger and pain!

We quickly took her out and Ma came around and carried her to distract her. I think once outside she calmed down quite quickly. After the visit, we went to the Kopitiam to have a drink. I bought Madison a bottle of mineral water and she suddenly became quite attached to her mineral water bottle! She would scream if I tried to take it away from her.. it was quite amusing.

At home she cheered up a little, but of course was quite unhappy about getting another dose of paracetamol. The night was uneventful, but come morning... the grouchiness started ...

Madison developed a fever of 38C and was super cranky the entire day, as well as being tired and irritable. We dosed her up with more paracetamol and gave her a cool bath, which seemed to help. Her appetite was decreased as well, refusing to take much milk or other liquids. She managed some lunch though, surprisingly.

The second night was hellish too. Madison was tired out in the early evening, crying easily, so we put her to bed by 8 PM. Things were fine until 2AM, she woke in a tangle of her swaddle ( goodness knows how she managed to struggle out of her swaddle!) After a feed she seemed to settle and go back to sleep, but then woke in tears at 4 AM, but Chris managed to rock her back to sleep at 0430h, then at 0540h she was awake again! I fed her again and she fell back asleep. I think Chris and I started the day EXHAUSTED.

Again her appetite seemed to be diminished... and she looked a tad skinnier???