Sick kids, guilty mom

Why does motherhood have to be so guilt ridden?

This time it was because Annika came down with a high fever.

Last Thursday the kids slept over at the grandparents because Friday is SGH anaesthesia day.

Of course everyone is bouncing off the walls and absolutely FINE Thursday evening.

And of course I find out that Annika is running a high fever VIA SMS just as I am at my maximum stress.

Why? I get to SGH feeling a bit worried ( do they still need me anymore? they recently added to their MO head count!! )

Then the roster person takes a while to reply to my message telling me where to go for the day. Actually she replies "who is this?" to my message. Great. So I go up and look for her and she is all flustered trying to sort things out. So she tells me to go send the fella ALREADY at L8 to the day surgery(WHHHAT??I'd rather go to day surgery!!)

SO I get there and try to get ready. Of course the case turns out to be some cancer with neck dissections etc..argh! I start to panic. Have to wait for consultant to come and decide what they want to do.

And then the surgeons etc turn up but NO consultant anaesthetist. Panic more.

Of course in the end I manage to piss the consultant anaesthetist off( not my fault if he doesn't answer his phone ! )

Right in the midst of all this I get this sms that Annika is having a high fever so no school for her?

ACCK!!
Everything turned out ok in the end, Annika was sick but still happy, I got to put an arterial line in, played with the fibreoptic scope for like 2 minutes, and babysat the case till 5pm.

And yesterday was Madison's turn to fall ill. The fever's been pretty high.. she hasn't had a real fever for a few months now. Of course we hardly slept last night.

I'm getting a little tired of doing this anaesthesia thing, but I feel that I should persist. Otherwise why even start? There must be a greater meaning to it. It just sucks to go there so early every Friday, get screwed by some anaesthetist and feel generally tense. And then the kids have to sleep over Thursday night (which Madison LOVES).

Maybe they'll tell me soon that they don't need me to come in anymore. I keep thinking that'll happen anytime now. Especially since they have been sending out emails about new doctors joining them. Sigh.