Admission to KKH

What a shocker of a weekend.

After a blissful trip to Hong Kong ( which NEARLY didn't happen for him ), Liam came back and was promptly sick !

It was all rather sudden. One day he was fine and the next he had this raging fever that wouldn't go away despite all the antipyretics he was given.

Chris and I were supposed to have flown to Seoul on Friday night, but seeing that his fever was 41 degrees Celcius we took him to KKH emergency department to have some tests done.

It was really fortunate that Dr Arif was on duty and when he heard the history he advised admission. He told me that he'd seen a few cases of kids with viraemic 'shock' and that it was better that he was in hospital in case it happened.




Chris continued with his trip while I stayed back with Liam. It was so fortunate that it being Friday the older 2 could stay over with the grandparents!

Liam was thoroughly miserable and clingy on admission. By midnight the on call registrar came in and advised that he was put on an IV drip as he was likely dehydrated. By golly. That was stressful. The first guy that came in was obviously inexperienced and couldn't get it in over 2 tries. I asked for his registrar to come and do it. Fortunately she got it in, otherwise I'd have asked for a paediatric anaesthetist to come in.


The next few days were terrible. Liam was cranky, refusing to eat or drink anything and was really clingy. His temperatures were still high and only broke after day 5. He started having diarrhoea as well and it was such a hassle to change his diapers everytime as his IV plug was on his foot.


Chris did come back Monday at 3 am so I got to go home and have my first sleep then.

Thankfully Liam's fever finally broke on Monday afternoon, Monday night he had a low grade temperature and by Tuesday he was finally afebrile.

Of course to complicate matters he was found to have a cardiac murmur AND a low haemoglobin.

So now we have an appointment to see the cardiologist on Monday next week and a follow up appointment with the paediatrician in 3 months.

Liam was discharged Tuesday morning, and he's never been so happy to be home! The other kids were also nicer to him for a little while before the fighting started again.

All the lab tests came back negative and so he was diagnosed with the usual 'viral fever'. It was seriously a traumatic experience, but I have nothing but a really good experience with the ward nurses and the paediatrician. ( My only complaint would be the MOs on call in the ward that night -- really poor attitude and poor communication skills!)