My husband is a mild mannered person who doesn't have the heart to say no when people make requests of him. Consequently, he doesnt like people he deems to be pushy because he feels they take advantage of his willingness to please. Since being married to my husband, I've come to understand his feelings on pushy people and have started to become irritated by them myself. (I personally am a reformed pushy person...)
For all that pushy people irk me, I've come to see the benefits of them- so long as they're on your side.
I mentioned in my last post about the hospital refusing to give me food. My neighbor in my room is the pushy type and got up in arms about the fact that they're denying me nourishment and started a crusade against the management. Thanks to her, I had a decent breakfast this morning, and by the time lunch comes around I'll see if she won't let me fall by the wayside again.
Conclusion: There is a time and a place for pushiness, and I'm quite glad that my hospital room mate is the pushy sort. In places filled with beaurocracy and other senseless stupidity, you sometimes need to be forceful and intimidating to be treated decently. Since I don't have the ability to make these demands myself of the management, I'm really glad that someone else is doing it for me.
And an update on Spike:
He still has a fever and was on an IV drip and oxygen the whole 24 hours we were in the emergency room. (Yes, 24 hours in the ER. I spent a virtually sleepless night on three plastic chairs next to my son's hospital crib. The hospital is overpacked with so many sick kids, so even after we were admitted to the hospital, we were waiting in the ER until there was room in the children's ward.)
Since we got to the ward yesterday evening, my son has been nursing better so he's off intravenus fluids. They tested him to see how he was without oxygen, and he had an oxygen saturation level of 92 while awake and 89/90 while sleeping (100% is ideal and 90 is borderline low). They're not so concerned about his oxygen intake now so he's off oxygen, mostly. While sleeping at night they put a tube gently blowing oxygen near his face and his oxygen levels weren't even borderline low anymore.
Most likely his pneumonia is viral, but just to be on the safe side they're putting him on antibiotics until the culture comes back with the results of the exact nature of the bug he has. If its a virus, they'll take him off, but if its bacterial, we would have helped improve the situation. I'll admit, I'm not thrilled about giving him antibiotics when there's the chance that he has a virus, but I've come to terms with the fact that when I come to the hospital, I let the doctors to take charge. If I was concerned enough to bring him to the hospital because I thought I couldn't handle the situation myself, I will go with what the doctors here say, even if I'm not sure it is ideal, because granted, they have much more experience with this type of stuff that I do.
Anyhow, because they said the bug infiltrated (probably a bad translation of what they said- my grasp of medical terms in my country's language isn't amazing) a decent portion of his lung, there is a bigger chance that what he has is a bacteria as opposed to a virus.
The docs here have mentioned how calm and collected I am, especially for a mother of a kid with pneumonia. I've been through this before and fortunately, my son's situation is not so serious, so why stress about being hospitalized?
I've been taking advantage of this time with a baby who just wants to sleep and not having a computer (I'm borrowing my neighbor's at the moment) to get some computer free tasks done. We've got a costume party coming up in a few weeks and I need costumes for both my kids. I've been working on Lee's costume, cutting out the material and will sew it together when I finish cutting the million parts. When the costume is finished and I'm home with my digital camera, I'll share with you how I made my very low cost cute costume.
Either way, people have been amazed how I've had time for crafts (and how I've had time to type up updates on the computer), but seriously, hospitals are filled with downtime. Nothing to do except give your kid medicine, nebulizers, and hold them when they're crying. But when they're asleep, there isn't much to do- no housework, no responsibilities, so taking my free time to do the mindless work of costume making is making pretty good use of time that would otherwise be spent wandering aimlessly.
There's a chance that the hospital stay here will be shorter than originally thought (possibly not the 5-6 days the docs in the ER guestimated), but I am not getting my hopes up. Because of previous experience, my motto in life is to have low expectations so that I have less chance of being disappointed, and a great chance of being thrilled when things happen much better than I hoped.
Do you try to have high expectations or low expectations in life? If you were I, would you say "Hopefully I'll get released tomorrow" or do you say "We may be here a long time, no use in getting my hopes up"? I'm not a pessimist, but when it comes to expectations, I think its better to expect less and have those expectations met than to expect more and be disappointed when things fall short of expectations.
For all that pushy people irk me, I've come to see the benefits of them- so long as they're on your side.
I mentioned in my last post about the hospital refusing to give me food. My neighbor in my room is the pushy type and got up in arms about the fact that they're denying me nourishment and started a crusade against the management. Thanks to her, I had a decent breakfast this morning, and by the time lunch comes around I'll see if she won't let me fall by the wayside again.
Conclusion: There is a time and a place for pushiness, and I'm quite glad that my hospital room mate is the pushy sort. In places filled with beaurocracy and other senseless stupidity, you sometimes need to be forceful and intimidating to be treated decently. Since I don't have the ability to make these demands myself of the management, I'm really glad that someone else is doing it for me.
And an update on Spike:
He still has a fever and was on an IV drip and oxygen the whole 24 hours we were in the emergency room. (Yes, 24 hours in the ER. I spent a virtually sleepless night on three plastic chairs next to my son's hospital crib. The hospital is overpacked with so many sick kids, so even after we were admitted to the hospital, we were waiting in the ER until there was room in the children's ward.)
Since we got to the ward yesterday evening, my son has been nursing better so he's off intravenus fluids. They tested him to see how he was without oxygen, and he had an oxygen saturation level of 92 while awake and 89/90 while sleeping (100% is ideal and 90 is borderline low). They're not so concerned about his oxygen intake now so he's off oxygen, mostly. While sleeping at night they put a tube gently blowing oxygen near his face and his oxygen levels weren't even borderline low anymore.
Most likely his pneumonia is viral, but just to be on the safe side they're putting him on antibiotics until the culture comes back with the results of the exact nature of the bug he has. If its a virus, they'll take him off, but if its bacterial, we would have helped improve the situation. I'll admit, I'm not thrilled about giving him antibiotics when there's the chance that he has a virus, but I've come to terms with the fact that when I come to the hospital, I let the doctors to take charge. If I was concerned enough to bring him to the hospital because I thought I couldn't handle the situation myself, I will go with what the doctors here say, even if I'm not sure it is ideal, because granted, they have much more experience with this type of stuff that I do.
Anyhow, because they said the bug infiltrated (probably a bad translation of what they said- my grasp of medical terms in my country's language isn't amazing) a decent portion of his lung, there is a bigger chance that what he has is a bacteria as opposed to a virus.
The docs here have mentioned how calm and collected I am, especially for a mother of a kid with pneumonia. I've been through this before and fortunately, my son's situation is not so serious, so why stress about being hospitalized?
I've been taking advantage of this time with a baby who just wants to sleep and not having a computer (I'm borrowing my neighbor's at the moment) to get some computer free tasks done. We've got a costume party coming up in a few weeks and I need costumes for both my kids. I've been working on Lee's costume, cutting out the material and will sew it together when I finish cutting the million parts. When the costume is finished and I'm home with my digital camera, I'll share with you how I made my very low cost cute costume.
Either way, people have been amazed how I've had time for crafts (and how I've had time to type up updates on the computer), but seriously, hospitals are filled with downtime. Nothing to do except give your kid medicine, nebulizers, and hold them when they're crying. But when they're asleep, there isn't much to do- no housework, no responsibilities, so taking my free time to do the mindless work of costume making is making pretty good use of time that would otherwise be spent wandering aimlessly.
There's a chance that the hospital stay here will be shorter than originally thought (possibly not the 5-6 days the docs in the ER guestimated), but I am not getting my hopes up. Because of previous experience, my motto in life is to have low expectations so that I have less chance of being disappointed, and a great chance of being thrilled when things happen much better than I hoped.
Do you try to have high expectations or low expectations in life? If you were I, would you say "Hopefully I'll get released tomorrow" or do you say "We may be here a long time, no use in getting my hopes up"? I'm not a pessimist, but when it comes to expectations, I think its better to expect less and have those expectations met than to expect more and be disappointed when things fall short of expectations.