Yes indeed. Started with a bang at about 0430 with Benjamin demanding a feed, which was duly administered. Unfortunately as has been par for the course lately, doing so (and the burping, etc), ran to over an hour and even more unfortunately, I began to suspect his ability to deal with the nasal drip he's been coping with as a byproduct of his allergy. This caused me concern enough to wake up Liz at about 0600 and for us to together, agree shortly thereafter that a visit to the Afterhours (Accident and Emergency at Hutt Hospital) was on the cards.

For those unaware, our son Ben (born in December) has been exhibiting the same symptoms as our daughter did 4 years ago, with regards to an allergy to Dairy. Rash, irritability, and other symptoms abound, and in essence its been getting harder and harder to feed him and settle him afterward. Over the last few days, sleep was getting harder to come by (we estimate his hours of sleep in the time to Midday Saturday was in the order of 2 hours for the previous 36.)

We've been working the system as we're meant to, to get Ben's situation addressed. A visit to a (private) paediatrician recently didn't help much, as it appears he doesn't subscribe to the kinds of problems our Son is facing. With serious concerns for his wellbeing, the only way to accellerate our getting help through the public system was to visit A&E. So we did this; we were there by shortly before 0730 this morning.

Fortunately, given that it was early on a Sunday, the ER was quiet. We were seen relatively quickly and after briefing the registrar, then a junior Paed doc, we waited for the Paediatrician. Ben moved between quiet, and loudlyuncomfortable, while we waited. And waited. I must recognise, though, that the staff at the ER were excellent, friendly and helpful - they checked on us regularly and made sure we were well looked after. Biggie ups to them! The chief delays are around waiting for doctors/specialists.

Eventually (after we'd been there about 3 hours total, so around 1030am) we learn the Paediatrician has been called away on an urgent task, but there's good news; the prescription we've been waiting for (for a special non-dairy formula) is being arranged. Hopefully by the end of Monday, all will be working it's way back to normal!

So we're home by 11 or so and after catching up with some bits and pieces at home, we dash out to run a few errands. On our return we have some lunch and chill out for a while; we set up the Paddling Pool for Laura and she had a blast with it. (Incidentally, inflating a large paddling pool manually was such a daunting task I grabbed the 12v electric pump. Unfortunately the only nozzle that fit the pool was a sports-ball type (the very thin ones used to pump up rugby balls, etc) so it took a while....

Afterwards as we're winding down and starting to think about our evening plans, the Pager goes off; Scrubbie in Taita, near the Pick-a-Part. So I spent several hours there to wrap up my night.

A busy day, a long one, but a productive one in several respects. Liz and i are both very grateful that we're starting to see some progress with Ben's situation; it's infuriating to both of us that we've seen all this before (with Laura, 4.5yrs his senior) and yet have struggled to work through the 'normal' health system to see that his situation is taken care of. The chief delays appear to be in arranging access to specialists; >1month to get an outpatients appointment with a Paediatrician!

I'm reliably informed that Wellington Hospital Area are severely shortstaffed in Paediatrics. Hutt Hospital is better, I gather, but one wonders if that's better enough... there's no way that Ben could've lasted another whole month without being in constant discomfort, and how's that fair on the poor man (or the sleep deprived parents??)

Anyway, must head for bed; this week should be fun (it includes an overnighter to Auckland) and there's plenty of little details to take care of; RSVPing for a Wedding in April, planning for a relocation of a family member to Tauranga from Wellington, and prepping for a week-long Auckland stay in a few weeks time...