No pictures, leaving it to your imagination :)

Dear Matt,

This event took place on the Saturday August 13th, 2011. I shall never forget what happened on that early evening…

It was your shower time, and you were being your usual difficult self, the negotiation was finalised with a bath instead of a shower, ‘the big one’ was your code for the big bath (appropriately called on your part as the bath was actually big enough to fit three grown ups).

The water temperature in the bath was perfect, and it was ran to a reasonable height (you actually wanted to fill it right up to the edge, luckily I was still sober, so you lost that one). The routine ran without a hitch, so I’d left you alone in the bath so that you can enjoy your water time…

After a while, you went quiet… never was a good sign :) With my Spiderman like senses, I rushed to the bathroom to see you standing up, smiling from ear to ear! (another never was a good sign), in your right hand you were gently grasping something and slowly you raised it up and showed it to me every so proudly…

My face was one of absolute HORROR, my heart stopped pumping blood to my brain, the room began to spin, but I didn’t have time to pass out, the task in hand was too great…

For in your right hand was a small lump of ‘poo’ (there I said it), very, very unfortunately you have been eating your vegetable so you can imagine the state of the lump in your hand, no wonder why you were ever so gentle with it. I would like to apologise for my reaction, with hind sight it wasn’t the end of the world, I was only cross with you because I didn’t want you to be swimming in your own faeces, I can still see bits of floating carrots in my mind like it had just happened… (sigh…), when will the image fade I have no idea, but soon I hope :)

You of course are fine and dandy now, and will probably do it again if were given the chance… I shall never let you play alone in the bath again, never… ever… perhaps when you turn 23 or something :)

Love you,

Mum and Dad.

Getting back to normal (sort of) :)

A month had just rushed us by like a light wind from the bowel on a breezy day (obviously, boarding school still have an influence on my taste of what is funny) :) After Matt came out from the hospital most of the worst was over, the high temp. and the vomiting was behind us, the red rash was however still there although it seems to come and go now, every morning and every night.

We began to suspect everything that may be the cause of his allergic reaction, dust?, Washing powder?, fabric conditioner?, strawberries?, pillow?, teddy bear?, even bread (this came from the Dr.). After everything we think we got the right one now, for the past several weeks a room near us was being painted and some days the smell was quite overwhelming, then we noticed the correlation between the bad ‘paint smell day’ and the amount of rash he had. Keeping everything constant I believe the correlation can now be upgrade to a causation… :)

At the end of July, we decided to take a short break to the Rose Garden, that turned out to be another fantastic idea from Gio. To make things a little bit more interesting we decided to rent a Thai style house instead of staying in the Hotel, a change of pace was fantastic and it was just what I needed before starting a new job in August :)

Matt surprises us all in eating so many new things on this trip, from Pineapple (he calls it Mango), BBQ pork to jelly (that we believed he hated).

 
 



Apparently Rose Garden is over 30 years old and quite popular with the tourists. I liked the culture village, enough different activities there to keep things interesting, although it must be a bit annoying if there were too many people.

Matt had a chance to make a buffalo from clay (wow, what a mess), touched a buffalo, and feed the elephants. Enough to entertain us most of the afternoon.









I was totally paranoid on this elephant ride, with my weight and the heavy looking wooden seat I was convince the elephant was swearing at us with every step he/she took, lol.


























































 











 




From August on several things will change, well, for one thing, this new job of mine will eventually require me to travel a lot more, then there is Matt new school which will be a big change for the whole family (new time table for the whole house, lol), then the biggest change of all in November (touch wood), Matt’s little sister, I am more nervous this time round than the first, can not wait to hold her in my arms :)

Has the fat lady sung?

Dear Matt,

Hopefully, It comes in threes, well you had the high temperature (39.7C), then as soon as that was over you developed a terrible allergic reaction to something (still recovering), and then last last Monday you had to be admitted into the hospital, because from one am to five am (Monday), you were vomiting on the hour every hour, and by seven you were definitely not yourself, probably tired from all the strain.

Enough was enough, your mother wasn’t getting any rest and nor were you, and to have three things running one after another was just too much, so the idea to admit you really helped us on so many level.

The worst thing was when the nurses had to put in the intravenous line, luckily I was not there :)

You came out yesterday, and today we decided to let you go to Noddy for the 3 hours (in the morning), perhaps it was too soon, but after your afternoon rest you were as right as rain… like I said, I hope the fat lady had already sung her final tune with you :)

Cheers.

I am officially exasperated…

Hi Matt,

I am officially exasperated with the past 2 weeks or so, it all started with small rashes which were very itchy, after a hospital visit, a course of medicines were prescribed to take care of that, and it worked wonderfully as only after 3 days all the red patches went away, only to be replaced by a mind blowing 39.7 C temperature which even Tylenol couldn’t keep down. It took a couple more visits to the hospital to get this one under control.

Then the vicious red rash returned with a vengeance (another hospital visit), in about forty eight hours it became  a huge red rash taking over you entire back, then slowly it reached around to the front and suddenly it decided to do a two prongs attack, the main part decided to head south towards your thighs and then your calf, while the lesser part decided to head north, towards your head, swelling follows the red rash like a shadow… not a pretty sight :)

Last night we felt ever so sorry for you, scratching like mad in your sleep, so the next morning as soon as you had finished your breakfast, you made a well rehearsed trip to the hospital, this time there were no gentle inspection… The Dr. decided to take your blood sample, your mother said it was so heart breaking to hear you cry, sorry baby.

And at this very moment, your high fever have now return too… I truly hope you’ll be fine tomorrow…

“What an interesting week :)” just got a lot more interesting :)

After all the hospital visits, the worrying 39+ temperature, the coughing, the sneezing not to mention all of those medicines and when we thought all of it was behind us, it all turned out to be just an ‘Hor d’oeuvre’.

 

Here is the main course, as soon as everything was returning to normal we discovered yesterday afternoon that Matt had developed these red blotches, and it was growing. Not giving it much thought, because he had this prior to the very recent high temp. spell, the Dr. just prescribed some anti-allergy meds. and after a few days the red patches were gone.

 

But by the afternoon the red patches just got angrier, and it was now spreading all over the neck and face, so we decided to once again visit the hospital… oh what joy.

 

Visiting yet another Dr., this one was a lot more methodical, and after a length discussion, we (actually probably me more than the wife) believed it was the darn ‘Strawberries’ he ate yesterday. The summer school starts this Monday, we are hoping all this will be cleared up by then, fingers crossed :)

What an interesting week :)

Dear Matt,

What an interesting few days, your mother noticed that you were slightly hot on the Friday which was your final day at school, then on the Saturday the slightly hot turned out to be hot, and very quickly turned out to be your first visit to the hospital, after all the meds. your temperature was still raising, we gave it the night to see if it would get better. Imagine your mother who was also suffering from a flu (but due to her pregnancy, no medications were allowed) having to get up every hour or so just to check you temperature praying that it won’t go above 40C.

 

As it turned out, it almost did, on the following day (Sunday) it reached a close 39.7C that had prompted us to take another visit to the hospital, after receiving more medicine all we could do was to return home.

 

On the Monday, nothing was working fast enough for us, decided to change your Tylenol to Ibuprofen, it immediately worked, trust me you couldn’t have heard a louder sigh anywhere in the universe at that moment :)

 

All throughout Monday’s night I was up every hour or so measuring your temp. just so that we know exactly when the effect of the medicine had worn off, and it certainly did at around 3 am (Tuesday), signaling another dose of Tylenol.

 

By Wednesday you were pretty much down to normal temp. without any help from the medicines, however, that was when it was my turn to get ill. As soon as I woke up on the Wednesday I knew something was going to be very wrong in deed, haa haa haa. Ended up going to work as usual (too many important meetings to take the day off), then coming home that night was like reaching land after being lost at sea for 10 years (on a small dingy boat too).

 

On the Thursday, first thing I did after breakfast was to visit the hospital, after which I ended up sleeping for the next nineteen hours or so. And so here we are on the Friday (again), everyone is recovering, evn your mother and at this moment in time there is no one I worry more about than your mother :) hope things will also get better for her too (and soon).

39.5 C

Dear Matt,

It didn’t get better, your antibiotic was administered last night as soon as we returned from the hospital, and then again this morning. All through out the day through phone calls, Whatapps, SMS, BB Chat and so on, I was getting an almost minute by minute graph of your temperature, was it a bit over the top, perhaps but you have no idea how worried we were, and in fact still are.

I came home this evening and found that you temperature was above 39.5 C, the Dr. wasn’t too worried, just told us to give the antibiotic a chance to work and to give you plenty of water. Like what I have said before, usually Tylenol would work like a charm, but not this time, luckily earlier in the afternoon, I remembered there was an Ibuprofen syrup bottle in the fridge, and it said on the bottle for very high temperature. After your mother had checked with the Dr., it was fine to give it to you.

Ibuprofen was administered about an hour ago, together with the antibiotic, right now you are down to around 37.5 which is somewhat giving me a peace of mind, we are hoping it holds through out the night :)

39 C

Dear Matt,

We have never seen you this bad, the temp. medicine doesn’t seem to be working so we went back to the hospital again this evening, this time we were prescribed an antibiotic, that and the temp. med was administered around 20:00, and at 24:00 another dose of the temp. med was administered (also just gave you another rub down at around mid night), hope things will be better at 04:00.

38.5 C

Dear Matt,

Here we go again, didn’t want to take any chances. The weather have been terrible lately and it wasn’t a surprise to have you come down with a flu, especially when you mother have been suffering from one for the past couple of weeks.

 

But as soon as your temperature went over 38 it was time to get you to the hospital, in the past we would fear coming to the hospital because we had to somehow get you to take the medicines that were prescribed, but of course those worries are long gone, giving you medicine is now as easy as getting you to eat an ice-cream :)

We were also armed with 2 iPhones, so keeping you quiet during the rub down was also taken cared of (we know all the routines off by heart, anything above 38C gets a rub down), with 3G running like it should Pocoyo was more than willing to keep you occupied :)



Anyway, you are still poorly, but hopefully soon you’ll be as right as rain :)

Unexpected Emotions

Dear Matt,

Your final day at Noddy was unexpectedly quite emotional. Noddy's Principal had arranged the usual farewell graduation ceremony, this round about 25 or so children were moving on to other places, some were leaving the country, but mostly moving on to other schools.

 
There was a big flood at Noddy, so things were very difficult (getting in and out), ended up having to drop you and your mother off first, then drove across the small road to the parking area, after leaving the shoes and socks back in the car and rolled up my jeans to just below the knee (absolutely dashing), I had to slowly stomp across the water to the school and ended up having to borrow this lady's flipflops (red, which went really well with my office attire).

 

 

So by the time I got into the School, the first break of the day had just started, kids were running and playing all around, suddenly I saw Daniel who beeline towards me, shouting your name, 'Panop up stairs', then suddenly turned around and headed to the stairs that  lead to the third floor, what can one do apart from following your best friend. He led me up all the way to the ceremony room, then suddenly left. At that moment I knew I was going to truly miss him, probably more than you will.

Anyway, the ceremony went well, started off with a tear jerking song ("What the world needs now is love sweet love"...) which was sung by your older peers (from other classes who were staying at Noddy). The the Principal made a tear jerking speech (going into some detail of where everyone was going and how long some of them have been at Noddy), followed my a tear jerking graduation ceremony, and a crescendo ending with another tear jerking song.

I had expected you to run up to Elizabeth get your certificate and ran back down, I could not have been more wrong, you should ask me to see the vdo ok. As this was the final day of term Noddy was letting all children off school early, so today everyone was going home at around 10:30, but the flood certainly slowed everything down to a crawl, we decided to hang around and let you and Daniel play while most of the others queued up to leave (trust me it was a very long and slow queue, but luckily the school was giving away free ice-cream... even for parents :), before Daniel went we had a quick chat with his mum, promising each other that we would meet up (she only lives down the road from our place).

So that was it, finally day at Noddy, actually not quite, your summer school starts in a week, but Daniel and most of the others won't be there, so for me it won't be the same, but I would imagine that you will enjoy yourself the same as ever :)

There are load of photos of you and your friend, especially several gorgeous ones of you and Daniel, ask me to show it to you, I don’t feel comfortable posting their photos without their parents’ permission :)