Unstructured hate rant about hospitals and all who work in them...

Well, to begin with, no one treats you like a human being. In fact, if you are the relative of a patient you are less than a human being. Less than a thing. You are goddam invisible. At least the patient, that biohazardous mass of chemical reactions and intrigue represents a thing to be processed through the system (or if the patient is ill enough in a sufficiently rare or unusual way so as to present some kind of medical enigma, then it is a challenge, to be solved.) No one tells you where things are, who they are or How Things Work. Silly things, which the mother of a deeply sick child might want to know. Like, when mealtime is? Where mealtime is? Where to get drinking water? Who to tell if you have to leave your child to have a wee or get some food for yourself? Whether anyone will bother to look out for your child while you are away? Other things no one can tell you are why has a not-quite-4-year-old been put on a bay for older kids. (To the chavvy, slummy, scowling 17 year old in the bed opposite and your coterie of boyfriends with their irritating D'n'B ring tones and constant tirade of F-words, I don't care how ill you are, I really don't like you.) Nurses, at least, do tell you their name. And smile. And try to make the kids laugh.

Which is more than I can say for doctors. Particularly consultants. To you, I say learn to speak English. No-speak-a-dee-latiny-doctory-bullshit. If I ask What were the results of her bloodtest? I do not want you to cite reams of meaningless raw data. I want to you say what is normal, and what is not. And if things are not normal, I want you to say what the implication is, and what the next steps are. In Plain English. And, if you come round to me and my daughter on your ward round, please do me the courtesy of looking me in the eye first, introducing yourself and explaining who the 10 other people are too.

To student doctors, I have given Jambeans' history 12 times already so I say Sod Off. We are not your guinea pigs. You can blame A&E and their crap, repetitive system for my utter reluctance to help train the next generation of emotionless medicos.

To the Accident & Emergency system that times their process perfectly to wake you up every 70 minutes exactly (or, more frequently if you are super special) to do something to Jambeans that leaves her no further forward, but successfully deprives you both of sleep in the most tortuous way, I say FUCK YOU ALL. I brought Jambeans in a t 9pm on Monday night because she was severly dehydrated. Something that was confirmed by every SHO and Registrar who saw her. So why, 7 hours later, had she still not been offered a drink or given any IV fluids? I could have succeeded better at home, and got more sleep for both of us.

To the A&E Reg who tried to put a canular into Jambeans twice, and failed twice, I say - FAIL. Go home love, you're not good enough.

To Kate and Ellie, the paramedics, I say - you are both very lovely and I deeply admire the work you do.

To Jambeans I say you are the bravest, sweetest little girl in the whole wide world. Mummy is so glad you are out of hospital and wants you to rest up and get better soon.

2 days of hell followed by 2 days of heaven

Had to take Jambeans to hospital just over a week ago. She caught a virus that went to her chest and couldn't breathe easily, and was slipping in and out of consciousness at one point. Mum was with me - we'd arranged for her to come and visit on my day off so I could have a hand - which was a real blessing, though I was a bit mean to her because Jambeans had been so difficult since the morning and I was sooo tired and emotional and finding it hard to cope that when she did turn up after a pretty long commute she had to contend with a very grumpy and snappy babymomma. But thank god she was there because it helped me make the decision to take the bub to hospital.

When we got there it wasn't too busy and they took one look at the bub and fast-tracked her right through triage. Then they gave her oxygen and a course of nebulizers over the next few hours that seemed to help enormously, plus a bit of paracetamol and ibuprofen for the temperature. Jambeans behaved enormously well, given that she was confined to a single bed for hours, but she was so poorly she didn't feel much like scrumbling around until much much later, when we were all knackered and she was perking up.

They discharged us around 11pm - we had got there at 4pm and bf had joined us straight after work - so we were all beginning to find it a bit of an ordeal.

Next day was uber tough too as we were so knackered. It was my first Friday working since going up to 4 days a week but I didn't go in and stayed home to help Bf look after the bub.

Steve and Jessica (la Gitane) were coming for dinner so we had an italian picnic (ie - no cooking involved) in the garden and it very chilled and wonderful and set the tone for two glorious days of sunshine and happy baby ahead, so we went back to Kew gardens and got totally blissed out again.