The Clan

Matt has been sick for few days, starting from Sunday. We thought he just caught a cold, as me and Jet and then Lina have caught it.

But last night, it was getting worse – his breathing was heavy and his cry was softer. So this morning Lina took him to see the doctor at Uni.

When the doctor examines him – she was very concerned – she couldn’t hear Matt’s lung sound (is that you hear when you use stethoscope?). So she took him to another room in the clinic that has respiratory equipments in it – she put a mask for Matt to inhale and she put some medication through the mask. She then checked the lung again – this time she could hear things – but it was very noisy she said. So she quickly decided that Matt needs to go to the hospital. She called ambulance, Lina offered me to drive him to hospital – but the doctor said she doesn’t want Matthew to get out in the cold weather outside – as his sickness could get worse quickly.

And it did get worse, moments before the ambulance came, Matt was shivering and getting pale. When the ambulance came – the officers were concerned about him too. They immediately gave him adrenaline and steroid injections. During the ambulance trip, the officers were in constant conversation with the emergency hospital as the hospital guides the officers on how to keep Matthew in check. They were told to keep Matthew awake as much as possible – he was very drowsy. Matthew was on oxygen mask all the time.

When he got to the hospital, there was a team of doctors and nurses await him (which means they think this is serious) and they looked after him immediately. Thankfully when I came to the hospital about 1-2 hours later – Matthew’s condition has improved a lot – obviously whatever medication and treatment they gave him works. Of course everything is as it is, by God’s grace as well – it could’ve been worse .. life is so fragile especially these little ones’.

Thankfully Matt doesn’t have to stay overnight. Lina needed rest badly as she could only managed to sleep about 1 hour since last night – hopefully she can sleep well today.

Oh, Matthew was diagnosed with Croup – respiratory disease.

Not much happening – except that doctor has confirmed that he got a skin infection, not as bad as the previous one (the previous one – the infection got into the blood stream).

He’s also currently sick at the moment – kasian banget tampangnya.

Yah telat 5 hari gara2 Jumba messed up my subdomains ya ga pa pa lah.

WOOT ! clear:both doesn’t work in WordPres??? layout looks so bad..

It’s been a week Jeremiah doesn’t use nappy, he’s now able to do no 1 and no 2 in the toilet.

We’re quite happy about this, we did toilet train him a couple months ago but it wasn’t working. And recently Lina tried again, this time she uses a very unconventional method (it’s pretty horrible so I won’t describe it ) and it works!

He’s such a good boy, I love him very much.

One thing that I have come to realized about parenting is: expect to your child to get very sick at a time and always be prepared to go to hospital. We have had a couple visits to the Randwick Children Hospital’s Emergency for Jeremiah (on a different tangent, I am really thankful for the Australian government – the health care and welfare support in this country is really excellent – high quality medical service for almost no cost!).

Well on his turning to 4 months, Matthew had  his first visit to the emergency. Thursday night Matthew was un-characteristicly hard to settle, he only had little sleep that night. We thought it’s just one of his hard to settle days. Around 5am Lina woke me up, as Matthew was still unsettled, she checked his temperature and it was high. When you have a child, you’d know the drill, never take risks just go to the hospital just in case. And so we did.

In the hospital, the team of doctor and nurses ran a few tests on Matt and unfortunately most of these tests require Matt’s blood. And the poor baby, he was crying and screaming for few hours as a result of the pain from his sickness as well as from the needles. The doctor noticed a bruise on Matt’s right foot and they think it might have something to do with it.

The tests came negative which mean nothing serious

However because they couldn’t worked out the cause of the illness, they wanted Matt to stay and the hospital. He stayed at the hospital for few days, he was allowed to go home on Monday. Needless to say, it was a very tiring and stressful time for everyone in the household (+Chenny as well). The doctor later told us that it’s very likely that Matt got a skin infection and the infection went to his blood stream – according to Lina this was very serious condition – so thank God that nothing worse happened.

Still health related, Matt’s skin is getting worse, he’s definitely got excema just like Jet.

On a happier note, Matthew had his first cukur rambut this month – see previous post on the video of the occasion.

Jet was pretending to be a Japanese tourist in front of a domestic tourist attraction – Matt’s first haircut. Jet was trying to make a peace sign but the wrong side of his hand LOL! – what a cutie!

Other than that, Matt is still a happy chap with the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen..

Chatty Matt getting so excited when me or Lina put our face close to him, he’d start talking and lately he rocks his body while he talks too!

Note: Matt wasn’t in anyway harmed when this picture taken. As doctor suggested we continue to put him on his tummy so that hopefully he can lift his head and strengthen his neck.. Well it hasn’t worked well so far, we think is because (Lina’s quote): "Man, his head is massive!". But anyway his neck is getting stronger, his head doesn’t rock violently as before.

Lina doesn’t like this picture, but I do, so it’s up on this blog

Guama dan Guakong telah 3 bulan menemani papa, mama, koko dan ade Matthew.

We are really grateful for all the help and companionship they have provided. After the birth of Matthew, they come over on every days that I am at work to help Lina looks after the boys. Guakong helped a lot by playing with Koko Jet, fixing electrical stuffs, cleaning and organizing the garage (he’s done amazing job with it – he’s an organizing genius) etc2. Guama helped a lot by cooking healthy and yummy food for us. Well, they have done a lot for us, more than I can remember.. suffice to say..

They will be missed and we are looking forward to see them again.

We have been praying for Jet as his behavior was worsened a lot. But he’s actually better now. Praise God!

I am continue to amaze at Jet’s linguistic skills, he’s now picking up Ambonese really well.