Last night Noah and I unfortunately ended up in A&E after he woke with a really bad cough which was causing him to struggle to breathe . After a call to 111 we were sent there to be seen and checked out as I was pretty freaked out by how much he was struggling. Our nearest one that was open and available was about half an hour away, we arrived there abut 11.30pm and on arrival it looked busy but not so much that it would take long to be seen, or so I thought.
All in all we waited 3 hours to be seen by a nurse and then be told there was a near enough 4 hour wait to see the doctor. By the time we were seen by the nurse, where Noah had been sat up for some time as we couldn't sleep due to the noise that was going on in both the triage rooms and the waiting room, his breathing had levelled out and he was chesty but breathing at normal rate. After being told his oxygen levels were 100% and that it couldn't be croup this settled me slightly.
While sat again in the waiting room after seeing the nurse a lovely lady arrived with her son who was just a year younger than Noah. When your sat in a hospital with your child who is poorly or injured it gets pretty lonely with your own thoughts and wonders about whats going on and when you will be seen. As soon as she walked in we started chatting and she made the whole experience that bit more bearable at 2am in the morning. We spoke about random things and kept me sane during the wait.
It was late, Noah wanted to go home, he was tired and I started to wonder if to go home as he was so much better than when he had first woken up. Being by myself I was unsure on what decision to make as I didn't want to make the wrong call. The lovely lady must have seen my anguish and asked if i was ok. I explained that I wasn't sure what to do and she kindly helped me make a decision and put my mind at rest.
She didn't need to do that, she could have just sat there quiet with her son and left me feeling like I was. And I think without her I would have sat there for the duration which I know now, after Noah woke up after sleeping in our bed so much better, would have been a silly decision.
Once the decision had been made I took myself to get Noah discharged which by this point I was tired, felt guilty for my decision, felt like I had wasted time and just generally feeling rubbish, which isn't a brilliant combination. I then had to wait and that is when the tears came. I think the worry, the tiredness and the guilt just took over and the tear started to flow. And throughout that time while I waited, the kind lovely lady kept her head poking round the corner checking on me, asking if I was ok and giving me that look that only a parent can give another parent of - your doing the right thing.
So I want to say thank you to that lady. She will most likely not see this but if she by some chance does, I just wanted to let her know that her kind and lovely self made last night that bit more bearable.
As I write this I am fuelled by tea and cadburys dairy milk!