The Burn

As most of you have seen on Facebook/Instagram, Poppy had her first visit to A&E (Accident and Emergency - aka the Emergency Room) for a burn on her hand.

I will tell you the story but let's preface it with I feel so incredibly guilty about this - serious Mom guilt.

I had my hair straightener on the table in our front room. For those of you saying, 'But why wasn't it in the bathroom?' there are no plugs in our bathroom. This is a thing here. Apparently no one plugs things in in the bathroom except for shavers and those have a completely different plug. 

Anywho, I used to keep my straightener on the floor by my bed but I thought it would be safer to put it on the table where Poppy 'can't' reach it.......

Turns out Poppy CAN reach it on the table!

I called 111, which is a non-emergency NHS number for advice and they advised me to go straight to A&E, which was quite alarming but after a few minutes wait for a cab, off we went.

For those of you who are not familiar with the British healthcare system, it may be free but it is NOT fast. We got to the Royal London Hospital (after waiting for the cab, and then driving through almost rush hour traffic in London) around 745 and we were the only people in the waiting room. My silly American thinking at this point was "oh good, this shouldn't take too long!"

Here's a timeline of our visit:

7:45 - Arrival and check in. Poppy plays like there's nothing wrong with her.

8:15ish - See a nurse to assess the injury, takes about 2 seconds then back out to wait for the doctor

8:45ish - Doctor comes out to get us - we're in the bathroom so we miss her

9:00 - Doctor finally comes back to get us and looks at Poppy's hand. Then says "Oh I'm really not an expert on burns so I'll have to get my colleague to look at it"

10:00 - Doctor number 2 finally comes in and decides Poppy's blisters need to be de-roofed (a fancy term for popping them)

10:15 - They move us onto a ward for the actual blister de-roofing - there are two other children on this ward with breathing difficulties being attended to constantly - Poppy just wanted to play with them, bless her.

10:30 - Still waiting for nurse to administer medicine to prepare for blister de-roofing

11:00 - FINALLY medicine is administered, blisters are de-roofed and hand is bandaged (this takes about 5 minutes total). Poppy was a trooper - she didn't even cry!

11:30 - The nurse told us to wait 10 minutes after they finished to make sure poppy didn't have an adverse reaction to the medicine.. and then she disappeared so we asked someone else if we had to stay and they said no so we just left. No after care instructions, nothing! 

At this point, Poppy was so tired, hungry, and overwhelmed we just had to go home. Some lunch and a three hour nap later, she was in a much better mood!

This was on Tuesday. Auntie Emma, Evie and Finley came up to hang out with Poppy for the day on Wednesday so Mat and I could both go to work (Thank you Emma!).  

We were back in on Thursday morning for a follow-up appointment (again at A&E). The follow-up was a much more streamlined process. We were seen at our appointment time, had to have a consultation with a plastic surgeon (which happened immediately), then more blister popping and a new dressing. The plastic surgeon is pretty sure we won't need his services as Poppy had feeling in her fingers when he poked her in her burns (pleasant, I know).

Mat is taking her back in tomorrow for a dressing change and another look at the burns. Hopefully we don't have to have the dressing on for much longer because it's seriously hard to give a baby a bath without getting one hand wet! Plus Poppy is getting annoyed with not being able to pick things up with both hands.

And I have learned a valuable lesson - bad things happen when you try to do your hair so my new plan is to never do my hair :)

In all seriousness, I feel supremely guilty about Poppy's burns. I suppose accidents happen but it doesn't make it any easier to deal with. Anywho, here are some photos:

Checking out her new hand.

Playing outside with her new hand.

Royal London Hospital.

The damage two days later - you can't see her little finger but that has a blister on it as well :(

That's it! I have more photos of Poppy doing fun things like swinging but I think they're on Mat's phone and he's at work so they will have to wait for another post.

Commuting with Poppy

I had a hard day at work today. My deputy is on holiday this week and running that huge nursery by myself is a serious struggle. But we survived! And there's nothing better to cheer me up after a long hard day than making my commute home with my adorable child. She is hilarious in public now. She thinks everyone is her friend and insists on waving and saying "buh bye" to every single person who walks by (I live in a city of 8.6 million people - its a lot of waving!). "Buh bye" also happens to sound like "da da" in Poppy language - we get a lot of awkward stares from passing men. 

On our commute home, we also have to take the tube. We get on the train at East India and have to take the DLR one stop, then change trains to get on the Jubilee Line. The Jubilee Line goes through Canary Wharf, where all the high-rise buildings are and all the bankers work. This means when the train stops at Canary Wharf, it is completely jam-packed with commuting bankers on their way home. If you've ever ridden on the tube, you know it is eerily silent, even when jam-packed. Insert Poppy, my little attention loving baby. She looks around until someone makes eye contact with her and then shouts at them, usually some variation of "BA BA BA BA" or "DA DA!" or "UH OH" until they smile at her. It is so funny. 

Then we walk home from the station and she waves at the ducks the whole time we walk by the water (which is most of the walk). She is obsessed with 'ducks' - which includes geese, swans, pigeons and actual ducks. 

Mat works most Sundays now so Poppy and I have the day to ourselves. We've started going to feed the ducks most days and Poppy does NOT understand the concept.

Poor ducks!

We've also been making her walk more to break in her new kicks - she told us how she felt about that by throwing her new kicks in the toilet yesterday! But she is so cute toddling along the river. 

We also make frequent trips to the library on our Sundays together. Poppy loves the library, not so much for reading books but for carrying them around and handing them to strangers or leaving them various places on the floor.

And we rounded out our Sunday with a little swinging action. 

There we go, a day in the life of Poppy and Mommy when Mat is working, and an insight into my daily commute.