A trip in an ambulance

A couple of weeks ago, we had the biggest scare of our two years so far with Marley when we had to call an ambulance for him (#spoileralert – he’s totally fine now, it was an ear infection that cleared up within a week thanks to a short course of antibiotics) 

So the fact that he got better so quickly makes me feel not quite as bad talking about the fact that, earlier that same night, we had been out for a STUNNING meal at the Michelin-starred Chez Bruce in Wandsworth Common (we don’t often get to go Michelin starred…) for my wife’s birthday. 

More on that later, but let’s focus on Marley and the ambulance first. 

What happened

We had left him at home with a babysitter who we know from his nursery. She is fantastic, and even though we mentioned to her beforehand that he didn’t appear to be on top form, she’s looked after him enough times for us to be totally confident she’d keep a close eye on him. 

And when we returned home, things were fine. Marley was in bed and hadn’t stirred, so we sent the babysitter off in a taxi and got ready to turn in ourselves. It was only when my wife decided to check up on him that we realised he was actually awake and feeling a little warmer than usual. 

Sure enough his temperature was high, just over 38C. So we gave him a dose of Calpol and tried to get him back to sleep*. (I didn’t sample the Calpol on this occasion). 

*Apparently, there is now a documentary on iPlayer about the increasing amount of Calpol parents are giving their kids, so I will be giving that a watch this week.

We kept him on our bed for a while, and as time ticked by we noticed his temperature wasn’t going down as it normally would after a dose, and if anything it was sneaking upwards. 39C…..40C…..41C! This got us really worried. 

I was initially only going to call the NHS 111 service for advice, but the combination of his shivering and feeling a little floppy, plus the way he was repeating the words “I’m tired” over and over created a slight sense of panic and I decided to call for an ambulance instead. 

It arrived within ten minutes, they checked him over and took us all in to A&E at St George’s Hospital. This was just after midnight, and in order to save you from a lot of details I will just say that around nine hours later (and after excellent care from everyone at the Hospital) we could take him home.

Right thing to do?

The main reason I wanted to write about this was because that evening I experienced the moment that, I think, a lot of people (especially parents) probably feel when they call 999 and are not 100% sure whether it’s really an emergency or not. 

There were several contributing factors for us, and I actually asked the ambulance medics at the time whether they thought we were over-reacting and they re-assured us that we weren’t. I certainly felt we did the right thing for him. 

His temperature took such a long time to go down at the hospital that at one stage there was even the mention of the possibility of sepsis, which is another whole level of terrifying. Thankfully, his infection didn’t get too bad and cleared up within a week. 

And on the positive side, Marley was delighted about getting to ride in a “nee-naw”. 

I’m still half hoping that the whole experience might mean we get a chance to go back and enjoy Chez Bruce all over again.