22 APRIL
This weekend we had a little visitor in the shape of my grandson Dennis, aged 5. Our daughter, Sheila, and her husband Gordon decided to have a weekend break in Paris via the ‘Eurostar’ train to celebrate their wedding anniversary. They asked us to look after young Dennis while they were away, which Hilda agreed to do without consulting me. Had she done so, I might have warned her that the weekend would be fraught with health problems; Dennis is a sickly child at the best of times and separation from his fond parents was bound to disturb his fragile equilibrium.
Admittedly, he seemed to settle in quite well at first: he ate his tea on the Friday evening, watched his Disney DVD and was put to bed without much in the way of protest. However, at 5 am on Saturday morning we were woken by pathetic wails from the next room. Poor Dennis had been sick and had developed a nasty little cough. Unfortunately, we don't keep a stock of children's medicines any more so there was no alternative but to take him down to the surgery as soon as they opened. Fortunately, the Saturday morning surgery has been reinstated. Yes, it was actually withdrawn for about a year, leaving us to the tender mercies of NHS Direct and the OOHDOC! cooperative. I don't know how we survived. But now the GPs have been told that as they are all earning over £100 000 a year they have to invest some of it in their practices and open longer hours. So the Saturday surgery is back. But it's not a proper surgery with appointments. There's only one doctor and it's supposed to be for emergencies only. A sort of ‘skeleton service’ and believe me you have to be practically reduced to a skeleton to qualify for admission as far as Mrs Flagg is concerned. Still, she has a soft spot for children and the sight of poor Dennis clinging in my arms and coughing his little lungs out must have aroused compassion in her flinty old heart because she put out a hand to stroke his pallid cheek.
The Glands entertain their 5-year-old grandson who unfortunately succumbs to the local virus. Happily, Dr Teacher is persuaded to come to the rescue.
I don't think Dennis actually meant to bite her — probably it was just that the sight of her gaunt, half-moon bespectacled face looming up at him must have triggered off a fit of choking in which his teeth somehow closed over one of her fingers. It was all rather embarrassing and I hurried him away down the corridor to join all the other emergencies waiting to see the doctor on duty.
There's no knowing which doctor it will be on any given Saturday. They have a rota, of course, but if you ask any of them when they are next on weekend duty they get very cagy and secretive; I can't think why? This time they had all gone off and left the poor little registrar to deal with the emergencies. Well, Sally Greengage is a capable girl but like all registrars she's conscientious and tends to work slowly and methodically. We might have had quite a long wait had not Dennis announced in his clear little voice that he was going to be sick again and all the others hurriedly said we could go in first.
Dr Greengage gave Dennis a careful examination and even looked in his ears (which fortunately had been cleaned). After she had finished, I was intending to offer a suggestion as to the most suitable antibiotic but to my surprise she announced that he was suffering from ‘a virus infection’ and only needed some paracetamol mixture. Paracetamol, indeed. I can't understand the way they teach young doctors these days. They seem to take a pride in not giving anyone an antibiotic until all sorts of complications have set in. Either that or they say, I'll give you a prescription but you must promise not to use it for at least 3 days, by which time it will obviously be Too Late. Much better to nip it in the bud straight away in my opinion. I tried to reason with her but she was quite impervious to rational argument. Wouldn't even give us a bottle of cough mixture because she said they were of no proven value. Well, compared with a proper antibiotic I agree, but you've got to give a sick child something, for goodness sake. Fortunately, I was able to get a bottle of Junior Lung Tonic and something to rub on Dennis's chest at the chemist's on the way home or I don't know how we would have got through the day.
Hilda and I took turns at nursing the poor little fellow and trying to get him to take the medicine, but he kept spitting it out and some of his language was quite remarkable for a 5 year old. As I said to Hilda, our Sheila was never brought up to use words like that — he can only have learned them from his father.
At tea time the invalid rallied a little and asked for burger and chips. I told Hilda it was most unwise to give him stuff like that, but she felt he ought to have some sort of nourishment and this is apparently what they give him at home. In the end he was sick three times and then wouldn't stop coughing. He also cried quite a lot and kept asking for his mother. We tried phoning the Hotel Croissant, but they said Sheila and Gordon had gone to the Follies Bergère and weren't expected back till late …
In desperation I rang the surgery. After 15 minutes listening to daft messages and then being interrogated about Dennis's symptoms, I was finally put through to the emergency doctor. To my amazement it was Dr Teacher! I knew that they all do a session for the out-of-hours service (OOHDOC!) once a month, but I had never before encountered one of my own doctors. It must have been quite a shock for Dr Teacher as well. At first he pretended not to recognise me. Then he tried reassurance. Had we given Dennis some paracetamol, he asked, as it was probably only a virus infection. But I wasn't having any of that. I told him quite pointedly that we had a very sick child on our hands, probably suspected meningitis by now and time was running out. And there was no question of bringing him on a such a cold rainy night. There was a moment's silence. Then Dr Teacher said something about he was doing base tonight but he'd send another doctor. Dr Teacher I said, it is you we need with your great clinical skills and deep knowledge of the family. There was a hollow groan from the other end and then he said alright he would come himself at the end of his shift as it wasn't fair to ask anyone else. Good old Dr Teacher. He was round in about 2 hours. Strangely enough, in the space of those 120 minutes, young Dennis underwent the most amazing spontaneous recovery. As soon as Dr Teacher arrived he jumped out of bed and said: ‘Hallo, Doctor, I've been sick three times. What have you got in your bag? Can I listen to you with your telephones?’ While Dennis and Dr Teacher listened to each other's chests, Hilda made us a cup of tea. As we were drinking it, Dennis fell into a deep and no doubt healing sleep. Really there was nothing further for Dr Teacher to do, so rather than let him feel his journey had been wasted, I asked him while he was here if he could just examine my liver which had been playing up again with all the excitement. However, he said that he would rather do that in the surgery on Monday as he found it rather difficult to concentrate on the finer points of hepatology at this godforsaken hour. And with that he wished us good night.
