Different child, more or less the same routine. I took Henry to the GP yesterday morning, because his cough seemed to be getting worse, and she listened to his chest, reckoned it sounded worse than she was expecting, considering how well he seemed, and thought that he might need a steroid treatment. “He’s only 22 weeks old, though,” she said, “And I think I’d rather a paediatrician made that decision. Don’t hate me. I want you to take him to Alder Hey.”

So, I did a lightning readjustment of my day, threw Daisy at my friend, Shu for the afternoon, and took him to the hospital.

They prodded and poked, and said he had a bit of a wheeze, but they weren’t sure what it was - either “Virally Induced Wheezing”, which is what they call it when they don’t want the word asthma hanging around the neck of a child like a millstone, or bronchialitis. The difference, apparently, is that bronchialitis is a viral chest infection, whereas the other is triggered by a head cold.

Since he’s feeding OK, and his oxygen levels were reasonable, they said there was no need to admit him (which I never expected them to do, but you can never be sure how it’s going to end, when you go to A&E, can you?), but gave him My First Ventolin Inhaler to take home. And actually, that seems to have helped, since the only time he seemed to struggle in the night, was when he was about three hours overdue on the dose (which means he didn’t wake up between 11pm and 5am, which is pretty good on recent performance).

I was at the hospital for around three and a half hours, and I have to say, it’s no fun. Especially being there by myself, having the occasional panic in case he turns out to be really ill, and no one to tell me not to be silly. On the flip side, I saw a lot of people who have it a lot worse than we do.

… is the answer to the question, “How was your holiday?”

Last week, we spent five days at a cottage, on a farm, about two miles away from the road, and about 4 miles from Coniston. The fact that it rained almost constantly wasn’t a problem. We’re not silly people - we more or less expected rain in the lakes in late November. We have adequate waterproof stuff, and we’re much more wander-around-the-town types than trek-across-the-fells.

The problem was that we were twenty miles from the nearest A and E when Daisy came down with croup, and the GPs in the local area are a bunch of doddering quacks.

We arrived on the Monday, and settled into the cottage. It was lovely - small, but not too small, directly overlooking the main sheep-fold, with interesting views of sheep being herded around for various mysterious purposes. Daisy was delighted that her bedroom had a window at more or less floor-level, and the double room was plenty big enough for Henry’s hammock as well. It was very nice, and I’d go again.

On Tuesday, we went to Keswick, to wander around the town, since I’ve never been. It’s a nice little town, only slightly marred by the whingey awkwardness of my daughter (whose zenith that day was to knock over a display in a shop, and then shout and cry at the generously philosophical assistant for picking it up again, because she wanted Daddy to do it…). I wondered then if she was coming down with something, but she could have just been tired.

Anyway, in the early hours of the next morning, she woke up with a raging temperature, a classically croupy cough, and the harsh wheeze which is the difference between croup you worry about and croup you don’t. We weren’t in a wild hurry to take her twenty miles to Barrow/Kendal, so we went for some old-fashioned nursing remedies - we filled the bathroom with steam, gave her paracetamol for the temperature, and tried to get her calm enough to be able to breathe properly.

It only kind of worked, but she calmed down a bit, and we decided to put her back to bed, with one of us sharing the twin room with her. Kevin drew the short straw, which turned out to be shorter than he realised, since the excitement of having Daddy in her room make her refuse more or less point blank to go to sleep.

One of the things with croup, is it’s worse when they cry, so the medical types advise keeping her calm. Poor Kevin didn’t want to have the stand-off with her, but as a result, she didn’t get back to sleep until 6am, and at one point I believe they were downstairs watching Shrek at 4am.

The next morning, we took her to the local GP, and told him what had happened. She was still coughing, and still wheezing a little, though going out in the car helped a little. The GP, unfortunately, was an idiot. We made a point of telling him that she’s had it before, and that it was treated at Alder Hey with oral steroids. He said, “Hmmm… yes, steroids is a common treatment,” but then prescribed antibiotics. A bit bizarre - croup stems from a virus, not a bacteria, so antibiotics are a waste of time. Daisy’s first ever set, too. He also prescribed linctus, which is tantamount to spending NHS money on Lockets.

We duly administered the prescribed treatments all day, whilst sitting around the cottage recovering from the bad night, but by tea-time, it was becoming apparent that, not only wasn’t it working, but she was starting to deteriorate with the approach of night time, so we whisked her back - or at least, whisked her to the guy who covers for the first guy on Wednesday afternoons, when he’s off.

He seemed more willing to admit that steroids were the appropriate treatment, but didn’t prescribe them on the grounds that he didn’t stock them in his dispensary (bizarre country doctor thing, dispensing you own medicine). “It sounds worse than it is,” he said. “She’ll be fine.”

Hmm.

On the second night, I shared her room (since I am proven to be a much less exciting person), and was woken up about every hour and a half, either because she was coughing and needed a drink, or because the extra fluids had caused her to wet the bed (with the natural effect that I spent most of the night in a wet bed - just as it was drying out, she wet the other one, and we swapped back. Who’d be a mum?).

So on Thursday morning, we took her back to the first GP again, and came back with a Ventolin inhaler, which also had no noticeable effect.

We gave up on the local health services at that point, and said that if we didn’t have a significantly better night, we would bring her home in time to see our own GP on Friday afternoon. That night was a little better, but not much, and in any case, it was pouring with rain the next morning, and we decided that appeal of trudging around Ambleside in the rain wasn’t sufficiently great, when set against the option to get Daisy to a competent doctor. So we paid the lady, packed the car, and came home.

It was a huge relief to sit on my own doctor’s office, and have her instantly start behaving as if not being able to breathe properly does, in fact, matter.? She heard the wheeze as soon as we walked through the door, and actually thought it was Henry, the very idea of which nearly gave her apoplexy. Discovering that it was actually the three-year-old calmed her down a little, and she started to prescribe the steroids that I’d been trying to get hold of all week, but then decided that she wanted her on a nebuliser, for which we had to go to Alder Hey.? So she made a call, wrote a referring letter, and send us away.

The paeditrician at A&E reckoned that ventolin - in the form of inhaler, or nebuliser - doesn’t help with croup, and just gave her the steroids anyway, so all that achieved was to postpone the treatment for another two hours, but if it meant that the GP could sleep over the weekend, I don’t really hold that against her. Though if I end up in the situation again, I shall argue with her.? I think the fact that it was Friday night went into her decision making, though - if she could have said, “Bring her back in the morning,” I think she might have done that instead.

So, two hours at the GP, followed by three at Alder Hey, made for two very tired children, and two equally tired parents.? And no, not the greatest holiday we’ve ever had.? Still, at least the wheeze has gone, now.