Mothers love – Simi's trinkets and treats

I absolutely love Christmas. This year I was super excited to spend it with my little girl, it being her first Christmas and all. We planned on dining at a friends house on Christmas Eve and then visiting another friend on Christmas day.

We set off to meet our friends at 5:30pm. When we got out of the car I thought Hazel felt a bit hot, but as you know the car seat can make a baby feel warmer. After having welcoming drinks we sat down to dinner. I had finished my first plate of food and was planning to get a second helping when I felt that my little girl was really feeling hot now.

Luckily my friend has 2 little boys and she suggested that we take her temperature. It was 39 degrees and we decided to take her to the Emergency Care Clinic.

The clinic was pretty busy so we had to wait. Apparently having a high fever isn’t seen as that important. To me, fever means danger. When I was young my parents always said we had to get the fever down or break the fever. They would even put us in icy cold bath water to try and break the fever. Breaking the fever was the most important thing. So naturally, I thought a high temperature is an emergency. The doctors reassured us that it’s the body’s natural response to a virus. They said they would put a urine bag on Hazel to check whether she had a UTI but they forgot.

We only got at around 11pm and sat up all night sponging her head to get her to cool down but to no avail. By 5 am her temperature was under 38 degrees and we thought we were out of the clear. By 9 am on Christmas day, her temperature spiked again and stayed at 38.5 most of the day. By 10pm it went up to 39 and we went back to the clinic. This time they referred us to the hospital. We waited for Hazel to have a wee in order to check her urine for a UTI test. At first she missed the bag and we had to wait some more. During our time at the hospital her fever broke and her temperature came back to normal. We only left the hospital at 5 am on the day after Christmas.

The rest of the day we periodically checked her temperature to make sure that it stayed low. That night it sounded like she had trouble breathing and off we went to hospital again…turns out we were just paranoid new parents

On Sunday night she developed a rash all over her face. We phoned the healthline and was advised to head back to the Emergency Care Clinic.

This time the doctor was able to explain to us what we needed to look out for in the case of a bacterial rash and told us that a rash iften appears after a viral infection. He was very informative and to be honest, the best doctor amongst all the doctors we encountered over the weekend.

All in all we’re glad she’s better and hopefully next Christmas we’ll be able to have more fun with Hazel.

The death of my aunt and mother a few years ago had a massive impact on my life. My mother was diagnosed with a brain tumour. It wasn’t going very well with her. She has already had 2 major brain surgeries to remove the tumour but it has come back for the third time. My mother was very confused about her surroundings and then all of a sudden her youngest sister , my aunt, died. My aunt was only 34 years old when she died. I spoke to her on the phone on Thursday and by the next Tuesday she had collapsed at work and was unable to open her eyes. She died 20 days later of a brain aneurysm. This was one of the hardest times in my life. Its easier when you know someone is going to die, rather than losing them suddenly. I remember that my mother was so confused at my aunts funeral that she asked my dad “Why are they throwing sand on my sister?” She realised but also didn’t realise what the situation was. My mother died two years later at the age of a mere 50.

My Aunt and Mother

My Aunt at my wedding

My mother

What happened to them made me decide that I wanted to live a healthy life. They both died really young and I didn’t want to die at a young age.

Through all this sadness I had one person who really stood by me, he laughed when I laughed and cried when I cried. He helped me make and achieve goals when I felt that I never wanted to love anyone again. Sometimes I was so sad that life had no meaning but he showed me the meaning of my life, he made me want to live again. He is my husband.