Sunday, June 3, 2007

Sick day

Poor Michael's been unwell these past two days or so. Michele and Caroline went out to the London Borough market again yesterday morning while Mike and I waited for the satellite installation guy to show up. He was fine until about 9:30, when he started complaining that his stomach hurt (Michael, not the satellite guy). Then he just got quiet and wanted to lay on my lap. For any of you who know Michael, you know that he is NOT the type of kid to be quiet or lay down. Ever. But despite all the times I've wished he'd just sit still for One God Damn Minute, I do hate seeing him like this. His temp was 102 by midday so I gave him some Tylenol and let him sleep a bit. He's had a fever on and off since. He woke up a few times last night, once at 4:15 this morning.

I may have failed to mention the daylight hours here, so I'll do so now. It starts getting light at around 4:00am and stays light at night until nearly 10:00pm. Seriously. I do like that it's light so late, though it is somewhat disorienting when leaving the pub at 9:30 and it's still light.

I may have told you aleady that most shops are closed on Sunday and those that aren't open much later. I thought this was cute until today when I really needed some children's cough medicine for the boy. I wandered around the deserted town at 9:30, wondering if maybe a hydrogen bomb had gone off and somehow missed me.

Pharmacies are closed on weekends, food stores don't open until 11, convenience stalls don't sell children's cough medicine. It was during this solitary exploration of out sleepy little hamlet that it struck me that we a) don't have a family doctor, b) don't really have any way of finding one until we get new insurance information, c) don't have a National Health Insurance number, so we can't even go to an NHS doctor.

Uh oh. Looks like the honeymoon's over.

Fortunately, it turns out the children's Tylenol is also supposed to releive sore throats, so that combined with a large quantity of ice pops got Michael through the day. Who needs doctors when you have frozen sugary juice?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Paul,
Its Melissa. I just got to read your blog. I loved it, very funny. I hope you can get this message because I dont have a blog address or an identity or username or password. Well bye for now, or is it ta-ta? Or Cherio?