I try to be a relaxed parent when it comes to matters of health for my sons, really I do. Nobody wants to be that mother who flinches every time her child sniffs, or wraps them up in cotton wool every time they set foot outside the front door in case they encounter a normal childhood illness. I believe whole-heartedly in letting your child's body develop without undue interference from antibiotics unless they're absolutely necessary*.
But once the Fear has had you in it's grasp, it never really lets go.
I still remember it all; the gut-wrenching dread that stalks your every waking moment when you have a seriously ill baby. The feeling of helplessness as your 6 day-old child is prodded and poked, pricked and injected. The constant watch to make sure that his Moro Reflex** doesn't knock the canula out, resulting in yet more harrowing attempts to insert a new one into his tiny arm. The crushing, awful powerlessness of not being able to pick up my crying baby because doing so might interfere with the effect the lights are having on his bilirubin levels.
I remember the guilt; did I cause this? Was it because I wasn't very good at breastfeeding? Would he not have developed jaundice if I had had more milk? Was the way the Scalded Skin Syndrome took such a fearsome hold a result of his lowered immune system because of the jaundice? Did he catch the SSS when that none-too-clean looking orderly gave him a bath in the hospital when he was less than a day old and I could barely move from the bed due to the emergency c-section? Should I have followed my instincts and grabbed him from her arms, ordered her away from the bed and refused to let go of him until, exhausted from lack of sleep on the too-noisy ward, we left 24 hours later?
Nearly seven years on those questions and many others from that time still haunt me. Most of them I can discount in daylight hours when I am feeling relatively sensible. But one that won't go away and which I repeatedly ask myself (just like, I am sure, many expat parents living far from their comfort zone), is this:
How would I cope if an accident or a serious illness happened to my children here, now, in Moscow?
The answer is, I truly don't know. Certainly there would be support structures I could call on; a Husband who speaks excellent Russian and who knows the right people to go to, or if he were travelling, friends who speak far better Russian than I do and who I know would go through hell and high water on my children's behalf. Recent experiences within our social circle of excellent levels of care in both Russian and expat hospitals comfort me to some extent. But say what you will about the UK NHS; it is still light years ahead of what the average Russian can expect to encounter in their nearest hospital. And who knows, in an emergency,where you will end up? It might well be the all mod-cons expat hospital in the centre of town. But on the other hand, it might not.
So on evenings like tonight, when one son has a nasty cough and the other is complaining of stomach pain, I am rather more attentive than perhaps I might be if we were still living in London. Logically I know that Boy #1's stomach pain is not possible appendicitis, but instead the result of too many sit-ups at his Taekwondo class this evening (stomach muscles are not our family's strong point; if I manage 10 I'm a mess and according to him, they did 200...), and that Boy #2 is not developing pneumonia but has just picked up one of the many colds doing the rounds at school at the moment. Logically, I know both those things.
But logic doesn't stop me wanting to move my duvet to the floor of their bedroom tonight.
Turns out that the Fear - it never leaves you.
*although long term readers will know that I am fierce in my support of treating eczema proactively to prevent it developing into a long term issue or something more serious.
**also called the Startle Reflex
But once the Fear has had you in it's grasp, it never really lets go.
I still remember it all; the gut-wrenching dread that stalks your every waking moment when you have a seriously ill baby. The feeling of helplessness as your 6 day-old child is prodded and poked, pricked and injected. The constant watch to make sure that his Moro Reflex** doesn't knock the canula out, resulting in yet more harrowing attempts to insert a new one into his tiny arm. The crushing, awful powerlessness of not being able to pick up my crying baby because doing so might interfere with the effect the lights are having on his bilirubin levels.
I remember the guilt; did I cause this? Was it because I wasn't very good at breastfeeding? Would he not have developed jaundice if I had had more milk? Was the way the Scalded Skin Syndrome took such a fearsome hold a result of his lowered immune system because of the jaundice? Did he catch the SSS when that none-too-clean looking orderly gave him a bath in the hospital when he was less than a day old and I could barely move from the bed due to the emergency c-section? Should I have followed my instincts and grabbed him from her arms, ordered her away from the bed and refused to let go of him until, exhausted from lack of sleep on the too-noisy ward, we left 24 hours later?
Nearly seven years on those questions and many others from that time still haunt me. Most of them I can discount in daylight hours when I am feeling relatively sensible. But one that won't go away and which I repeatedly ask myself (just like, I am sure, many expat parents living far from their comfort zone), is this:
How would I cope if an accident or a serious illness happened to my children here, now, in Moscow?
The answer is, I truly don't know. Certainly there would be support structures I could call on; a Husband who speaks excellent Russian and who knows the right people to go to, or if he were travelling, friends who speak far better Russian than I do and who I know would go through hell and high water on my children's behalf. Recent experiences within our social circle of excellent levels of care in both Russian and expat hospitals comfort me to some extent. But say what you will about the UK NHS; it is still light years ahead of what the average Russian can expect to encounter in their nearest hospital. And who knows, in an emergency,where you will end up? It might well be the all mod-cons expat hospital in the centre of town. But on the other hand, it might not.
So on evenings like tonight, when one son has a nasty cough and the other is complaining of stomach pain, I am rather more attentive than perhaps I might be if we were still living in London. Logically I know that Boy #1's stomach pain is not possible appendicitis, but instead the result of too many sit-ups at his Taekwondo class this evening (stomach muscles are not our family's strong point; if I manage 10 I'm a mess and according to him, they did 200...), and that Boy #2 is not developing pneumonia but has just picked up one of the many colds doing the rounds at school at the moment. Logically, I know both those things.
But logic doesn't stop me wanting to move my duvet to the floor of their bedroom tonight.
Turns out that the Fear - it never leaves you.
*although long term readers will know that I am fierce in my support of treating eczema proactively to prevent it developing into a long term issue or something more serious.
**also called the Startle Reflex
