Year II Week 52 - Daughter Diary (Three Years)

Its 11.35 pm and Ridhima is playing beside me asking me to show the 'triangle' (she knows the difference between a triangle and a rectangle or a circle and oval. don't know how she picked up these geometrical terms) and then we go on to see an elephant, a sipper, a toy and so on... till I would tell her to settle down or distract her to do something totally new. Kids love when you surprise them with something that is unexpected. They never have a plan for future and a hangover of the past. They are below our worldly predicaments and take life as it comes - crying and laughing all at the same time without any baggage (either of expectations or the past) to carry forward. I envy, how easily they settle down.

She has slept more than three hours in the afternoon today and quite at ease at this late hour of the night. Till last week she was to recover from her stomach ache and we were expecting that she would be ok by the times Saturday (her birthday) comes. We kept ourselves busy planning and preparing for the birthday party as well. Rinku has already stitched a dress for her all by herself and that has come out really well. I could not believe my eyes when I looked at the design and detailing of her work. She will make an amazing dress designer if she opts it as a full time career. 

Ridhima till Tuesday did not complain about anything but we noticed she was coughing a bit more. In the next two days she become worse and we (especially I) mistook it as a common cough and cold that usually goes away in three days. We kept her on the usual antibiotic medicines prescribed earlier by her doctor. It was Friday when we woke up at 2.30 am noticing that she had high fever. She was literally shivering from within. We gave her the fever medicine and kept a vigil till the temperature normalised. She again woke up with fever and unusual cough. We called our new doctor and he assured that he will see her at 12 noon at the hospital. By the time we reached the doctor, Ridhima was already growing frail. The old doctor could not understand as in what went wrong and prescribed that she needed to be hospitalized immediately to do dengue and other tests. For the first time my heart sunk listening to all this. It was supposed to be a common cough n cold and here we are taking the risk to a all new level.

Rinku and I both were against leaving our child in the hospital, we paid the fees bought whatever medicines he prescribed along with X-ray and returned home. Ritesh's son had the same problem a week back and he recommended that doctor to us. We called him up to fix an appointment and reached his clinic at Sanpada, New Mumbai within an hour. Amit Saxena, the new doctor saw her and told us that it was primary stage of pneumonia and he can try to cure it in two days. If she would not respond to the medicines in the next two days hospitalisation will be a must. It was a sigh of relief.

We came back and started the medicine. She was better yesterday when she could cough less and did not had fever for almost the entire day (first time in whole of last week). She slept for long hours in the afternoon and we decided if she woke up without fever we would call our friends and neighbours and cut the cake. Fortunately, she was ok when she woke up at around 7.30 pm. I took her out for nebulization, a routine for last two days and bought the cake, candle and balloons along with it. To my surprise friends were already there at my place along with some guests and my brother with his wife and his lovely son. We cut the cake had a small get together and I promised that party remains due.

Ridhima is almost fine now. The medicines will continue for the next one week and then we will meet Dr. Amit Saxena, may be next Sunday. This too shall pass!