Went to see Claire today in hospital, thankfully she is doing much better than she was yesterday. She’s been through 3 bags of saline so far to get her hydrated and was on the fourth whilst I was there. She has also been given injections to try and stop the sickness and heartburn, which seem to work fairly well though the sickness was starting to come back at the end of the visit.
As we thought, she has been diagnosed with Hyperemesis Gravidarum, which is basically extreme morning sickness. This can be pretty serious as it’s easy to get very dehydrated as you can’t keep fluids down.
The doctors seem to think Claire is likely to be in for two or three days whilst they monitor her condition and try and stabilise the sickness. She’ll probably them be prescribed some strong anti-sickness drugs before being released, which reading up on the condition seem to help most people have a fairly normal pregnancy. I’m back off to see her tomorrow so hopefully she’ll keep on improving and be allowed home soon.
It was quite interesting being in a hospital as I haven’t been near one for ages (thankfully!). I was quite interested to see what was happening with regard to infection control (MRSA always being in the news). When entering the department everyone is meant to use some antiseptic gel to clean their hands. I’ve yet to see a single person use this, including medical staff. Also you’d think general cleanliness would be important. Today Claire found a bedpan in her bedside cupboard full of some moldy and quite frankly scary looking gunk, probably left over from a previous patient. The lady next to her found a moldy sandwich in hers. I fail to see how hospitals are ever going to beat MRSA and other bugs if basic things like this are missed.
On the plus side the staff seem friendly and efficient, if very busy and Claire was checked on a few times whilst I was there. We’ll see how things go tomorrow 