Vacation at St Lukes Hotel

So we spent 1 week of our 2-week Philippine vacation (Apr 9-23) in one of the most expensive hotels in Quezon City - St Luke's Medical Center! Ethan contracted typhoid fever and was confined the day after we arrived. Such a lovely beginning to a wonderful adventure waiting for us.

Intro
Flashback to 1 week before when we were still in Singapore: Ethan had fever for 4 days straight. We had already booked our tickets to Manila for our planned vacation. Doctor said it might just be viral, and if so, the fever will go down in another day or two. True enough, he was ok on the night of Thursday and the whole of Friday. We're flying off on Saturday morning, but we're very much prepared to cancel if Ethan is not well. Thankfully he was.

Worst Flight Ever!
On the plane, we've had a indication of what was to come. Ethan was so irritable, didn't want to sleep, didn't want to drink his milk, didn't want to play the phone (which was unusual), and the only thing he wanted to do was to cry and throw things on to the floor - which of course irked some passengers (including one inconsiderable bastard who came to me and asked me to pacify my child). It was the longest, most dreadful flight of my life, worse than the one where we had an emergency landing scare.

Arriving in Manila, we were greeted by Kang, Kuya Roy, and Ate Cel. Shoved ourselves into the FX cab and headed home to Marikina. All seemed well after that. Ethan was interacting with Keno and Kyle. He was running in the yard, playing with the dogs and all. In the evening though, fever came back. So we decided to visit Dra. Patty the morning after.

"We'll have to confine him"

The visit to Dra Patty was already in our itinerary. She's a good friend of ours and she was Ethan's pedia when he was born. So we really intended to pay her a visit during this trip. But we didn't plan for it to be a patient-doctor kind of meeting.

When Patty saw Ethan, she noted that he was very pale and was dehydrated. We confirmed that he started having diarrhea and not taking solids anymore. So the decision was to confine him for a couple of days, gobble up some glucose (dextrose), some tests to rule out bacteria, and we're out of there. But the couple of days became a couple of couples more. He was diagnosed with Typhoid Fever.

Pain and Suffering
Ethan spent the next 6 days on the hospital bed lying on his stomach (it hurts because of the bacteria), not eating anything at all and not even drinking milk. He was very irritated. Doesn't want to talk nor play. He wouldn't open his eyes, except to check on who's the one giving him sponge bath. And we had to do it often to contain his fever that shoots up to 40s. It was painful and heartbreaking.

When a urine test was needed and he wasn't peeing much, the doctors had to put in a catheter in him to draw some samples. There were 6 of us adults pinning him to the bed. It seemed painful. Ethan cried. Lani as well. And I know my tears were falling when I came out to search for something to comfort him with, anything to take away the pain. I managed to find some ice cubes and Ethan was more than happy to nibble on them while he cry helpless on the bed.

Through it all, Ethan showed great courage. He was irate but never complained. He was in pain, but didn't cry much. Maybe he was just too tired, too weak. His only refuge was the phone, and he wasn't even playing it. He's just looking at the display, with the camera most of the time pointing at him.

Here's one of the videos he took:

Enjoying it, actually!
There were many visitors (thank you, friends), and of course there were abundance of food. Because we didn't have time to go out, we ordered a lot, especially food that we missed. Jollibee, KFC, Andoks, Pancake House, Pizza Hut, Red Ribbon, Jumbo-Pao, Chicaron, and many more.

But our poor Ethan wasn't thrilled. He wasn't eating at all, and not even the delicious display can entice him. He's tummy ached too much, the smell of food makes him sick, literally. It was not until the 4th night when Nanay brought him home-cooked noodles that he started eating again. He took a couple of bites and returned to his slumber. The day after, I gave him cake and he finally started to regain interested in food. 

We were admitted on Sunday, 10 Apr, and came out on the 15th. Behind all the worries, pains, and stress, that week was one of the most rested vacations I've had. We, as a family were together for 24hrs a day the entire time, something we very seldom do in our busy lives. We almost never left the hospital room, and since there wasn't really much to do inside, so it was one big bonding moment for us.

The remaining week of vacation
The following week was a little less exciting. We stayed at Cambridge Apartments in Pasig City, Haydee's condo unit, where we spent most of the time resting (Ethan was recovering). We did manage to sneak out for a dinner with some friends, Lani's high school reunion, a 1-night trip to Bataan (with Marti and Leila), and another night in San Pablo (to see Mama & Papa's rented apartment).

We flew back to Singapore on 23 Apr, tagging Papa, Mama and Ian along.