11 April 2005

When I woke up this morning, Lillian was still asleep. She is probably feeling a bit tired given that she was a bit unwell on the weekend. She had fever last Wednesday and then it lasted for a few days. Just as we thought she was getting better yesterday, Tim found that she had rash on her back and on her face before we were about to head off for the church yesterday morning. I was freaking out a little bit. My parents took Lillian to the GP on Friday because she had high fever and the doctor told them to watch out for rashes. It’s very hard to find a doctor on a Sunday so I told Tim to take Lillian to the Royal Children’s emergency. Tim thought he’d call Christella, his sister in law, who is a paediatrician. He tried a few times but there was no answer so he called Jamie, his brother, who is a neurosurgeon. Jamie told Tim that Christella is away but from Tim’s descriptions of Lillian, she doesn’t seem to have anything serious. Apart from the rashes, she doesn’t look sick and she doesn’t have a fever.

Tim’s mobile rang when I was making some lunch. I answered and it was Christella on the phone. She has heard about Lillian from Jamie and had called to see what happened. It’s very nice of her to do that. She spoke to Tim a bit just to find out more information about Lillian’s symptoms. She thinks Lillian has Roseola – a common viral disease of small children. I found some information on the Internet. Roseola is distinguished by the way in which the symptoms appear. In the first phase, the child develops a high fever. In the second phase, a red rash with bumps appear. The hallmark of roseola is that the rash appears after the fever goes away. This exactly what Lillian had. Her fever started on last Wednesday and it lasted a few days. Her fever stopped on Saturday night and the rash started to appear on Sunday morning. Although we think she had roseola but I still feel a bit nervous because we didn’t actually take her to a doctor.

I was running a bit late this morning with my exercises. Tim and Lillian left the house just after 9 a.m.. I did my exercise bike and mini trampoline after they had left the house. I also had to update my blog on the Internet because I was already a few days behind. I’m very concious of the fact that Neil and Rosemary read my diary over breakfast and Neil’s mother in the US also reads it so I need to update it as soon as I can.

I think the rehabilitation has turned me into a Stepford wife. I spent a lot of time cooking these days – something I never had much time for before. Today I plan to cook this Bolognese Bake I found in a magazine. From the picture, it looks a bit like the Moussaka. I hope Tim and Lillian will like it. Tim is still complaining about the vegetarian lasagne I cooked a couple of weeks ago. He thought it was so blend and tasted like baby food. I started getting all the ingredients ready after lunch. I like the recipes that use fresh herbs since we have some in our garden. Tim commented the other day that he planted the sage about 2 years ago and finally we got some use out of it. I got some basil and oregano from the garden for the Bolognese bake today.
I think my left hand is getting a bit better these days – in the past, I relied on the mini wizz to chop up various ingredients but now I can chop up an onion or capsicum coarsely without using the mini whiz. The Bolognese sauce took a while to simmer so while I was waiting for it, I did Rosemary’s and Neil’s arm exercises. When it was all cooked, I switched off the stove and went to the study to type up my diary.

I went back to the kitchen to finish off the cooking later in the afternoon. Fortunately I planned all this beforehand and had asked Tim to BBQ the eggplant for me yesterday, otherwise, it’d probably take me forever just to cook the eggplant. In the middle of cooking, I heard the door opened. Tim and Lillian are home. They are early today. Tim usually picks her up around 5.30 pm but today they are home about 5.00 pm. There goes my peace and quiteness!