"Health risk of drying laundry indoors"

Well, that's all we need, isn't it? Drying laundry indoors puts too much moisture into your air (a litre per half load). That's bad for you.

But how does that compare with the ill health caused by the stress of using a washer-dryer?

We should really all be drying our laundry outside (in Scotland in November?), or finding a glass-walled, south-facing well-ventilated space in our homes. And if you don't have a glass-walled, south-facing, well-ventilated space*... I suppose you sit and wait till someone invents clothes that don't need washing. Personally, I'm not going to worry, because I reckon the moisture content in the air I breathe the minute I set foot outside our house (in Scotland in November) is probably well above what a litre per half load produces inside.

You can see the clip here, but I wouldn't bother. It'll just depress you. Everything makes you ill these days, doesn't it?


*One of the funnniest expat blog posts about laundry that I've read is this one, in which Rachel talks about how much she was looking forward to the conservatory in her new home. She dreamed of sitting there on a winter morning, sipping coffee in the warmth of the sun and watching the birds in the garden. All her English visitors to the new home commented how lovely the conservatory was... but they all exclaimed how great the space would be for drying laundry. It's one of those ultimate cultural divide things.

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Christmas 2011, the Christmas of the Towels

Christmas Eve, and Mr Claus and I were in the basement wrapping the final presents, and watching old episodes of Men Behaving Badly (yay, Netflix). I asked Husband to pass me a box of tissue, from the other side of the room, and as he pottered over in his socked feet, he paused and asked "why is the carpet wet here?". Yay for the box of tissues, which led us to discover that we have a leak in something (since it hasn't rained for a few days), and that water has been seeping into a corner of the basement, for probably several days (or weeks - who knows). This accounts for the slightly odd smell, which Husband had mentioned the other day, and I'd ignored. Our basement often smells slightly odd. It's usually to do with the dirty socks strewn around.

So the carpet is peeled back, the underlay discarded, and a pretty semi-circle of towels is keeping the water at bay. Towels which every few hours need to be wrung out, bunged in the washing machine and then the dryer (yay, driers.)

We had a lovely Christmas Day. We really did. Then last night, three of the five of us (Husband, me, 7-yo) went down with a bug. Or got up with a bug, I should say. Was it the turkey? Anyway, in these situations, I become a bit obsessive about washing everything: bedding, towels, pyjamas. I also put down a lot of spare towels, a habit which dates back to the days when our children weren't old enough to make it to the bucket, or good enough at aiming even if the bucket was right next to the bed. Thus it was that Husband, seeing me with another load on my way to the washing machine (yay, washing machines) wryly observed "This has been the Christmas of the Towels".

Right. Off to check that our house insurance is up to date.

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I really love the NHS

I was wondering whether it would be more cost effective to have 14-yo's eyes tested and buy new specs for him in the US or the UK. In the end, I decided to wait till we got to the UK. I'm so glad I did.

True, the eye test was in a rather dingy and small room, and wasn't as thorough as in the US, where you have drops put in, photos taken, air puffed at you, and who know what else. It was just with one person, whereas in the US, the preliminary stuff is done by an assistant, until the moment comes when The Ophthalmologist arrives and finishes the process. True, we'll wait a week or so for the glasses, whereas in the US it's usually 2 or 3 days. True, the display of frames wasn't in a spacious showroom, and it was all a bit cramped. I expect if I was American, I'd have thought it was rather shabby and I wouldn't have liked perching on a small chair in the corner while they measured 14-yo's forehead, and the whole experience might have seemed rather... what's the word?... can't think... well, just not very swish.

However, there were huge advantages. The NHS paid for the test, and then gave us a voucher to spend on glasses. Boots will then give you a child's pair of glasses for free (the NHS voucher covers some of the cost, and Boots subsidises the rest). But because Boots also had a buy one get one free offer, we decided to use the voucher towards adult frames, and we walked out having chosen two pairs of prescription glasses (one plain, one sunglasses), with all the fancy non-scratch coating and other stuff that you usually have to pay extra for, for 62 GB pounds. How fabulous is that? Very fabulous, that's how fabulous. Very fabulous indeed, when I think that in the US, because eye care isn't covered by our insurance, I've spent over $200 on an eye test for a child. Then when I've actually had to buy glasses, it's been at least $200 a pair.

Another issue is that anything health-related always takes so long in the US. It's partly because they're so thorough, but I can't help suspecting that part of it is because you need to feel the cost is justified. A lot of the time seems to be spent in moving you from one suite of rooms to another, leaving you to wait, considerable peering at computer screens and checking your details, researching different costs of lenses according to their thickness and lightness, and getting you to fill in forms which say "You, oh Ophthalmologist and all who work here, are not liable for anything, anything, anything. I will never sue you, never, never, never, no matter what you do, even if you gouge my eyes out, or deliberately amputate one of my limbs without anaesthetic, or sell my child abroad, or decapitate my husband, I promise I won't sue you, and if I do, you can point to this piece of paper and prove that it wasn't your fault".

We were in and out of Boots in 45 minutes. I didn't fill in a form, beyond my son's name, address in England, and telephone number. The people were friendly and helpful, though clearly very busy.

To sum up: 45 minutes, eye test, two pairs of prescription specs, 62 pounds. Result.

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Does parental experience count for anything?

You'd think that 13 years of being a parent would count for something. It appears not. That is why, with Husband away this week, the following things happened.

1. I was pondering to myself how some things do get easier, and reminiscing silently how one of the children always used to be ill whenever Husband went away, and how once I even booked a doctor's appointment in advance - which I did then need (or perhaps I was just proving my point), but how they seemed to have grown out of being ill so much. This is known as TEMPTING FATE, and as a parent, you don't do it. We all know that. It's in Chapter 1 of all the baby books.
2. I have not had my antennae tuned recently. We all know that parents need fully-functioning antenna, which can pick up any hint of a "wouldn't you just know it" story before it becomes reality. For the week Husband is away, I am working on Monday and Tuesday, and the boys are off school on Thursday and Friday. This leaves Wednesday as the one day for me, me, me. So when 6-yo creeps into my bed at 5.00am on Wednesday morning, complaining of a tummy ache, why do I not see where this is going? Why do I operate my mind-over-matter strategy on her, saying "I'll get the bucket and we'll put it by the bed, but YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE SICK"? And then in the morning, when she hasn't been sick and says she's feeling a bit better, but has a temperature of a little over 99, why do I optimistically say "oh, we'll take it again in an hour... it'll probably go down... people often have a slightly raised temperature first thing in the morning" and not remember that that's just when you're ovulating, which, at 6 years old, she probably isn't?
3. When we are driving home from taking the boys to school, and 6-yo announces "I'm going to be sick", I reply "but we're nearly home, very very nearly home, I can see the house, just hold on ONE minute". Yup. That's what I said. Even the most inept parent knows that when a child says "I'm going to be sick", the correct answer isn't any sentence including the words "just hold on". We all know that stopping the car is the only workable strategy at this point, and who cares about the neighbour's lawn?
4. I didn't have a receptacle of any description to hand in the car. Any decent parent has a plastic bag or two in the car, don't they? In the few seconds available to me, I looked at the box of tissues, and wondered if she could be sick tidily into the little window at the top of it. I even looked at her adored dry erase board, and wondered if she could hold it horizontal and keep it level, as a sort of vomit-receiving tray (though I knew this would be cruel beyond measure - she loves that dry erase board so much). So as I sped up the road, the best I could do was to say "open the window - if you're being sick, do it out of the window", forgetting that those stupid electric windows in the back of the car don't open all the way down.

So serves me right, eh? Forty-five minutes wiping vomit off the inside of the window, the inside of the door, the seat belt, the car seat, the car seat cover, the floor, and out of the retracting cup-holder and all its niftily designed little hinges for which no doubt some studious Japanese designer received great credit from his superiors, because none of them thought "this flips shut very neatly, but I wonder how easy it would be to clean vomit out of all the small crevices".

But there's one thing I HAVE learnt as a parent, and it is this. There is NO SHAME in putting the tv on when you have a poorly child, in order to buy you time to write a blog post. So I guess 13 years do count for something.

[Stephen Hawking, by the way. The bad taste joke in the last post...]

A shot in the dark

Bloggy Friends, you’ve always helped me out (except for Victoria Beckham’s phone number, but that was a tough one, I grant you), so can I ask you to come to my aid again? Two things.

First, I want to set up that clever system whereby whenever one of you writes one of your fabulously witty and interesting posts, I am notified. I think there are various sites on which I can do this, so just tell me the best one (for ‘best’, read ‘simplest’).

Second, and this is a bit more of a challenge, help me out with cross-Atlantic immunization issues (and I’m not just talking about the spelling). The story so far: 4-yo had all her infant jabs. She is due her pre-school boosters. Immunization schedules are different in the US and UK. The whole DTP bundle is given five times in the US to a child by the time it reaches school age, to the UK’s four. Is this cost-cutting by the NHS, or cynical cashing in by US drug companies? Or neither? I have no way of knowing. Are they different products or different doses, and will it matter? Trawling the internet hasn’t yielded an answer.

Immunizations are compulsory here, so in order to attend preschool, 4-yo had to have a letter from her doctor saying that there were medical reasons for her not to be immunized. (Odd, isn’t it, that in a nation that holds so dear the principle of personal freedom, people are quite happy to be compelled to have their children immunized – can you imagine the outcry there would be in Britain?) I told 4-yo’s doctor that she could have her pre-school booster when we were on holiday in Scotland, sticking to the UK schedule. Keep things simple. I have now had to tell him that the GP in Scotland said it was too complicated to give her the shot because she was no longer registered with him, he didn’t have her records, and it meant he would have to register her as a temporary resident, which took two weeks. At this point, I warmed greatly to my doctor here, when he said “but that’s the kind of thing we say in this country”. I love it when I come across an American who can laugh at America. Anyway, he now wants a bit more information on what exactly 4-yo was injected with, as an infant, and so I am charged with phoning my very nice and long-suffering health visitor and getting the information from her (without either of us saying “wouldn’t it just have been easier if Dr X had agreed to do the job when you were over?”).

Option A: postpone the whole issue, assume 4-yo isn’t going to be exposed to polio, diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus (especially given that every other child has been immunized), get my nice doctor here to write the medical exemption note for preschool, and have another try at sorting it all out when we are next in Britain.

Option B: get her to have the American booster, and trust to luck that it won’t do her any harm, but actually after the conversation with the doctor, I’m already committed to

Option C: get information from the health visitor in Scotland (which may well not help anyway).

Option D: an immunologist, who enjoys blogging in his/her spare time, happens to read this post, and is able to tell me authoritatively what to do. That would be nice. De-lurk, kind passing immunologist.

They’re shots in America, jabs in England, jags in Scotland. Shots, jabs, jags, whatever. They’re a pain in the behind.

Foolish words

A couple of weeks ago (a fortnight, one might even say), I had to take 7-yo to the doctor for something fairly routine. In the bit of small talk that one has time for during a doctor's appointment here (shock, horror), I mentioned to the doctor that we'd had a really healthy winter season. The kids had been well, Husband and I had been well, not much in the way of bugs, coughs and colds. Oooooh noooo, I hear you wail. Yes, indeed it was foolish talk.

A week later, I have three sick kids, and a head cold. I am debating with myself why I am posting this, and I think it is for some e-sympathy. I have a superstitious sense, too, that if I repent of my foolhardy words in a public forum, perhaps Providence will relent, and everyone will be well again in 9 days time, so that we don't have to ferry poorly children across the Atlantic. Not fun.

There's something that is complicated about going to the doctor here, as well as understanding the insurance system (which I don't think anyone does, actually). It's the vocabulary. A surgery is something you have, not something you visit. Sick means ill, vomiting means sick. Fever means high temperature. I don't think they use the word poorly at all. Not even poorly. And it seems that 7-yo has walking pneumonia, which I just wish could be called a chest infection. I assume that is what it is, but doesn't "walking pneumonia" sound much worse? What they used to call the old man's friend, on legs. If we had to have walking pneumonia around the place, I would rather it was something in the back yard, alongside the creeping jenny and the climbing wisteria. But at least if it's walking pneumonia, it will respond to the antibiotics and not be mono (which was mentioned), which is glandular fever, and not nice in either language.

Today's turn at the doctor's office is 4-yo's, who I suspect has an ear infection. Usual symptoms, plus half a dozen large red circular marks on her arms and abdomen, including one perfectly centred over her tummy button. These may confuse the doctor, although if he looks carefully, he will see Barbie's face, and conclude, rightly, that a Barbie stamper with rather permanent ink has been in use. At least I hope he doesn't want to investigate further, as I'm sure the ailment isn't covered by insurance and it could be hugely expensive. Either that, or she will be hailed as some kind of miracle child in the religion that Barbie has become, and we'll have to set up a pink shrine on our front porch to accommodate worshippers, once word is out.

I've come a long way though. The first time I went to the doctor, early on in our time here, the receptionist told me brightly "there's a $20 co-pay today", and not having a clue what that was but assuming from her tone of voice that it was some kind of jolly little extra I could opt for, I replied equally brightly "oh, um, no thanks".

Verruca

One good turn deserves another. You, America, have introduced me to the word cosmetology. I am going to introduce you to the word verruca (pronounced v ' roo ka). I discovered yesterday that you don’t know this word. I’m not going to tell you what it means, because you can click over to Wikipedia or Google and find out for yourselves very easily, and I’d like to build up the suspense a little. Remember how your teacher used to tell you that if you looked up a word yourself, you’d remember its meaning better? I’d hate to tell you straight off what a verruca is, and not give you the best possible chance of retaining the knowledge. With the knowledge will come the realisation that you missed out on the humour of the name of the character Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (but you may feel that missing out on British humour is the best way of approaching it).

Meanwhile, we Brits can chat amongst ourselves, and say “how can they not have a word for a verruca?” You can also heave a sigh of relief on my behalf that I discovered this sorry lacuna in American English in the relatively unembarrassing context of a private conversation (although honestly, verrucae never make for a very pretty discussion). The alternative might have been in a crowded pharmacy:

“Have you got anything for a verruca? For a verruca. No, not a feraverruca. Just A VERRUCA. Yes, that’s right. A verruca. I don’t want them to stop my son swimming, you see. He's got several. In Britain, we use something called Bazooka to get rid of them. You don’t have that here? Do you have anything similar? No, I’m not trying to be funny. No, not offensive either. Um, well, [sensing it’s time to go] most people say that if you leave them alone, in time they will go away on their own, so we’ll just try that.”

Everyday communication can be such a minefield here.

Cosmetology for verruca. It seems a fair swap.

Answers

Well, you got them both. Well done to Dan who was first with Olbas Oil, and Someonesmrs who was first with Savlon. Intriguingly, these are both people who know me from my pre-Iota UK life. I wonder if that gave them a head start. I didn’t have either of them down as the kind of people who would snoop in other people’s bathroom cabinets, so maybe it’s coincidence, although it does also cause me to reflect on the way we come to know people. Am I more obviously an Olbas-Savlon type if you meet me in person? Or is it just easier to guess these kind of details from the picture of someone built up and fleshed out over years rather than weeks?

So glory and smug feelings to you, Dan and Someonesmrs, but I loved some of the other answers. Oatcakes, oint ment, oxo cubes and ooo marmite – very creative. Lucozade (welcome, Strickley, and I’ve enjoyed your pictures of Cumbria this morning) does indeed always make me feel better – it’s another of those childhood comfort memories. We only drank it as a very special treat when ill and in need of building up our energy (although I later discovered that my mother used to keep a bottle of it hidden away for herself for secret swigs, which was definitely not fair play). Slimfast is a good guess, Beta Mum, and boy, could they use some of it here, but that’s another story. But cod liver oil with added malt? No. I can live without that. (Do you really like the taste? Have you seen anyone about that?) As for Sudocrem, another good guess, although sadly, I am pretty much through the Sudocrem stage. I am always tempted to spell it Pseudocrem anyway, so that would have been a P.

I did promise to tell you about the Savlon alternatives here. The leading brand is called Neosporin, but, along with the others on the shelves, it isn’t an antiseptic cream, it’s an antibiotic. Call me lax, but I really don’t think my children need antibiotic treatment every time they graze, bump, cut or otherwise mutilate themselves (by scrubbing a tattoo off their cheek with a facecloth so vigorously that they remove a patch of skin an inch and a half square which takes 3 weeks to heal, for example). I don’t want to contribute to the emergence of superbugs resistant to antibiotics, and my children’s immune systems seem to do the job perfectly well without. The real issue here, though, is the Neosporin commercial. You know I hate commercials, and this one really is one of the worst. It is almost impossible to avoid (or do they just have it programmed into my personal Cox Communications box?) and irritating to the point of… doh, I can’t think. Irritating to the point of self-mutilation with a facecloth.

The commercial shows a mother telling the story of how her precious daughter once had a clean cut on her finger, a good, oo, 3 or 4mm long. She washed the cut. She didn’t do anything else. It went a tiny bit red round the edge. She went to the doctor. He suggested she try Neosporin. The cut healed up. She will always use Neosporin. She hates to see her child suffer. She thinks all parents feel this way. She is sure we will all want to use Neosporin.

Where do I start? I can’t even begin to unpeel the layers of why this annoys me – it would make for very dull reading. It’s to do with manipulation of parents by playing on their worst feelings of inadequacy; it’s to do with commercialization of health issues; it’s to do with the way some mothers tell you how hopeless they are as a mother when what they really want you to draw from the story is how good they are as mother; it’s to do with the American obsession with medicine and drugs; it’s to do with having to get to grips with yet another brand name I don’t know.

I told you I shouldn’t start. How I would like to finish, though, is by refashioning the commercial for a UK audience. It would go like this: the mother is telling the story of her daughter’s cut finger. She phones up her GP. The receptionist says “is it an emergency? otherwise the next available appointment is a week on Thursday.” She blags her way through that one (although I’d like to see her do it), and when she sees the GP, he says to her “I can tell you’re a first time mother” (this is a direct quote from a real life GP - perhaps he’d like to appear in the commercial.) She hates to see her child suffer. She thinks all parents feel this way. She goes to her local friendly pharmacist who says “och Hen, the bairn’ll come to nae harm frae tha’ wee bitty scratch” but since she is set on purchasing a product of some description, she leaves the chemist’s with a little sky-blue tube with a white lid and white writing – that marvelous stuff Savlon (and a small bottle of Olbas Oil which was by the till and on special offer).