fredag 10 september 2010

When mama is sick

I'm sick with acute bronchitis.
Partner is handling everything, parenting, meals, cleaning.
I had already been sick with a really nasty cold for a week when I called our local health care central just before 8 am. I got the machine, telling me to enter the number I wanted them to call me back on. The machine said they would call me back at 9am. They called back sooner. A nice, registered nurse asked me about my symptoms and then said she wanted me to come down and get a walk in consultant. Just come right on down.
It is a five minute walk, but I could handle that on the amount of paracetamol(1) and ibuprofren(2) I had in my system. I paid 13.8$, the fee I pay until my medical care costs reach 124$. Then I pay nothing for a year, starting with the date on my first paid contact with care.
I waited for about 40 minutes, then a nurse took me to a small lab to take my temperature (only in my ear) and I told her I was on fever reducers. She also took a small amount of blood from my finger to get a CRP.
Then I was given a room and waited for the doctor.
He listened to the short version of my medical history, felt the lymph nodes on my neck, looked me in the ears and my throat and listened to my heart and lungs. Then he told me my CRP(3) was 87, which surprised me since I wasn't feeling all that bad on my fever reducers. His diagnosis was acute bronchitis since I've had that before. It's one of the reasons that got me to quit smoking and succeed in never starting again (the other reason was wanting to be pregnant). Because of the nature of my work he gave me a doctors sick leave note to last me through the penicillin treatment he prescribed me. I was prescibed three doses of Phenoxymethylpenicillin(4) a day and heaps of rest.
My partner notified his employer and took parental leave for the rest of the week.
At the same time he is taking sole responsibility in getting BB used to her daycarer, but that is another story.

Ideally this is what should happen when a parent is sick. The parent should be allowed time to heal, and some one else takes parental leave at approximative 80% pay (of their regular income). The person that has taken ill is instead, ideally, given sick pay. Parenting is a higly engaging job, and no one should have to manage on their own while being very ill. Having been unable to parent for many days now, my love for my partner and the Swedish system is intensified and deepens. My respect and sympathy for any parent doing this on their own is actualized.


  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol
  2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibuprofen
  3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-reactive_protein
  4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenoxymethylpenicillin