February 3rd 2015 - Croup & Asthma
NOT a good combination! However, this isn't the 1st time its happened so we are aware of signs, symptoms and ways to treat etc.
HISTORY - My middle son is now 9years old, he has suffered with croup since he was a baby and has been treated as asthmatic since he was 18months old and had his first "asthma attack" when walking up to Edinburgh Castle in Scotland, he didn't want to go in his pushchair but walk like his brother. He got part way and started to slow down, we thought he was just trired, but then he started to cough and then wheeze as he breathed. Having had asthma since I was 7 I always have an inhaler with me, and I used it on my son. It stopped the wheeze and eased the cough.
When we got back to where we were staying we rang the local doctors and explained that we were on holiday and what had happened with my son. The doctors agreed to see us but told us to take him to the park and let him run about for half an hour before his appointment. We did this and he started coughing again. Well at his appointment the doctor said "I think he has early onset of asthma." And with that we left with a prescription for a spacer and inhaler.
As I put above he has suffered with croup since he was a baby, the first time he had it was very scary, the cough that sounds like a dog or seal barking and the husky cry gets you out of bed very quickly and is a sound you don't forget. I thought it was whooping cough, so off to out of hours doctors we went to be told it's croup. They told me the signs & symtoms to look out for and simple ways I could try and treat it at home. All good. The same with his asthma, just before 2years he had another asthma attack from running around outside, his inhaler didn't work and I had to call an ambulance to him, again a very scary process, the crew were brilliant and hooked him to nebuliser straight away but he didn't want the cute teddy mask on his face! I had to hold him and the mask to his face as he wriggled all the way to the hospital. Anyway, we got sorted and were told of what to keep an eye out for. So he gets croup and now throw his asthma attacks into the equation as well = a very stressful time.
Both croup and asthma cause the walls of the upper airway and windpipe to swell and inflame causing it hard to breathe and talk and swallow. Most people just suffer with one or the other, but my son has to be different and suffer from both!!! This means that nearly every time he gets croup he has an asthma attack shortly afterwards or at the same time.
NOW - as I put above he is now 9years old and according to most sites on the internet croup is suffered from those under the age of 5years. But as the doctor said yesterday he is ticking all the boxes for croup despite his age. This is what was said over 6months ago when he got it as well. They have no idea how come he is still getting it or if it is just coming across as croup but is his asthma. He doesn't wheeze very often with his asthma but gets a cough and even when he has an attack (not very often now thankfully) he coughs when struggling to breathe. Coughs linked to asthma are not very common but they do exist. His asthma attacks are usually triggered by a change in temperature - hot to cold, dry to wet and vice versa, he can also have asthma attacks if I change the washing powder!
On the 1st of February I had to take my youngest to the out of hours doctors as he was crying with pain in his ear, as I don't drive this meant we all had to go (parking is terrible at out of hours) so hubby stayed in the car with the older 2 boys. This is where I think my middle sons problem started as they were sat in a car in the cold for about 20minutes (yes the heater was on but there was snow outside and temp was 1C. When we got home he started to cough so I made him take his inhalers and thought nothing more of it. He coughed a few times during the night but seemed ok to go to school on the 2nd. When he came home on the 2nd his vouce was husky and he was no longer coughing but barking like a dog/seal and said that he had had to use his inhaler a few times at school and his chest hurt when he coughed. I rang the doctors and they said they had no appointments (I didn't think they would at 4:15pm), but I asked for a doctor to ring me as had an asthmatic son that has a croupy cough and is struggling to breathe - not bad enough for an ambulance yet! Well the receptionist came back and said 5:30pm appointment they had squeezed us in.
Quickly rush to do tea before we head to doctors. The doctors were running half hour late by the time we got seen. Before the doctor even asked what was wrong son was "barking" again and the doctor said sound like he has croup. So it went from there, he had a temperature, a barking cough, his voice was husky when he spoke and noisy breathing (pretty much all on todays pin). Doctor initally said to put him in a steamy room and see how he goes - I said he is asthmatic and usually goes downhill quickly with crop and asthma linked and would probably end up in a&e by morning. The doc hadn't read all his notes but had a quick look through and saw what inhalers son is on and said he would issue prednisolone (steroids) and antibiotics to help me sooner rather than later.
Poor thing was awake most of the night with his barking cough, despite being propped up on pillows in bed. This does mean that he hasn't gone to school today, and he's still barking away upstairs. But he has had his second lot of steroids and his second lot of antibiotics so hopefully they will get into his system and start to work soon.
After all of this I will get to the medical bits.
What is croup?
Croup is is a condition that causes an inflammation of the upper airways — the
voice box (larynx) and windpipe (trachea). It often leads to a barking cough or hoarseness, especially when a child cries.
Most cases of croup are caused by viruses, usually parainfluenza virus and sometimes adenovirus or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Viral croup
is most common — and symptoms are most severe — in children 6 months to
3 years old, but can affect older kids too. Some children are more
prone to developing croup when they get a viral upper respiratory
infection.
Most cases of viral croup are mild and can be treated at home. Rarely, croup can be severe and even life threatening. The term spasmodic croup refers to a type of croup
that develops quickly and may happen in a child with a mild cold. The
barking cough usually begins at night and is not accompanied by fever.
Spasmodic croup has a tendency to come back again (recur). Treatment of symptoms is the same for either form of croup.
Signs and symptoms of croup
May have cold symptoms, like a stuffy or runny nose and a fever. As the
upper airway (the lining of the windpipe and the voice box) becomes more
inflamed and swollen, the child may become hoarse, with a harsh,
barking cough. This loud cough, which is characteristic of croup, often
sounds like the barking of a seal.
If the upper airway continues to swell, it becomes even more difficult
for a child to breathe, and you may hear a high-pitched or squeaking
noise during inhalation (called stridor). A child also might breathe
very fast or have retractions (when the skin between the ribs pulls in
during breathing). In the most serious cases, a child may appear pale or
have a bluish color around the mouth due to a lack of oxygen. Symptoms of croup are often worse at night and when children are upset or crying.
Treatment of croup
Breathing in moist air helps and ibuprofen or
acetaminophen (only in children over 6 months old) can make them more
comfortable. As with most illnesses, rest and plenty of fluids are
recommended.
The best way to expose your child to moist air is to use a cool-mist
humidifier or run a hot shower to create a steam-filled bathroom where
you can sit with your child for 10 minutes. Breathing in the mist will
sometimes stop a child from severe coughing. In the cooler months,
taking your child outside for a few minutes to breath in the cool air
can ease symptoms. if the croup appears serious or there is a suspicion of airway blockage.
Doctors often treat croup with steroids to decrease airway swelling.
For severe cases, doctors will give a breathing treatment that contains
epinephrine (adrenalin).
If you think your child has croup try the home remedies of steam and/or humidifier before going to the doctors, but if you are concerned ring your doctor.
Tuesday, 3 February 2015
Monday, 2 February 2015
February 2nd 2015 - Paid to search
February 2nd 2015 - Paid to search
Towards the end of August of 2014 whilst on a paid survey website, I saw a link to a site called Qmee, offering money for searches. I had never heard of it so started a google search to see what I could on it. Everything seemed legit so I went back to the Qmee page and started reading what they had to say on their own site.
It's very simple you sign up for an account, which is free. You then install the simple add-on facility with 1 click and its added to your toolbar and you don't need to re-start your browser either. And away you go. I found a helpful article about it on Pinterest that links to a lady's blog page.
As you search for things on gooogle, amazon, ebay, yahoo or bing etc, you sometimes get a narrow box appear on the left hand side of your screen, it looks like this:
These are adverts from companies linked in with Qmee, they all have a price next to them, if you click on them they will take you to that page where you can browse and then go back to your original page. The Qmee add-on will track that you visited that page and tracks you the amount it said. If you then visit your Qmee account it will show the amount that you have earned. Sometimes these links stay for a couple of searches and you can get multiple amounts, other times they appear once and vanish.
The prices on the Qmee adds vary from £0.03p upto £1, i'm yet to find anything higher than £0.15p. There doesn't seem to be a fixed thing that makes it pop up and if sit and "try" to find things it doesn't work either, its as though it knows what your doing. But when you are doing random searches like at Halloween I was searching for spiders to make my house it a spiders lair it came up a few times.
Unlike other paid to search and paid to click companies Qmee pay out in cash via paypal and there is no minimum amount (YAY!) they also don't pay out in points like others do.
I wasn't sure last year that it would actually pay out as it seemed to good to be true, and you know what they say if it seems too good to be true it probably is. But I thought it's money for nothing, so I will give it a try. From August until 31st Dec 2014 I managed to collect £4.02, which I cashed out on new years eve, and received in my paypal account a couple of days later. The reason I cashed out was so I could see 1. if it does work and 2. how much I can get in a year. So far in 2015 I have £1.16 from the month of January. This isn't a get rich quick scheme by any means, but if you are going to be searching the net for things anyway you may as well get paid a few extra pence for doing so.
I told my hubby and a good friend about it and they both installed the add-on and neither of them have had as many links show up as I have. So again it shows how random it is. There are blogs with posts about Qmee all over the internet, with the odd few claiming they have made £40-50 a year through using it, now if they would like to share exactly HOW they managed to get that much it would be nice, but the majority are just a few pounds.
You can also donate your earnings to charity through the site. Overall I would say if you don't mind the company tracking your data by searches and don't mind adding a few seconds to your time when searching by following other links, give it a try.
Towards the end of August of 2014 whilst on a paid survey website, I saw a link to a site called Qmee, offering money for searches. I had never heard of it so started a google search to see what I could on it. Everything seemed legit so I went back to the Qmee page and started reading what they had to say on their own site.
It's very simple you sign up for an account, which is free. You then install the simple add-on facility with 1 click and its added to your toolbar and you don't need to re-start your browser either. And away you go. I found a helpful article about it on Pinterest that links to a lady's blog page.
As you search for things on gooogle, amazon, ebay, yahoo or bing etc, you sometimes get a narrow box appear on the left hand side of your screen, it looks like this:
The prices on the Qmee adds vary from £0.03p upto £1, i'm yet to find anything higher than £0.15p. There doesn't seem to be a fixed thing that makes it pop up and if sit and "try" to find things it doesn't work either, its as though it knows what your doing. But when you are doing random searches like at Halloween I was searching for spiders to make my house it a spiders lair it came up a few times.
Unlike other paid to search and paid to click companies Qmee pay out in cash via paypal and there is no minimum amount (YAY!) they also don't pay out in points like others do.
I wasn't sure last year that it would actually pay out as it seemed to good to be true, and you know what they say if it seems too good to be true it probably is. But I thought it's money for nothing, so I will give it a try. From August until 31st Dec 2014 I managed to collect £4.02, which I cashed out on new years eve, and received in my paypal account a couple of days later. The reason I cashed out was so I could see 1. if it does work and 2. how much I can get in a year. So far in 2015 I have £1.16 from the month of January. This isn't a get rich quick scheme by any means, but if you are going to be searching the net for things anyway you may as well get paid a few extra pence for doing so.
I told my hubby and a good friend about it and they both installed the add-on and neither of them have had as many links show up as I have. So again it shows how random it is. There are blogs with posts about Qmee all over the internet, with the odd few claiming they have made £40-50 a year through using it, now if they would like to share exactly HOW they managed to get that much it would be nice, but the majority are just a few pounds.
You can also donate your earnings to charity through the site. Overall I would say if you don't mind the company tracking your data by searches and don't mind adding a few seconds to your time when searching by following other links, give it a try.
Sunday, 1 February 2015
February 1st 2015 - What shall I pin today?
February 1st 2015 - What shall I pin today?
I have completed my first month of the 365 Pin a day challenge! YAY go me!
However, for todays pin I decided to go with this:
The reason for this is although I have been doing 1 pin a day of things already pinned, I have also pinned a lot more - more than the 31 I have completed! I'm not quite sure that this was part of the 365 though, but never mind.
The original figures of January 1st were as follows:
2 accounts with a total of 121 boards (58 of these are linked to the SJA courses),
121 boards have 7,016pins (681 are on SJA Account)
6,316pins on main account to do 365
A month into the challenge and the figures look this:
2 accounts with a total of 126 boards
126 boards have 7,741 pins (825 are on the SJA account)
6,916 pins are on the main account
So this means in 31days I have made a further 5 more boards and added 600 new pins, of which 144 are on my St John account and 456 new pins are on my main account! I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but I suppose it all depends on how you look at it. Is the glass half full or half empty???
This does show that I am pinning more than I am doing, which probably means I have far too much time on my hands doing nothing, but as i'm limited on what I can actually do still due to pain in my knee I happy to use that as my reason.
I have completed my first month of the 365 Pin a day challenge! YAY go me!
However, for todays pin I decided to go with this:
The original figures of January 1st were as follows:
2 accounts with a total of 121 boards (58 of these are linked to the SJA courses),
121 boards have 7,016pins (681 are on SJA Account)
6,316pins on main account to do 365
A month into the challenge and the figures look this:
2 accounts with a total of 126 boards
126 boards have 7,741 pins (825 are on the SJA account)
6,916 pins are on the main account
So this means in 31days I have made a further 5 more boards and added 600 new pins, of which 144 are on my St John account and 456 new pins are on my main account! I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but I suppose it all depends on how you look at it. Is the glass half full or half empty???
This does show that I am pinning more than I am doing, which probably means I have far too much time on my hands doing nothing, but as i'm limited on what I can actually do still due to pain in my knee I happy to use that as my reason.
Saturday, 31 January 2015
January 31st 2015 - St John Ambulance Paperwork
January 31st 2015 - St John Ambulance Paperwork
Although we are still in January I have to sort out the paperwork for my St John Ambualnce Youth unit for the term from easter to the summer holidays. I already know what courses I am going to be running, I just need to sort out the indepth plan of each week.
So today's pin comes from my other account - the 1 I use for bits to help with St John Ambulance courses. It is this form, the 3month meeting plan. I have 2 lots of it to fill in - 1 for the under 10s (Badgers) and 1 for the over 10s (Cadets ). So this will keep me busy for most of today and probably tomorrow.
Although we are still in January I have to sort out the paperwork for my St John Ambualnce Youth unit for the term from easter to the summer holidays. I already know what courses I am going to be running, I just need to sort out the indepth plan of each week.
So today's pin comes from my other account - the 1 I use for bits to help with St John Ambulance courses. It is this form, the 3month meeting plan. I have 2 lots of it to fill in - 1 for the under 10s (Badgers) and 1 for the over 10s (Cadets ). So this will keep me busy for most of today and probably tomorrow.
Friday, 30 January 2015
January 30th 2015 - how to remove bits from a perfume bottle
January 30th 2015 - how to remove bits from a perfume bottle
Following onfrom the halloween book yesterday I am also in the process of making some new potion bottles for myself and a friend who wants some. I won some lovely crystal shaped bottles on ebay last week that I thought would be great to add to the shelf of potions.
They arrived today and although listed as small are bit bigger than I thouht they were but thats not a problem. The problem however was they were spray bottles not open top ones and the bit the spray fits into is fixed to the glass bottle not screw on like the newer style bottles are.
So I set about finding a new pin for today on how to remove the spray bit from old perfume bottles. Well as you can see I found one. Unfortunately the tutorial and actually doing it dont fully work together. I was unable to get the scissors under the outer part like it says and we still couldn't remove the middle easily, so I attacked it with my dremmel craft tool and a drill bit. This was fine except the spay tube and everything else ended up inside the bottle. Here's where I handed to the hubby and said fix! Luckily hubby managed to get the bits off we needed off and the plastic stopper out of the neck of the bottle and pull the insides out.
The bottles are now ready to be washed and have new contents in, but in order for the bottles to be air tight and not leak I have got to go to wilkinsons and buy some small corks to glue in as stoppers. I think that I am going to have to cut the corks down too fit as the hole is about 0.5-1cm across.
Following onfrom the halloween book yesterday I am also in the process of making some new potion bottles for myself and a friend who wants some. I won some lovely crystal shaped bottles on ebay last week that I thought would be great to add to the shelf of potions.
They arrived today and although listed as small are bit bigger than I thouht they were but thats not a problem. The problem however was they were spray bottles not open top ones and the bit the spray fits into is fixed to the glass bottle not screw on like the newer style bottles are.
So I set about finding a new pin for today on how to remove the spray bit from old perfume bottles. Well as you can see I found one. Unfortunately the tutorial and actually doing it dont fully work together. I was unable to get the scissors under the outer part like it says and we still couldn't remove the middle easily, so I attacked it with my dremmel craft tool and a drill bit. This was fine except the spay tube and everything else ended up inside the bottle. Here's where I handed to the hubby and said fix! Luckily hubby managed to get the bits off we needed off and the plastic stopper out of the neck of the bottle and pull the insides out.
The bottles are now ready to be washed and have new contents in, but in order for the bottles to be air tight and not leak I have got to go to wilkinsons and buy some small corks to glue in as stoppers. I think that I am going to have to cut the corks down too fit as the hole is about 0.5-1cm across.
Thursday, 29 January 2015
January 29th 2015 - Making a Spell book
January 29th 2015 -Making a Spell book
I am starting the process of making a Spell book ready for Halloween, to go alongside my witches potion shelf and crystal ball that I have. There are many ideas and tutorials on the internet but most are for an open book and only have 2 pages with spells on, this is 1 of the ideas on pinterest.
However, for my book I plan to add a Spell to every page! Yes i'm being adventurous and yes I will get it to work and no it's not too early to be thinking about Halloween! I also found this picture on Pinterest about Halloween that I thought was appropriate:
This is so me and sums things up. I love Halloween and everything that goes with it, I have boxes of decorations and stuff in the loft, I really think that I should have lived in USA as they do everything on a big scale like I like to do.
Anyway back to the book. I went to the old/second hand book shop in town on Tuesday 27th January in the hope of finding an old leather bound book of A4 type size that I could convert. There were some lovely old books that would have been perfect, the only downside was the price of the £6.50 for an A5 and upto £50 an almost A3 size. They would have been great but I can't justify the cost of it for use of a few hours 1 night a year. So I went round the charity shops and picked up a 1978 encyclopeadia for 99p, its not as thick as I had hoped for but i can make it work.
I plan to add texture by tissue paper to the cover and then paint it a deep purple, I also want the word spells in raised letters across the top and a silver pentagram underneath and the same on the spine. I just have to find these bits or work out how to make them! I am glueing every 2 pages together to make the paper thicker and I will painting them with acrylic paint in a brown to make them look old. Once these are all done (going to take few weeks as can only glue 4 pages at a time so they dont all stick together and will be the same with paint). I will then be printing out all the spells I have found and saved on pinterest in a baord called spells and spell book, and sticking them to the pages.
This is going to be a work in progress and I will be re-visiting as I go during the year.
I am starting the process of making a Spell book ready for Halloween, to go alongside my witches potion shelf and crystal ball that I have. There are many ideas and tutorials on the internet but most are for an open book and only have 2 pages with spells on, this is 1 of the ideas on pinterest.
However, for my book I plan to add a Spell to every page! Yes i'm being adventurous and yes I will get it to work and no it's not too early to be thinking about Halloween! I also found this picture on Pinterest about Halloween that I thought was appropriate:
This is so me and sums things up. I love Halloween and everything that goes with it, I have boxes of decorations and stuff in the loft, I really think that I should have lived in USA as they do everything on a big scale like I like to do.
Anyway back to the book. I went to the old/second hand book shop in town on Tuesday 27th January in the hope of finding an old leather bound book of A4 type size that I could convert. There were some lovely old books that would have been perfect, the only downside was the price of the £6.50 for an A5 and upto £50 an almost A3 size. They would have been great but I can't justify the cost of it for use of a few hours 1 night a year. So I went round the charity shops and picked up a 1978 encyclopeadia for 99p, its not as thick as I had hoped for but i can make it work.
I plan to add texture by tissue paper to the cover and then paint it a deep purple, I also want the word spells in raised letters across the top and a silver pentagram underneath and the same on the spine. I just have to find these bits or work out how to make them! I am glueing every 2 pages together to make the paper thicker and I will painting them with acrylic paint in a brown to make them look old. Once these are all done (going to take few weeks as can only glue 4 pages at a time so they dont all stick together and will be the same with paint). I will then be printing out all the spells I have found and saved on pinterest in a baord called spells and spell book, and sticking them to the pages.
This is going to be a work in progress and I will be re-visiting as I go during the year.
Wednesday, 28 January 2015
January 28th 2015 - Pinterest has arrived on my blog
January 28th 2015 - Pinterest has arrived on my blog
I have wondered for a long time HOW people have the "P" or "pin" appear on their images on blogs and websites, so I set about finding out.
I started off by going through my blog to check I didn't already have, which I didn't think I did and I was correct. I then hit settings and started playing about with those and also realised that my blog didn't show the tags/labels I have added to each post or have a search bar and a few other bits. So I added these quite easily from the layout tab, but I couldn't find anything about the Pinterest bit on photos so I went and searched on Pinterest itself and there is loads, some not relevant to blogger but I eventually found a link that was.
I followed the insturctions and saved my template, added the coding where it said saved it and went back to the blog page AND it worked!
I'm really happy and pleased with myself that I managed to do it. My blog can now be linked to Pinterest via my pictures, it has a search bar and shows all the tags. I even altered the background colour from Black to Purple, so its now now a really dark blog. Another day I am going to try and find a really nice Purple blog template and see if I can change the template completely. I need to work out how to link Pinterest to my blog as well.
I have wondered for a long time HOW people have the "P" or "pin" appear on their images on blogs and websites, so I set about finding out.
I started off by going through my blog to check I didn't already have, which I didn't think I did and I was correct. I then hit settings and started playing about with those and also realised that my blog didn't show the tags/labels I have added to each post or have a search bar and a few other bits. So I added these quite easily from the layout tab, but I couldn't find anything about the Pinterest bit on photos so I went and searched on Pinterest itself and there is loads, some not relevant to blogger but I eventually found a link that was.
I followed the insturctions and saved my template, added the coding where it said saved it and went back to the blog page AND it worked!
I'm really happy and pleased with myself that I managed to do it. My blog can now be linked to Pinterest via my pictures, it has a search bar and shows all the tags. I even altered the background colour from Black to Purple, so its now now a really dark blog. Another day I am going to try and find a really nice Purple blog template and see if I can change the template completely. I need to work out how to link Pinterest to my blog as well.
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