Be Confident When Sick Happens
Unfortunately dealing with a sick child is just a part of parenting but today Penny from Sick Happens joins me to chat about how we can be confident when our kids are unwell. Penny shares why symptom tracking is so important and how to do it. We also go through fevers and respiratory distress and when to know to seek help and where to go to get help. (Because how many of us sit there wondering if we should take them to the GP, or to ER, or call an ambulance). We also chat about how to effectively advocate for your child, tips for managing sickness and so much more. This episode is full of so much that is good to know before the crisis comes because we all know that it happens in the middle of the night.
Make sure you check out Penny on Instagram @sick.happens and visit her website to read her blog posts, check out her trackers and online course.
Hey Mummas, I have such a good episode for you today. I am talking with Penny who you may know from Instagram as sick happens. She's a paediatric registered nurse and she's also got a masters in nursing and she's also a mother of two gorgeous little boys. And I love this conversation. So penny started sick happens, and she's going to share a little bit about it because when she became a parent, she worked out that parenting can be a little challenging at some times. And a huge difficulty is that we all face these inevitable and this seemingly relentless bouts of sickness in our children. We're going to talk about fevers, rashes and just the constant thing that comes up “is this normal” that I know we are all thinking. We have all been there. I love how Penny delivers evidence based practical education with empathy. So she's all about making sure that us as parents have the knowledge before the crisis hits. Sick happens is an incredible Instagram page. If you haven't already followed her, make sure you do at sick dot happens (@sick.happens). But get ready for today's episode with Penny.
Elyse:
Thank you so much for coming on the wholesome mama show and to start us off. Can you tell us a bit about you and who is in your family?
Penny:
Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for having me. Well, I am Penny. I have two beautiful little boys. Rex is my eldest. He's nearly six. Jack is my youngest son. He's nearly four and we live in beautiful Newcastle with my husband, Tony and Al little fluffy puppy. Hugo he'll probably bark at some point. He snuggled up next to me
Elyse:
Can you share with us a bit about why you started sick happens? So the brand, which as far as I'm aware, I started on Instagram called the sick happens and you’re a paediatric nurse could you share a bit about your journey being a nurse and seeing what families are needing and then how you started seek happens.
Penny:
Yeah, of course. So I have been a paediatric nurse for over 10 years and my husband used to be an air force. So we actually moved around quite a lot, which was fabulous from my job because I was really lucky to have so many different roles in all in paediatric nursing. So I've only ever cared for kids, which is my fav and I've worked in emergency and food allergy research and all of the surgical medical wards. And it really hit home to me when I was working in a children's only emergency department, particularly working at triage at the front desk. And I would see so many parents come through absolutely terrified about all sorts of different symptoms. And some, some of the symptoms were at the legitimate emergency and some of them were just, you know, have common, you know, everyday sicknesses, but they just didn't have that knowledge or that confidence or the access to GPS or, you know, because kids always get sick in the middle of the night.
So these parents would come in and be absolutely terrified and just need someone to explain things to them in a really easy to understand why, but there was just no time when you're at an emergency, you just have to triage quickly and get everyone through. And so when we moved back to Newcastle, I thought, right, I need to create something that can give parents this education, give them the tools to be able to recognise symptoms of sickness in kids, those everyday things, and know when to get help and just feel really confident about doing that themselves. I don't want to make parents feel like they have to handle everything, but just knowing what's normal, what's not when to get help and just have that little bit more understanding for themselves.
Elyse:
That's so important too, because, well, especially you go from like not having kids to them being a new mom, and then all of a sudden your child gets sick. And it sounds that you've never dealt with before. Maybe you've never seen a sick child before and you think is this is a serious, is this not? So I love the, it is a space where any questions are welcome. And I love that too. About your pages. You can feel like you're as silly as you might think you are, but actually there's no silly questions, but yeah, no, it's so good. So let's chat about symptom tracking. How, how do we go about symptom tracking? Because I know that that is one thing that you're really passionate about is looking at the different symptoms that are happening to help then address the actual problem. So can you chat with us a bit about why it's important to track symptoms and how we can go about it?
Penny:
Yeah, definitely. I am very passionate about this you're so right. I think because we, we live in a time where we do, I don't know if it's subconscious or conscious that we have so much pressure on parents to be able to be the chef, the nurse, the cleanup, the shopper, like everything. Like we expect parents to be able to do everything and having, you know, we just sort of, don't tend to reach out as much as we probably used to. And we have so many different experts around us that we really need to utilise their skills. And so what I always say to parents is we don't expect you to have to diagnose your child and come up with a treatment plan and then treat your child and do everything that we just want you to pick up the basics and know when to put your hand up and say, I'm not coping. I need help and symptom tracking's a really wonderful way to do this because you can write things down on a big pen and paper, kind of a person.
And I actually created a symptom tracker for this purpose where you can write down all of their symptoms so that if they've been sick for a couple of days, you can look back and go, oh, no worries that they have been sick for awhile. And when you do finally see your GP, you can say, this happens. This happens. This happens because we all know that we forget everything. Soon as we walked through those doors to see our doctors or any healthcare professionals. So tracking, it gives you that ability to look back objective and not forget anything. But then it's also incredibly useful where if you've got a little one, that's had, you know, symptoms like coughs and colds all the time, or they get croup all the time, or they're having these random fevers, you can flick that through over the weeks and the months and say, oh, there is a little bit of a patent here and you don't ever forget it. And it's all there. And it's just a huge relief on your mental load to have to remember everything. Cause it's just written down there ready to go.
Elyse:
Yes. How many times have you taken a child to the doctor or even emergency? And all of a sudden, it's like, they're making you out to be a liar.
Penny:
We used to laugh so much when families would come through the, like we promised I was sick just before. I'm like, all honestly, we believe you. Like they just get so distracted with what's going on around them. That they just look fine. Tell me a story. I believe you,
Elyse:
Especially in emergency with all the bright lights and all the people, they're just, oh, what's, what's this. Yeah. So I think that's so important too, because you go there and you, you JP says, oh, so tell me what's been happening. And you forget anything. So having it written down is such, such a good and knowing the symptoms to look out for which we'll go into in a little bit. But first I just wanted to ask, is there a secret to knowing when to go to the GP when to go to GP After Hours or the emergency room or when to call an ambulance?
Penny:
Yeah. This is such a great question because I have tried so many times to create like a little like a flow chart or like a question checklist or something for parents, because I get asked these questions all of the time and I just can't do it because it is the annoying thing with kids is that the symptoms are all different. They're different. Each time they're sick. Some kids have, you know, for example, pain, some kids handle pain quite well, others don't. So they're, it's just, it's impossible to sit back and say, oh, you know, they've got ear pain. You're going to the GP because you could have a child that's in excruciating pain and it's not working in something else that's going on. So I think the easiest thing that I've come to be to tell parents is that how safe you feel is when you decide which option to go for.
So we're still talking about pain. If you think your little one's in pain, let's say you think they potentially have broken a bone and you can't get them in the car safely to transport them. Then you can call an ambulance. There's no problems with doing that. Or if you're concerned about their breathing and you're like, oh, I don't know if I can sit them in the back of the car. What if they stopped breathing on the drive? You can call an ambulance. Like it's really how safe and confident you feel in getting your child safely to see whatever healthcare professional you want. So most of the time you're like, right. I think we'll be right to go to the GP. But then you throw in the mix of, well, there's no appointments available or they've got a snotty nose and a fever. So you can't go see your GP because of the world we're in at the moment with coronavirus. So it's really gray and messy and icky, but learning how to troubleshoot through that and trying to ignore other people's opinions and what you think they're thinking about. You, don't worry about that. Just focus on yourself and what you want to do, and then pick the one that suits you best.
Elyse:
So, so important. I've shared my story with Norah and she ended up in the ICU, but it, even that day I was like on, is she okay? Not okay. Like, because I didn't know. I now know the signs of serious respiratory distress. Thanks to you. But I was like, oh no, I'll just drive it to the hospital. Cause I don't want to bother the ambulance people. And then we got that and they're like, you drove here? So I think it's to also go with your gut back and don't worry about annoying paramedics or annoying the people in the emergency room. Because I know for us, when I had an, I feel like for me now, sickness is a little bit of a trigger because of the past situation we've had. So I've taken them to the GP and the ER before. And every time we have gone, they have said to us like we would rather see you a million times and you not come that one time.
Penny:
Yes. I totally agree with that. Because even when you get to emergency, like I'm not a paramedic, I don't know how this system works, but once all of those families come through emergency working at triage, you just eyeball that child. And so like every single one that comes through, you're like, just let me see them. Just let me see them. And then you can be like, right. Yep. This is okay. You can wait or note straight through. So honestly we would rather, I mean the wait times are annoying for everyone, but we would rather see you and reassure you and, or get your little unseen quickly readily.
Elyse:
So when we are say we are in the hospital or we're at GP appointment and maybe we just need some more clarification or we're feeling a bit unheard. How can we advocate for our child? I think as parents, we can be we can fail that if we're advocating for our child, then it's kind of like where against the doctors or we don't trust them all, but maybe we just need some more help, but we just have some unanswered questions. Can you talk us through how we can advocate for our children?
Penny:
Yeah. This is a big one. I actually just did a post about this because it's so important. Because you're right. I do feel like whenever you ask questions or you ask for an alternative or it, you do feel like you're questioning the doctor's ability or your question, like it comes across as a little bit aggressive or Bricey than it honestly is. Not that at all. I feel like in pediatric health, we do sometimes when it's busy, we get caught up in getting through everyone that we forget that parents don't have. The majority of parents don't have medical knowledge. They don't have the background. They don't have that basic level understanding of what we know, which they shouldn't, you know, they, they don't have that degree.
So parents advocating for your child simply ease, just saying, hang on a sec. I don't understand what you just said. Can you repeat that? Or do you have something that I can take home and read because I know you don't have time to sit down and go through everything with me, but there's something I can take on. Is there a website that you trust that I can read through or what happens if we don't do this? So asking all of those sorts of questions that is advocating and that is not being annoying or abrasive or anything, it is simply just getting that level of understanding that you deserve as a parent, because you're the one that's going to be going home with your sick child and looking after them and feeling comfortable to know when to come back. And what's the plan. So don't ever feel like you can't ask those questions because otherwise you'll go home and just be incredibly nervous and worried and anxious and not know what to do. So advocating is just asking for more questions, more understanding.
Elyse:
I think the big thing is too, when you feel like you needing more clarification to walk away with a plan of knowing what you do from here, because when you feel unheard or something like that, and you go home and you feel like you then back at square one, whether if you have asked those questions and you have that plan, you can know when, yeah. When do I come back? When, where do we go from here? What else do I need to look out for? So let's go back to talking about symptoms for a moment just to quickly touch the surface on when do we get concerned when it comes to something like respiratory distress. So what are the telltale signs of the symptoms that are coming up, where we might need while we will need more help?
Penny:
Hmm. Yeah, that's a really great question. And I think, again, it can look a little bit different in every child and the most important thing I like to tell all parents is knowing what's normal for your child. So there's so many things that weird and wonderful things that babies and then infants and toddlers can do that may look a little bit questionable, only one child, but it's normal for them. So for example, sometimes babies can be born with floppy airways or noisy airways, which is very normal for them, as long as they're being assessed. But if you have a child that doesn't have that, all of a sudden it's starting to break us and they got really noisy breathing. That could be a bit of a red flag for your child. So just at the start, just look at them every time you sort of changing nappies and things and just get to know what's normal for them.
So then when the symptoms and we'll chat about in a second, come through, you know, straight away like that, wasn't there before that's different, that looks hotter or noisier or whatever. So just knowing what's normal for your child is really important. You can actually also take photos or video is even better. Take a video of your little one when they will. So then when they are unwell and you're like, Ooh, I don't know, is this normal? Like, is that supposed to look like that? You can go back and look at that video of when your little one was well and you can spot some differences there. So the key, the key symptoms when you're talking about troubles breathing or respiratory distress is breathing fast and breathing hard and breathing noisy. So there's so many technical terms out there, but I don't want to overwhelm everyone, but basically if your child's breathing faster than they normally were, or if they will breathing harder.
So that means are they sucking in? So the most common sports that kids will sack in is in between the throat in between the Reed cage. So you can sort of see the outline of their re bones with each breath in and out or underneath there where they're sort of, they're the bottom of their rib cage meets their tummy. It can suck in there. There's other things too that sometimes little Bubs nostrils will flare out or they'll fold their head along with each breath, but they can look a little bit more subtle and a little bit more challenging to pick up. So that's where sort of the video can come in really handy. And then the other one is breathing noisier. So I'm not talking about sort of like a blocked nose or snotty nose. It's this, there's something going on where sort of, when they're taking each breath in, it sounding really gaspy or like their airway is getting a bit swollen. So just those really more serious signs of there's something going on there. But yeah, I have heaps of videos on my Instagram pages often a little bit easier to see what I'm talking about. It's a bit hard to sort of explain I've I'm using my hands here to try and point, but Todd with audio.
Elyse:
Yeah, yeah, no, I highly recommend you've got the respiratory distress highlight and the gods, and it's all there for everyone to go and look at. And so quickly just moving on to fevers, because I know that this is probably one that you get a lot of questions about because of fever can be an indicator of so many things, right? So what else what, what should we do when we wake up in the middle of the night? Cause it's always the middle of the night and we go into our child and they're really, really hot. Is there a certain number or like a temperature number, a degree number or an age that makes things different? What, what are the steps in when, when you go and you have a child who has a fever.
Penny:
Yeah. Okay. So I you're so right. I do get asked about feedback so much because there is so much misinformation out there still about fever in kids. But I think there's the age is probably the most important part first. So the magic number for fever not okay is three months of age. So 12 weeks, which is the newborn. And so if you have a little newborn and you go in and they feel hot, so the first thing you need to do is actually check the temperature. So we don't want you just to guess an underarm thermometer is the most accurate in newborns. So if that temperature is 38 degrees Celsius or higher in a newborn, then you do need to seek immediate medical attention. It may not be necessarily life-threatening, but it's not worth the risk to watch and wait in that age group, because they are quite vulnerable.
They have this still building up their immunity and there's so many things it could be. So we want to get them seeing immediately, if they're older than three months of age, the number stays the same. So it is still a fever if it's 38 degrees Celsius or higher, but that's when we, when they're older than that three months of age, that's when we move into sort of troubleshooting through what's normal. What's not what symptoms are concerning, what symptoms are not. So when they're older than that, three months of age, the fever is very normal and natural part of their immune system. It's the way that they fight off bugs. But there's other things that we need to look for that is more concerning than the number, if that makes sense.
Elyse:
Yeah. So can you just quickly talk us through what kind of things we would be looking for that would be, we'd be looking at their breathing, those kinds
Penny:
Of things. Yep. So the key symptoms that you're looking for, if they've got a fever, is yet, are they showing any signs of difficulty breathing? Are they in any pain that is unrelieved with kind relief? So if you're reaching for paracetamol or ibuprofen, that's usually more for pain rather than bringing that number down. Are they, are there any signs of dehydration and then a big one would be rations, so fever and rashes together. You know, it's quite common for them to go together, but the most concerning symptom with rashes is a rash that doesn't disappear when you touch it. When you gently press on it, because that fever and that called a non blanching rash or a rash that doesn't disappear when you touch it. We're always on the lookout for meningococcal , which is an incredibly serious disease that we want to act on quickly.
I think I like to say that parents are always going to be the expert in their child. They may not be the expert in the medicine or the treatment plan or understanding sicknesses in kids, but you know, your child, you know what they're like when they're well, and so you are going to be the key player in any decisions that are made because you'll get comfort. You're their advocate, you're the one helping make choices. So don't ever feel like you don't have a voice because you are the expert in your child.
Elyse:
Yes. So true. And how do you, how do you balance between being a pediatric nurse and the mum?
Penny:
It depends. So I'm either, it's almost like I don't have a middle ground. I'm either, you know, you're right. It's fine. Everything's fine. Start talk to your dad or it'll be like, oh my gosh. And my mind will go to all of the cases that I've seen and witnessed, and it will be worst case scenario. So I, I, you, I bounce off my husband a lot when my kids are sick. Cause I'll be like, oh, this has happened. And this has happened. And he's sort of like almost a voice of reason. So yeah. I don't know. I'm just, I'm either very, very onto it or it'll be fun.
Elyse:
How do you manage work-life balance? Because I know that you are still doing some work in the hospital, is that right?
Penny:
Yeah. I'm casual at my local children's hospital, but I had, since sick happens has really started to take off. I have been doing less and less shifts. I don't ever, I'll always say critical because that's really important to me to be able to keep up my skills and know what's happening, but in terms of, yeah, running this business and being a mom, cause I still have my youngest time with me a couple of days a week. Yeah, it's a juggle, I'm still learning. I don't think there's ever a complete balance, but I'm just learning how to shift my priorities. That's all.
Elyse:
When you feel like you've got it balanced, something happens, something changes and you go, I don't know, I don't have it all together actually.
Penny:
Yup. Someone gets sick or something in the business changes and I'm like, I dunno what I'm doing or my eldest started school. So yeah, it is a constant changing adventure, but it's great. Life is great at the moment.
Elyse:
So do you have any hacks for keeping up fluids or giving medications? What are your kind of hacks for helping make life with a sick child a little bit easier?
Penny:
Mm yeah. So again, this sort of depends a little bit on the age of the child, but pretty much at any age, don't stress yourself out. If they're sick with food just let that ball drop. But just focus on fluids. So in terms of getting fluids in, if they're older and they're able to drink out of cups and they're not just having milk as their primary source of nutrition and hydration, you can muck around with sort of fun cups and straws and drink bottles, and you can play around with different flavours and things like anything you want to do to try and help them drink smoothies or soups or any of that. But as for our young bubs, where the only source of hydration and nutrition is milk. The best thing that you can do is offer smaller feeds, but a lot more frequently.
So they may be like they're snacking and inverted comments. That's okay. As long as they're just sort of desperately trying to keep up their 24 hour period intake rather than doing, you know, depending on whether you're breastfeeding or bottle feeding, don't worry so much about getting their full volumes in, in one feed, just space it out over the day. But as for medicine's got its root, it is really hard. Some kids love medicine and you'll never have a problem. You know, you almost have to hold them back from the medicine cabinet. But then you've got other kids that really don't like doing it. And I think the best thing that you can do is try and role play and play with your little one when they don't need that medicine. So that it's a little bit more, it's not as frightening when you sort of get it out and pin them down and try and give it to them using it, you know, find like as little, little syringes as little water pistols or giving it to their dolls or their dinosaurs.
But if that's not working, then I have heaps of tips on my Instagram page. There's a little guide there, you know, sort of aiming to the side of the mouth or using dummies or sprinkles that there's heaps of tips there. It just really depends on the developmental capacity of your child. Like whether they're able to drink off the screen or not, or yeah, it's a bit it's hard, but I feel you, it is really tricky sometimes to give kids medicines and fluids because they don't want to, they they're just like, Nope. Now clench their jaw shut, but there are a couple of little, yeah, little tricks you can do.
Elyse:
And you don’t know the strength of a determined toddler. We for a while had to do a preventative puffer for my daughter and I did not know how strong she was and it took two of us to hold her down.
Penny:
Yes, yes. Those puffers are pretty terrifying. You sort of how holding them down and then shoving this thing on their face. Yeah. But unfortunately those types of medications are essential.
Elyse:
Yeah. But role playing is such a good idea, especially with something like a puffer, because it is big and freaking wanting to put these thing over their nose and mouth. So role-playing, that's such a good one.
Penny:
And then if they're old enough to like sort of, you know, round sort of two and older, you can start to talk to them about why, like, obviously at two, it's going to be quite basic, but I'm really big on including your kids in the conversation and telling them about, you know, what their bodies do and when they're sick and the bugs and the gyms and how medicine helps, like giving them that knowledge is really empowering to them to sort of understand why we have to do hard things, but it's to help us and you know, your kids best, like you'll know what they're capable of understanding and all of that sort of thing. But I think it's so important to at least start early and start teaching them about that because it will really help them be a bit more accepting in knowing the why.
Elyse:
Very True. And just quickly, I just wondered if you could tell us all, because you have an online course do you just want to quickly share with everyone - What is that? Because I think that it's a valuable thing that parents don't realise would be helpful to have in their toolkit until the sickness happens. So I do wanna just quickly talk about that with us.
Penny:
Yeah. So the course is called normal or not because I'm such a big advocate in teaching parents. Yeah. Literally what is normal for our kids? And what's not because that's where the transition comes from what you can handle at home and when you need to get help. And I think that's a huge question that parents deliberate on for so long is knowing, do I get help or what can I do at home? So that is exactly what this course is about. And what I focus on in the course is giving you the main symptoms of sickness in kids. So we've got fever and troubles breathing, rashes, vomiting, immunity. So it's sort of, it's not teaching you about specific illnesses, it's teaching you about the symptoms because they all apply to so many different sicknesses. And we go through case studies and there's video footage. But my favourite part of the course is access to another private Instagram page where we do more posts there and we do questions and there's just a lot more one-to-one that we do with the parents in there and myself where we can ask questions and chat. And it's just a lot more of that ongoing support for you to yeah. Ask questions and just feel really confident in knowing what to do when your kids are sick. Yes.
Elyse:
I absolutely love the private little Instagram because it is just more like the public one is amazing. And then you go into, I feel like their private ones, just a whole other level.
Penny:
Yeah. It's sort of nice to be able to share a lot more. We practice what we've learned in the course. And I love most of the videos to be like, let's, let's walk through this together. Let's troubleshoot these together. They get you really comfortable with when it happens at home, you're not sort of panic, like, right. What can we do here?
Elyse:
Yeah. Because the difference is that we can then be confident when it comes to a sick child. And I think that that is such so important for parents to know that they can actually be empowered, to be confident, to know what to look for, to know what to do, to know, and recognise what is normal for their child and to then be able to advocate that. Thank you so much. Do you have any final bits of encouragement or advice for parents?
Penny:
No. I think just that kids get sick, like, sick happens. I don't want parents to feel like that they're doing something wrong when they've got a snotty nose and then a cough, and then they've got gastro. Then they've got hand foot and mouth, and then they've got a fever. Like this is unfortunately part of parenting and it sucks so bad that they start feeling like they're doing anything wrong. Just we just have to ride it out. And I promise it gets easier. We just need to give it time.
Elyse:
And just before we go can you just let everyone know where to find you online?
Penny:
Yes. So I have a website which is just www.sickhappens.com.au. And then I also have an Instagram page, which is @sick.happens. And that's what you need, video footage and posts, and we do lives and quizzes and things like that there. So it's a fun place to learn.
Elyse:
Well, thank you so much, Penny. This has been a really valuable conversation that I know is going to help so many parents knowing what things to look for and how to advocate for their child. So thank you so much for your time.
Penny:
Oh, you're so welcome. Thank you so much for having me. It's always so lovely to chat to other parents because yeah. Where we are all in this together, as cliche as it sounds. Yeah. We need to help one another out.