Struttin' her stuff

The other night, I took out a pair of pants for Rosabelle to change into after the nanny bathed her. It's the same length as another pair of pants that she can fit into now, so I figured it's time to take it out before it becomes unwearable (i.e. too tight/short). So, the nanny bathed her, changed her, and brought her out of the room. Poor Rosabelle wore the pants for only all of two minutes before we decided we had to change her out of it - she looked like she was wearing bloomers, or Aladdin pants, and risked tripping over anytime in the balloon-sized, skirt-like pants, hi.la.rious....

So, decked in better-fitting pants, she has been doing a fair bit of work-out lately with the walker, taking bolder strides across the living room floor, and even daring to release her hands to clap for one to two seconds at times before quickly holding the walker to balance herself.
This is her looking very smug and pleased with herself...

I also managed to catch a video of her, with her saying 'mama' as a bonus...so sweet!

Looking at her, it's really hard to believe she's anemic, or lacking in certain minerals/elements. We left house hurriedly for the check-up this morning as the person in charge of booking the appointment (we went through Wayne's credit card VIP service to get a concierge-like service and have a service staff accompany us throughout the check-up) told us the head of department we were scheduled to meet might not come in today, and told us to wait for his call. When he called later, he told us to show up 40 minutes later, in Beijing's mad morning traffic! So I basically scooped Rosabelle up from her beauty sleep - she whined for awhile before giving us big smiles/grins when she saw us putting on our shoes to go out - we didn't even change her, change her diapers, nor wash her face or feed her breakfast (just gave her bread, nursed her, and after that gave her banana).

When we reached there, goodness, there were LOADS of children all around, alot of them coughing, crying, looking miserable (it's a hospital, so of course you don't get happy, bouncy children around)... but we were really careful to not let Rosabelle go near or touch anything/anybody. The doctor spent only 3 minutes with us, the first 10 seconds, she looked at Rosabelle and said 'Oh, she's anemic, definitely lacking in iron and magnesium - look at her hair and her face parlor...', and she asked where Wayne and I were from, then said, 'You (i.e. me) should go get checked for anemia too, your face parlor doesn't look good as well. Have you ever considered thalassemia tests for your daughter?'

And she arranged for the exact same tests to be done on Rosabelle - to check her blood composition and elements, as she refused to look at Amcare's results, chiding us for choosing hospitals for their comfort levels, and saying that the reticulocyte count levels the Amcare doctor highlighted did not matter. She said such hospitals do not carry out such tests properly as they do not have the facilities to do it - local hospitals like theirs do such tests regularly all the time, and so she wanted us to do it in their hospital. And then she prescribed Chinese medicine syrups and mixers for Rosabelle to whet her appetite, medicines that I read are suitable for 'weak children who do not eat well and are malnourished'!

Anyway, we did the blood tests again - only 'good' thing is maybe they have more sophisticated equipment, and this only needed to extract thin straws of blood from the finger (twice), instead of a huge vial from the vein. But they only used disinfectant on the gloves (re-used), and the second batch of nurses did not even wear gloves when taking her blood. Faint... I also read somewhere that finger prick tests for anemia in children isn't accurate - because of the blood pressure or something, hmm...

Rosabelle and I then quickly went back to the car whilst Wayne waited for the blood test results. We need to go back again next week with these results, as well as the results of the elements (out only next week) to see what the '3-minute-doctor' says. From the blood test results, I see that her hemoglobin levels have actually risen to normal (112 now, was 93 previously), so the iron supplements are definitely working, and the 'hasty doctor' also told us she can continue taking them.

Well, let's see what she says next week. In the mean time, we're not dosing her with the prescribed Chinese medicines but will continue the iron supplements. Me? I might go get my anemia checked over the next few days, just in case. Hopefully everything is in order and all these are just a brouhaha over nothing. Our darling resilient Rosie...