an unexpected absence.

I took E to the doctors as he was complaining of stomach pain. Not long later we were at the Great North Children's Hospital 35 miles away. The doctor suggested that they'd probably keep him for observation for a few hours, so we went home to collect his dad, I grabbed him a bag with a teddy, book and pj's, told Miss K that hopefully we wouldn't be long, and off we went. 

and came home 4 days later.

E came home without his appendix.

I learnt a lot in this time. I learnt that if you say you are in pain then you get poked a lot which makes the pain worse. I have a new found respect for the kindness and patience of nurses. I learnt that you can cheer up a teenager quite a lot by taking ridiculous pictures of floppy playing with all the hospital equipment. This is the teenager that didn't fit in the bed on the children's ward, and the nurses extended the end and stuffed the gap with pillows so his feet didn't trail over the edge. I learnt  that if you have a room with an internal window it NEVER gets dark, so at 2.30am when you can't sleep you have enough light to read without turning on any lights.......I learnt which beeping machines you can ignore, and which you can't - morphine pump alarm when patient frantically tries to get more doses than he's allowed. I learnt that anti sickness drugs are essential after a general anaesthetic and morphine, and that the ward had a never ending supply of clean bedding, which we needed, several times.... Also that the combination of morphine and anti sickness drugs can cause hallucinations.

J came back and forth to the hospital in between going to work and looking after Miss K, and I slept on a fold out bed in the corner of the room. We watched a Lot of superhero films, and all of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, sometimes in the middle of the night with the sound turned down very very low. Also some truly dreadful daytime quiz shows. I may never turn the tv on in the day again. We watched people coming in and out of the lifts and if you looked down out of the window you could watch the people in the queue at the coffee shop. I spent a long time looking out at the people, the extremely frail old lady pushing her handbag in a wheelchair was the highlight I think.

I was extremely grateful for messages and support, and the kindness we were shown. E is recovering slowly and very happy to be back home. He is not at all sad that he missed going back to school after half term. He is also very happy that he still can't have a bath or shower and doesn't have to do games at school for weeks and weeks and weeks. Oh and he got bought lego as a treat. and sweets.

I am appreciating being and at home, drinking tea made in a teapot, and pondering why on earth when I realised that E would need overnight things did I never at any point think that I might need anything....

I hope you all have very quiet and uneventful weekends. That is definitely what I am hoping for.