A frightening week: Youngest Son was admitted to hospital with acute appendicitis – and what turned out to be a burst, gangrenous abscess on his appendix.
It is thanks entirely to the smart thinking of Wife that he got to hospital at all. The other children have been ill with gastro-intestinal problems, and we had been assuming that it was just Youngest Son’s “turn” – so when he started complaining about a sore tummy, we just gave him Calpol and laid him down under a duvet in front of the television. Had Wife not seen that something specific was up, he may very well have not made it…
He was operated on and spent the week (along with Wife) in The Chelsea and Westminster Hospital – about whom it would be impossible to say enough good things, specifically the (I suspect) staggeringly underpaid nurses who provided round the clock care, compassion and patience. He has since returned home and is being spoiled senseless by Wife, who (like me) is so relieved to see him without tubes coming out of him, and lying listlessly on a hospital bed, that I suspect that if he requested a diet of Maltesers, Ribena and Chocolate Cake, he may stand a very good chance of getting it…
I don’t want to get all misty-eyed (misty-fingered just sounds wrong – morally) over this, but (as many of you will know, and many of you will imagine) there is nothing like thinking that one of your children might not make it to deliver a hefty dose of reality to whatever else is happening in one’s life.
