It is with tremendous relief that I can report that our youngest - Little Miss 5 - is home, in her bed, and sleeping soundly after a day spent in hospital. She had a bandage the size of a tennis ball stuck to her face, but is otherwise absolutely fine.
I’m not sure if I mentioned this before or not - at some point in her very early life, she developed a cyst just above her right eye. It never grew, it was just there - it was “her bump”. In a strange way, you forgot it was there - she also forgot it was there until we talked to her about getting it fixed… suddenly her eye was hurting. Hmmm…
So - after several months of waiting for a slot in the operating theatre at the local hospital, today I had the day off work to help a very brave little girl, and a very frightened Mum through the day. In a somewhat correct order, my “day off” went something like this;
Walk eldest to school independently of others, because Little Miss 6 had a school trip.
Return home, wash up, tidy up.
Accompany W and Little Miss 5 to hospital.
Find no parking spaces.
Park in car park, with no money for car park.
Attempt to deal with car park telephone payment system, that refused all of our credit and debit cards.
Deliver Little Miss 5 to ward in hospital, spend an hour waiting in the play area.
Answer series of the same questions to a nurse, a doctor, a consultant, and the surgeon over the course of another hour. The surgeon took the opportunity to draw a big arrow on her forehead with a marker pen to make sure they didn’t operate on the wrong eye.
Play in the play area for another hour.
Finally get her robed up, and meet theanaesthetist, who asked the same questions all over again, and finally took mother and daughter to a prep room, where the real skill of the paediatric staff came to the fore; distracting expertly in order toanaesthetizeher read for showtime.
Buy W lunch (I was the only one with any cash)
Say goodbye, walk into town, get more cash, get taxi home
More washing up and tidying up.
Walk to schools to pick up Little Miss 6, and Miss 10. Freezing temperatures didn’t help. Received call while waiting for them to come out that Little Miss 5 was back on the ward, and still fast asleep.
Race home, and cook quick dinner for everybody present.
Walk back to eldest school to deliver Miss 10 to her dance class. Temperatures now well below freezing.
Stop to buy children’s pain killers on the way home (based on conversation with W, who had just called to say Little Miss 5 was wide awake, and eating ham sandwiches like they were going out of fashion).
Return home, half an hour respite before W and an impressively bandaged Little Miss 5 arrive at home.
Half a cup of tea for everybody, before we turn around and head to Brownies to see our eldest performing in a “Circus Skills Show”.
Home, bedtime for the children, and frozen pizzas in the oven for a late dinner.
I guess you could describe it as the kind of day where you stop thinking “there is so much to do”, and just get on with the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing… you know?