Late last night I called home to see how the day had gone, and to find out what on earth I might buy W for her birthday (which was today). An unexpected voice answered the phone - one of our best friends.
“Oh god, you don’t know, do you.”
“What?”
“She’s taken K to Accident and Emergency at the hospital”
“What?!”
“Her leg got worse, and her temperature had gone through the ceiling”
I’m not sure I mentioned this in the blog - the day before yesterday our youngest fell over in the playground at school, and skinned her left knee reallybadly. The graze had no chance to dry up, and had become infected - leading to Miss 6 running a ridiculous temperature.
I found this all out from a hotel room over a hundred miles from home. Of course W was abiding by the rules of the hospital, and had turned her phone off in the waiting room, so all I could do was wait - watching the minutes tick past, and keeping an eye on my phone. I posted my predicament to Facebook, and expected to be travelling home in the early hours.
The call finally came at about 11:45pm from a very tired voice who had just arrived home with a very brave little girl. Apparently I didn’t need to go home after all. The doctors had cleaned and bandaged the knee, and given out some nice tasting medicine to combat the infection.
The reaction on Facebook was incredible, and made me realise how many amazing people we have come to know, and who were willing to drop whatever they were doing to help. I really can’t thank them enough for the support they threw in our direction - especially given my absence.
I arrived home this evening to an empty house, in about the state you might imagine given the adventure of the night before. After an hour tidying up, washing up, and putting things into some kind of sensible order once more a bundle of little people fell in the front door, and shouted excited “Daddy!” greetings through the house.
Miss 6 ran towards me brandishing a tin of cakes - baked while being looked after by a wonderful, wonderful friend who lives across the green from us. Pride didn’t quite do justice to the look on her face as she presented her handiwork to me.
After dinner it finally came time for bed, and Miss 6 asked if Dad could change the dressing on her leg instead of Mum. I of course dropped what I was doing, and set about cutting gauze, and tape. It turned out her bravery in the hospital didn’t translate to home at all. In the end myself and W had to physically pin her down while I pulled the old dressing from her leg. Writhing isn’t really the word. This was abject panic, accompanied by hyperventilating and screaming.
Miraculously, once I got the dressing off she quietened down quite a bit - but of course we had to put the new dressing on… (and you really imagined that might happen without more screaming?). In the end I did a countdown before quickly wrapping the fresh gauze over her knee - and suddenly she was ok again.
Dealing with Miss 6 is really hard sometimes. We often suspect she doesn’t feel pain quite like you or I - or her pain threshold might be far higher, due to hear early life and the neglect she suffered along with her sisters. That was half the reason W rushed her to hospital last night; you never quite know how bad she really is when she shows symptoms of anything. Of course over the last 4 years we’ve come to know her reallywell - we see the change in her demeanor, and alarm bells ring.
Anyway. She’s patched up, drugged up, and fast asleep in bed.
Tomorrow is another day.