Midnight run

How to describe the hours since Friday? Here’s an attempt at a Joycean stream of consciousness:
Fo and Otto go off for night with her sister and his adored and adorable cousins. AJ on top form for past few days at home… AJ feeling warm… Take temperature, a little high… Better not have drink, in case I have to drive… Take temperature before going to bed, 39, oh shit… Have instructions, know what to do, first instance, phone local Aylesbury hospital… Nurse answers, he knows exactly who she is… Bring her in… Put her in brand new car… She vomits… Drive as fast as me in a Nissan Micra can go (errr, not very) to hospital… AJ pukes again as I get her out… Mike, the Scottish nurse, is fully on the case… Plugs her in with two antibiotics… Lots of fussing around… Me slightly disorientated… What to do at 3 o’clock?… Ah, Scotland – Romania… Perfect! first match of the world cup and I am unfeasibly able to watch it (i support Scotland in the rugby, this is more exciting than it might sound)… There is a TV… But, it’s not a TV… There isn’t an aerial in the hospital… This isn’t the JR… More on that later… AJ spends the next 36 hours spiking temperatures… Being fed calpol, where would we be without calpol, give it to them to get ’em to sleep, give to ’em to ease neutropenic fever! Saturday night she woke up retching and exploded all over me (poor me!)… Shivering… Shivering… Sunday morning… AJ and I sleeping… Very brusque nurse bursts in, pulling a blood transfusion and barks out commands… Now I haven’t had a coffee, I haven’t had a fag… I am a slow riser, I get up long before the kids so that I have ‘my time’ (I won’t go into details), I am not good at being woken up brusquely, and for that matter nor is Ava-Jane… So we sent her packing… She comes back (post fag, coffee, ‘my time’)… She’s lovely, quite brusque, but lovely… Lots of visits by unknown doctors telling us all sorts of things… Lots of probablies, possiblies,… And I start to feel uneasy being where we are, it’s not just not being able to watch the rugby, it’s the fact that you are living on the edge, barely able to cope and knowing the names of the nurses and where the coffee is makes a difference that might be the difference between coping and not coping… Fo comes in… Takes over… Phew, thanks Fo, you’re great! (she’s a blog subscriber!) AJ needs her Mum… Annie comes over… From Sussex… I go to bed… Annie cleans house, makes supper, Mum takes over at hospital… What a network! Thanks to all, while I am at it… Fo and I see each other, yay! Cags and Andrew look after Otto (this is beginning to sound like an Oscars acceptance speech – family, friends, I love you all)… I go back… Fo comes in with Otto Sunday afternoon… Otto and I come back and watch first half of The Phantom Menace (thank you Matt and Mary)… Get some Star Wars chat in (thanks Benyons!).. Otto to bed… Me to bed!
And since then I have been working, slightly odd hours, I took a chunk out of the middle of the day to watch the second half of The Phantom Menace, tea and bed for Otto and then two phone calls to Mexico.
Fo did convince them that we should be back at the JR (she is quite convincing, my Fo). We are still not sure what the infection AJ has/had is, but she has been slightly better this (Monday) afternoon. Fo is back at the JR, where she has the chance of a good night’s sleep, if AJ is alright.
I am in charge of Otto and have realised I am not exactly “all over” the stuff-for-school issue, Fo read an article about “new men” that said that however new a man claimed to be he wouldn’t take care of school clothes or presents for other kids’ parties. Oh bugger! There go my oft-trumpeted new man credentials.
So Otto rocked up for school in his day-glo red forest school outfit, it was forest school and I remembered the outfit, but I was told that naturally that now that he was in year 1, he wouldn’t be spending the whole day “playing in the woods”, he has obviously got more pressing educational topics to tackle. I also didn’t take his book bag, because I thought he would be playing in the woods, he is five and a half, why not! And I errr… did forget his water bottle.

My little girl is quite cute!!