Sunday, April 27, 2008

Walkabout

We took advantage of a lovely, sunny, Sunday evening to go for a walk around the block and get some fresh air. Well, I write 'walk', but actually it was only Mum and Dad doing the walking - everyone else was travelling in style!

 
 

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Officially, the comfiest shoulder. Ever.

 

Birthday party no.3!

Having had a family party, and then an 'official' birthday, Hannah finally had her party with her friends from school today. It had been due to happen two weeks ago, until Dad was rushed into hospital! Still, the best things come to those that wait...

Hannah and her friends had loads of fun. Our house was turned into a castle, complete with fountains, castle windows, and a dungeon (the toilet!), and the Princesses (and Prince Thomas) played loads of games including a magical treasure hunt and 'pin-the-horn-on-the-unicorn'!

Here's a photo of Princess Hannah and Prince Thomas as they wait for their guests to arrive.

 

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Happy Birthday, Cousin Bethan

It was Bethan's 2nd birthday today, so we all went to visit to help her to celebrate and to eat her cake!

 

Bethan had heaps of great presents, but she doesn't appear convinced by the bicycle helmet!

 

The new 'blow up' sleeping bag and airbed looks like it's going to be well used, though!

 

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Just when you thought you'd escaped...

After managing to escape the hospital yesterday, minus an appendix and a Meckel's diverticulum, it came as a nasty shock to me to find that my scary-looking wound had sprung a leak, and one of the staples wasn't holding.

A quick call-out to the local doctor, arranged a rare home visit, and I was really hoping that he might have some sellotape or blu-tack in his bag that would plug the leak and leave me alone. Fat chance! He took one look, and sent me packing back to hospital. Aaaarrrggghhh!

I had to go through the admittance rigmarole again, but thankfully it didn't take so long this time, so about 20 hours after leaving the hospital, I found myself back on the same ward, in the same room and even in the same bed! Apparently, they're thinking of renaming it the Andy Hurley Ward!

It turned out that I now had an infection in the wound, so I had to go through a number of tests and ultrasound scans to try to determine the extent of the infection, and whether I needed to be opened up again to clear out the infection. The ultrasound showed that there were no 'deep collections' which was, apparently, good news, but the results didn't get back in time to prevent me from having to spend another night in hospital. Still, it was a free breakfast!

The next morning the decision was made to send me on my way with a bundle of antibiotics, but there was one more piece of torture to have to go through... the staple in my wound that was leaking had to be removed, to allow the infection to drain. The only problem was that the staple had not attached neatly, and was bent out of shape and stuck in a (rather attractive, if I say so myself) mole that I have on my belly! 20 minutes, 3 nurses, lots of swearing (by the nurses!) and lots of 'Ows' (by me!) and finally the pesky thing was removed, and I was free to go home. Having the staple removed hurt more than the operation itself! And I still had 15 left in me, to be removed at a later date. That's a doctor's appointment to look forward to...

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Doctors and Nurses

What a week! After feeling ill, and being sick, on Hannah's birthday, things took a major turn for the worse for Daddy...

After going all of Hannah's birthday without eating a thing (not even some of the delicious looking birthday cake), I spent the whole of Sunday night bowing down to the porcelain throne! It was not a pretty sight.

Come Monday morning, I still felt really rough, but had stopped being ill - still too rough to go into work, though! As the day went on, I began to feel better and better until, at about 5 o'clock, I was sitting on the bed chatting to Ruth. Suddenly a huge pain hit my side out of nowhere - it was like an explosion. I was writhing on the bed in pain, and then crawling to the bathroom to be sick. It was Agony, with a capital A!

Ruth telephoned for an ambulance, which took an hour to reach me with the rush hour (I found out later that it had had to come from Barry, as all of the Cardiff ambulances were busy - so that was bad timing on my part!). By the time the ambulance arrived, I was thankfully still alive, and had almost got the pain under control. You'd have thought that this was a good thing, but instead the ambulance men gave me a telling off for wasting their time. Thanks, guys, really caring of you!

Ruth wasn't going to let her Hubby take any messing, and politely informed them of how much pain I had been in, and also told them about the last time something like this had happened, and how they had thought it was my appendix but hadn't removed it. This seemed to convince them that it wasn't just a stomach bug, and they reluctantly gave me a ride to the hospital.

The pain started to return during the ambulance ride, and I was in quite a lot of pain again by the time Ruth had joined me at the hospital after dropping the children hurriedly off at Nanny and Grumpy's house. I was admitted into the emergency wards, and given my own trolley. They stuck in the antibiotics, pain relief and fluids (no catheter this time, hooray!), and booked me in for various x-rays and ultrasounds. So, I spent Monday night in the trolley bay... but at least, I wasn't feeling the pain anymore.

Tuesday came, and still found me in the trolley bay. During the day my trolley was moved from the main emergency ward, into the ward where people wait for surgery - the decision had been made to remove my appendix. The new ward was much quieter, and gave me the opportunity to overhear the patient in the bed next to mine explaining to the doctor how one of his tentacles was four times as big as the other! I'm pretty sure that he didn't mean tentacle! You don't know how much it hurts to try to stop yourself from laughing out loud when you've already got stomach pain.

Tuesday went on, and there was still no word from surgery as to when my operation would happen. Finally, at about 2 o'clock someone came to visit to get me into the surgery clothes, and ask me to sign the various pieces of paper which meant that I wouldn't complain if they cut me open. I then just had to wait for the final OK, and the porters would wheel me off to surgery.

The afternoon drifted past - nothing.

The evening drifted past - nothing.

The night arrived - nothing.

Ruth had been at home waiting since 2 o'clock for me to phone when I was out of surgery, so she wasn't too pleased when I phoned at about 9 o'clock to say that I still hadn't been in. Visions of me being kept in hospital for weeks (which is what happened last time) went through Ruth's mind as she put the phone down.

If only she'd known that 2 hours after the phone call, just as I was beginning to try to get some sleep (which I hadn't had for three days), the porters suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The time is now, the surgeons are waiting, let's go!

I was surprised at how calm I felt as I was prepped for surgery, despite the unexpected call. Even the anaesthetists talking about spiders as they put me under didn't make me panic! As I came around, though, I did frantically check that all my appendanges were still attached, and that there were no strange pipes or tubes coming out of my body. From listening to the nurses talking, though, I could tell that the operation hadn't been as straightforward as had been expected...

... it turned out that there had been nothing wrong with my appendix (and hadn't been the last time, either). The thing that had caused me all the pain this week, and a couple of years ago, was actually something called Meckel's diverticulum. No, I'd never heard of it before, either! Basically, when in the womb, there's a duct which connects the baby's umbilical cord to the rest of it's body. What's supposed to happen is that, once the baby is born, the duct withers away and disintegrates. But, I was one of the lucky 2% of the population who managed to keep hold of mine, until it started giving me grief. Still, if the surgeons are going to take anything out of me, then they may as well take the things that I don't need! (In fact, they also took my appendix while they had me open! It was a two-for-the-price-of-one offer that the NHS was running at the time!).

I immediately felt much better after the op, and was back on my feet in the hospital the next morning, eager to get home. I had a fantastic scar across my stomach, with some really mean looking metal clips holding it together (I've got the photos, but I don't think they're really suitable for the blog!). With no bad after-effects, I was released on the Thursday.

Free at last, or so I thought...

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Six years old

Hannah's "official" birthday was today, when she hit the big six. She spent the morning recovering from yesterday's party!

 

Even more presents to open today. She'd didn't get the Nintendo DS for her birthday (that's Daddy's!), but she loves her new Tamagotchi Corner Shop game! Unfortunately, Daddy hardly gets to see the Nintendo anymore!

 

Even worse, for poor old Daddy, he spent the whole day feeling really, really rough. But, more on that soon...

 

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Five years and 364 days old

Hannah was even more special than the Queen this year, and ended up having three birthdays! The first, one day before her real birthday, was a family party at Grandma and Grandad's house, so Hannah dressed the part as a princess!

 

One of her favourite presents this year was a set of 21 (yes, 21!) Rainbow Magic books. It didn't take Hannah long to work her way through all of the adventures that Rachel and Kirsty were having. The authors of the series must be laughing all the way to the bank!

 

Will spent most of the party thinking "If I concentrate really hard, maybe my face will sprout hair, too!"

 

James and Bethan helped Hannah and Thomas to enjoy the party food, but thankfully there was still some left for the grown-ups!

 

Friday, April 04, 2008

Heading East for Easter

In order to make the most of the Easter holidays, Mum took Hannah, Thomas and Will on a trip East to Norwich to visit Uncle Tim, Auntie Abby, Chloe and Anya. The weather was even nice enough for picnics in the garden!

 

It was great to see everyone again, even if Anya's hair was really scary!

 

There was time for fishing (or at least waving a big stick around dangerously, while pretending to fish!)

 

And Will enjoyed the kisses from Auntie Abby!

 

(And what did Dad do while all of this holidaying was going on. He was in work, earning the money to pay for all the petrol! But, he did enjoy the peace and quiet, and even had a chance to go for a walk up the Garth mountain, which felt a bit like a holiday!)