Glimpsesofcolour

So there I was, tired from travelling, arriving home to find a husband deep under a sweaty duvet and a son left to his own devices. It was immediately clear that hubby was dramatically ill. And son, who had done a good job looking after him, was getting fed up with being motherless.

After a quick pack of essentials in a bag, and a message to the mother of the boy Genius Brat was supposed to be going round to play with, we were off to A & E as fast as you could say proctologist (if you really want to say such an unpopular word). A phone call to the urologist beforehand had ensured that we jumped the casualty queue and pretty soon were in a ward apparently called ‘Majors’, which sounded frightening. Before long hubby was on a trolley, on a saline drip (he was very dehydrated from sweating in bed for days), and had his first intravenous antibiotic shot. After that nothing much happened for a long time, other that a text from son’s friend’s mother saying she’d collected him and would keep him overnight if necessary – a huge relief as we’d left him alone without being very clear what was happening to him next. Nothing much, other than people flitting in and out of our bay for no apparent reason, continued to happen for about four hours. At last  he was moved into a smaller ward called something like a Clinical Decision Unit, purely to get him out of the A&E ward and therefore meet the targets for getting patients through in less than four hours. Then finally we were told what ward he would be on, and I could leave. At this point I had been sitting for approximately five hours. Only the Guardian Weekly crossword I had  in my bag made it bearable – remarkably hubby actually managed to put his mind to some clues.

I then had a brilliant idea. If son’s  friend’s mum had taken the boys swimming as usual on a Saturday, they might just about now be finishing up their customary kebabs in Archway Kebabs, who serve ‘probably the best kebabs in the UK’ (according to their sign – a rival opposite now advertises ‘probably the best kebabs in Europe). And the kebab shop was literally a minute or two’s walk from the hospital. So round I walked, and there were a mother and two boys, quite surprised to see me. This meant I could take Genius Brat home (to the great displeasure of his friend). On reflection maybe that wasn’t such a good idea…

Anyway, one diagnosis of septicaemia, a lot of antibiotics, and two days, later, hubby was released back into the community, somewhat shaky but without the blinding headache that he had gone in with, and carrying yet more strong antibiotics with strict instructions about taking them. Our brief holiday, scheduled to happen in six days’ time, while GB would be at genius camp, was beginning to seem possible again. But, for the sake of readers who are waiting for the next cliffhanger (and to the tune of Eastenders) I have to say – there was more to come. Tune in tomorrow for the next nailbiting instalment…

Where to begin? It seems the more I have to record in this blog, the less time and energy I have to record it. And a great deal (and not all of it pleasant) has happened in the last few weeks.

I’d like to begin with my trip to the South Coast Seaside Town to give a presentation on depression and hopefully sell some of my books. But I can’t begin there because events bound up with my visit actually began earlier that week, when The Grouch had an extremely painful and nasty prostate biopsy (suffice it to say that in the immortal words of Private Jones, ‘they don’t like it up ‘em’). Apart from not wanting to sit down very much, he was fine until a couple of days later when he began to feel ill. However he apparently had no fever (how foolish to trust in an electronic thermometer with a low battery…) and as the advice with the antibiotics they had routinely prescribed, was that they could cause a fever, he put it down to side effects and did nothing.

I was more concerned about him than he was about himself, and tried to convince him that I should cancel my trip. However he insisted I go, as it seems that every time I have a trip away booked, he gets ill. So I went, equipped with presentation, books and iPod for the train. The South Coast Seaside Town did its best for me, assembling at least twenty people, some of them even below the age of seventy, to listen to my wisdom and buy my book (of which I sold four whole copies). All went off well in spite of my hostess’s husband having some trouble with getting the CDs to the right track at the right time (my presentation was enhanced with music) – but then he is a very spry 81 and still working, bless him. The most memorable moment of the 24 hours was his remark that, as a non-evangelical, he finds that in general evangelicals always want to talk a lot about themselves. In view of the long stories told my some of my audience, not to mention the Blast from my Past who tagged along and was very keen to talk at great length about all the miracles God had performed for her, I think he is right.

In the morning I was hastily shuffled out because both my host and her hubby were going out, so I had to forgo the possible pleasures of the South Coast Seaside Town, and arrived home early in the afternoon. To find… well, that merits a new entry.