Dr Who In All's Well That Ends Well

It is day three of the new year and I am clinging to an Austrian mountainside, screaming into icy winds as a helicopter lands to airlift my daughter to hospital.

It was the final day of our holiday. We had been visiting friends in Austria and had decided to do a last ski-run together as a family (while Eddie waited at the bottom with his grandfather). We picked the easiest run on the mountain.  Taking the chairlift was an adventure for Gilby and he did bring it to a standstill trying to get on, but it was a glorious morning.

Gilby was slow, doing lots of snow-ploughing and crashing into his mother; and Gertie, scornful and seven-years' confident, went on ahead with her uncle.

A few minutes later we came across a crumpled heap on the mountain side. I thought she was winded until it transpired that she couldn't lift her head or straighten her back and complained that her feet were numb.  It was a fairly innocuous fall by all accounts but it looked as though it might have tragic consequences. The piste ambulance arrived, took one look, and refused to move her, radioing immediately for a helicopter.

They sedated her on the mountain. The last thing she said was 'Mummy, please don't let them take me to hospital'.

I have no doubt that the the view across the mountains by helicopter was dramatic and beautiful but I really didn't see any of it as I was so focused on Gertie who was unconscious.  There are no pictures because for once in my life I didn't think to take any. There were horrible scenes in the emergency room as she began to come to.  She kept asking if it was all 'real', and the memory loss meant that I had to explain over and over again what had happened to her.  She screamed each time she realised anew that she was in hospital.

The wonderful Dr Florian was patient and kind and had excellent English.  Gertie could never remember his name all the time we were there.  But his superb language skills lacked a tiny little something in bedside manner.

He would wave a giant needle around and say things like 'Vill you please tell your daughter that I must just now stab her qvickly for the bloods?' or flex his fingers before announcing, 'She vill feel extreme pain just now as I tvist her bone...'

I watched her for ten hours in intensive care before we knew that everything was really going to be ok. The point at which she leapt from the wheelchair and did a little jig was a bit of a giveaway, as was asking whether she was allowed to wear eye-shadow.

We were delayed leaving Austria by about 30 hours in the end and I had to miss a day of school. It's an extreme way to get additional time off work (as indeed my headteacher pointed out.)

I try not to court drama. I am thankful that my life generally goes along on an even keel. There are highs and lows and 2014 was a good year: healthy, happy children and a warm hearth.  There were some biggies, like my graduation ceremony - ten years in the making - no small cause for celebration;

Gertie's Irish Dancing Championship, a life-changing trip to teach in Uganda;

 my fulfilling of a twenty-year ambition to go to the Hay Festival, as well as finally getting Hearth-Father to the Isle of Wight Festival in June; and, of course, Arsenal won the FA Cup.

These highs were clouded by the sad and sudden loss of 'Pomp' in October.

But 2015 has begun with a bang. Gertie is absolutely fine, and will be back dancing in a couple of weeks' time. My mental scars will take a little longer to heal! Here's to a less dramatic start to the rest of the year.



Currently reading: Talking It Over by Julian Barnes

Things That Go Bump in The Head

Thus far we have avoided casualty.

I make this statement because I remember a friend of mine who had a little boy saying to me, when our children were about two-and-a-half, "So, how many times have you had to go to the hospital so far?" She was a regular visitor it seems, and we put our fortunate position down to the fact that we had a careful little girl. A few years later and we have our own two-and-a-half year old boy. He is certainly more accident-prone, and I regularly get the phone-call from nursery to explain in what creative and freakish manner he has managed to bump his head this time. He is also displaying some quite 'challenging' behaviour at the moment. (That is a not particularly well-disguised euphemism for 'driving me mad'.)

So I didn't really worry initially when some loud yells came from our bedroom and Gertie and Gilbert both came out crying and clutching their heads. "We bashed heads," they moaned in unison. I was busy in the bathroom with Eddie, so consoled them briefly, alongside a stern reminder about how they shouldn't be jumping on mummy and daddy's bed anyway.

But two minutes later when I went to check on why it was now so quiet, I discovered that Gilby was unconscious. I panicked. I managed to bring him round, but his eyes were rolling back in his head and he just kept saying that he wanted to 'rest'. (Unheard of from Gilby.) So I phoned Daddy and asked him to come home from work, phoned the duty doctor, phoned my mum to come and babysit whilst we whisked him down to casualty. The doctor persuaded me that there was no need, as long as he wasn't being sick and we kept an eye on him he would probably be alright. Difficult to keep an eye on him overnight, but we kept checking and all was well.

Except that when we woke up in the morning I seemed to have a different child: Polite, helpful, sweet, considerate and not throwing a tantrum. This more severe bang on the head seems to have had a strange side-effect and actually knocked some sense into him. Can it be coincidence? I wonder if I need to keep a mallet in my handbag for any future recurrences of ill-behaviour. Not entirely sure that the health visitor would approve though.

Things That Go Bump in the Morning

Gilby tumbled from his cot yesterday morning; a sure sign that it is time to move to his bed. I have tried to make that move as attractive as possible: he has a racing car-styled bed with dinosaur bedding. Wouldn't be my own first choice, but I have tried to appeal to the things he likes. It hasn't made any difference. The bravado displayed in the morning about wanting to sleep in his new bed has completed dissapated by the evening, and there is no chance of getting him to even try it.

Gertie was singing 'Jack and Jill' quietly to herself in the car this afternoon. When she got to the part about Jack falling down and breaking his crown, I couldn't help but think of Gilby and his dramatic cot-side topple. But as she got to the next verse about the mending of the broken head with vinegar and brown paper, she stopped.

"That's just silly!"
"What is?"
"Jack trying to fix his crown with vinegar and brown paper."
"You're quite right, it is very silly," I agreed, musing at her four-year-old perceptiveness.
"He'd at least need sellotape as well..."

Yes, of course he would. Perhaps I should get Gilby some until he is willing to make the move to his bed!

The Edible Woman

Daddy has a black eye. A real shiner; a black to purple-hued lumpy swelling. I don't know what story he intends to tell at work tomorrow, but the actual version is this: His one-year-old son cracked Daddy across the temple with a mobile phone. It was an unlikely but extremely painful accident...and whilst Daddy was looking for sympathy, I was more worried about Gilby - who was mortified by Daddy's reaction.

Meanwhile, it seems, Gertie is concerned about the edibility of her mother.

She has a t-shirt, not bought by me, I hasten to add, bearing the legend, "Don't you think I've got a yummy mummy?"

Now that she can read a little - though she is nowhere near deciphering the whole phrase she can detect the word 'mummy' - she asked me what it said. And it is fair enough, after all, to have an interest in the motto emblazened across one's chest, I thought. After I had explained it, though, she became quite concerned.

"But Mummy, who's eaten you to know?"

Good point.