Rock-a-bye baby

As I'm sure you can appreciate, sleep has been a precious commodity this last week. Having done a 48 hour shift, I wasn't allowed the luxury of the lie-in as I had to get up at 5:00 to take my mum to the airport, so I was really looking forward to finally catching up with some sleep. Events were however to conspire against me.

At just after midnight, just as I was getting ready for bed, the hospital rang. To be honest, once I knew it was them on the phone I only heard the words "Intensive Care", "Stabilise", "Are you coming". The words around that connected these ones blurred into a haze of adrenalin fuelled panic.

Debbie had already gone to bed, so she got dressed, and nurtured me though the 45 minute express ride on the fast lane of panic highway. She kept me calm, she said all the right things, she made sure I didn't end up in a heap wearing a lamppost for a helmet. As ever, she was a rock. No, rock doesn't quite cover it. She was mountain of strength, towering over my panic stricken existence.

As we arrived, Victoria had already been taken off for a CT scan. She was scared, confused, and disoriented. Tracey, Debbie and I just felt so helpless. We waited for what seemed like forever for the result of the scan, which came back clear, thank God. However, she was very poorly, and they took her into Intensive Care and took every available action to stabilise her condition. I won't go into all the details, but believe me when I tell you that I have never been so petrified in all my life. Victoria had picked up an infection, and with a severely compromised immune system, was not able to fight it. We had been warned that this was a potential risk from the insertion of the Central Line.

We were asked to wait outside, and at 5:00, we were finally allowed back in to see her. She was sedated, and will remain so for 1 or 2 days, until the infection recedes. At 5:15, we finally left the hospital for the journey home, to bed land. As we arrived home at 6:00, just as dawn was breaking, I realised that I'd been awake for over 24 hours, and was feeling drained of every ounce of emotion and energy I could muster up.

Finally, I got to sleep, only to woken by Samuel's school calling at 9:00 to make arrangements for his new schooling. I hope I managed to string words together in some form of order that resembled the English Language, but if I didn't who could blame me.

The next 24 hours are the most crucial, so far.