Coming up for air

What a hectic few weeks it has been, oldest boy was in hospital for thirteen days with osteomyelitis.  Bad mother made him walk to school (and sit exams) with an abscess in his leg  but has certainly earned enough mummy points in being his hospital partner for the resulting month to make amends.  We have been on such an NHS journey and have been so thankful for the wonderful treatment we received along the way, from super fast A&E treatment on a busy Saturday evening, a variety of scans including an  MRI, alongside lots of fun with the bed controls in the children's ward.  Scarily moving to  a bigger hospital with not such good bed controls but thankfully an actual bed for me to sleep in,   followed by  intravenous antibiotics and a painful operation but always fantastic care by a host of super talented doctors and nurses.

Dress down Doctors!

We have learnt a whole new medical language:  PICC lines, Cannula, abscess, myositis and drains to name a few.  Along the way we discovered a  whole section of NHS care we had not needed before, community children's nurses are so helpful.  It is pretty rare to have a bone infection like this at his age, an abscess right next to his sciatic nerve and he mystified the doctors for a while.  Thankfully the worst is over, his scary PICC line was removed last week and apart from a few more weeks of antibiotics he is on the way to health.  

We missed the jubilee weekend but did have a great view of the Southampton docks from the top floor ward and just about saw the three Queens (ships) arrive in the docks from a distance  to mark the event.

Just about see the three Queens!

Life is just about returning to normal after such an upheaval and we are as ever so blessed by our many friends and family who all in different ways made a hard time easier.  Wonderful people who cared for our children,  cooked meals for us,  visited us, sent encouraging texts, even walked the dog,  all have been truly appreciated......life is so much better sharing it with all of you!

I really missed all the other children but especially my littlest girl and she seems to have grown up so much in the days we were apart, chatty and cheeky  and showing off her latest trick "I Wuby, Wuby Foss - her!"  Two years and four months and growing more independent daily, baby days are fading fast.

I am  very much  looking forward to a lovely catch up of everyone's blogs this afternoon,  I have missed my blog inspiration.  I did manage to squeeze in some knitting in hospital, every cloud has a  (crafty) silver lining!