Tuesday, 17 April 2007

Those not very good moments...

Sometimes in life we have those moments that really, really suck and to be honest, most of the time I choose not to think about them. Unless of course, I happen to be stuck in the middle of another really bad moment. Then I tend to think about all the bad moments, all in a row, in the wee small hours, and feel pretty rotten.
Had a bad moment (well many actually) last night when my youngest (by three minutes) was sent to hospital for observation in the Children's Acute Assessment Unit - she had a very worrysome rash - one that could mean Meningitis. Meningitis has a bit of a hold in NZ and all us parents are told to be on the constant look out for it. Her leg went funny just at bath time and we took her to the After Hours clinic and the doctor there insisted we take her straight to hospital. He phoned ahead and was so kind as to not even make us wait to pay. So we went into a little isolation room and for the next 15 hours poor babe was closely monitored, probed and prodded with little circles of pen around particularly worrysome spots etc etc. And so I was in the little foldout camp bed thing next to her not sleeping (no surprise) and thinknig about the last time I was in hospital and having the same surreal scary moment - which was when I was on the operating table and the anaesthatist told me the babies had been born but I couldn't hear anything - they weren't crying, weren't doing a lot as it turned out - and it was all quiet despite the room being full of people and then the babies were gone (and my husband with them) and I was lying there feeling really lonely.
Those are the moments I really like to forget. And I remind myself of some of the wee scraps that were in the Neo Natal ICU and think how lucky we were in that it could have been so much worse. And I think about those parents who have a terminally ill child and think how awful that must be and how lucky we were just to have a scare.
Then I got to thinking that I tend to work out those feelings in my writing - I can make my characters feel really, really awful. But the best thing is I get to write them a happy ending. I get to make it all better. Nice because in real life you can't always do that.
And of course, even in the middle of my own personal Dark Moments - I get silly sparks of ideas for books - its the escapist thing in me, otherwise its all a bit much.
Everytime I enter a hospital I itch to write a Medical (altho I couldn't handle all the research) - all those gorgeous young registrars! And our Paediatric Consultant this trip - a bona fide M&B hero. For sure.
Real life hero too in a totally different way.

If all the above reads as the deranged ramblings of an overtired, post-frantically worried mum - well hey, ya got me.

2 comments:

Judy Jarvie said...

Big hugs to you hun. That must've been a big scare. Hope babe is okay now. jx

Donna Alward said...

Oh Nat, how awful. I got to the end and went, "But what about the baby?" I hope everything is okay. Extra special hugs and squeezes to you.

D