That Was The Week That Was (III)

The story so far:  Tory Boy’s guts are about to explode.

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Sunday 17 August

The Hub’s scapula was badly bruised but not broken, but he found it difficult to drive.  Tory Boy was taken into hospital on Saturday evening; I was on the first train next morning to Lancaster.  Which means I caught the bus because they were doing maintenance work on the tracks.  Didn’t they know I was in a hurry?

Tory Girl was making her way up to Lancaster from Darn Sarf, booking in at a Lancaster Travel Lodge on the way (hooray for wifi).  The train took five hours but it was worth the wait – she brought him a dinosaur sticker book, a Ninja Turtles notebook, a Spiderman pencil set and the Sunday Telegraph.  She knows him well.  She promised, if he was good and didn’t complain about the nurses’ needles, that she would buy him some Lego next day.  She made good on her promise, and threw in a dinosaur teddy for good measure.

The expression of love

Tory Boy had been admitted to hospital on the Saturday evening but it was Monday afternoon before he had his appendectomy – car accidents and other emergencies kept bumping him down the list.  I didn’t mind that, but I didn’t like that he wasn’t fed for 48 hours.  I suppose it helps the NHS catering budget to starve the patients.  They wouldn’t feed him because they believed he’d be next to be operated upon; but people kept crashing their cars.  It didn’t help that Tory Boy wasn’t in dreadful pain.  If it wasn’t for his rising temperature and pulse rate, you’d never have known he was one internal explosion away from writhing on the ground in agony.

I didn’t starve, of course: I had a surprisingly tasty lasagne in the inappropriately named Skylight Restaurant; which was in the basement.

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Monday 18 August

The surgeon finally whipped out TB’s appendix around 2:30pm.  He said it was full of pus, septic, gangrenous and as close to bursting as he’d ever seen without actually bursting.  How Tory Boy hadn’t been screaming for 24 hours was beyond his understanding.  My boy, the medical conundrum.  Typical of a child who failed the HEAF test because he had the tuberculosis antibodies already, despite never having been inoculated.  His brother is the same – he also failed the HEAF test for the same reason; plus had his appendix out at eleven.  Spud is currently winning the battle of the freaks, however, because he had Shingles at age nine.

Weirdly, neither of them have ever broken any bones.

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Tuesday 19 August

While all of this was going on, Spud was preparing to leave for the Leeds music festival.  The five day trip was his main gift from us for his 18th birthday (back in January).  There was a lot of last minute shopping for camping equipment, etc.  I helped him pack on Tuesday evening; which is to say, I packed his bag on Tuesday evening: the child was prepared to survive on one packet of biscuits and ten litres of alcohol for almost a week, yet couldn’t pack a towel without his mother’s help.

The expression of dopey

Tory Boy was supposed to have been at a job interview Darn Sarf in the afternoon, but he had to cancel, for obvious reasons.

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Wednesday 20 August

Tory Boy was released, after a flurry of texts and calls to say, I’m coming out – I’m not coming out – I’m allowed home today – No I’m not….  There was some dispute; but they must have needed the bed because they let him go.  I was on the train – a real train this time – as soon as he texted, I’ve got the drugs.

I brought him back by train (the Hub’s shoulder is going to take some time to heal – I hurt mine in January and it finally stopped aching around the beginning of August).  He went straight to bed as soon as we got in.  He lives in Lancaster but he needed his mother to look after him during his recuperation.

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Friday 22 August

Tory Girl came for the weekend.  Tory Boy began to feel better.

Tory Boy no longer needed his mother.  Sigh.

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Monday 25 August

Exactly one week since his operation, Tory Boy was on the train with Tory Girl, travelling five hours Darn Sarf and five hours back (without her), for the rescheduled job interview. 

Spud came home, starving and stinking; not too drunk, but full of stories which can’t be repeated in a family blog.  Come visit us, however, and I’ll happily allow him to share.

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Tuesday 23 August

Tory Boy got the job!

The expression of tolerance for a doting, blogging mother

So that’s been my week (or two).  We are still busy, however, because Spud is rehearsing for The Tree of War, a play funded by the council and written by a poet vicar and a music student.  Details here.  Spud plays young Bert.

He is also packing up for university.  Or he would be, if he wasn’t spending all of his time rehearsing.  It’s going to be a last minute job; I know it.

Tory Boy went up to Lancaster at the end of last week to pack up his lodgings, came back to Stockport and went straight to hospital because he had some complications after his op.  I didn’t need a medical degree to know that they were caused by over-exertion.  They didn’t keep him in but he is on strict instructions to rest this week.  Apart from a  couple of excursions to the shops, he is resting.  He needs to leave here next week to start his new job and move in with Tory Girl – as soon as they find a flat.  What it is to be young and heedless.

Apart from this weekend’s performances, Spud is also doing a poetry reading with me in 12 days.  We’ll start rehearsing that next week.  Then we dump him and his stuff at Sheffield University at the end of the month – and I can start breathing again.