The story so far: Tory Boy’s guts are about to explode.
*
*
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.
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.
*
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.
*
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.
Tory Boy was supposed to have been at a job interview Darn Sarf in the afternoon, but he had to cancel, for obvious reasons.
*
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.
*
Friday 22 August
Tory Girl came for the weekend. Tory Boy began to feel better.
Tory Boy no longer needed his mother. Sigh.
*
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.
*
Tuesday 23 August
Tory Boy got the job!
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.
Oh my goodness!! What a story but with a happy ending! Huge HUG To you all!
LikeLike
My…you’ve had quite the week…pleased to hear Tory Boy is recovering. Hopefully, you’ll soon get some rest yourself.
LikeLike
Phew! I bet you’re all glad that lot’s over. Poor Tory Boy – I hope it’s all simmered down now. Spud: break a leg. Tilly: calm down!
LikeLike
Crikey.
LikeLike
I do hope things settle down soon.
How’s the old man’s shoulder?
(Techie’s going back to Bath tomorrow for a placement which starts on Monday, but has no accommodation and Scout will be off to Glasgow in less than two weeks. Then, like you, my nest will be empty. Life’s going to be strange, hey? )
LikeLike
It is! But I might finally get back to writing and submitting. There’s always a silver lining 🙂
Did Techie find accommodation?
That’s far away for Scout (and his mum!). Thankfully, Sheffield is only a half hour or so from here.
Hub’s still suffering badly but they say it’s not broken. Now he’s started with pins and needles down that arm. Could be a trapped nerve?
LikeLike
Techie is accommodated! woo hoo
Cyloman is cycling, in France.
Scout and I are getting things ready for Uni…
Maybe Hub would benefit from a little physio?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can’t get him to the doctor. He has no faith in them 😦
LikeLike
Can you go direct to physio without passing go?
LikeLike
No; but as it happens, he saw the doctor yesterday after all. He saw the nurse over his Diabetes and she told him to see the doctor over his chest infection and she gave him antibiotics for that and said to keep using the shoulder because Diabetes patients suffer from frozen things…
LikeLike
phew.
Maybe this would help?
http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/sport-injuries/shoulder-pain/frozen-shoulder/mobility-exercises
…. because ‘keep using the shoulder’ is a little vague?
xxxx
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks. I’ve sent him the link.
LikeLike
gently does it. x
LikeLiked by 1 person
What can one say to that…I am surprised that you did not have stress related break down.
Such peace will reign in your house now. I reckon you will get bored
LikeLike
It’s like the Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times 🙂
LikeLike
Good gosh! This is so unreal and exhausting. I so admire how you kept your sanity and humor throughout this ordeal. I would have been a puddle of nerves and exhaustion. Wow! Shingles at 9?
LikeLike
Yes; and he was so brave!
LikeLike
quite the adventures. The new job is in your own town? Not hours and hours away? I am sooooo envious!! ( I have one boy in Seattle and one in DC. I live in PA. grumble)
LikeLike
No – it’s hours and hours away! 😦
LikeLike
I’m exhausted just from reading! I would have milked Tory Boy’s recuperation for as long as possible which I am sure that you did, congratulations on the job! You must be so excited for your poetry reading with Spud, that’s going to be special!. 🙂 Good luck with getting him ready for university, I can’t believe that I am almost done with university for the baby girl. Time goes by too fast when it comes to the babies! 😦
LikeLike
MUCH too fast!
LikeLike
agreed 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
So busy! I remember when my daughter had to have her appendix out on an emergency basis. I was a wreck! Thank goodness they didn’t make her wait too long. The surgeon said her appendix looked perfect & pink but they tested it & it was really rotten & would have burst soon. She had her surgery late afternoon, so she was mostly asleep all that evening. When I came in the next morning she was wide awake & they were trying to get her walking. Of course Mum took over because I have had a lot of surgery & I always feel great when I start walking & get some of the anaesthesia out of my system. Later that day, they informed me they were closing the Children’s Ward for the weekend to save on staffing costs & they were going to put my daughter on the same floor as the seniors with delirium & Alzheimer’s. I wasn’t impressed, so I called her doctor & got him to agree to discharge her right away as long as she was monitored 24 hours a day. So she spent her Christmas Break from school recuperating from an appendectomy.
So glad TB is on the mend, as his hubby!
LikeLike
What a story! Good ol’ mom:)
Spud always seemed to get sick over the Easter holidays, for some reason.
LikeLike
My first hubby always got sick at Christmas – it didn’t matter he was an adult, he still got so excited he would end up sick. Go figure.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I had a sandwich. Oh, and My Beloved Sandra bought me a bromeliad.
LikeLike
I’m afraid to ask… 🙂
LikeLike
What a hectic week for one and all, Tilly. Hope you can start breathing again, long before the end of the month. Don’t want you turning blue. 🙂
LikeLike
😀
LikeLike
Kids say the darndest things. Dinosaur stickers…who knew?
LikeLike
Congratulations to all on surviving one very crazy week (s?). And, I hope that Tory Boy doesn’t have to lose an organ every time he is looking for a new job….
LikeLike
😀
It was about ten days, I think, in the end. But I lost count.
LikeLike
Well, it’s humor that gets us through all these crises, isn’t it. It’s been one thing after another for us. A peaceful interlude in our family, but our neighbors are going through hell right now, and sometimes we just sit around the kitchen table swapping atrocity stories and laughing our heads off.
LikeLike
It’s the only sane response 🙂
LikeLike
This was really in just one week? I’m sorry for so much upheaval, but you get lots of kudos from me for just getting through with a sense of humor still intact! I hope the Hubs shoulder is healing and the pain less troubling, and I’m sure you were so worried about Tory Boy. I can only say at this point that I hope you have a really boring week! You don’t need any more excitement! ox
LikeLike
That’s for sure!
It was just over a week, I think. I lost track.
LikeLike
Yet you keep on, keepin’ on! Whew!!!
LikeLike