HOSPITAL

Well the joke is wearing a bit thin, illness wise. I am writing this from a camp bed next to Billie’s hospital bed. She was admitted here five days ago with pneumonia and it looks like she’ll be staying here for a few days yet. As I hurriedly left messages for relatives and friends on the way to the hospital one particular chum remarked how typically second child this was. And I have to say I agree. I am sure that had Oliver been ill with the virus that Billie had I would have hotfooted it down to the doctors on day one. As it was with Billie I just thought that she would get better on her own. However on the Wednesday her behaviour suddenly changed; from being just poorly she went very floppy and sad, and wouldn’t get up off the sofa. The doctor diagnosed pneumonia and she was admitted that afternoon. Although her condition is improving it is slow progress and the doctors are not 100% sure what type of pneumonia she has. So poor Billie is having to cope with an illness, a strange environment, lots of new faces and a heap of medication. In the meantime she is on antibiotics, a nebuliser and an inhaler and presents a very sad figure indeed.

Before we came into hospital I ran round the house gathering up essentials in case it was a while before we got further supplies. I had Sue Lawley’s voice ringing in my head as she interviewed Billie: “And finally, Billie, what will you choose as your luxury?” Billie draws a deep breath and admits that she cannot decide between her blue blanket and her pink pillow. Sue, in a moment of unprecedented charity, allows her to take the most essential element of both, namely the labels. (For those of you who’ve not experienced this the labels are stroked and held for comfort!) Meanwhile my essentials are equally telling: mascara and eye make up remover to make me look human, radio and mobile phone for contact with the outside world.

So here we are on day five and we’ve settled in okay I guess. Bill has made friends with a beautiful girl up the corridor who is anorexic. My mum in absolutely typical fashion offered her food almost the instant she met her. She sweetly declined, explaining that she didn’t like food. Mum immediately replied, “Well if you don’t like bananas how about a bagel? No? What about some crisps then? A sandwich - I’ve got a nice turkey sandwich here?”

We are in the middle of a ward where the other patients seem to come and go faster than your average boy band. It is really disruptive as many of the kids, and their parents come to that, seem to think they’ve come to Centre Parcs not a children’s ward and the noise volume is unbelievable. Tonight for instance there were two fathers playing football in the ward with their kids. I put up with it for about an hour then complained to the staff noting that it was 9.00 pm and was received with about as much hostility as Tony Blair announcing a cut in pay and increase in hours. It made me feel really weepy and lonely when that happened, and I am stunned at how shambolic the discipline seems to be here. Maybe I have too many images of Hattie Jaques wielding her sisterly strictness around the ward.

Steve has had a fine time at the League of Fiends (sic) Tea Bar, where a group of the most aged members of society gather together under the misspelled banner to dole out tea and sarnies to the public. While he was in there, one of the old dears seemed to be having a full blown asthma attack but valiantly carried on sploshing weak tea into saucers, occasionally making it into the cup. The list of snacks was brilliantly misspelled with Crunky Kit Kats and Cheese & Onon crisps. At one point one of the ladies turned to her colleague and asked what was in a particular sandwich. “I don’t know dear,” she replied, “let me see.” She then proceeded toup the packet, stick her finger into the filling and then pop it into her mouth. “Salmon!” she cried as the other lady carefully wrote on the board “Simon sandwiches”.

It’s been an isolating time for all of us, as we cannot be together that much. Steve has had to spend a lot of time back at home with Olly as we want him to experience as much normality as possible. He is really upset by events and has drawn lots of pictures of the family with lines connecting us all together as if he is trying to make this fractured scene mend. I popped home for a couple of hours today and hugged Olly till he had to make a dash for air and freedom. We then went out to the greenhouse to water the plants. As I was doing it I noticed I was being watched. There in the ivy next to the greenhouse was a robin sitting on her nest calmly regarding me whilst doing that job that all of us as parents strive to do, keep our young safe and warm.

And tonight back in hospital, thinking about that robin keeping her eggs safe and warm, I miss my own nest, and hope that I can be there with both my babies and Steve very soon indeed.

Juliet Jones lives in domestic chaos with husband Steve, son Oliver (aged 3) and daughter Billie (aged 2) in Hertfordshire.