One hell of a holiday

Oh. Boy. I was expecting to rejoin you all in 2013 feeling rested, rejuvenated and ready to rock and roll. How wrong I was. If I’m honest, which I usually am, I am scrambling to believe it is in fact a new year. The past week or so steamrolled my little family and, now, as the dust is settling and the worst is thankfully over, I am absolutely knackered. So, I join you as a slightly broken woman, slightly disbelieving it is possible to feel like this after a holiday.

Where to begin? Shall we start at the lowest point of my recent holiday? I think so. It does a fine cameo as the lowest point of my life (in recent memory, at least) which is quite nice I suppose. It means we can only go upwards from here.

It was about 7pm on new year’s eve and I was sitting in Grafton hospital’s emergency department. Mr G had arrived by ambulance and was barely conscious. My dad sat beside me while we waited for the results from a CT scan that had just been taken of Mr G’s head. Dad and I were both recovering from the shock of seeing Mr G disintegrate before our eyes, not to mention the forty-five minute car ride during which Dad’s youngest granddaughter gave her eight-week old lungs a mighty workout. Frazzled already, I was now feeding Miss L whilst fielding a distressing phonecall with a distraught Miss I in the background. She was back in Yamba with my mum and sister and wanted to know why both her parents had suddenly disappeared. I was scared and the salt in the wound was a moment earlier in the day for which I will never be awarded spouse of the year. My heart was being tugged in a million ways and none of it felt good.

It’s fair to say no one in my family had a particularly pleasant new year’s eve. Eventful, yes. Pleasant, absolutely not. 

It started inconspicuously the previous night when Mr G complained of a headache as we hopped into bed. He took some panadol and we both assumed it would pass. Not so. In the middle of the night I was awake feeding Miss L and Mr G was still uncomfortable and unable to sleep. I sent him upstairs to the spare room thinking a room away from our feeding infant might help his slumber. Not so.  

Early the following morning he came in and asked for more panadol. This is where I hang my head in shame. I was feeding Miss L while also trying to entertain Miss I. Mr G wanted more panadol but it was upstairs. At this point I may have snapped a little and suggested he could have got it himself considering he was just up there. In my very weak defence I was sleep deprived and irritable and hadn’t contemplated that Mr G was suffering from anything more sinister than a headache. Imagine my disgrace when I later learned my poor husband was actually in the throes of meningitis? It was exquisitely painful; his head at the time and my heart forever afterwards. The fact I did actually retrieve and administer the panadol did nothing to quell my remorse. I didn’t do either graciously.

There is a special kind of regret reserved for moments when you treat someone you love more than anything in the entire world badly and it is compounded when that moment coincides with the exact moment they quite reasonably need kindness and love more than ever. It is then compounded exponentially when they are lying in an ambulance and you are horrified that it might be the last meaningful exchange they remember.

So. That was a fun car trip. I rarely entertain morbid thoughts but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t as Dad and I drove to Grafton hospital. 2013 was not looking remotely enticing.

After an eternity the CT results came back clear at which point they performed a lumbar puncture. That confirmed what the doctors had suspected; Mr G had meningitis. The initial results were not conclusive about it being viral or bacterial so he was treated for both. He was kept in hospital for a few more days and as all manner of drugs were pumped through his body he slowly regained some colour and vigour. He is already feeling much better and with a couple of weeks’ rest he will hopefully make a thorough and speedy recovery.

The whole experience shook me to the core at a time when, frankly, my core was more flimsy than firm. In one of life’s nifty twists of irony, the afternoon before Mr G’s headache came on, I had a mini-meltdown. Eight weeks' of broken sleep and feeding, on top of Christmas, daily beach trips and nightly social activities was getting to me. Mr G and I decided the following day I would do nothing except stay home, read and feed Miss L as required.

Obviously that didn’t happen. The next few days were tough; driving between Yamba and Grafton, worrying about Mr G, wrangling Miss I, feeding Miss L and wondering how on earth I could keep myself sane enough to continue doing it all for the foreseeable future. Fortunately we were surrounded by a hoard of family and friends, all of whom were a tremendous source of help and support. Even still, it was hard with a capital H.

The day we took Miss L home from hospital I remember thinking to myself, ‘Right, this is the bit when life is about to get really real.’ I knew two kids was not for the fainthearted and I wondered if I was up to the task. Since that day I haven’t had time to contemplate it; the reality of the task is you just keep going. Life did get pretty real back in November but not nearly as real as it felt last week. Life with two small children and a husband sick in hospital is as real and daunting as my life has ever felt. The upside, of course, is that things can only get better. At least I’m sure they will soon. 

I hope your break was less eventful than mine and that you greeted 2013 with more enthusiasm than I did. I can’t finish this without sharing one piece of advice. If anyone you love, or even like, ever asks you to get them panadol, get it. And give it to them with a hug and a kiss.