A bumpy week

The beginning of the week went well.

I had my one to one (regular "hows it going" meeting with my boss) in which we had a good catchup session, looked at stats for the last month and discussed various normal work issues. All is going fine :-) Its also an opportunity to let her know how home life is going, and tell her of the slightly traumatic rescue of Douglas from his Pagan Camp.

Its a good thing my boss knows how things are with Douglas, as on Wednesday night his Gout flared up again, and I had to take Thursday morning off work to get him to the GP as an emergency visit. Poor old Douglas was in a lot of pain, also feeling (and being) sick.

He was just about well enough for me to go to work Thursday afternoon, and reluctantly I went to work Friday morning too, although he was still feeling pretty bad. I felt so miserable and worried about him - nearly started crying at my desk, but pulled it back in.. somehow.

I went on my lunch on Friday, phoned Douglas who was in an awful state and desperately needed me home to look after him. I went back into the office, and was very quickly given permission to go. They really are pretty darn good employers, and Im so grateful that they understand that now and then Douglas needs me to look after him. Poor boy.. he dosnt half go through the mill....

I went and picked up Martha, Leo and Carlo, my brothers kids, as we were having them for the weekend, and we had a lovely evening, despite D not feeling too great. I took them to my parents house for the night as we had agreed to share them for the weekend.

Friday night we went to sleep - Douglas in the spare bed level with the bathroom, and me in our attic bedroom. I made him promise to call me if he needed me.

1.30am he called. Surprisingly I woke on his first call (I'm normally a very heavy sleeper, and have been known to sleep through very loud fire alarms before now!) I went down to see what was going on, and found him to be in extreme pain. He had called the NHS Direct Helpline who had summoned a paramedic out to him.

The bloke who arrived was very nice but a bit slow, but eventually got a portable cylinder of Nitrous Oxide out and Douglas breathed it in desperate for the pain to subside. After a while, another person was summoned, but he was unwilling to give Douglas any pain relief due to his cocktail of tablets and kidney failure, so.. another wait and an ambulance came.

At the hospital after about an hours awful awful wait (Douglas writhing around in agony, trying hard not to cry out with the pain) the A&E Dr gave him 10 mg of morphine - a very strong pain reliever - and after a few moments, the very worst of the pain went. Waiting in A&E to get Douglas seen to is the very worst bit for me as well as him - I know that there is a system of treating the worst first, but it just kills me, seeing my beloved in so so much pain and distress, and all I can ever do is sit there, stroke his head, hold his hand and tell him how much I love him :-(

We got back home at about 5am, totally shattered, emotionally and physically. I fed the circling sharks (aka Billy and Lilly) to ensure that when I got to bed they would leave me alone and let me sleep. We slept till about 8, and as Douglas was feeling a fair bit better, I picked the kids up and took them to see a delightful film called Nims Island.

After a quick hello to Douglas, and dropping off some tablets we got from the hospital pharmacy, I took them back to my parents, came home via Tesco, and collapsed, with Douglas into bed. Hes feeling much better now but was absoltuely shattered.

Ive just had a shower and cleaned my teeth, got clean clothes on, and feel partly human again!

D is still sleeping, bless him.

I'm now off to sit on the kids for the evening as parents are going out to a concert! I'm looking forward to spending an evening with them. I will come home to sleep, and will sort out Sunday when it comes.