THE KID COMES THROUGH!

I'm sure we all wonder what would happen if something happened to us at home, and the only people in the house with you are your kids. Obviously, if you fall you can still give out instructions, but what about if you actually lose consciousness, albeit for only a few minutes? Would the kids panic and forget all that you'd taught them about how to handle such an event? Or would they grab that phone and dial 999? Thankfully, most of us never get to find out the answer to that, and I was convinced I was going to remain blissfully ignorant on the subject... until yesterday...

I'd woken in the night feeling sick and had made that unenviable trip to the bathroom when the pain in my stomach started. It was around my belly button and I'd never felt anything like it. Of course, I just thought it was a bug and stumbled back to bed to vegetate and hope it was a one time thing. No such luck. A dozen times and six hours later the pain was so bad I actually passed out, right in front of my kids and they couldn't wake me up--although my son tried several interesting methods...

First he said he shouted at me a lot, shook me, slapped me about a bit, punched me in the head and then remembered a cartoon where a similar situation had been remedied by throwing cold water at the person, which he did and which, indeed, did work. But by this time I was completely not with it, unable to move without excruciating pain and wanting to die quite frankly. So the little trooper called an ambulance and his sister sat on the bed and held my hand, promising me everything would be okay.

Turns out I had an umbilical hernia and ended up on the surgery assessment unit, where a very nice surgeon named Justin prodded around and managed to reduce it. It was amazing, within a few minutes the pain was gone. I was incredibly sore, but more or less pain free and the nausea dissipated just as fast. I wanted to take him home with me! He said that I would still need keyhole surgery to repair the hernia, but at least I wasn't having surgery yesterday and will be waiting for the appointment instead.

That wasn't exactly how I'd planned to spend the second day of the Summer holidays, but I am incredibly proud of my kids. When the chips were down they held it together and although he did try to beat me up and drown me first, he did a very brave thing and is an absolute star!