Nothing but Hospitals!

Monday
Me and LMS got up early to take Little Prince for some blood tests, ordered by his paediatrician to check if there was anything underlying his behavioural issues. I was dreading it and didn't sleep well the night before, lay awake for hours redesigning mine and Mr Messy's bedroom, as you do!! Anyway we got to the hospital, got checked in and waited, Little Prince was perfectly happy as there were loads of toys and things to do (it is the Children's Unit lol). The nurse called us in to put the Emla cream on, and advised putting Little Prince's jumper back on, as being warm will help his veins stand out. He wasn't happy about this, he is happiest with as few clothes as possible! But we insisted!! Half an hour or so later we were called back in and two nurses took the blood. I sat with Little Prince on my knee, with one nurse with her back to us holding his arm, blocking his view of what was going on. The other nurse took the blood. When it was all finished, Little Prince looked at his arm and asked in a puzzled sounding voice "Did it hurt?" lol.
When we got home we ran round getting ready to travel across country, to see my Dad and for Drama Teen to see her speech therapist. Luckily travelling at midday the traffic was busy but moving and it didn't take us too long to get to the hotel we were staying at. I left the three children there, with a suitcase full of toys for Little Prince to play with, and pointed out the indoor play centre at the adjoining pub and the fast food restaurant across the car park.
I surprised myself by finding my Dad's hospital with no problem!! When I got there, Mum was already there chatting with Dad, who looked so much better - in his own pyjamas and sat in the chair by his bed :-) He was disappointed to not be going home that day (his birthday) but hopeful that he would be discharged the next day. His prostate has become enlarged, causing waterworks problems, which has to be solved before he can be allowed home. We spent half an hour or so chatting, before getting a phone call from my sister and her husband wondering where the car park was! When they phoned again to say they were in the hospital, Mum sent me down to reception to find them and bring them to the ward. We must have missed each other in the lifts as I wandered round looking for them before finding them, in the Day Room WITH Dad :-) He had decided that as Sister and BIL had their four kids with them, he would walk to the Day Room so that he could see the kids too :-)
Once visiting time was over I took Mum for a cup of tea in the hospital cafe, and then we walked back to the car, meeting Baby Sis and her Fiance on the way! They warned us about bad traffic on our normal route to Mum's house, so we took a different way and didn't get stuck too badly. I dropped Mum off and raced back to the hotel to see how the kids had coped!! They had stayed in the room the whole time and were climbing the walls by the time I got there - Little Prince almost literally!!! He and Drama Teen had been playing jump on Mummy's bed - but had remade it before I came!! They showed me the photos later and it had been a mess!!! We went straight to the Pub for some tea and Little Prince was quite hyped up and not happy that he now didn't have time to go to the indoor play area! Once we'd finished our main courses, I left the girls to have some dessert and took Little Prince back to the hotel to try and get him settled to sleep. His new Ready Bed (on a test run before our Disney trip) took longer to get ready than I thought, then Mr Messy rang to see how we all were, so he wasn't in bed by the time the girls got back. Which made settling him down a bit more tricky, but he eventually fell fast asleep leaving us girls to chat. We were mostly talking about the Bucket List (list of things to do before you kick the bucket!) that LMS was compiling, ready for going to her friend's house tomorrow when a whole bunch of them are making and decorating their lists!!
Tuesday
We had to be up bright and early to be able to get breakfast at the hotel, before having to set off for Drama Teen's appointment. Once we'd all eaten and packed up our stuff we set off for the city centre. I'd expected the drive to be horrendous given that we had to be there for 9.30am, but it wasn't too bad really. We had just parked the car and were walking over to the hospital, when I received a call! "Is this Drama Teen's Mum its the hospital here, we just wondered if you were on your way?" My heart fell, as they went on to explain that the speech therapist had just called in sick! I snapped at the poor receptionist, that to get there for 9.30am we'd had to stay in a hotel overnight, and that we were minutes away from the hospital by now!! She advised us to come up to the Unit and they would see if they could get hold of another of the speech therapists to come and see Drama Teen to save us a wasted journey. Once we got in I apologised for snapping and took the kids to the waiting room to wait lol. The receptionist came back within a couple of minutes and said that someone would be able to see Drama Teen at about 10am, so could we come back then. We decided to go round to the nearby huge Museum, which Little Prince got VERY excited about, he loves museums he told us :-) When we got there we found it didn't open until 10am!! So we spent ages sat in the cafe, not eating as we were still full from the hotel breakfast lol. Eventually it was time for me and Drama Teen to return to the hospital, and for LMS and Little Prince to explore the museum.
Drama Teen's speech therapist checked her speech and said there was a very slight lisp to her 's' sound, but that she shouldn't worry as it was only very slight. She then spent quite a long time explaining how Drama Teen could improve her 's' sound and gave her exercises to do each day to facilitate this. She will refer us to the local speech therapy department and said that if in the school holidays we want to come over for a long (all morning or afternoon) appointment to do some intensive speech therapy work, then just let her know. This is one of the major reasons we have stuck with Drama Teens original surgical/care team - they are so helpful and willing to go that extra mile for her :-)
We collected LMS and Little Prince from the Museum, and LMS waited in the cafe while I took Drama Teen and Little Prince to see the Mummy Exhibit (LMS was too queasy to show him that bit!!). Then we set off home again. We stopped for some lunch at a lovely country cafe we'd discovered a few weeks ago. On the journey Drama Teen arranged to go to see a film with her friend, that was on top of the arrangements LMS had already made to see her friends!! We ended up dropping LMS off at her friend's house on the way home (well a quite long detour rather than on the way home!) before FINALLY going home for about ten minutes, before setting off in the opposite direction to drop Drama Teen at the cinema. Luckily for me the film finished late enough for Mr Messy to be able to pick her up on his way home from work. I was sick and tired of driving by then!! So I almost cried when we were nearly home and LMS rang to ask if I could drop her stuff off as she and her friend's had decided to make it a sleepover!! Mr Messy took pity on me later and took LMS her things - thank you Mr Messy :-)
So that's it two days, three hospitals and a lot of driving!!! Hopefully things will calm down now, especially as Drama Teen and Little Prince are back at school tomorrow!!