A Sick Child

Last week was the longest month of my life.

It started with a little broken nose, which probably turned out to be one of the highlights!

Being a parent involves many things but this last week provided a first class lesson in anguish! I have heard it said there can be nothing worse than watching your sick child suffer. Helplessness and inadequacy mounting moment by moment, not an experience for the feint hearted!

We took a little 12 hour trip to Bloemfontein so that the boys could compete in the SA Schools Judo tournament. We planned it well, leaving at 02h00 in the morning and getting halfway in the darkness whilst the family slept. The rest of the trip was surprisingly easy and we arrived in Bloemfontein in high spirits.

The boys weighed in at the Tempe military base where the competition was to be held. The place was dirty and completely disorganised. We should have known then. It tool hours for the boys to be weighed in, which in itself takes mere seconds.

The competition started off well the next day with Matt winning two of his fights, one with an amazing throw. He ended up second, not bad for his first national competition at the age of 7. Luke entered this competition in a higher weight category and what a competitive category that turned out to be. He fought hard and came fourth. He was highly disappointed but these were good lessons to learn. All in all a long and exhausting day!

That evening, with no warning whatsoever, Isabella started to vomit. Then she repeated the process every couple of minutes without fail. Nothing helped, which is why we found ourselves at a hospital in Bloemfontein.  She was later admitted in the wee hours of the morning, utterly exhausted and still vomiting. Nothing can prepare one for the moments in life when your child is sick and in pain, and looking at you with those big ‘help me’ eyes. And you can’t!

Donna got to snag the chair next to the bed and bunk down with our daughter for the next three nights. Isabella continued to vomit for much of that time, and became hysterical when her mother was not within reach. A difficult time for my wife, as she too was confined to the hospital room, and all the joys that accompany such an opportunity. It turned out Isabella had picked up the Rota virus, and there was nothing we could do but wait it out. I got to share my time between the hospital and the boys. Luckily our hosts were wonderful and took it all in their stride.

Unluckily I picked up some strain of gastro on the Monday and spent the night draped over the toilet in strange positions. A more violent virus, I have not known. This did not bode well for my support of Donna or the boys or our hosts or the long drive home.

It turned out Isabella would not be making the drive and so the girls would get to fly home. That left me with a spinning head and churning stomach and a vow to fight all the way home. My boys had a cross country to run on the Thursday and I was going to make sure they were there. Of course, they had already missed a couple of days of school as a result of this fiasco. The drive turned out to be much better than expected although there were a number of hairy moments, which thankfully passed without incident.

It was wonderful to be reunited at home as a family, to actually sleep for the first time in a week, and to discover the cross country was actually only on Friday.

It is a week later and Isabella is doing much better. Her parents will need lots of time to recover.