Wisdom of Solomon in reverse

One of the more difficult things we have had to cope with is "how as a parent can you be in two places at once" or sometimes three or four?

 

Solomon's decision was to cut the baby in half, there has been many, many times I wish I could have cut myself in half or more, when wanting to be with Evan in hospital and wanting to spend time with Freya, wanting to help Jenny while trying to keep a job going as well.

 

And I know if I found it hard, for Jenny it must be ten times worse, but again we managed, with the norm being Jenny in hospital with Evan during the day, while Freya was at granny's and I went to work and called in to see him in the evening, and at weekend's one spent the day at home with Freya while the other visited Evan and then switched.

 

One of the rare occasions Freya was on the ward to visit Evan 22nd Sept 2013.

At this stage Evan has been in hospital for just over seven and a half months, if somebody had said to me eight months ago I would be going to the Royal every day, and Jenny and I would spend most of the time we spent together asleep, I would have thought it impossible but it is one of the adaptions any and every parent would make to their routine for their children, and now it is the norm.

 

The hardest part and one where others parents don't realise the difficulty of having a child in hospital long term, is the looks when you leave the ward at night 'imagine leaving that wee baby on its own' or the 'helpful' mother who rushes up to you as soon as you come on the ward in the morning to tell you 'he had a really good night' with that look of 'I stayed here all night with my child', and you think inside 'I wanted to but we have a wee girl at home and are trying to do our best for both'.

 

I thank the nurse who told us at the start that a bedside vigil for the length of time Evan would be in hospital for, would not make any difference to him and would run us into the ground. Before you think us hard or heartless we have stayed when as a parent you can't leave your child's side, for the times in Intensive Care, for the lows, and for a week in isolation due to a bug he picked up on the ward.

 

And every nurse and auxiliary who covers an night shift on Barbour Ward knows when the phone rings between 23:15 and 00:30, 'it Evan's Mum/Dad here, how is he?'