I can remember from a very young age staying over at Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool. I was possibly 3 or 4 at a guess. I am the youngest of 3 and so my mother could not stay over with me as she had the rest of the family to care for. The memories I have are of playing with some of the other children, I remember a blonde haired little boy called Stephen doing a poo in his bed and we made a little song about it, so cheeky - Stephen's done a poo in his bed on a pillow. I was having tests as I had been diagnosed with Osteo Genesis Imperfecta as a young baby. I can also remember a girl saying I was going to have an operation, as that mainly happened to the children on the ward, and I remember feeling upset and scared and asking a nurse for reassurance as I didn't want to have an operation.
Mum had driven me over in her orange hatch back MG with me playing in the boot and my Godmother Auntie Toni as support navigator. The MG was great, it had a little ledge as a back seat that me, my sister and brother would all fit together on when mum dropped us off and picked us up doing the school run. I always remember the steering wheel too as it was like a wheel with spokes and on these spokes were holes which went from large to small. Needless to say as children we used to push our fingers through to fit the holes like rings to see if they fit but it was scary when the whole was snug and you thought you couldn't get your finger out again and you might be stuck forever. As it turned out my Auntie Toni wasn't the greatest navigator and when mum pulled over to ask a passer by from coming out of the tunnel where the children's hospital was, the woman said "oh isn't that in Liverpool?" We were in Birkenhead. Needless to say we found it in the end and I spent a few days there all in the name of medicine. Mum would always arrive like clockwork when I was having my pudding at lunch time. However, I remember her not arriving one day until much later on and the anxiety that she wasn't coming building up until I got really upset and inconsolable. She did arrive later after getting stuck in bad traffic. Poor mum. I used to hear her footsteps coming down the corridor as I was eating my pudding, normally with custard. The nurses said to her that particular day she was late as she entered the corridor to the ward "Do you hear that? That's your's".
We took Sebastian today for his first infusion of Zedronate for the same condition he has unfortunately inherited from me. I so hoped he didn't have have it, especially being a boy, but help is at hand by having biphosphonate infusions which will help strengthen his bones. Thank goodness. We discovered earlier this year that his bone density was low, and there were signs of stress fractures to his spine to our horror. This happens from jumping about, which he does, lots, so with this evidence the doctor advised the next course of action. Poor Seb, it is as my GP said an invasion of their innocence for one so young to start experiencing hospital treatments. He had a blood test done first about a month ago which went fine as my GP said if done correctly. I was worried of different scenarios of upset but it all went smoothly and he is actually very brave. The worst part was inserting the cannula. The numbing cream hadn't quite numbed his hand enough as the sticky plaster covering it had over lunch time started peeling off at the edges. Needless to say he was very brave and managed to sit still on the bed for an hour. There were of course a few times when the machine buzzed and statements such as "infusion blockage" and "air bubble" flashed up, from sudden sharp movements of the cannula hand but all to be expected. We will have to go to Alder Hey again in December for a repeat performance but without the overnight stay. This first time we went we treated it as an outing and my husband stayed the night with Sebs to comfort him & Tallulah & I stayed in a Premier Inn up the road. Sebs was discharged at 9.30am so we were able to go to the Albert Dock & have some fun seeing some well needed Art & Culture.
Walking down the corridor of the ward at Alder Hey was a very sobering experience. I couldn't help but notice as I walked in and out that there were some really tiny babies in there as well as older infants and toddlers bedbound and in cots, all with different stories and conditions. We were so lucky if you can call it that, to just be visiting with something that can now have treatment and hopefully which will help for the future.
One of my greatest memories of hospital is when I broke my leg when I was 6 or 7 years old. My mother's cousin Roger and his wife and son came to visit and we children were playing in the garden. We were playing hide and seek and Damien, the son, was up a tree counting, I unfortunately was underneath when he jumped to break his fall and my left femur at the same time. I can remember the adults picking me up in my broken agony putting me on a sun bed trying to take my jeans off; then my mother carrying me to my father's car and rushing me to hospital. I was in hospital all summer in traction. It was a bad break as it was so high on my femur, the doctor did not not set my leg correctly. But they reassured my parents that I would probably break that leg again in the future, great, which I did, but that's another tale.
There was an older boy from the same village as me in the next bed on the ward, with ginger hair and a broken leg. I remember a girl called Belinda, who had a broken hip, a little boy who had awful burns on his front, and a little toddler girl called Sarah in a cot. "Pink and warm" and "Good to all toes" were just a couple of the observational comments written on my chart at the end of my bed. The nurses were nice and would wheel us outside in our beds as it was summer. The hospital food tasted horrible and I never liked it. Mum used to bring me food from home, and bed to bed letters from my dad who was in hospital that summer with an aneurysm. My poor mother, she admitted to be smoking close to 2 packets of cigarettes a day due to the stress, but fortunately went on to become soon after a reformed non smoker. My dad grew a Grizzly Adams beard in hospital that summer and charmed the nurses to sneak him cigarettes. He never could quit smoking sadly.
Recently last Christmas I did a workshop at a local Art Gallery and the organiser said that one of the father's of the boys attending recognised my name and asked of my physical description. It turned out it was Matthew Rhys the boy with the ginger hair who had had a broken leg.
I briefly saw him when he came to pick his son up at the end of the workshop and I was sorry afterwards not to have his contact details. He stirred up memories as he produced a couple of photographs of us with the nurses sitting in our beds outside. Being slightly older he had more memories to share and said "you never forget something like that" and he was absolutely right. Matthew broke his leg being hit by a car, the trauma of that staying with him. He remembered me, my mum bringing me cucumber sandwiches in which were my favourites, and it was the first time he ever tried them. I remember him telling the joke about a man , all you can hear is him saying "going to get you, going to eat you" over and over, the punchline was the man was picking his nose.
It was the sort of joke my brother would tell.
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