A trip to hospital

I'm sitting in a corridor in Basingstoke hospital. Across from me is a door marked resuscitation.  There was some screaming emanating from inside, then an alarm sounded and lots of doctors went in and out saying 'resus'. Two women (not dressed in scrubs) came out in tears. 

There are people here with real medical emergencies, but I'm not one of them!

I've been flown here in an air ambulance after falling off my horse in the polo arena. I fell on my head, then walked to the clubhouse where I had a little lie down.  The next thing I remember was waking up with no idea where I was, and Aurora looking very concerned. Apparently I had had some kind of seizure and Aurora had to hold me down to stop me writhing off the sofa onto the floor.

 

When she phoned 999 because of the seizure they decided to send a chopper because there were apparently no normal ambulances. I was mortified with embarrassment at the prospect but she couldn't stop them.

Within minutes there was the sound of a helicopter landing in the arena (I was under strict instructions not to move my head) and pretty soon a team of medics were swarming around me. They soon established what I knew already - namely that there was absolutely nothing wrong with me, and all I needed was a nice cup of tea and a lie down. 

Anyway I was examined to the max, and I felt a bit like a king when everyone gathered blankets to keep me warm and someone even removed my boots for me! 

They decided I was fine, but I should be checked out at a hospital because concussion injuries can be hidden and only manifest themselves later (ask Liam Neeson).

They tried to organise a 'truck' (ie a normal ambulance), but there were still none available, so after some discussion about the relative merits of the Southampton hospital helipad and the Winchester kings school playing grounds, they finally opted to fly me to Basingstoke. 

I walked to the helicopter, but had to lie in the stretcher for the flight because there were already 4 people (maybe more!?) in it. 

I felt a bit bad wasting NHS resources, but secretly I was quite excited about going in a helicopter - that's a bucket list item ticked.  And Aurora was happy because the helicopter had cleared all the pesky leaves out of the arena. We invited the crew to come back next weekend for some bacon butties and polo.

The ride was actually rather boring since I was just staring at the ceiling. I craned my neck to look out the window, but just saw fields. Don't think we were much above 3000 feet. 

We landed in a field - from my (disad)vantage point I could see a cloud of leaves being blown up as we touched down. 

Things moved pretty fast early on. The helicopter took about 5 minutes to arrive, and the trip to Basingstoke took 12 minutes, but as soon as I entered the hospital things slowed  down to a positively glacial pace. 

After a while, the triage nurse arrived: 'So Mr. Darwin, I understand you fell off your horse playing polo, is that correct?'  Good grief, what a middle class injury. Or non-injury, in my case. And what a fool I feel when there is a girl screaming in pain two cubicles down. 

And so here I find myself, surrounded by people who actually have something wrong with them, waiting for a doctor to see me and wishing I had brought a book. 

 

Felix's trip to France

In September we took Felix to France for a polo tournament.


He enjoyed the channel tunnel,



especially the shopping in the terminal.



When we arrived we found the accomodation needed a little work,




but Felix didn't mind, since he discovered the mini-bar was full of breast milk.




Some of his French relatives were pleased to meet him,


La bise a la Francaise!

while others were not so sure.






While in France we visited Versailles,




where Felix brushed up on his DSLR photography skills.





Il était super content d'etre a St. Agnan chez les Besses;




de diner en famille,



se bronzer dans le jardin,



et surtout la piscine, qu'il a adore.






Unfortunately, he also inherited his dress sense from his father.





Chez Francois Felix a bien aimé son premier gout d'un Kir Royal,





and a nice Beaujolais,






but it definitely impacted his driving ability.





On the last day, he was sad to be packing his bags....





but at least he could fit them in the car, unlike some.

Felix's holiday in Scotland.

On Monday I took Felix on his first plane ride - to Scotland.

When we got to the station he was very excited about going on holiday.

On the train to Gatwick he made some new friends and admired the view.

When we got on the plane he was very impressed with the comfy seat.

It took him a little while to figure out how to use the seatbelt...

but he got there in the end.

 I showed him what the boarding pass was for...

But when I tried to explain the Bernoulli principle he had other ideas.

 

 

He made some new friends...

and pretty soon we were in Inverness.

After a delicious supper,

and a wee dram by the fire,

it was time for bed.

 

After leaving Scotland we went to the lakes where we did a cruise on Lake Windermere.

 Felix was very excited about the prospect of staying at Holbeck Ghyll...

 as he had heard the four poster beds were very comfy.

 The next day we did a bit of walking.  Felix helped with the navigation...

posed for photographs...

and took us to the most beautiful spots.

 He enjoyed the lakes very much, but his favourite bit was probably bedtime.

New baby!

The day started early - about 4am Aurora was woken by painful stomach cramps, which we soon decided were in fact contractions, and therefore she was going into labour.

After some debate we rang the hospital, who told us to come in.  I found myself finally doing 'the journey' - a hospital drive through the cold dark night with Aurora beside me in some pain.

We were greeted by a very sweet midwife who showed us to a rather spacious room.  She examined Aurora and found she was 2cm dilated, and she could feel the baby's hair, so the waters must have broken.

We decided to stay (rather than going home for a while) and ran a hot bath.  We got some painkillers and the bath helped ease the pain of the contractions.

By about 7:30, she was contracting every 3-4 minutes, and they were getting more and more painful.  Our midwife Wendy brought us a canister of gas & air (N2O + 02) which helped with the pain.

At 10am she got out of the bath and went back to the room where she was examined again and was 4-5cm dilated.  There was a birthing pool being filled, and the plan was to stabilise the pain and move there.  By 10:25, the pain had got worse and we decided to have Pethidine - an injection into the thigh.  It takes 20 minutes to kick in, but by 11:15 the pain had got still worse.  Pethidine makes you drowsy, and Aurora at this point was barely conscious, only waking up during contractions.  Eventually she murmured the word 'Epidural' through her drug-fuelled haze.

I returned from buying some lunch to find an Egyptian anaesthetist explaining the epidural.  Aurora was pretty medicalised at this point - catheter, 2 IV lines, BP monitor, etc.  She needed to be sitting up to get the epidural in, and also completely still.  This we achieved, and the epidural went in at about 11:40.  The pain eased off pretty quickly, but things got a bit hectic at this point.  Her BP dropped to 71/36, and the baby's HR from ~140 to ~65.  Pretty soon we had a registrar (Ken), and another midwife pumping her with fluids to get the BP up (which was the cause of the drop in the baby's heartrate).  At one point I looked up from my bacon brie and cranberry panini to see a foetal ECG probe going up Aurora's punani - bon appetit!

Anyway they got the BP back to normal (ish) and the baby's heartrate recovered.  At this point (midday) she was 8cm dilated but the baby was 'back to back' which means that a VD would probably require instruments.  We decided to wait a couple of hours and then if she had not dilated any more we would do a C-section.  Well, 2:30 came quite quickly since the contractions were not hurting any more, and we were disappointed to learn that she was still at 8cm and the baby had not changed position.  We were offered a hormone drip to get her fully dilated, but we decided that would not be a good idea, because if she got dilated and he didn't turn, he would get well into the pelvis so a C-section at this point is more risky, and a VD would involve instruments (and consequently, damage).

After the interminable hours of labour, things moved pretty fast once we decided to operate.  I put on scrubs and went into theatre with Aurora on her trolley and associated paraphernalia.  The anaesthetist dosed her up using the existing epidural, and tested using a cold spray to make sure she was properly anaesthetised - which she wasn't.  At this point the anaesthetist Hamza turned and announced with some foreboding: "I'm afraid you're going to need a spinal". 

Once she was properly drugged up the operation began with a kind of pre-flight check.  They counted how many instruments in and out, they made sure everyone knew what they were doing - they even asked Aurora her name to make sure they were operating on the right person!

In the room we had our midwife Wendy, Hamza, Ken and another (lady) surgeon, the girl handing out tools, a spare anaesthetist, the master of ceremonies (the lady who read out the checklist) and 2 paediatricians (2 Indian guys we've never seen before walk in at the last minute.  The look on my face obviously says "who the fuck are you?" so they introduced themselves).  I watched them making the incision, then looked on incredulous as the surgeons yanked, tugged and rummaged.  Aurora said it felt like they were looking for their car keys.  Pretty soon I looked over the screen to see a scrunched-up purple head sticking out of her abdomen.  It looked like a disembodied lifeless purple alien head sitting on her tummy. 

Luckily it turned out to be a human, alive, and with a body attached, which soon came out.  The shrill unmistakeable sound of a bawling infant filled the room and Aurora & I both wept with joy.   The paediatricians laid him out on their chopping block / desk and when had decided he was healthy, they invited me over to trim the cord, i.e. cut it back close to the body (it had already been separated from the placenta). 

Soon he was cleaned up, wrapped in a towel and in my arms, where I gazed lovingly at him while Aurora was stitched up.  An incredible wave of feelings overcame me.  All my misgivings about having a baby fell away and I couldn't tear my gaze from this little guy doing his pouting and generally looking cute.

Afterwards the surgeon came over to see us (earlier I had seen him making an army of snowmen) and said that we had made the right decision, and avoided a 'challenging instrumental delivery'.

He has his father's eyes

Ken the surgeon's little army of snowmen

New mummy

Arriving home 2 days later

Munchkin's first bath