11

So it was all down to Alistair.

To be fair, I don’t suppose you could actually say it was totally his fault. It was probably more Mum’s for growing him so big and for her and Dad giving him the genes to make him emerge elephant sized!

As Mum was out running she realised that things weren’t as they should be, she felt as though most of her insides were falling out, so she went to see the Doc who told her that they were and her pelvic floor was more of a basement!

Her next visit was to a gynaecologist (I hope you’re impressed with all of my spellings? I’ll tell you what, I’ve checked spellings far more in the dictionary writing this blog than I have ever done!) The gynaecologist said, if they were wanting to have more children, he could stitch her up with a running stitch ( get it?) and hope her insides would all stay where they should, or she could have a hysterectomy (there I go again) and that would solve the basement problem. Honestly as if the OSO hadn’t got enough to contend with! Any road up she went home to discuss things with Dad.

 Originally they had wanted either two or four children and obviously now had three, but being realistic, they knew that now as things were as they were, they had better call it a day at three. Of course if they knew how great I was going to grow up to be, they would have stopped at me!

Mum then went back to see the specialist (got fed up of writing that long word) and told him as she had no womb for complaint (ha ha) she would go ahead with the operation. The good news was that they didn’t have to cut open her stomach the Doc said he could do it internally as Al had gouged had big enough path inside her to drive a loco through! (sorry, far too much detail).

Next stop was organising getting someone to help Dad and Jenny (nanny) look after the three of us, getting time off work and then the OSO was admitted to hospital ready to have her operation.

As things went, it was not too bad, though I don’t think Mum would agree with me. She’s NOT good with anaesthetics and for days after the op she kept being sick, also her catheter tube got blocked and so she got a bladder infection which to be honest didn’t help her humour. To say she was tetchy was putting it very mildly! The Doc gave her some strong pain killers in an effort to make her feel more comfy, but they made her hallucinate so that didn’t do much good either. The OSO hated being in hospital, she just wanted to get back home to us, very understandable really. We came to visit her lots and she got loads of other visitors, including some of her students, but all in all, she was very glad when the Doc said she could go home.

She was told that she had to be very careful and not lift anything heavier than a bag of sugar! This clearly was going to be difficult as Alistair was 10months old and obviously not walking, Roger was not yet three and I had not started school. To cap it all Jenny was poorly, I think looking after the three of us had worn her out, so she had gone back home to her Mum so the OSO was left to cope on  her own. She didn’t get much help from her parents as they were  elderly and lived quite a way away and Dad’s Mum was too frail to be able to help much. Dad, of course did his best and Mum’s friends did a lot to help, so between them they managed to get things sorted. Even so Mum had to go back into hospital a few months later for a repair job as she had done too much too soon; well what a surprise!