As days go . . .

. . . it started really nicely. Sid and I cuddling in bed, because Jeremy was at home and could see both boys off to school. Started going slightly awry when he came upstairs to roust us out, and Sid asked to be carried downstairs because it hurt too much to walk.


What?

It really did. Sitting in her chair for breakfast she was her usual chirpy self, but wouldn't walk. Because it hurt too much. When I dressed her, and had to manage her into her trousers and socks and shoes, and blimey, I couldn't move her leg without her yelling out, we were down at the doctor's pretty sharpish I can tell you.

And he said, 'Well, she's got Irritable Hip.'


What?

These doctors have diagnoses for pretty much everything these days. Irritable Hip, I ask you. Tcha. But, while 95% of these cases turn out to be Transient Synovitis, 5% of them don't, and turn out to be Septic Arthritis. I had to get her to A&E NOW.

And after that? Six hours of pure unalloyed Boring shot through with flashes of either Horrible or Scary. And with nothing to eat. They poked and prodded, Sid yelped. They smeared anaesthetic cream on the backs of her hands and in the crooks of her elbows, covered it over with plaster, and told her not to bend her arms. You try it for two hours. They X-rayed her, they took blood (when my opinion of that anaesthetic cream positively plummeted) and told us to wait. And wait. And wait some more.

And, six hours later, the winner was . . . Transient Synovitis! Ya-aa-a-ay!

And fifteen minutes after we got home, Sid halfway through a bowl of cereal, Friday being my shopping day so there was nothing else in the house, when Jeremy raced Kit to - yup, you guessed it - A&E. He'd fallen badly at a friend's house and cracked his head on a brick. He was woozy, felt ill and kept scrunching his eyes up against the light.

Came back rather past his bed-time, gagging for something to eat, and indignant that the doctor had forbidden his reading until he was better. Twenty minutes later he declared himself fully recovered.

These doctors know a thing or two about healing the sick.