Heart hospital no 3 - visitors and food

This picture is of Jim's mum and his sister bringing George and Mag to see us. Andrew was a very cheerful baby, Mag was a generally quiet, noticing sort of child who was loved by all her cousins.  Leg warmers were still fashionable at the time - mercifully not so much now!  They always made me think of socks going to sleep.

Because we were in hospital for such a long time, it became a red letter day to have visitors.  In the second week my parents drove baby George to Kent to Jim's mum to have for the next two weeks.  Both  grandparents kept meticulous records of feeds and sleep times, as they had been taught when they had their children in the 50s.

The grandparents came to see us in hospital with George, despite the difficulties of having small children in push chairs,  dodgy knees and long train journeys.  This went against the grain with my mum who wrote in George's diary "Went to see Sam.  Routine haywire - got home, would not settle so took him for a walk."  In the 50s routine was all, for babies, even down to feeding and sleeping at very exact times of the day.

I am a fan of routine myself especially for babies.  It makes life so much easier for everyone which means that as a parent you can plan fun times and outings where everyone will be comfortable.  On the  few occasions when I took the kids out of their routine, I ended up in a situation where the baby was hungry or tired and crying and there was nothing I could do about it!  Most distressing.

Aah!  Hospital food!  There are issues with the amount of money available for food in hospitals, it is not a lot per patient per day, but I have to say I wouldn't have eaten it!  Sam wouldn't either, and we resorted to having food brought in from home by grandparents. We also used the parents' kitchen to rustle up tasty snacks and meals for him.  He couldn't have any fatty food because of his drain problem, so we had to make very low fat foods, less than 2% which means skimmed milk and no oils or even low fat spreads.  He got painfully thin which didn't help his recovery.  George continued to love milk as you would expect.  He was on solids with the grandparents as he was so large (long, not fat) and would wake for more unless completely stuffed before bed!  He was a very sucky baby so had a dummy for bedtime.  It never came out of his cot so he didn't get used to it in the day.

We and the hospital tried to get Sam to eat by hook or by crook and of course he became aware it was a lever!  Jim found this particularly hard to take as he loved to see people enjoying their food, and to give them what they liked to eat.  In the end his only diet became pasta spirals, oranges, skimmed milk rice pudding and home made lean turkey burghers with plenty of tomato sauce.  By the time we came out of hospital Sam had us wrapped round his little finger food wise.  - Oh deary me!

As my mother helpfully pointed out, we had made a rod for our own backs!

The Heart Hospital no 2

Anne was the wonderful play leader who did interesting things with the children.  She sometimes brought musical instruments or finger paints.  They thought it amazing that they were allowed to get paint on the sheets.  I am not sure if the nurses knew!

Sam spent a lot of time at this little table either watching a video tape or doing drawings or reading a book.  He wasn't very mobile unless we could find the drain trolley.  Even then it was painfully slow getting anywhere.  We would sometimes get to the playroom next door and he would get settled in a chair then have to be carried back after 5 minutes because he was too tired to play.

We found the drains trolley!  I think someone had made it in their shed.  It had that home made look about it, and they only had one.  It was wooden, with squeaky wheels - rather like those ones you get on old fashioned wicker shopping trolleys.  I got told off for holding his drain pipes up above his chest, apparently it stops them draining.  Should have realised I suppose.

This time round Sam was too young to use the schoolroom but he liked having a look at the paintings the other children did in the older age wards.

He also liked going to the little toilet - I can't remember why it was little.  I think it may have been child sized,  like those tiny ones we had at infants school.  Ours were only accessible from the outside playground.  Very chilly in the winter of 1963 when I was 6, I can tell you!

We made it!  Play dough is such  a wonderful thing - I adore the smell and the silky feel of it.  Salt dough that you can make at home is never quite the same.   I had not seen child sized rolling pins before because we used sawn up pieces of broom handle.  Look in anyone's shed and there is always a bit of broken broom handle somewhere!   One of the nicest things they had was a truly gigantic marble run which one day Sam and I managed to get up to 5 feet from the floor.

Keeping Sam (and me) amused while he was so immobile was a real job of work.  We got through dozens of children's picture books - they had a seemingly endless supply. Sambbecame very fond of one called "Morgan the absent minded mallard".  I can't think why it appealed, it doesn't exactly trip off the tongue!  Spending so much time sitting down with adults, Sam was old for his age.  I found myself reading the Narnia stories and various Joan Aiken books to him as well.  He was always keen to know what things meant if he didn't understand something so it took a long while to finish them.  We both learned far more about dinosaurs than is strictly necessary...  He became one of the very few 4 year old boys to know what taxonomy meant.   Well he asked!

The Heart hospital no1

Since Sam was 6 months old we had known that he had a serious heart problem.  One of his lungs did not grow properly either and he had an operation at 18 months to improve the blood flow.  We then had to wait until his lung function was good enough for his heart surgery to work.  By October 1990 the long awaited heart operation was over and, thank goodness, all went smoothly.  We met the surgeon, Mr L, in the lift by chance the day after and asked him if it had gone well.  "Of course it did"  he barked  "I did it".  House has nothing on Mr L!  (Apart from all the reprehensible things of course).

Unfortunately Sam's recovery took over 8 weeks in hospital with drains (he really found the drains painful).  The constant loss of fluid meant he had to have a drip the whole time as well and they kept wearing out.  All in all it was a bit horrible and difficult for everyone.

But children are very resilient, or so it seems.  Sam quickly got into a new routine which involved being cute and charming to anyone he saw.  He hoped this would get him extra TV time, and possibly let him off medicine/injections.  It is so difficult to explain to a four year old that they have no choice about it.  I have an image of him in my mind, standing on the nursing sister's desk pretending to be a doctor on the telephone.  "Is it an emergency?" he said  "OK,  I will be there in about 4 hours".  The nurses thought he was adorable (he was) but the doctors were a teeny bit put out.

I felt that the best thing to do was to be firm and insist on instant obedience in the way of taking medicines.  Other children in the ward would still be screaming and trying to avoid it long after Sam had taken his medicine and gone off to play. I am sure it helped him to avoid many unhappy hours in his life.  He had to continue taking bad tasting stuff throughout his early years, but he never complained or made a fuss.  It became the norm.  I still felt like a heel every time he had to do it.  Just recently he told me it tasted appalling.

I had left little baby George (just 6 months old) with my parents and Jim's mum alternately.  Jim and I had a room in the beastly beige parents' quarters on the other side of the hospital. It used to be the nurses' quarters.   It was an old Victorian building with labyrinthine corridors.  In the night if we got a call, someone in the parent's quarters would have to hear the phone ringing in the corridor and answer it, then go and knock on the right door and pass on the message.  When we were called once or twice (terrifying) we had to use the service tunnel under the road as the exits were closed at night.  A few years later the brand new Sydney wing was built and conditions were much improved.  Even in the old wing it was a wonderful hospital and saved his life.

We both stayed because we thought George was too young to miss us much (wrong), and Sam needed us (right).   Jim worked in Victoria in London so he could get to work very quickly on the tube from South Kensington where the hospital was.  Some nights we went home to visit George and do the washing.  We never left until Sam was asleep.  By then George was usually asleep too.

In these early days I hadn't realised the order you put speech bubbles in a cartoon is important.  I do apologise, and I hope it is understandable!

Every so often the "big doctors" did their rounds.  This was just the consultant and his entourage but Sam had a good eye for hierarchies and worked out that they were more important than the "little doctors", who did day to day stuff.  He was always worried they would do something to him, although  they usually didn't.  As it was a children's ward they were quite kind to him, but it was the nurses who made our days bearable.  Most children had parents with them a lot of the time, but some didn't, which was hard.

At the time we thought we were taking it all in our stride, but it turned out that we weren't, even though that took us some years to discover.  A stiff upper lip is very overrated.

I am still wearing my favourite outfit!  I did have others, honestly!

I have thought about leaving this set of cartoons out because it is not really "normal" life.  Then I wonder what is "normal" anyway?  I made mistakes during the hospital stays that I think other people might make, so I hope it will be helpful to someone to see what not to do!  Sam's heart operation was at the leading edge at the time so things have changed a lot. The treatments are much more successful and shorter now.  To avoid any unpleasant stress for the reader, Sam is now a reasonably healthy 26 year old! (With a big deep voice, a beard and a massive personality).

I would love to hear from other parents, is this useful and/or interesting?

Sundays no 7

4

There's not a lot to say about this one, so I won't say much.  Even parents have to sleep, so maybe this was supposed to prove it to Sam.  Note how Jim's snores are louder than mine.

Time for a bit of random tootling as we call it.  I have just finished the washing up after a dinner for thirteen (plus the dog in case you are superstitious).  We had a complicated group of people including friends, and teenage children who are back from university for the Easter holidays.

The dog was beside himself with joy at so much company particularly because it has been so cold recently and he hasn't had so many walks as usual.  It is still snowing today and it's April!  In London!  Brrrr!

Jim cooked.  It was supposed to be "leftovers" but when we looked in the freezer we realised that there was only one dish we could use.  Twenty boxes of redcurrants (even though organic home grown ones) wouldn't really be ideal. Jim cooked a lamb curry with potato, chili con carne, spaghetti bolognese and chicken and chorizo.  (I may have mentioned before that he loves to feed people).   We also had gypsy tart* which was a bit of a trial.  I  looked at it beautiful in the oven, golden and risen.  I thought  "two more minutes".  Two minutes later it had overflowed, separated and coated the oven in goo.  A quick trip down the High Street and two more successful tarts made with the leftover (luckily) mixture. Phew! Just in case I made a Oliver's Chocolate Surprise* pudding which is known to be foolproof - even if it goes wrong it tastes good.  We also had a fruit jelly, because I love the way they wobble!  It is diet day tomorrow so the kids will have to eat up what is left without Jim and I.  This is the end of the random tootling for the day.

This second picture was definitely a big hint for George, who was unfortunately too young to understand it.

I don't know about it being quiet all night.  This next bit of tootling is slightly less random so it doesn't count.

In October 1987,  the year after Sam was born, I slept through the great storm, sometimes known as "the hurricane" which devastated the south of England. Sheds, trees, roof tiles all flying about outside in 115mph winds,  it was the worst storm since 1703.  We lost 15 million trees, thousands of people had no power, wreckage brought roads and rail to a halt,  but the whole family slept like babies!  I guess that means that whether it's quiet all night or not makes little difference in our house.

*  Recipes because they are both yummy.

Gypsy Tart

Everyone who was at school in the UK in the 70s knows this because you had it for pudding once a week if you were a "school dinner" or lusted after it if you were a "packed lunch". I always forget to put the evaporated milk in the fridge the night before so 1 hour in the freezer works for me.



Ingredients - serves 8

Chill the evaporated milk  in the freezer for an hour or so first.

For the pastry

8oz  ( 225g) plain flour
4 oz (115g) butter
cold water to mix

For the filling

14oz  (400g) tin of evaporated milk (unsweetened) Chilled
12oz (350g) dark muscovado sugar


Make the pastry case.  (or buy one if you are lazy or in a hurry like me).

1. Sieve the flour into a mixing bowl  
2. Rub in the butter until the mix resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add 2-4 tablespoons of cold water and mix to a dough
4. Knead lightly.
5. Leave to rest for at least 10 minutes in the fridge.
6. Preheat the oven with a large baking sheet in it to 200*C, 400*F or gas mark 6.
7. Roll out the pastry and line a deep buttered 10inch (25 cm) loose based flan tin.  
8. Bake blind in the usual way.

Meanwhile...

Make the filling

1. Whisk the evaporated milk and the sugar together for 15 minutes.
2. I don't have an automatic mixer so I have to stand there and hold it, but if you can leave it to get on with mixing, go and have a cuppa.
3. Pour the filling into the pastry case and bake for 10 minutes. No longer!
4. Serve with pouring cream, or if you want to go really retro use spray cream that comes in cans.

Oliver's Chocolate Surprise Pud

This is really lovely and goes very well with hot chocolate custard.  I have never known it go wrong, even when small children "help".  It is a recipe I inherited from my granny so it is only in imperial.  If you want to, you can make the sponge and the sauce separately and put the sauce on just before you cook it.  I did that last night and put it in the oven when we sat down for the first course.

Ingredients

For the sponge

4oz butter or margarine
4oz caster sugar
2 eggs
1oz cocoa powder
3oz self raising flour

For the sauce

1/2 pint of water
4oz soft brown sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa powder

Make the sponge

1. Prepare the oven at 1908C, 375*F or gas mark 5.
2. Grease a 2 pint oven proof dish.
3. cream butter and sugar in the mixing bowl until light and fluffy.
4. Beat in eggs one at a time adding a spoonful of flour with the second one.
5. Sift the rest of the flour and cocoa together and fold it in.
6. Turn into the dish and smooth over.

Make the sauce

1. Stir water, sugar and cocoa together (It will look lumpy and the cocoa floats)
2. Pour it over the sponge mix
3. Place in the oven for 30 mins.  the top should feel cooked but it will still wobble because of the sauce underneath.  Rats, I spoiled the surprise.

Serve with hot chocolate custard (make a blancmange mix and serve it as custard), or pouring cream.

Sundays no 6

George had a loud voice.  He learned to squeak and there was no stopping him.  He would squeak happily for his feed in the night and very early in the morning.  At first Sam was charmed, but a few broken nights soon put paid to that.  After a while his squeaks varied more and more, until one day in the car when he was still under 7 months, Sam and I both recognised "Hey Diddle Diddle" being sung almost in tune but without consonants.  "The cow jumped over the moon" sounded like a lost soul in torment - loud wails of  "Eh ow oh! ooo"  So cute.

George now sings bass in the local choral society.  He started at 11 and sang treble, which gives him grief every time he sings something we have done before.   He keeps singing the soprano line.  Sounds terrible. (Sorry George, not really).

Sam had dozens of Thomas the Tank engine books which are calm and understated as far as stories go.  The names they used were a bit unfortunate.  "Mummy is that the FAT CONTROLLER?"  he would yell, pointing at some poor, benighted, corpulent gentleman.

Ant and Bee was a story book which my mother read to me as a child.  I thought it was wonderful at

the time.  I was thrilled with the idea of "kind dog"  and lost things being saved and put into boxes.  I bought a book for Sam.

It had HUNDREDS of pages full of endless repetition about  lost hats.  I dreaded meeting a dog or a bee in case it reminded Sam of the books.  Even ants weren't safe!  I used to hide them under the sofa cushions (books, not ants), but he had a stash under his bed somewhere  so I couldn't get away with it.  I worked like a Trojan on his reading so that he could read them to George and I wouldn't have to.  I was ecstatic when I heard him say to George one day "shall I read you Ant and Bee?"

I figured I must have been a good parent when I found Sam sitting on the floor reciting word perfect from memory, with George looking at the pictures.

We all worry about that don't we?  Being a good parent?  I spent a lot of time trying hard and getting it wrong (as I saw it).  Did I help too much with their school work?  Was I too negative? Did I praise too much? Were my behaviour standards too low?  Was I too strict?  Not strict enough?  It is a minefield we all have to walk through with no proper map.  I found it especially difficult as I had a child with special needs.  I wanted to keep him safe and happy.  It is very easy to be a pushover for kids who are ill, but it doesn't do them any favours.  Just like everyone else, they have to live in the world and it takes no prisoners, makes no allowances.

"They have to grow up"  people would say.  "NO!" I would think "they are so lovely now, don't change them!"  But the inevitable happens, and suddenly they have a big deep voice and a beard and help you carry stuff.  After all that angst, my kids also say "I had a great childhood" or "I love you anyway" (if they are trying to needle me) so I can still sleep at night without too many regrets.

Sundays no 5

Here we are having shepherd's pie for tea.  Like all small children, Sam had a pretty literal turn of mind!  Even in times of famine, shepherds were off the menu.  I told Sam this but he wasn't convinced.  George still prefers not to eat minced meat, even after three years starving slightly at university. He believes it is best only to eat meat which is a slab carved from a cow or a sheep.  I reckon it is because he thinks it is butch to be a born again carnivore!

The wall paper and curtains matched in this room.  they were both a Sanderson pattern of little brown and gold flowers and leaves.  Very 1970s.  Sadly we had a few rolls of the paper left over from our first flat, and the curtains fitted the window in the new house.  We thought it would be stylish and inexpensive to have a feature wall or two with the wallpaper then decorate the rest with painted woodchip paper.  It might have looked reasonable if we hadn't inherited a foul brown carpet from the elderly previous owner.  I couldn't bring myself to draw the 1950s style yellow circles and spots, or the bald patches, so it looks quite refined.  Allow your mind to fill every flat surface in the picture with flowers, spots, circles and stripes in clashing shades and you will get the idea.  Actually, don't.

Sam loved his dinosaurs so much, even though they weren't at all cuddly.  I used to remove them from his bed after he dropped off, to avoid questions from school about why his face had pterodactyl imprints on it!  They often sat on the table watching him eat so a bath was useful from time to time.  Drying between the toes of a tyrannosaurus can be tricky.  You have been warned.

I have just noticed that I have been wearing the same outfit for several months in this blog.  I must apologise for this, but it was my favourite as it had an elastic waist as well as being easy to wash.  I carried on wearing it until it went in holes.  Then I cut out the nice bits and used them for patchwork.  Waste not want not.  (My grandmother again).

I seem to have drawn a miniature apple tree on the window sill.  It was a jade plant in fact so I don't know what I was up to.  Probably wishful thinking, as we had a pocket handkerchief sized garden.

I painted the bathroom stool that fetching shade when I was off sick from work for a week, before kids,  but felt well.    I was bored to tears and did loads of those little jobs which you can live without doing, such as painting the bathroom stool British Racing Green (really).

The reason I was at home was that I had little red spots all over and the doctor said it was German Measles.  He told me that I was highly contagious and must not leave the house until the spots had gone.  I didn't, and the spots stuck around as well.  After a week I phoned the doctor.  After careful thought he revised his diagnosis  to "pityriasis rosea"  which apparently is little red spots in Latin...  I went back to work where I was unpopular for being away for a week, being bouncy with health and having contagious looking spots.

I felt misjudged on so many levels!

Sundays no 4

Sam and Daddy make a battle bus

You've got to love Duplo!   Jim and Sam used to make humongous creations with as many of the bricks as possible.  The idea was to make something that would move on wheels but be really big as well.  It took hours.  Later we got the train set to go with the bricks and it went all over the lounge in and out of the chair legs.  Great fun.

We had net curtains!  I know, I know, design disaster!  Just remember we were a few years post brown paintwork and macrame plant baskets so we can be forgiven the occasional mistake.  We were only 4ft from the pavement (sidewalk - in case you are reading this in the US) so any passer by could look in on our antics.  Privacy seemed necessary so we had nets.

My grandmother taught me how to wash nets.  I used to take them down (not nearly often enough she said) amid clouds of dust and shake them in the garden.  Then I would lay them, neatly folded, in luke warm water in the bath and drain the dark grey water until it looked clear, then wash with mild soap and Reckitt's blue bag.  After that I would convey them dripping to the garden and hang them to dry very carefully keeping them flat.  How we lived!  I found later that machine washing was better in every way, but I was young and obedient.  I think my grandmother sometimes forgot that we were not living in 1935.  She definitely believed in doing things the hard way!

I left the baby quietly lying on his eiderdown. This was a rookie error.  Sam happened to him.  No harm done, but that was just luck!  I didn't leave them alone together again for a good long time.  George got his own back later when he grew past Sam in height by the age of 10.  Sam was  gutted!

The orange tables came from somewhere like Habitat for £1.99 each.  We had four.  Twenty odd years later we still have two in the garden.  They were really that colour and they were plastic.  Brilliant for picnic tea in the lounge for the kids.  One Christmas we had 20 people at Mum's for Boxing day lunch.  We put the four smallest kids in the hallway on cushions on the floor round these little tables all done out with a white tablecloth and table napkins. They even had a table centre.   They loved it, and they could pretend to be grownup and talk about Lego as much as they liked. We loved it because the mess from their dinner was out of sight so we could safely ignore it until later!   I still haven't got the stains out of the tablecloth...