The next few days were quite hard, but it was made lighter by Stoffel, the kid's grandfather who said that we could share the daytime at the hospital, and then he would sleep there at night. Because of the tummy bug, I suppose it was some kind of gastro, Kian was in Quarantine, and his room was far from the ward and other rooms, and the nursing staff was a wee bitty lazy to look in upon him enough. We found that when we rang the bell for them to come when needed, they took an awfully long time, and also his medicines were not always given at the appointed time, neither was his temperature taken regularly, and once during the night when his drip ran empty, Stoffel had to walk up to the sister's offiice after having rung the bell over and over! As this was a very expensive private hospital, and he was still running a high temperature Dina, who is a qualified nurse herself, decided to put in a complaint. But first she had a serious talk with the ward sister, who promised her to look into the matter.
Then Dina complained that she was feeling sick, and that her body was aching, so we sent her to her bed, and the hospital were shared by Granddad and self. After two days Dina felt better and got up, but then I started feeling achy, and had to retire to bed. It was hard, as the little one was only nineteen months old, and to share the hospital duty, and look after the baby was almost impossible. Luckily Kian could come home, and after two days of feeling really sick with the flue, I got out of bed, feeling groggy but okay.
Then Stoffel retired to bed, but Dina could not believe that her big and strong husband could lie in bed all day long, and she kept on telling him to either go to the shops, or do some or other chore, and I could see that he was dragging himself to do what his wife wanted, and when he complained again, she sighed, and said to no one in particular that she wished she had a man that could actually do something! I don't think that was how she really felt, but as the children took a lot out of our still not up to scratch bodies, she was just tired and irritated. I knew that I was!
Trienkie and Stephan came home to a house filled with invalids, as now the three of us had also developed the same cough that Kian had, and I think to come back from such a nice holiday with good friends, and find your baby sitters barking and gasping for breath must have been quite disconcerting.
I kept on coughing, and Trienkie said that no ways would I go to Scotland sounding like I was going to expire at any time, and she took me to the doctor, and it looked that everything worked against my going back to my work.
In the meantime Nina was sending me photo's of the baby every day, and told me all the little things that happened, and I got the funniest feeling that she was actually trying to pull me into the baby's life, and kind of trying to dedicate him to me. It was strange, as with the other children this never happened, but I decided that she was turning to me as her own mother was so far away in Denmark, and the other children were born over there.
I got up on the Friday morning, and knew I had to make a decision on going back to Scotland, and just had to phone Tony with my answer, as it was getting a bit late in the season, but I just could not decide on what to do. It was the first time in the eleven years working over there that I felt this way, as usually I couldn't wait to get back to my mountains, my glens and my lochs that I loved so very much.
If only I knew that morning what awaited us!