The house was in Wales..Tenby to be exact, somewhere we had never been before..we were ALL extremely excited and prayed hard that Seraphina wouldnt be taken into hospital so that we couldnt go.
Well Seraph was healthy and so off we went...
The house was everything we had hoped and the view from the top window of this three story house was over Caldy Island which is an island owned by some monks who lived in the Monestary there and grew lavender which they made into soap and lavender bags.
I SO wanted to go over to the island and the housekeeper who showed us round the house told me that it was possible to take wheelchairs over too so we were resolved to go as soon as possible :)
We arrived at the house on Saturday afternoon...on Saturday evening Seraphina had a mild temperature.At first I didnt think anything of it but by the early hours of Sunday morning her temperature had spiked worryingly high and refused to go down.
David and I chatted and decided that as this temp had started within 48 hours of having her portacath flushed that we should follow protocol and take her to hospital...the question was which one!
I phoned the number on the house noticeboard and was a little concerned to find this hospital had closed for the weekend!?! I phoned another number and eventually got through to someoone who said they would arrange for a nurse to phone me back. This she did and told us to take Seraph to the 'Cottage hospital' in Tenby..great we thought, not too far away.
When we got there the Dr was waiting for us....he was very nice and caring but explained that they only had one ward for old people and one dr (him) and were unable to deal with Serph there. However he did examine Seraph and reached the conclusion that we had dreaded...Seraphina was quite likely suffering from early Septacaemia. He arranged for us to be transferred to another hospital more able to deal with her and phoned on ahead. This hospital was an hour away from Tenby (good old Sat nav!)
To cut a long story short the other hospital cannulated Seraphina and took bloods which backed up the theory that Seraphina did in fact have early Septacaemia. She was started on some very heavy duty antibiotics straight away.
All this time David and the children were sitting in the car waiting and when I told him that they were keeping her in everyones heart fell.
Then we spoke to a lovely Consultant who was very sympathetic to our plight and after staying in the hopsital all day he let us take Seraph home overnight on 'home leave' as long as we were back in thew hospital first thing in the morning. We also promised that if anything changed that we would bring her back asap.
It was good to be back in a home environment but not much sleeping was done as Seraphs temp remained high..climbing to 40 degrees at one point.
The folowing day wasnt much better but..she hadnt got any worse either.by Tuesday more results were back and they showed that she also had a urine infection and a stoma infection as well she had also developed a chesty cough.
Each day we had to drive to the hospital for early morning and stay there until her antibioics had slowly run through and she had been reviewed again by the drs.
On Wednesday she was improved, her temperature was normal but she was still not herself by any means. The hospital swapped her to 'oral'antibiotics so that we didnt have to keep going back and forth to the hospital.we tried to go to the Chocolate factory on Wednesday but after a couple of hours Seraph was feeling so poorly that we had to come home.Wednesday night she started with gut problems due to the antibiotics. Thursday we went on the beach very briefly in the morning but Seraph was still suffering so sadly we made the decision to come home that day.
Everyone was disappointed, the children especailly as the holday was something we had looked forward to so much.
On Wednesday I have to admit to being generally angry...not at anyone inparticular but at the unfairness of it all...or so it seemed.
I went up to the bedroom in the house and prayed 'Lord renew a right spirit within me, remove the anger and the bitterness of what has happened' I had explained carefully that we didnt know that Seraph would be ill ,it wasnt her fault etc etc but inside I felt as disappointed as the children.
Then God showed me all the positives...Seraph had been well looked after and made well by the prompt action of the Dr's. we were all still together.
and admittedly snatched but all important moments we had shared together. When driving to the hospital we were playing 'Saviour he can move the mountains,He is mighty to save..' just as we drove through some huge hills/mountains. Awesome...Our God can move things as huge and majestic as these...He created them...WOW!!!!
Then...driving once again we went past a lovely quiet stream where sheep and lambs were freely grazing and lying down by the waters edge...it ws idyllic...'He leads me beside still waters' our own personal illustration of psalm 23!
In the morning before we left we went to the beach and I carried Seraphina to the waters edge, rolled her sleeve up and on the count of 1...2....3...SEASIDE! I crouched down while Aimee dipped Seraph's hand into the cold sea water much to Seraphs amusement...she giggled and giggled,jigging around in my arms as I held her :-)
on our way back we stoppped in a vineyard for a quick look...it was truly wonderful and as we walked throough the vines we chatted about all the places in the Bible that the illustration of a vineyard is used..looked atthe way the vines twisted themselves around their support and grew higher and higher...saw the baby grapes growing. David and I also tasted honeyed mead..something which bought the Francine Rivers book I had been readingto life....it was set in Biblical times and spoke of the Romans drinking honeyed mead.
there were other moments too...small minutes of family, closeness and reminders of Gods presence through it all.No, we didnt have the family holiday that we were longing for but 'God works ALL things for the good of those who love HIM' out of trials and saddness God is still at work creating moments of beauty and memories to treasure..its just up to us to look for them.
Thank you God for the precious little things
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