When the going gets tough, the tough get going

Although I am a very sad person generally at the moment, on the surface I am, of course, functioning pretty well. But every morning I wake up and for that fraction of a second everything is fine, until I remember that we have a new normal in our family life these days.

So yes, I am a very sad person about everything relating to William’s illness. And I don’t want to be sad, even if it is underneath the surface.

So this morning, after another day yesterday at the hospital, where blood results were disappointing and there was worry that dehydration might hospitalise William again today, we decided to get away. Just like that, no planning, no advance notice (which is quite liberating because there is no time to worry over lists and so on, we will just get up in the morning, throw everything into our hastily purchased roofbox, including one or more of any badly behaved children, and go).

This week will be about being a proper family, not simply parents or siblings to a very poorly boy. It will be a week by the beach, even if it is raining because the kids won’t care. It will be a week of change – although possibly not much rest because we will be self-catering most of the time to accommodate our kidney diet. We will have fun, even if our little fella gets very tired.

It’s not a holiday – at least not until the children are in bed and two exhausted parents might get a minute or two in a hot tub with a glass of wine – because there is no such thing as a vacation when you have small children, it’s just more of the same somewhere else, isn’t it? But the children will love it. We get a change of scene. And that hot tub sounds good, right?