Saturday, July 15, 2000
Holiday In Trébeurden: Kevin In A Wheelchair!
Our holiday got off to a rather strange start: we had only just driven past Fontainebleau when we witnessed a young man crashing his motorbike on the N6, just a couple of cars in front of us. We saw a lot of smoke and his big BMW bike in bits on the side of the road. Amazingly, he jumped up and was talking and gesticulating energetically to the three other drivers who had already stopped to help him. P. stopped the car and I was fumbling for the mobile phone to call an ambulance, when we realised someone else was already doing the same, so we rather guiltily drove on again, as the road was getting blocked with stopped cars. The children sensed the drama of the situation, but I'm not sure just how much they saw. I felt quite ill and trembly for an hour or so and kept wondering just how hurt the young man was. He looked unhurt, but must have been in shock and possibly didn't feel any pain from the burns that P. said he must have suffered from being dragged along the ground. Anyway, we knew he was being looked after, but it put a real damper on our holiday mood. How I wish people would be more careful!
We covered the 600 km distance from home to Brittany in very good time. The weather was fine and the children were so good in the car. I shouldn't say such sexist things, but here goes anyway: before setting off, I told the children to pack a little back pack each with plenty of toys to keep them occupied in the car. Kevin took one back pack with four robust, utilitarian toys in it, and Pauline took three back packs, one hand bag and a shoe box absolutely crammed full of little teeny-tiny, itty-bitty fragile toys, jewellery, dolls' accessories, trinkets and stale bread for feeding starving pigeons!
... Where was I? Oh yes, they were so well-behaved that we only stopped once, at lunchtime for a picnic in a little village called Vignoc. We discovered a lovely park with picnic tables in the shade and a trout pond. The children ran round and round the pond, throwing bread to the fish and trying the catch the dainty dragonflies with dazzling turquoise bodies that hovered everywhere. I can't think of the name of those insects that skate along the surface of the water, but Kevin and Pauline thought they were little crabs!
We arrived at the 'village de vacances' holiday centre in the afternoon and noticed that Kevin was limping slightly as he got out of the car. He said he had a sore knee, but we didn't think much of it, as we were preoccupied with checking in and getting the bags and boxes up to our room. Then we wanted to walk around the village and take the children on the beach for a paddle before dinner time. Kevin's limp got progressively worse and by evening he was crying with the pain and couldn't walk at all. We had to carry him to the dining room and back. I gave him paracetamol and had to get up a couple of times in the night to comfort him.
First thing on the Monday morning I called the local doctor who said she could come over by lunchtime. After she'd seen him she wrote a prescription and said we must go immediately to the hospital in Lannion, 10 kilometres away, for x-rays. She suspected it might be an 'apophyte', which is a condition of the hip joint, not unusual in children of his age, where there is either a fracture or fissuring of the bone, which just mysteriously occurs, without necessarily being the result of a fall or a violent blow. We were quite stunned, naturally, especially when she warned us the treatment would be a minimum of three weeks in traction.
We spent the rest of the day in the emergency room at the hospital, the doctors and nurses were so lovely and very kind to Kevin. He wasn't actually in any pain when he stayed still, so he managed to joke and laugh with them. They put anaesthetizing patches on each of his inner elbows and left them for an hour before taking a blood test. The nurses were so skilled, that not only did Kevin not feel the needle going in, but he didn't even see what was happening! Before that though, he was wheeled off for x-rays. I had a big lump in my throat and felt like crying when I saw him go off on the stretcher, all covered in a white sheet.
We were there for many long, boring hours, trying to keep both kiddies amused with the few hospital toys on offer. Luckily I had thought to shove water, biscuits and story books in my bag before leaving. Finally the doctor came back to tell us all was well, the x-rays revealed no fractures and the blood tests ruled out any infection, so in fact he diagnosed an inflammation of the cartilage in Kevin's hip socket. The only treatment is painkillers and rest i.e. no walking, swimming, jumping, running and normal holiday activities... We felt unbelievably gloomy. By Tuesday morning our backs were hurting from carrying him everywhere, so I had the brainwave of phoning a pharmacy to enquire about hiring a wheelchair. It costs surprisingly little (107 francs for one week and hopefully we won't need it for longer than that).
We covered the 600 km distance from home to Brittany in very good time. The weather was fine and the children were so good in the car. I shouldn't say such sexist things, but here goes anyway: before setting off, I told the children to pack a little back pack each with plenty of toys to keep them occupied in the car. Kevin took one back pack with four robust, utilitarian toys in it, and Pauline took three back packs, one hand bag and a shoe box absolutely crammed full of little teeny-tiny, itty-bitty fragile toys, jewellery, dolls' accessories, trinkets and stale bread for feeding starving pigeons!
... Where was I? Oh yes, they were so well-behaved that we only stopped once, at lunchtime for a picnic in a little village called Vignoc. We discovered a lovely park with picnic tables in the shade and a trout pond. The children ran round and round the pond, throwing bread to the fish and trying the catch the dainty dragonflies with dazzling turquoise bodies that hovered everywhere. I can't think of the name of those insects that skate along the surface of the water, but Kevin and Pauline thought they were little crabs!
We arrived at the 'village de vacances' holiday centre in the afternoon and noticed that Kevin was limping slightly as he got out of the car. He said he had a sore knee, but we didn't think much of it, as we were preoccupied with checking in and getting the bags and boxes up to our room. Then we wanted to walk around the village and take the children on the beach for a paddle before dinner time. Kevin's limp got progressively worse and by evening he was crying with the pain and couldn't walk at all. We had to carry him to the dining room and back. I gave him paracetamol and had to get up a couple of times in the night to comfort him.
First thing on the Monday morning I called the local doctor who said she could come over by lunchtime. After she'd seen him she wrote a prescription and said we must go immediately to the hospital in Lannion, 10 kilometres away, for x-rays. She suspected it might be an 'apophyte', which is a condition of the hip joint, not unusual in children of his age, where there is either a fracture or fissuring of the bone, which just mysteriously occurs, without necessarily being the result of a fall or a violent blow. We were quite stunned, naturally, especially when she warned us the treatment would be a minimum of three weeks in traction.
We spent the rest of the day in the emergency room at the hospital, the doctors and nurses were so lovely and very kind to Kevin. He wasn't actually in any pain when he stayed still, so he managed to joke and laugh with them. They put anaesthetizing patches on each of his inner elbows and left them for an hour before taking a blood test. The nurses were so skilled, that not only did Kevin not feel the needle going in, but he didn't even see what was happening! Before that though, he was wheeled off for x-rays. I had a big lump in my throat and felt like crying when I saw him go off on the stretcher, all covered in a white sheet.
We were there for many long, boring hours, trying to keep both kiddies amused with the few hospital toys on offer. Luckily I had thought to shove water, biscuits and story books in my bag before leaving. Finally the doctor came back to tell us all was well, the x-rays revealed no fractures and the blood tests ruled out any infection, so in fact he diagnosed an inflammation of the cartilage in Kevin's hip socket. The only treatment is painkillers and rest i.e. no walking, swimming, jumping, running and normal holiday activities... We felt unbelievably gloomy. By Tuesday morning our backs were hurting from carrying him everywhere, so I had the brainwave of phoning a pharmacy to enquire about hiring a wheelchair. It costs surprisingly little (107 francs for one week and hopefully we won't need it for longer than that).
# posted by Antipodeesse @ 4:44 pm 
