The Non Camping Trip

So if you follow my blog, you will remember that I posted a camping checklist a week or so ago and essentials to take with you.

Unfortunately our trip away over the bank holiday did not happen as we had intended.

At the beginning of the week we were due to go, we had a lovely day out at Longleat, followed by BB spending the next day with his friends at a local country park. He was a bit sniffly and starting to come down with a cold. If you have read Wheezing, you will know that BB suffers with colds which earlier in the year resulted in a hospital stay. These days at the first sniff, we are on the case with inhalers, the humidifier is on, bed propped up, calpol given, and that usually works.

Not this time *sad face.* The day before we were due to go, my husband left to help set up the camp. Our camping trip is an annual church camp, where me meet with thousands of other Christians to have a time of worship, fellowship, and general fun. We were super organised this year, and were really looking forward to going. The boys are older and can enjoy it more, and there were more little friends that they knew going this year.

We were super organised. I had cooked some chilli for the meal on the first evening, everything was packed, simple!

That afternoon I noticed BB was quite wheezy, breathing fast and sucking his tummy in (not a good sign). I made a Doctors app quick smart, and explained we were going away and wanted him checked over. Always best, I did not want to be away with poorly children. The Doctor checked BB, checked his breathing, oxygen levels etc and had that look on her face. She said ‘I think we need to admit him to hospital.’ She tried a nebuliser in the hope of improvement, it helped a little, but not enough. I wanted to cry. However she saw no reason that we couldn’t go camping and that it was best to have him checked, though she did prepare us for an overnight stay. She called an ambulance. After waiting 50 minutes!, we were taken to hospital, with a siren!, which is a little disconcerting, they wanted to get us there quick. We were taken through A&E into the resuscitation room (not a place I have good memories of), where there was a whole team of Doctors and nurses waiting for us. They were all lovely and after many questions we were taken to the children’s ward. Assessments done, it was indeed an overnight stay. J was still away, so my in laws helped with LP, whilst I stayed at the hospital with BB. The next day J was back home, and we swapped over shifts. When I got home LP was wheezing and breathing looked hard for him too. It was no good I had to get him checked out. A different Doctor, but the same process, meant, yep you guessed it back to hospital for LP too. Fortunately he did not need an overnight stay. BB stayed 3 nights in total, they just weren’t happy with his oxygen levels to let him out any sooner. By the end of his stay though he was enjoying himself so much we didn’t think he wanted to come home, TV, food and a kids playroom with new toys in is a tough act to follow.

Its so hard when you have been looking forward to something, prepared, spent time and money, and your family are all there, to not be able to go. Disappointment is really hard to handle sometimes. I cried a few times, with it’s not fairs, crying out to God, why can’t we go, what reason is there, why has this happened? My disappoint eased, and I got some hope back, maybe we could go for 3 days, then maybe 2 days, all the while dealing with the fact that our boys were poorly. Of course the most important thing was that they got better, I wanted that more than anything, but I’m not the kind of person to give up on something. I believe in a God who is all powerful, can do all things, including making my boys better, so I didn’t believe that anything was impossible. I had hope that we would get there. The thing is not only do you have to deal with your disappointment, but you have to deal with other people’s too. I think sometimes that makes it harder.

Each time I thought we may go for less days I would unpack and repack less stuff, all the while praying and also asking others to pray. I believe that prayer makes a big difference. We have had some really life changing stuff happen to us in the past, and I can tell you prayer works, it changes things.

Through all this, I wasn’t sure if there was a lesson in it for us, inevitably there always seems to be. We experience something and that helps us to help others. I might never really know why things worked out as they did, I can’t even say I handled the situation really well.

However there is a happy ending to our story, hurrah! We made it to our camp. We really wanted to take the opportunity and even though it was only for one day, that was really important to us. We were fortunate enough to have been able to watch live streams of the other days meetings, but it’s just not the same as being there. We left early on the Sunday morning, and had a great time of worshipping, listening to preaches, and soaking up the atmosphere. Being with 3500 Christians worshipping in one place is a pretty awesome experience. We got to spend time with our church family, and we stayed for one night, as we had a caravan on site which we had hired for the whole time. The boys had a great time, and I think the change of scenery was good for them. They are doing really well now, (slightly hyper from the steroid medication) so much so that you would hardly have known that they had been poorly.

How do you handle disappointment?