Frustration

I just can't get anything done!!

How am I expected to clean the house, shop, cook, do the washing, ferry the kids around - all with an obstreperous Hattie in tow - and also write regularly, blog regularly and chase part-time teaching work for September?????

And all that's without factoring in the haemophilia. This morning I optimistically - and some would say stupidly - dressed for a run. My lovely child-minder friend was having Hattie for the morning (.... some crazy idea that it'll get her used to me going back to work), and I thought that I might just be able to sneak away before returning to the long imaginary to-do list in my head which began highlighted in bold, 'Hoover Ed's Bedroom' (oh.... the glamour of my life). I won't continue down the list but you get the picture.

Anyhow.... Ed has had a painful bleed deep inside his knee since Monday tea-time when he went out to play football. I treated him on Monday night (new blue needles) and again yesterday morning. But this morning he was still hobbling - packing him off to school, while tempting, didn't seem to be the entirely responsible option. So, after changing out of the fetching running gear, off we went to hospital. Last week he was there on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, this week he missed this whole morning and may have to go tomorrow if things aren't settled.

I am meant to be starting to write an article as well as ringing and arranging to visit several schools today. I also promised Rog I'd look over his latest job applicaton letter (for a headship - not bad!), and I wanted to run (did I mention that), and I needed to clean, as usual. Now I have about half an hour before the school run and all I want to do is lie comatose... or at least slump with a cup of tea in hand.

I also wanted to post on my blog today. Have actually done that! I've achieved something then!

Wednesday Blues

I've been for a run! Well - more like a power walk with sporadic and very short bursts of running. But still - I got myself into gear and headed for the park. And I've booked a Zumba class for Friday too.

I'm pretty sure that there won't be any discernable change on the outside for some time to come.....but I feel fitter already.

It's been such a hassly week. Ed has been backwards and forwards to hospital after hurting himself at a roller-skating party at the weekend. And yesterday - again - I couldn't find a vein. The upshot of me not being able to treat him myself before school, was that we had to spend the best part of the morning at the hospital; Hattie missed her music session which she loves and spent most of the morning wailing in disappointment; and I??? I could feel my blood pressure rising! Today we've just returned home from the second visit of the week - it ran so late that I just got Ed back to school in time for the afternoon session. And even then he was eating his lunch in the car on the way. I'll be lucky if Hattie gets any sleep at all before I have to whisk her out of bed and go to fetch the kids.

On top of this, I have one seriously overworked, seriously stressed husband who's not sleeping due worrying..... and we have no bloody money. I need to find a job, and fast! Although I'm not sure how all the ferrying, cooking, cleaning and washing will get done if I'm working as well.

So - I'm pleased that I did actually head out to the park this morning before the hospital appointment. I was almost distracted by the state of the house (how I wish I had a cleaner), but in the nick of time I decided that some fresh air would do more for my spirits than a clean house. And it did - although the stairs selfishly didn't hoover themselves while I was out.

Crazy Stuff

I'm sorry - call myself a blogger! Things have just been crazy around here. A mixture of bad and good - things have been tricky on the haemophilia front, and I have had some medical stuff which isn't great (but isn't a relapse.....I hope). And I'm applying for a big job which has required much concentration. I'm emailing it tomorrow so fingers crossed for me ..... please??

Hattie has had such a horrible virus that she ended up spending last Friday in hospital after I took her to the GP. And she's still not right almost a week later. A severe lack of sleep hasn't helped the ever present sinusitis to stay in the background so I'm currently taking antibiotics which, by the way, ARE NOT WORKING!

But - I'm planning to be back blogging once things have calmed down, and I'm planning on them calming down round about now. Still, I'm about to become an aunt again for the fifth time I like to boast (any minute now, sis) which will be very exciting all over again. I think I must go and sleep - or at least go to bed to read the fantastic 'Long Song' by Andrea Levy. Read this I urge you. I've learned much more than I knew, and learned much of what I should know, by reading this book.

Lastly, I can't believe that I didn't mention that I met my first ever co-blogger in real life while I was staying at mum's pub the week before last. Good old Legend in His Own Lunchtime tapped me on my shoulder while I was having lunch with various motley kids in tow. He lives in the US but was over in the UK sadly as his mother had passed away. But it was fantastic to meet him and to prove to myself that I'm not just a creation in cyber-space (only joking). He has a standing invitation from my mother to come and play in the pub so I'm looking forward to seeing him again when he's next up here in the North of England.

Work-Stuff

There's lots going on at the moment. I'm applying for a part-time teaching jobs (three days a week - heaven help our already more than crazy mornings!) I'm also hoping to do some private English tuition in the evenings - hence spending most of yesterday applying to a tutor agency. Very helpfully I've managed to lose my BA, MA and teacher training certificates so I'm having to re-apply for them to different universities which is quite a torturous process in itself.

And - listen to this. I think I'm going to start an online business. Scary? yes! I'm hoping to sell ethically traded lovely stuff. So - with a very tentative but excited mood upon me, I'm going to start building the steps I need to get this thing up and running. I'll let you know how it goes, in fact I might even blog a little about my experiences - and will put a link on here to my shiny new website when (ahem....) I actually have a shiny new website.

Needs must regarding all this energy being poured work-wise. I don't want to work full-time in teaching at the moment. Hattie is not yet at school, or even nursery. I'm only just two years in remission and teaching secondary school English to hordes of teenagers certainly isn't easy. I want to at least wait until all the kids are in school - Hattie will start in September 2012, which isn't so long away. And if I can develop a few more strings to my bow in terms of earning possibility, maybe we will be able to at the very least continue to pay the mortgage and put food on the table which is proving difficult at the moment.

This morning I've spent the whole time in the hospital with Ed who had banged his head hard at school yesterday. As you know Ed has haemophilia so a knock on the head can be very serious. I gave him treatment last night but this morning he was still complaining of having a headache. So off we went with Hattie in tow. He had another dose and a check-up and then arrived back to school in time for lunch. And I'm still feeling grotty - in fact a bit worse than that now. And it's bloody difficult coping with the kids feeling like this. Ho Hum.

Diary of a Harrassed Mother

Kate is hassled. She is the often failing mother of Ed (7), delightful in a loud, herd-of elephants, trumpeting sort of way, Martha (5) quite self-possessed and very stroppy already and Harriet (2) who is convinced she’s in charge, and often actually is.

6.20: Alarm goes off. Or rather annoying clock radio starts playing ‘Today’ just as the business news starts. Through my sleep fuddled brain I remember that this is Tuesday. If this is Tuesday then I need to get up especially quickly. Ed who has haemophilia has to have one of his IV injections this morning. Preferably while husband is still home so that he can hold his hand (and mine) through the agonising process.

I shower at the speed of light, throw on whichever clothes are on the top of the pile of clean ones which came up from the drier (ahem, a couple of days ago actually) but haven’t yet been put away, and rush downstairs ignoring Hattie’s shouts to be ‘getted from my bed’. Trying not to trip over Martha who is following me like a shadow grumbling quietly, I rush between the bedrooms laying out clothes for Hattie and school uniform, peering with bleary eyes to see if yesterday’s jumpers will do again for at least today. Ed’s usually won’t.

7.am: Ed’s treatment. I find the vein first time thank heavens, so not too much trauma to us all. Ed disappears straight away back upstairs to continue building his enormous lorry terminal which takes up his whole room and involves every bit of furniture, cushion, piece of bedding and wooden bricks he can lay his hands on. Weakly I raise my voice at his retreating back and implore him not to make a mess. This phrase falls on deaf ears.

7.15: porridge on to cook (now a daily must since I watched a programme about salt in breakfast cereals - damn TV). I did remember to switch on loaded dishwasher last night though unlike the night before. This represents an achievement.
Harriet appears downstairs with her dad who has got her dressed. This is his job every morning – hooray. She declares that it’s not rainy enough for a ‘fudd’. She means flood – and has been absolutely obsessed with them since the week before when I had to drive through a flash flood on the way back from picking up the kids from school. Granted actually it was scary – I had a nasty moment when I thought I couldn’t go backwards or forwards. Shades of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’. We had to go through it. It’s a big topic for Hattie.

7.20: Packed lunches next: husband’s first and then the kids. Why didn’t I make them last night? What’s wrong with me? Moment’s pain, long-term gain. Remember that. I hate packed lunches. Have to dodge cross teacher husband running around flinging things into his bag and muttering about how late he is again.

7.25: Porridge is served. No – I haven’t finished the lunches yet; I’m multi-tasking. I quickly chop up strawberries and chuck on blueberries – see, how spoilt they are. They would of course infinitely prefer coco-pops and after clearing up the sticky mess which Hattie leaves all over herself and the table, so would I. They’re allowed corn-flakes and things at weekends. Mainly so I don’t have to make the bloody porridge.

7.30: husband leaves for work and children eat their porridge. I finish the lunches dodging Ed’s accusing and critical attempts to see what horrors I’m putting in there. ‘Why can’t we have crisps every day like everyone else?’ is a constant and very tedious refrain.

7.30: I long for peace and quiet, a strong coffee and an almond croissant. Maybe a long and comfortable train commute (first-class? why not) and then a lovely day writing successful and witty pieces in a fun, lively environment. Glass of wine after work? Why not. Etc

7.35: I shoo/usher/yell at kids as they make their way upstairs to get dressed. The notion of brushing teeth before putting on uniforms is somehow so terribly hard to grasp. This is important to a mummy but extremely unimportant to an Ed who often appears back downstairs with toothpaste all over yesterday’s carefully preserved school sweatshirt. Martha shouts several times about what Ed isn’t doing to get ready, while running giggling like a dervish between bedrooms. Butter woudn’t melt with Martha.

7.45: Kids still not downstairs. Plenty of strange and very loud hootings, rumblings and thumpings from Ed’s bedroom. My blood pressure is starting to rise. Sometime ago I came to the startling conclusion that I like quiet in the mornings. Unfortunately I’d already had the kids by then. Meanwhile Hattie is still slowly smearing porridge around the kitchen, eating the fruit but nothing else.

8.00: Kids have been practically dragged downstairs as I can’t bear the noise upstairs. I’m filling school-bags with reply slips for photographs, parents’ evening and payment for music lessons. Both Ed and Martha have been singled out as being musical (cue much maternal pride and bemusement) and have been offered lessons at school on a scheme to nurture early talent. Great of course despite having to lug a cello and violin as well as bags, packed lunches and Hattie up the steep hill to school. Oh and having to pay £20 a week.
Hattie is hosed down and gets down from the table. She immediately tries to take whatever Ed is holding and shrieks when he won’t let her, “Give it, you little boy boy”, which is her most desperate insult. Sometimes mummy is a little boy boy too.

8.15: Martha has her hair brushed and wriggles and complains while I try to put it into a neat pony-tail like other girls have. I am torn between being pleased and annoyed that she is not interested in looking pretty and neat. I wet the brush to tackle Ed’s unruly mop and straighten his collar and check he has his trousers on the right way round. Hattie’s shoes are discovered upstairs in yesterday’s swimming bag (??) and coats are forced on.

8.30: In the car. I put on make-up quickly by rear-view mirror, having realised that I look completely wild. Cello, violin, bags, packed lunches, my hand-bag, shopping bags for exciting trip to Sainsburys, and spare clothes for baby are strewn in the back. And off we go.

Dad

We've been up here in the Highlands of Scotland for the past week and are finally packing up to come home. It's been a lovely week - all the family here at the start: nephews, my brother and sister and my mum, and then people gradually drifting home until all that's left is our immediate family and my mum. The weather has been truly Scottish - rainy and windy, so much so that today I haven't really fancied putting my nose out of the door.

We all try to get together around this time each year. Twelve years ago my dad died at the age of 54 after a protracted struggle with HIV - contracted after he was given infected blood products with which to treat his haemophilia. I was 28, my siblings younger and my mum was 50. He didn't get to meet our partners or any of his 8 grandchildren. His death tore our family apart - we all adored him and nothing has seemed the same for our family since.

A year after he died we scattered his ashes up here in the Summer Isles at a place he'd always loved and now we gather each October just to be together.

I truly miss my Dad. I got on with him so well. He was a deeply humorous, very intelligent man - and we would sometimes talk late into the night about anything and everything if the opportunity presented itself. He would have been a tremendous support for me in the past couple of awful years. But so much more than that, he would have been so happy to see my beautiful family, and such a lovely grandfather to the kids. We've all missed out. But him more than anyone of course.

So, dad - I want to say that I miss you. But you know that - or maybe you do if you're somewhere around. Now though I have to go and get your youngest granddaughter from her afternoon sleep. Cross Hattie and you get a cross Hattie is all I'll say.

Monday

I went to London this weekend to stay with a friend. I had a lovely time with no kids with me. I could do exactly as I pleased. Thanks Sophia.

But, just to remind me where my responsibilities truly lie...

This morning Ed woke with the biggest bruise into the muscle on his calf that I have EVER seen. It was hot and swollen and looked terrible. I swear it covered most of the poor child's leg. He tried valiantly to persuade me that he didn't need the Factor 8 injection which treats his haemophilia, but in the end (after taking him to school and then realising he really DID need his treatment, and bringing him home again to do it, toddler in tow) I gave him a big dose. I found the vein first time and all worked perfectly. This was only the second time I'd done this on my own without Rog for moral support, so I was very pleased with myself. I dropped him off at school and proceeded with my scintillating day which was as follows:

Go to supermarket in pouring rain with Hattie and do huge and horrifyngly expensive weekly shop.

Realise I haven't had any breakfast, and feel very hungry while shopping, nobly avoiding the resulting temptation to fill the trolley with loads of unhealthy things.

Drive home and unload Hattie and shopping - still in the pouring rain.

Make Hattie her lunch and unpack said HUGE weekly shop while she eats it. Feel even hungrier but plan relaxing lunch once Hattie is in bed for her afternoon nap which she keeps forgetting to sleep through....but that's another story. Start to feel a bit weak through lack of food as Hattie slowly savours every bite.

Hattie finishes and just as I'm about to head bed-wards with her the phone rings. It's Ed's school. They're worried about his leg - can I come and check it?

I put Hattie back in the car and drive back to the school.

Poor Ed's leg looks even worse - It is clear that I can't leave him at school, go home and put Hattie to bed and eat my lunch. I need to take him to the hospital.

Off we go.

Two hours later, after having contained an increasingly hellish Hattie in a treatment room with high examination couches big enough to scramble onto and then fall off, expensive looking equipment to fiddle with, and taps which automatically turn on when you put your hands under - imagine the delight?!, we leave the hospital just in time for Martha to finish school. Ed has been fussed over appropriately and has been changed to twice weekly home treatment (hooray, more battles) and I STILL hadn't eaten....anything at all.

And I needed to give him another treatment before he went to bed. Before that I cooked the kids tea and once they were in bed, cooked our meal. Now Ed has just been sick all over his bedding - copiously! Aaargh.

It's 10.30pm and I haven't tidied the kitchen or done the dishwasher or put another load of washing on. Roger works well into the night most nights so he can't be depended on to do these things. And I'm writing on my blog - because I want to. It's the first bit of time alone I've had all day. But now it's getting late and I'll have to stop. I've exciting news regarding my article for the magazine, but it's going to have to wait.

By the way I've been trying to fix my comment form thing because I think it wasn't working properly and was annoying to use, but I'm not sure if I have! Is this better? If you can bear to leave a comment, please let me know!

Roll on tomorrow.

Stac Pollaidh and Much More

We're having a lovely time up here in the Highlands after a rather inauspicious start. Inauspicious as the kids were being monstrous and I couldn't imagine enjoying spending large quantities of time with them (I love them.... but you know!!!). But things seemed to have settled. Or rather Ed has settled down which has helped us all to settle. And he has quite a lot to cope with - giving him his regular treatment for his haemophilia has, for the past couple of weeks, been awful. I haven't been able to find a vein and the resultant poking and re-positioning of the needle has meant that Ed got very stressed. Not to mention his mother. Tonight he has the most enormous bruise wrapped around his shin and calf and his knuckles on one hand are black with a new bruise and his hand swollen and puffy. We're trying again tomorrow -it should have been tonight but he was vehement in his determination not to have the treatment. So we compromised, trying to give him some sense of control over his condition. But if I can't do it tomorrow morning we'll have to make the 4 hour round trip to Inverness where the nearest hospital is, so wish me luck.

But back to Scotland. We have been for a picnic bike ride and been on several long walks and I have achieved something which I have always wanted to do since long before I was ill. A couple of days ago, while my mum (who was up here for a few days) looked after the children for us, Roger and I climbed a mountain near the house called Stac Pollaidh. It's not the highest mountain in the world (607 metres) but it signified to me a return to good health and reasonable fitness which nothing else quite could have done for me in the same way. It was hard going and the last part was a real scramble but reaching the top was such a kick.

We had coffee from our flask up there on the top of the mountain surrounded by nature at its most fabulous and powerful - and I felt literally and figuratively on top of the world. I've taken pictures and when I'm home I'll post them on the blog because I want to show you what I did. In our family I've always been known as the bookworm who'd rather stay behind and read than stir myself in any strenuous way. But if my illness has changed me in any fundemental way I think it is that I value my body, its health and fitness and what it can do, much more highly than I ever did before. I still want to lose weight but I'm less focussed on that now. I'm enjoying being active and eating well - not a bad way to live I reckon.

Talking of books - I've just finished Audrey Niffenegger's book, 'Her Fearful Symmetry' which I really enjoyed. I didn't think I'd found it scary until I had a night of terrifying dreams at least ostensibly connected with it. Now I'm reading Penelope Lively's latest novel, 'Family Albumn'. I love Lively's writing - I read her children's books avidly when I was a kid: 'The Ghost of Thomas Kempe', 'The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy' - and her books for adults are beautiful with her intricate and unsettling characters.

And I have a real, proper deadline by which I have to send my piece to the magazine I mentioned before. It's going to go in the Christmas edition of this upmarket and glossy magazine. And I'm going to be paid! Proper money! And a reasonable amount too. I'm totally excited and totally terrified and have major writer's block. The deadline is August 25th - so I'd better get moving. Suddenly it seems an impossible task. But I do really hope it might be the start of something for me so I want it to be the absolute best it can be. No pressure then. And writing it while trying to have a family holiday is certainly not easy as I'm discovering.

We're here until next Saturday and then home for a few days to prepare the camping gear, before we head off to Wales for The Green Man Festival. I'm kind of looking forward to it and dreading it in equal measures. It's that obstreperous 2 year-old again putting a spanner in the works. But when she talks about Incy Wincy 'pider climbing up the pout - all is forgiven. Oh the folly of parenthood.

Hello

I'm tired at the moment. I have a clinic appointment on Wednesday. It's just a check-up but I'm kind of dreading it. I've been having loads of headaches and have itchy patches on my arms and legs which can be a symptom of something nasty.

I'm just so fed up with it all. Worrying is exhausting. Living in this way is exhausting - sometimes I still can't believe it's happened to me. I feel like a different person. And I was quite happy with the person I was before this.

As usual life is busy. Martha had her summer school concert this afternoon. She had a third hearing test this morning which she failed - next step, the hospital. And both Ed and Martha had swimming. Hattie ran crazily around the cafe while we watched them through the window until I felt quite frantic. Hattie doesn't stop talking by the way. Ever. And then we came home to tea - well the kids lolled around while I made it. Then bath, pyjamas and Ed's weekly treatment which always seems to come at exactly the most tiring and stressful moment. He has a bleed in the muscle of his arm and he's black and blue - hs legs look quite shocking, as I noticed while he was swimming. I haven't actually told the swimming teacher about the haemophilia as I'm always there at the pool with him, but I wonder if maybe I should. Otherwse I might get a call from social services. Can you imagine? Nightmare.

With posts like this it's just as well they've been thin on the ground recently. I know, I know..... I should count my blessings. It's easier said than done sometimes That's all.

Ed

Ed had a bleed over the weekend in a tendon in his thigh. He was hobbling by the time he came home from school on Friday and couldn't climb into the bath by the evening. I tried to treat him and couldn't - I found the vein and then it popped as I was giving the treatment. On the other arm, I couldn't even find a vein and was fiddling around until he'd seriously had enough. On Saturday morning, I tried again twice and then had to admit defeat. Consequently we spent Saturday afternoon in the hospital until the nurses could find time to treat him.

I was mostly worried that Ed would lose confidence in me and start to believe that I can't give the treatment. He was in tears but he said he'd never thought I couldn't manage.

So tonight, when it was time to give him his weekly treatment - we were all pretty stressed although I was trying, probably unsuccessfully, to hide it. And I managed - with Ed giving me encouragement all the way.

It's bloody hard this - I got a telling off from the haemophilia centre for not bringing him in immediately on Friday night when I couldn't treat him, but I was making decisions which I thought was best for Ed. However it didn't fit with their treatment protocol. I can see their point but I knew that everyone needed to go to bed and that Ed would be ok until the morning - it would have been un-necessarily disrupting to have had to get in the cold car....

Anyhow - I'm so pleased that I can move on with confidence again - and that Ed can trust me to do the best I can. His pale tearful face on Saturday was desperate.

This Morning

6.00am - Ed woke Martha and they started to talk VERY loudly in their room. But after major threats last night before bed following weeks of early rising, they stayed in their room and didn't thunder upstairs to see us every few minutes in tears after arguing - miraculous!

6.30am - Our alarm went off. The Today Programme filtering into the freezing bedroom (our heating timer has not yet been fitted on the new boiler). Hattie started chatting to herself in her room. Rog, needing to get to work early, hauled himself out of bed and went to put the heating on and make the kids' porridge while I had a reluctant shower. I'm sleeping so badly at the moment that I feel tired even in the shower.

8.00am - Rog long gone, kids dressed for school and Ed ready for his Monday morning IV treatment of Factor 8. Secretly, I've been feeling pretty stressed about this since yesterday evening. But, I manage despite not hitting the vein the first time.

8.30am - kids and I out the door to catch the bus to school as our backyard and lane still has too much snow to easily use the car. Bus takes ages, long walk down the slippery, slushy hill to school. Ed falls once (thank god I managed the treatment) and Martha twice. I manage to stay on my feet thanks to my lovely Hunter wellies. Can you guess how pleased I am with my wellies?

9.30am - Back home. Hattie very lively - damn, need her to sleep so I can do all the house stuff needed. Manage to put on the washing at least. Make my smoothie - need an energy boost.

10.30am - Sign up for the 2010 5KM Run for Life. Surely I can manage that by the summer? Decide that I'm going to get a pedometer and start walking seriously. I'm going to try to cut down on my carb eating in the evening too, to try to lose some pounds. Hmmm. I'm so exhausted by the evening that I can't imagine managing without my baked potato or rice - but we'll see.

10.45am - Hear on Woman's Hour a speaker from Macmillan Cancer Support, and a cancer survivor talking about the long-term effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and realise that I have been suffering from some of these for the past year since I went into remission. The exhaustion, for one, has definitely been a factor to contend with, over and above that which comes with having three small kids. The radio programme was discussing the fact that when you finish your cancer treatment, you are really cast adrift back into your life with very little guidance or warning about how you might feel in the coming year or two. Consequently, I have been really pushing myself to get fit, lose weight and generally resume normal things long before my body is ready for that. Particularly after the very aggressive treatment I received. Of course going back to all the old stuff is what I want - but the frustration I've felt that I haven't been able to manage all the goals I've set myself has added to my stress and not helped my peace of mind. I only finished my radiotherapy this time last year - I now begin to see that I've been asking too much of myself for much of that time. The scan coming up on Thursday is obviously focusing my mind and my thoughts on all of this. If the results are ok (pray god they are) I think I need to treat myself more gently and try not to vilify myself because I'm not looking or feeling my best yet. That will come with time and care.

Snow

It's too snowy now - the novelty is wearing off. It's one thing when we can all mess around at home, making snowmen, walking to the park and playing with the woodburner but quite another when everyone has to go to work and school.

It's freezing - well below freezing - and the old cliche regarding the British inability to cope with wintry weather, is proving to be true. Our car is rubbish in the snow, is not 4-wheel drive, and slips if it even smells ice. And the kids' school is on a very steep hill. And I need to go into town tomorrow. GRRRR.

On a different note, my scan appointment came through. Next Thursday. And the results as soon as possible after that. Every time I think about it I feel weak with horror.

Quite a while ago I wrote a post about my son Ed's haemophilia and how I'm learning to give him his IV treatment at home. Last week was the first time I treated him completely on my own and it was a success. Today I was unable to bloody well find a vein and after poking around in the poor child's arm I had to give up. It's so frustrating - and he's so amazingly good. I'm going to have one more try tomorrow morning and then ring the haemophilia centre if I can't manage. It's so important to me to be able to do this smoothly and well. But, sometimes the nurses who've been doing it forever aren't able to do it either, so I'll have to be patient with myself.

Christmas seems a long way off already!

Lovely Boy

I haven't mentioned that our son has haemophilia.

It's a condition which means his blood doesn't clot - he has severe haemophilia so this means he has less than 1% of the clotting factor which most of us have. It's a genetic condition, my dad had it, so I knew that when I was pregnant with my babies - if they were boys - that they would have a 1 in 2 chance of having haemophilia. It's the same probability that my girls are carriers.

All this is kind of serious but also manageable. Ed flies about doing all the things 5 year old boys do with no sense of restraint at all. He can get very painful bleeds into joints and muscles, has horrible looking bruises much of the time and if he bangs his head hard it can be very serious indeed. However, when he does get these injuries there is a now a very effective treatment - thank heavens! When my father was growing up he had no treatment at all and spent large parts of his childhood in bed.

Ed has an IV injection of the missing clotting factor which works well and quickly. Up to recently whenever he has needed treatment I have taken him to our local haemophilia centre and they have given it to him. Recently, however, as Ed has started his second year at school he has started a prophylactic treatment once a week to try to protect him a little in the subsequent days. The factor stays in his system for sometime in diminishing amounts as the days progress. And I am learning to inject him so that eventually I can treat him at home rather than trekking through rush-hour traffic along with the other two kids after school. It also means that staying away from home and going on holiday will also be less stressful.

But, injecting your own child is a strange and tricky business!! I practiced on the endlessly kind and patient nurses initially. Finding a vein and figuring out which direction it travels under the skin seems an art as much as a science. And last week and this week I managed to treat Ed. He's so patient with me. He holds still while I clumsily poke around - and reassures me, tells me I'm just learning, tells me it's ok! I'm stressed before we go (hope I hide that from Ed!) and very proud of myself when I'm successful.

When he was a toddler and needed treatment it was such, such hard work to stay calm. He struggled and sweated and fought and it sometimes took the nurses literally hours to treat him. I'd feel as if I was colluding with them against him as I tried to hold his struggling body still - and he didn't understand and I couldn't explain to him. Today he holds out his arm and bossily reminds me to put the torniquet over his sleeve because it pinches and to clean his arm 'properly'. I am very proud of his open and sunny attitude towards his condition. He is utterly pragmatic about it and this helps us to be pragmatic as well. Amazing.