Zoe: Sonny's Ark

One of the strangest things about Sonny being in hospital is living alongside 14 other families day in day out. Its a bit like camping without the rain and the firebuilding. For those of you that know Gav imagine his pain for a moment... We all have our own room with a tiny chair shaped bath and shower although rumour has it that room 10 is the one to have with space to keep the fold away bed down all day and a luxury full size bath. Each family is allocated a numbered basket in the communal fridge in the tiny kitchen. You start to feel very territorial if someone's Petit Filous is encroaching on your Frubes I can tell you. People have asked us if we've made any friends which is a fair question but despite being here for nearly 3 months we have really tried to keep our heads down. Everyone here is going through such a deeply personal experience that passing the time of day seems to be a bit trivial. Of course there are a few families we have got to know over time and we can now spot a 'lifer' from a shell shocked newbie at 30 paces but we'll do anything to avoid the inevitable cancer Top Trumps that tend to begin once any conversation strikes up. (I'll leave Gav to explain the rules of this game in another blog). Everyone here seems very good at keeping a lid on their emotions, we are all very polite to one another and avoid eye contact at 3 in the morning on the way to the sluice room and turn a blind eye to bed hair and Christmas slippers (not mine) although one dad does giggle whenever he sees me as he did catch me in the small hours putting Sonny's wee wee bottle into the fridge zzzzzzz.

I brought more unwanted attention on myself today by leaving the bath running while chatting to the nurse outside the room about all the things that needed to be put in place for Sonny to come home. The conversation went on for a few minutes and as I opened the door it took me a while to work out why my feet were covered in warm water. With panic I waded into the bathroom to turn off the tap and to take in the hilarity v pure panic of Sonny's bed surrounded in bubbles. Housekeeping had to call for emergency back up and a two lovely men arrived to pump it all out while I went down to patient's laundry in my soggy pjs to dry out my clothes I'd left neatly folded on the bathroom floor last night.