Julie Jay: Being in hospital is just like being in prison - you never ask what someone is in for

Ted is increasingly lethargic and miserable, and it is awful to watch - he has RSV

"Being in hospital with your child reminds you how utterly unimportant everything else is."

Julie Jay

COMEDIAN

I try to limit my neurosis to whether or not I am universally hated and to imminent climate disasters. When it comes to illness, I generally refrain from doing a Google doctor on it, but it’s hard not to turn to the internet when Ted is feeling under the weather.

After a sleepless night of high temperatures and chesty coughs, I ring the doctor and get an appointment for that afternoon.

As the day continues, I am counting down the minutes before I can get in the car and go because Ted is increasingly lethargic and miserable, and it is awful to watch.

Our GP immediately sends us to a hospital in Tralee, Co Kerry, as Ted’s oxygen levels are low. Luckily, I am finally getting a hand of this mammy foresight thing and have an overnight bag packed, and I make my way in through the mountain roads, minding the ice en route.

The team at the A&E is brilliant. Ted is being looked after within the hour, and we have a room to ourselves. By that night, we are fortunate enough to have a bed in the children’s ward. Mostly, I feel utterly relieved that he is here and being minded.

Being in hospital with your child reminds you how utterly unimportant everything else is. There is a unique camaraderie among the ward mammies, a mutual understanding. Of course, being in hospital is just like being in prison, you never ask what someone is in for (in our case, RSV).

Even though the staff couldn’t be nicer, my tired mind has made me hypersensitive to even the most innocuous comments.

“Do you have a facecloth,” a lovely nurse asks, and so certain am I that my lack of said facecloth will cost me custody of my son that, when Darling Husband comes in for an hour, I immediately spin off to town to purchase one. I cling to that facecloth for the duration of our time in the hospital, as if my reputation as a decent mammy depends on it.

DH comes in again to relieve me. He is late and I am peeved. So much so that my nostrils are flaring, and for some inexplicable reason, I burst into tears on my way out to the car. I am going slowly insane.

I worry that our hospital room is a mess. I keep my eyes peeled on his oxygen levels, trying to think back to Grey’s Anatomy to decipher the meaning of the beeps. Numerous times a day, I try to clean his cheeks as best I can but Ted is having none of it. And I fret that everyone will think I am a bad parent for failing to scrub the sticky bandage residue off completely.

By day four in the hospital ward, the lack of sleep has me questioning why I am doing comedy and wondering about the repercussions of cancelling my upcoming tour. I can’t even formulate a cohesive sentence, so how could I possibly structure a joke? As long as Ted’s OK, I pray, I promise I don’t need anything else.

Ted thankfully gets better and better, and by the end of the week, we have walked up and down the hospital corridor so many times I am fairly sure the staff think I am trying to sneak a look at patients’ charts.

So impressive is Ted’s recovery that we are told we can go home and paint the town red. And by town, I mean our sitting room, and by red, I mean nebulise at home.

When we finally get the all-clear to discharge ourselves, we leg it like we have just shoplifted eyeliner from a chain pharmacy.

At home and with Ted finally wrapped up in mammy’s bed for the night, I sit down to catch up on the papers (it will surprise nobody who knows me and knows I haven’t changed my hairstyle since 2005 to hear that I’m old school, and like the actual hardcopy). Spotting stories about RSV, I avert my eyes and turn the page quickly.

Sometimes information is best on a need-to-know basis. Yes, as much as I have depended on it down through the years, Google Doctor is officially overworked, and maybe it’s time to put it to bed for a while. Because when your mind is conjuring up the worst, to paraphrase the Beatles, all you need is sleep.