Brighton (Hove actually!)

Friday 19 April

We'd been in Brighton (well, Hove actually) for a week and it had been a really lovely few days.

It was the first time that we'd stayed in the new family flat - right next door to my Mum, so right next door that they share the same front door and we could open up both flats and let the kids just wander from one to the other.

And Dr D had signed off a request to our oxygen company (not really our company, it's the company that supplies us with oxygen, well with extra oxygen anyway) to supply oxygen canisters to our flat in Hove - so this meant that we didn't need to install three oxygen machines in Hove in the same way as we have at home, and this is because we don't really use the oxygen machines at home, well only when everyone is asleep and even then we're pretty sure that Little S doesn't actually need them. But it's precautionary, it's risk mitigation and no one is brave or stupid enough to stop turning them on.

Anyway, lo and behold, we arrived in Hove and there were a set of large oxygen canisters left outside the flat! Just on the path outside the front door. I say large - each metal canister was about as big as bar stool.

Little S had a great time in Hove - as did we all (although I was at work in Leatherhead for a few days but even then it was great to come home to the seaside in the evening!).

On our first day in Hove we got a message from one of J's cousins who we had seen the day before to say that her little girl had developed chicken pox - in case we were worried about Little S - nice of them to tell us. We were a bit nonchalant about the whole thing (we really should have learned by now) until another cousin of J got in touch to recommend the exact medication that they thought we should be giving Little S to protect her from chicken pox!

So we got in touch with Dr D and, just before Shabbat, we got an email from him to say that yes we really should get hold of the medication, from our GP. However, our GP was a two hour drive away and closing from the weekend. On the off-chance, we got in touch with the pediatric accident & emergency department at Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and a wonderful doctor on the other end of the phone told me that they had the exact medication right there and that I could pick it up straight away. And within an hour of getting Dr D's email, we had the medication and I had a renewed respect for the NHS, and the fact that mountains can be moved if you really need them to be.