A pain in the...

Late Saturday night, after we'd NOT gone to a lovely Aqua Park for the day for Ruy's birthday (cos the website didn't announce it was closed from 4th September until 16th September...but never mind)...start again.

On Saturday, we spent an unexpectedly lazy and rather quiet day celebrating Ruy's 10th birthday after our original plans had been scuppered changed at the eleventh hour. Ruy was very sanguine about not going to the water park as he had secretly preferred to spend the day playing with his birthday presents. Romy was a bit unimpressed with the turn of events and several times during the day she said 'This is just like an ordinary day.' But in fact, we had a lovely, ordinary sort of day.

Instead of the planned sandwiches and cake in the sunshine, we indulged in big juicy steaks and chips (and cake) and later on had ice cream... and then pizza bread... and then popcorn... and then FR had something involving cheese and anchovies...

And at about 5 in the morning, I was awoken with gusts of warm air in my ear (with what at first I thought might have been a rather uninviting attempt to impress me) but which I soon realised was a display of discomfort. There was a lot of groaning, moaning, writhing, panting... the list goes on but I'll spare you further details. FR was in pain and not bearing it well at all. I was unsympathetic to say the least especially as he seemed to think I was somehow making it worse - apparently, I was giving off heat and then wasn't quick enough to put him a blanket on when he felt cold. I duly fetched a glass of water - which was the wrong temperature/colour/flavour or something - but I didn't really see what else I could be expected to do as I knew, of course, that it was just trapped wind and after cheese and anchovies, self-inflicted and only to be expected.

Trapped wind can, I know, be very painful. But it's not life-threatening; it passes; it doesn't deserve special attention at 5.30 in the morning and it shouldn't nearly wake up the whole neighbourhood. So I told him to lie on his left side and pull his knees up to his chest - good wind expelling position - and he'd soon feel better. And I went back to sleep in a huff.

He didn't feel better. I was much nicer to him in the morning and brought him peppermint tea and tried to massage his tummy which he didn't appreciate at all. Then for an hour or so, he slept deeply and woke up saying he felt a bit better but the pain was still there.

The pain hadn't moved since the early hours. Clearly this was not wind. I suggested we went up to the emergency clinic but no - he wanted to wait a bit longer to see if things improved.

By mid-afternoon, I was pretty sure what the problem was and knew he needed to see a doctor and I managed to get him into the car and up to the health centre. Fifteen minutes later and he was carted off in an ambulance to a hospital in Granada with suspected appendicitis. 'Are they going to remove his intestines?' asked Romy when I came back alone.

No - they'll probably leave most of his intestines alone but today, they are removing his appendix.

This morning, Romy was heard to tell someone at school that her papa had gone to hospital and they were going to remove his testes. (I must remember to tell her that it's the dog who will have that operation, not her father.)

Poor FR - I'll have to tell him this when it no longer hurts for him to laugh. Get well soon, my love.