An eternal wait.

When Abbe had his first operation, we were told not to wait on the ward. After a short walk, we just couldn’t keep away. So, we did exactly what they had told us not to do. The wait became unbearable, of course.

This time, we decided to follow the advice from the medical staff, in pure self-preservation. We just wanted to reduce the pain. Straight after that dreadful moment outside the operating theatre, we went to a café and had a proper breakfast. – Now, what do we do? The minutes dragged past and we just couldn’t take any more breakfast. A walk would not have been enough to dispel the thoughts. So, we went to check out some cars.

I know. It sounds weird and somewhat insensitive. But we needed something to concentrate on, so we didn’t have to think about Abbe, lying there on the operating table. After having visited several different car show rooms and even tested a Skoda, it was soon time for lunch. "They should be finished by now, shouldn’t they", we told each other. And yes, we were in total agreement that this was the case. After having stocked up on food and biscuits at a local super market we returned to the hospital. By the time we had unpacked, made lunch and eaten, it was around 1pm.

– It was good that we spent the whole morning away this time, we told ourselves. – We might even have time for another coffee before they call us to say they are ready. Proud of the fact that we had managed to keep away from the hospital for this long, we sat down and waited to be allowed up, to see our little boy. At 6pm, one of the surgeons came down to the ward. – They are stiching him up upstairs right now, he said. He told us what they had done and how it all went. Just before 7pm, we had a call from the intensive care unit, to tell us we could now come up.

Eleven hours after having left Abbe by the door of the operation theatre, we were now finally allowed to see him. With hindsight, we could have testdriven all the car models in the city, had we wanted to.