It was a looooong night! The ambulance came at 10pm and it took two doses of morphine and an hour of gas and air to get him onto his feet!  This is a man who has never taken anything stronger than ibuprofen in his life!

   They finally got him to the ambulance and I followed in the car at 11pm. A couple who are married students from the college where Dh works live three doors down from us, so I was banging on their door as the ambulance pulled up. They very kindly came and stayed with the boys till I got home.

   He was in ALOT of pain last night. They checked him over and decided that it was not nuerological (sp?) so there was no disk damage or anything of that sort. They gave him some stong oral painkillers and a suppository one too and said they check on his pain in half hour and get him ready to go home. They said he would need to take them for 7 days and if at the end of that it was still painful he should see the GP!  

   Well they gave him the meds and then came back to find that he couldn't walk at all and could not move without severe pain!  The Dr's comment to me was that with the drugs they had just given him he shouldn't be able to feel ANYTHING!!  So she called for the orthopedics team.

   They did the same assessments and said again that there was no evidence of nerve problems but that due to his high pain levels they would have to admit him to hospital and run some tests today.

   It was 4 o'clock this morning when he was settled on the ward! Praise the Lord - he was given a side room!! (private side rooms are EXTREMELY rare with the NHS) At this point he was being given more morphine to control the pain.

   I got him set up with a prepaid phone card for the phone by his bed and got the phone number for the ward with visiting hours and headed home. I got to bed at a little after 5am this morning! (it is really freaky that when I left the hospital just after 4am it was already daylight and a beautiful sunrise! That is what comes of living so far north in the world the week of the longest day of the year!)

   I just spoke to him on the phone. The Dr still hasn't made it around to his bed yet, so he has no more to tell. He did however just manage to walk the short distance to the toilet so that is progress!  Mind you the fact that he can do it with all the drugs in him isn't all that much help, since he can't come home on those same drugs.  

   Speaking of drugs, he is really funny when he is on them!  He was 'off with the fairies' most of the night. Watching him on the gas and air was a giggle. He would take three puffs and fall asleep!  Then a minute or two later he would come to, be in pain, take some more puffs and do it all again. I don't remember that stuff working that well with me in labour!

   It was both amusing and scary to see my very proper englishman of a husband so out of it! He was talking silly which is so out of character it was funny, but then seeing that he was in so much pain and the very fact he needed those drugs was scary. This is a man who never even has the novicaine injection when having his teeth drilled! His pain threshold is THAT high! And here he was in absolute AGONY.

   Thank you for the prayers last night and this morning for the many kind and supportive comments and emails. I have a friend coming around in a few minutes to take the boys on a nature walk with her kiddos so that I can catch an hours nap since I'm running on 2 1/2 hours of sleep at the moment.

   We are praising the Lord that the back didn't give out while he was away last week, for students helping with the boys last night, for the side room, and for the wonderful nursing staff who were so kind and caring last night/this morning.

   I'll try to update you all as and when there is any news and I have a chance.