Helicopter Adventure

The kids often comment about the hospital as we drive past each day. Whether it’s Jayla reminiscing about the time she stuck a bead up her nose or, on the rare occasion we glimpse the helicopter landing, we speculate as to how the passengers enter the hospital from the roof.

“Maybe they have a secret tunnel they go down,” I suggested last Wednesday.

“Or maybe they have a slide,” commented a little voice from the back.

Little did I know that I was to experience it first-hand later that day – but not as a patient, thankfully.

You see I was scheduled to interview paramedic Sam Johanson that morning for my Day in the Life of series.

His job was more complicated than I anticipated and, within an hour, I had filled my notebook with screeds of shorthand.

Finally I asked him to describe the sights, sounds and emotions of conducting a rescue from the chopper and he said he could do one better. As they record everything from cameras fitted to their helmets, he could show me video footage of a rescue. We were about to watch this when his phone rang. Hanging up, he asked if I wanted to come to the Bay of Islands.

Any plans I might have had for the afternoon went flying out the window as I boarded the chopper and donned the headgear. I’d been in a helicopter once before for work but it was not as exciting as this. 

Within minutes we were flying over the sparkling Bay of Islands trying to locate an ambulance below at the house of a man having heart problems.

We’d been told it was in a remote settlement, the name of which I’d never heard. Expecting a few rundown shabby houses, I was surprised to find it was quite the opposite. Sam spotted the ambulance and we landed in a reserve surrounded by luxury retirement pads.

“Looks like we might have to hitch a ride back to the ambulance,” Sam said, what I thought was jokingly, as he pulled on his heavy back pack of medical paraphernalia.

We stood on the side of the road for a while in the sweltering sun before we heard the rumbling of a motor.

“Here we go, this’ll be the ambulance.”

But, amusingly, instead a steam roller rounded the bend followed shortly after by a marked 4WD with two young guys wearing high-vis vests, who I assumed were volunteer ambulance crew.

Sam hailed them, ran up and briefed them, before beckoning me to jump in. The two men introduced themselves as they hurriedly cleared the backseat, then did a U-turn and drove like the clappers.

It wasn’t until later when I asked Sam their titles that he confirmed, they were indeed randoms with whom we had hitch-hiked a ride.

We found the entrance to the steep, windy, metal driveway and met the ambulance near the top. We jumped aboard while the helpful strangers were left to reverse back down.

Inside was a man in his early sixties who, as well as being in pain, looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but in the back of an ambulance.

His wife confirmed that, once we’d driven back down to the helicopter, and the team were checking him out. Sensing he wouldn’t want a pesky journalist hovering around, and spying the needles, I slipped out the front door and tried to distract his upset wife by pin-pointing our whereabouts.

She informed me we were in Parekura Bay and said she had called the ambulance unbeknown to her husband as, like many men, he never would’ve had a bar of it.

The neighbour filled me in on some local information about the place and said the last time a helicopter had landed around those parts was to deliver a spa pool to one of the abodes.

It was hot. Sweat beaded our foreheads. The patient was transferred and it was time to board again.

We rose back into the air leaving the neighbour and a mother with a car full of kids who’d pulled over to watch, gazing up after us. The man’s wife was to make the hour and a quarter journey to Whangarei by car.

We landed on the helipad and the gurney, with the patient was wheeled through a shelter – no tunnels or slides – and into the lift which took us to the emergency department. Sam handed the patient over to a team of doctors and nurses, before doing the relevant paperwork and popping his head round the curtain to bid goodbye to the patient. I wanted to say goodbye too and thank him for letting the pesky journalist tag along throughout his ordeal but decided he’d probably seen enough of me.

Sam had told me that the paramedics sometimes do follow-ups with their patients and I found myself wondering, after, how the man was doing and if his poor wife made it to Whangarei alright.

Later that night as we sat around the dinner table and talked about our days I held the children enthrall as I regaled them with my adventurous high-flying tales. Strangely, nobody wanted to talk about their own day after that – I guess it just didn't compare.

Bead

There’s nothing like a three-year-old sticking a bead up her nose at dinner time and a subsequent whanau trip – minus the hubby who’s away on a dive course for several days - into A & E. 

Missy came out of her room looking guilty as sin and slightly upset as she informed me in a tiny voice there was a ball up her nose.

She was quite happy, if not a little anxious from my reaction as I piled them into the car and drove to the hospital.

I knew this was fairly common practice for infants - her older brother had done it the year before with a small object. It was most out of character but he was in the naughty corner at the time. A friend’s boy had also posted a corn kernel in his twin brother’s ear some month’s ago.

There would be a wait of up to two hours, we were informed upon arrival. The boys lasted half an hour playing with the abacus in the waiting room before they began displaying signs of becoming painful.

Luckily I’d rung the grandparents who swung by on their way out to dinner, scooped up my two ruffian barefoot children and took them out with them. 

The doctor explained that when children have foreign bodies up their noses, around 65 per cent of the time, the “Mother’s Kiss”* will extract it. This is when, blocking the clear nostril, air is blown into the mouth and the object should pop out like a champagne cork. However, several attempts at this were unsuccessful because the air was simply blowing through the hole in the centre of the bead.

Jayla was not having a bar of the doctor coming at her with the narrow, sharp instrument he was holding so, after some umming and ahhing on his part, it was decided to take her home for the night and return at 8am when she would be sedated.

The idea of her sleeping all night with a bead up her nose was unsettling.

“Honestly, I don’t mind pinning her arms down while you remove it,” I said. After-all, it worked with her brother.

But the doctor said it was not their practice to frighten children so, after reassurance that the bead would not be going anywhere, we returned home three hours later.

Obviously I didn’t sleep much. But apart from the whistling sound coming from her room with every exhale, she was fine.

Next morning we arrived - Jayla reluctantly - bang on eight and, this time, saw an ear, nose and throat doctor who said he would have no trouble extracting it without sedation.

He showed us into a room where a solemn young man sat on a bed wearing a monstrous eye patch. Upon sighting this, Jayla backed away in fright - she thought he was a pirate!

She wasn’t letting this doctor near her either so he took us up to another ward. Kicking and screaming, she was swaddled in a sheet and pinned down by two nurses while I held her head and the object was removed in one swift motion by the doctor.

“I told you it wouldn’t hurt,” she had the cheek to say to me as we walked back to the car post-performance.

It’s baffling to us adults why children poke objects in these orifices but I don’t think there’ll be a repeat of it in our family – both Jayla and Cade have learnt their lessons and Jai, having witnessed the drama, certainly won’t be trying it.

Oh and as for the bead? It was purple, for the record, and now takes pride of place taped to a page in her baby book.

* It is recommended the “Mother’s Kiss” be performed under supervision of a medical professional.

Ten things children commonly put in their noses (in no particular order):

1. Crayons
2. Beads
3. French fries
4. Fingers
5. Raisons
6. Spaghetti
7. Tissue
8. Flower petals
9. Small toys – marbles, lego

10. Beans and peas

Mother's Day

Miss Three tells me I’m only getting a Mother’s Day present if I’m nice to her.

It would seem my sticker chart system is being thrown back at me.

Just as well I don’t ‘do’ Mother’s Day presents. Like my mother, I prefer the non-materialistic things. In fact my ideal day would simply comprise a lie-in with a good book or magazine (I’m not one for breakfast in bed), followed by a leisurely morning with no rush to get out the door and perfectly-behaved children all day. Maybe even a countryside stroll thrown in there too and coming home to the smell of a roast cooking, the preparation of which I’ve had nothing to do with. Same with the washing up. Then, after I’ve put my perfectly-behaved angels to bed I’d settle down to watch Packed to the Rafters followed by Call the Midwife before falling into a deep eight-hour slumber. Sounds pretty realistic really doesn’t it?

But, alas, I already know this is not going to eventuate as, for starters, I’ll be spending the morning cleaning in preparation for our open home. By the time I twigged there was to be an open home on Mother’s Day the ad had already been booked and it was too late to cancel. But will people really be open homing tomorrow?

We’d had a fairly good turnout to the three we’d had so far but last weekend we were heading on a road trip to Waihi and packing for a holiday with kids is no easy task at the best of times. But to also leave the house in an open home state whilst being out the door by 8am? Nightmare.

As there was no point cleaning the night before because it would all be messed again, I frantically rushed around tidying the breakfast carnage, cleaning and ‘editing’.

By this I mean going round the house looking at it through a stranger’s eyes and putting away what I didn’t want them to see. Then I realised they would probably open bathroom drawers and kitchen cupboards so I couldn’t get away with hiding things in there either.

I was not having my finest moment and to top it off we returned to a note saying there’d been no one through.

So I’m not looking forward to the morning rush. Then, of course, there’s fitting in visits around childrens’ sleeps to both mothers. Not that I’m complaining about this – I’m thankful I have mothers, who now play such a significant role in our childrens’ lives, to visit.

By the time we return, it will be too late to put the roast on.

Never mind, maybe we can go for that walk in the country while the open home is taking place. And, of course, my children will be positively angelic all day. Oh and don’t forget if I’m nice to Miss Three she won’t hold out on my present. She tells me it’s the (now very crumpled) picture she drew for me last week which has been hiding under her pillow since. I purposefully avert my eyes as I make her bed every day so as not to spoil the surprise.

Apparently there’s something festering under Master Six’s bed for me too. He walked in after school on Wednesday holding a container which he announced held my Mother’s Day present inside. His nana whispered to me that she didn’t know what state it would be in by Sunday. I’m hoping it’s nothing like the hundreds of cicada shells he’s collected from the garden which now reside somewhere in his room in my good kitchen Tupperware container.

But although I’ll be sure to be holding my breath when opening that one I’d much rather these simple things than a shop-bought item as they are one of a kind. And if the kids insist on delivering breakfast in bed, then I’ll staple a smile on my face and ‘enjoy’ it because it’s these heart-felt gestures that count.

Birds and the Bees (round two)

Oh help, the birds and the bees question has come up again!

And this time Master Six wouldn't settle for "A seed just grew into a baby in the mummy's tummy".

"Well the father sheep put it in the mother sheep," I expanded.

"No, ‘cos sheep aren't alive!"

"What?"

"I mean, they don't have hands like people so how did the sheep put the seed in there?"

Is it too soon to tell a six-year-old that his willy did it?

Anyway I did tell him about the willy and they all cracked up (the twins were listening in the back seat so there was no escaping).

But then of course he wanted to know how the baby sheep came out of the mummy’s tummy and was rather disgusted to learn of their mode of exit.

“Does that mean that real babies come out their mum’s bums?” he asked, eyes wide with incredulation.

“Mmmhmm,” I nodded looking straight ahead wondering how on earth the conversation had got this far.

With a look of disgust, he turned toward the window for most of the journey.

Then: “So did all my friends come out of their mum’s bottoms?”

“Well I don’t know,” As we were nearing the school gates, I was keen to shut the conversation down.

“Did Samuel? (Name changed to save face.)

“I don’t know.”

He then proceeded to reel off a list of all his friends’ names in a bid to learn if they suffered the same entry into the world.

Okay, time to kick in with the privacy talk. A hasty lesson on what is okay to talk about in public ensued.

But that had opened the floodgates. I copped a volley of questions all the way home from the twins. I knew I had probably dealt with it all wrong and made a mental note to look up how to field birds and the bees questions when I got home.

For information on how to deal with these questions read "Birds and the Bees - Part One"