Do you ever sit in situations and think to yourself “How totally and utterly cliche is this?”. One of those moments you roll your eyes and you chuckle half because you are amused, and the other half you are mortified. I had one of those moments today.

My son, who hasn’t been well since birth, needed to go in for part one of a two part procedure to help improve his quality of life dramatically. We went in this morning hoping for that small miracle that the Drs would come out and say “Hey, chill, it’s all good! Forget part two!” Alas, that didn’t happen. Quite the opposite. (I will explain later).

Kelly took little man in to theatre (Only one parent is allowed to go) so I was sent to what they call “The Friendship Room”. This place, as even noted by Kelly, is not so “Friendly”. Imagine, 1970′s browns everywhere, a big pile of magazines, outdated children’s books, 4 or 5 couches and a few arm chairs. Mix it together with a bunch of old lady volunteers who whinge and bitch to each other whilst repeatedly trying to shove tea, coffee or biscuits in your face stating repeatedly that they will make you “Feel better”… They REALLY don’t… Then they scream at anyone who receives a mobile phone call. Now I get that it is disrupting to others but, to be fair, most of these calls are from concerned loved ones (I was lucky not to have anyone call in the duration of my visit) I am so glad these women are kept here and not on the ward… The ones on the ward are cute and cuddly Nanna like…

I sat on the couch, waiting. Kelly had been gone for an hour. In the times I had gone in with little man it had taken 10-15 minutes tops. I worried “What is wrong?” “Is he ok?” “What problems have arisen?”…

Whilst all this was happening all I could hear was the clock. Now, you may all think that this is metaphorically spoken. Almost, you may say, in the mind. No. I could LITERALLY hear the clock. Surrounding me are other parents, all with tears in their eyes like myself, sitting, waiting, watching. Every time the phone rings and the old cranky bitches pick it up they perk up wondering if it is their call.

And there, on the wall, is the clock which I swear some old and crusty maintenence man had adjusted so you can literally hear every single second tick by. It is almost deafening.

Again, this is not IN THE MIND. Literally this thing is like listening to Big Ben ticking past.

Why is it necessary? Honestly? As if the time wasn’t already an issue for all of us in there.

Kelly returned to tell me he went off to sleep ok. I cried into his arm and realised how nice it is not to be alone, but also how he shields me from that deafening clock.

Finally another 1.5-2 hours later the phone rang once more (For the 50th time) and it was for my little man. I don’t think I have ever run into the recovery room faster.

They didn’t give us the news we wanted. In fact it turns out his condition is worse than we anticipated. So we had to make a gruelling decision today after discussing with the Drs what to do next.

I don’t want to go into detail here. I don’t have energy to write about it tonight anyway. All I can say is that we have 3 wonderful months to enjoy every moment with him before he spends 1-2 months in hospital.

I just hope the clock won’t be ticking so loudly when we return.