Day 7 Shane takes a ride in a special kind of Limo

Well please don't be alarmed when you read this, we are all now well and safe.

But it started around midnight, Shane could not sleep because he was having terrible pains in the stomach. He originally thought he had just eaten too much dinner.

Anyway after 3 hot showers and 1 bath, and was just beside himself with pain, and obviously I was very worried.

At 5am I called the check in people for the house and said we needed a doctor urgently. The nearest doctor was 40 mins away and we could drive there. I said that I was not happy to do this as it was very dark outside, the kids were sleeping, it was very cold and I was not keen to drive, let alone on icy roads that I did not know. So an Ambulance came.

The decided to take Shane to the Yosemite Medical Center so that a doctor could assess him, the drive would take 40 mins, and they said to give them a call in an hours time.

I tried to stay calm, I really did not think it would be anything serious, maybe just an irritable bowel problem. It was just starting to become daylight, and for the 1st time I could take a look out the windows at the park.

Cooper was up now with me, and we sat and did a jigsaw puzzle to pass the time.

When the hour was up, I rang, and they said, the doctor ruled out all viruses and thought that more than likely it was appendisitis, sorry for the spelling, and that he needed to go to hospital for more tests, this hospital being 3 hours away.

By now sheer panic started to set in. The nurse on the phone said that i needed to go as well, just in case I needed to make decisions. I think at this stage I started to cry, because how was I going to drive a car I didn't know, on icy, very dangerous roads I didn't know. I felt for sure I would not be able to handle the car and that I would kill myself and the kids, anway I kept telling myself to stay calm. Until I realised I had no money, Shane had taken his wallet with him in the ambulance. At this stage I started to pray.

So i quickly woke the other 2 kids, packed up, put all the suitcases in the car and headed off to a city called Modesto.

My heart was racing the whole way, but we made it very safely and in hindsight it was quite easy. It took me 4 hours, but I drove very slowly.

We were very relieved when we got to Modesto, that Shane had arrived as well. I had terrible thoughts that what if they changed their minds and didn't take him and we had driven all this way for nothing, there was no way I was going to drive back.

When we found Shane in the ER, he seemed quite well, and we thought that whatever it was had gone away, but that was the morphine talking. About 6pm we found out that Shane had appendisitis and that they would operate straight away. there was chances that it had ruptured.

The operation went well, and no rupture, thank goodness.