When A Rugby Scrum Goes Wrong! Not for the Squeamish

Last Saturday Asa began his 16th Rugby season at Broadland-Great Yarmouth RFC, they were playing away at Fakenham, so we kissed him goodbye and told him to "catch a fly" when kaide was little he could never say "Score A Try" so it has just stuck!!

The afternoon passed like any other, until I received a phonecall at 3.30 pm which was smack bang in the middle of the rugby match.
The conversation went like this
"Hello, Its only me, don't panic, but I have got a rather large hole in my leg, I am waiting for the ambulance to take me to the nearest hospital, I will ring you later" ....

Over the years I have had a few injury phone calls, busted knee, broken nose etc, but never any that required an ambulance and never so far away from home.

I remained calm and waited for an update. My first logistical problem was retrieving Asa's car from Fakenham Rugby Club! A good hours drive away, but thankfully on the way to hospital Asa rang to say he had actually gotten a lift with one of the lads, so his car was at the clubhouse, only a ten minute drive away and he was being taken to the Norfolk and Norwich hospital,a 40 minute drive from home, in fact at the time he was more concerned about me fetching the car, a quick phonecall to my dad and both parents came round, mum to sit with children, dad to drive me to pick up the car, which was a task in itself!!

Asa obviously had the car key with him at fakenham, but thats OK because we have a spare, its one of those silly credit card style keys, so I pointed it at the car and nothing, think the battery must be dead!! But that's OK because it has a `proper' key I can use, apart from we hadn't had the car long and I had no idea where to put it, so after ten minutes of searching, poking and prodding I eventually found the correct hole!! Which then set off the alarm, cue me dashing through the drivers door and shoving the credit card in the ignition, aha silence!! If anyone had a video camera nearby, they could well earn themselves £250 on You've Been Framed...

So, I drove the car home and waited....in the meantime Neva and Lochlan had spent the night sleeping out with Asa's parents, so they returned in the middle of all this, they stayed around for an hour to find out if there was any news, by this time it was 6pm and I had heard nothing, so I made the children Pizza for tea, guarantees no arguments and they will all sit quietly and eat. At this point Asa's parents went home and said they would collect Asa from the hospital when he had finished, however, knowing my husband very well I knew he would not want them to pick him up, he would prefer either myself or me and the kids, so I waited some more....

I had an email at 7.30pm to say just seeing the Doctor, oh and a lovely photo, which I will not post until the end in case you are squeamish, or you may not get to read the whole story.!!

At 8pm I received another email, very complex stitching now starting, should be 45 minutes. In fact it wasn't 45 minutes it took over 2 hours to stitch internally and externally.

He send me a text message at 9.15pm to say If you leave now that should be about the right time, so that is what we did, after talking a couple of times on the phone to parents, I realised that they were not going to offer to look after the children whilst I collected my husband, so my choices were to let them collect him (I had already established this was not what he wanted) or load all six children into the bus and go find our daddy, so that is exactly what we did!!

Ten minutes into the journey I realised I wasn't 100% sure where the hospital was located, luckily I had my tech savvy 14 year old daughter to find the directions!!

When we were a few minutes from the hospital Asa rang to tell us he was ready and would be waiting outside, as I drove into the hospital, he rang me again to say he had just seen us and I had drove past him!!

We safely collected him and on the way home, he told me the full story....

He was playing Number 8 at the back of the scrum, as he put his leg in to flick the ball, the entire scrum collapsed sideways onto his leg, the worst thing in the world for my husband would be a broken leg as it would mean months not playing rugby, so in true Asa ex American Football player style he twisted around and managed to avoid being landed on, unfortunately someone's stud had already lodged itself into his leg and his twisting has resulted in a four inch long and over an inch deep hole in his leg, which missed all major muscles, ligaments and arteries by 5mm...
Luckily he had some very quick thinking team mates that applied pressure immediately, I do not want to think of what may have happened if that hole had begun bleeding in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere...
The ambulance was called, and although they came from Wisbech and would usually take a patient to Kings Lynn hospital, they very kindly agreed to take him to the hospital nearer to us, so I am eternally grateful to them.
I would also like to extend my massive thanks to the two wonderful doctors that took two and a half painstaking hours to stitch both internally and externally and ensure my husband was put back together with the minimal scarring.

If you are squeamish, I would recommend not looking any further, suffice to say it is not pretty, but today he will have the stitches removed and I am sure he will be itching to return to the field.

The first photo he sent me on the way to hospital!

Just before he began a two and a half hour stitching session




 



The first look after 48 hours

SpinMania Game Review and Giveaway

You will have worked out by now that our family LOVE playing games, of any sort, so when I was asked if we would like to review Drumond Park's New Plate Spinning Game, Spin Mania we jumped at the chance.

 

 

The game consists of a motorised Spinning Machine with an electronic timer, three orange helicopter-like rotary plates, a ‘spin-spike’, and three purple stands on which to set the plates once they are spinning correctly.

The challenge is to ‘spin-up’ the three plates on the Spinning Machine one at a time – and then, using your spin-spike, transfer them, still spinning, to the three separate stands. All three plates must still be spinning on their stands as the player rushes back to the timer, stops the clock, and marks the time taken. Then the next player or players strive to beat the time recorded.

What’s very special about this game is that the player’s opponents are going to make things very tricky indeed! Before they start, all players must agree the playing area – this will be a specific room or rooms inside the house, or a defined area outside. Before each person takes his or her turn, the other players secretly place the plate stands around the agreed area. Each one must be reasonably easy to see – they can’t actually hide a stand, although it can be quite difficult to get to – under a table, for instance.

So players don’t just have to have excellent powers of concentration and steady hands – they need eagle eyes and a good turn of speed, too! Children can play and practise this clever and enthralling new action game on their own, but it’s much more fun to battle it out with one or more opponents in each round. And if they want to make a real party of it, there’s plenty of scope for team challenges, too!

 

I have to be honest, when I first read about it, I was very scepticle about how it would work, but the children were very keen as we have plate spinning sets in our playhouse, so they were all pretty confident that they could balance them easily.
The plate spinning machine is brilliant, my one year old loves sitting and just watching it spin the plates, but gets a little confused when he picks it up and the noise stops, which is a lovely safety mechanism, meaning that my three year old cannot walk around with it trying to play builders and `drill' my walls!!

The older children got very competitive and I found myself climbing on chairs to reach purple stands that were placed on top of bookcases, or crawling on the floor, trying to put the plates under my coffee table.

It really is a very compelling and challenging game, I love the fact that the game can be made easier or harder depending on who you are playing it with, meaning that all of the children could play together, with just a simple placement of the sticks in the most relevant places.

It can also be played outdoors, however the chickens were not too keen, especially when one of the children came charging up the garden with a bright orange spinning plate!!

The rrp of SpinMania is £22.99 and for a list of stockists please visit www.drumondpark.com

It really is an entire family game that will have them laughing and trying to be as imaginative at they can, especially when it involves making it difficult for their parents!!

 

GIVEAWAY.

 

 

If you would like to win your very own Spin Mania game, I have one to give away, to be in with a chance of winning, just head over to Drumond Park and comment below which game is your favourite.

 

For extra entries you can

 

~ Follow my blog via Networked Blogs, GFC or email

~ Like Hex Mum on facebook

~ Follow @Hex_Mum on twitter

 

Closing Date 5th October 2012

Good Luck

 

 

 

First Toyologist Review - Chocolate Lolly Maker

So, here is our first review for Toys R Us Toyologists....

When we received the list of toys we were going to review, the children were ecstatic about the chocolate lolly maker, they had seen it advertised on television numerous times and they all seemed very keen, I was not convinced!

This was the first item out of the box and within five minutes I was being pestered to give it a go, luckily I had read the box which stated no chocolate included, so I had already bought a large bar of chocolate to give it a go. The box suggests chocolate drops, but a large bar worked just as well.

The little dish to melt the chocolate was very easy to use and the chocolate melted quite quickly, although it was only big enough to melt enough chocolate for one lolly at a time, which was a little frustrating as we had six very keen and hungry children to satisfy!

The moulds were easy to fill and they were sturdy enough, even for the three year old to help. We put them in the freezer for ten minutes and then added a message stamp on the back, then returned them to the freezer for a further twenty minutes. When the time had finished, we took them out of the freezer and they came out really easily from the moulds, the lolly shape and pattern was excellent and the mesaage could be clearly read on the back.

Since getting the lolly maker we have been through five large bars of chocolate, and it was only when the older children were at school did I manage to test out the wrapping of them as they had been eaten before we even got to the wrapping process!!



The price for the Lolly maker is £17.99, which I think is a fair price for the amount of enjoyment the children are getting out of it, although it would be even better if there was some way to include chocolate, perhaps in the way of a voucher, I am sure many top brand chocolate companies would be pleased to be associated with it.

This is a great product for parent and child interraction, although I would not recommend it is done without supervision as I can envisage quite a large mess, although they did manage to make some lollies with the assistance of their fourteen year old sister, without destroying my kitchen. Next week is Kaide's birthday, so I am sure we will be making some Happy Birthday lollies ready for it, if they can leave them alone long enough to wrap!!

The youngest of the family certainly enjoyed his older siblings playing with this toy!!

I am sure this will continue to be popular in the Hex Mum household, until the dentist tells them otherwise!!

We Are Toylogists hooray

We are very proud to announce that The Morrisons have been chosen to be one of the 24 Toys R us Toyolgists for 2012. We will be testing out The Blue Group, aged 7+ years.

However, if you have children younger than this, there are two other groups that will be very busy putting toys through their paces. The Purple group aged 0-36 months and the Green group aged 4-6 years, so there really is something for everyone.

We are very excited, although a little shocked, in fact when we got the telephone call I was completely speechless.
 

Box 1 will be with us very soon, so we cannot wait to see what fantastic toys we are going to be playing with, and hopefully point you in the right direction for those all important lists for Father Christmas.

If you visit http://toysrustoybox.co.uk/ you will be able to find out about all of the lovely toyologists and our adventures.

 

 

 

Make A Wish UK - Remember May

Back in the summer of 2010 Make-A-Wish UK granted the wish of five year old May who was fighting a rare cancer called Rhabdomyosarcoma – she wished to be a princess for the day. Sadly May passed away just a couple of months after her wish, two years ago today, on 31^st August 2010.

May’s family have been involved with Make-A-Wish ever since, raising as much money as they can to ensure that other families going through the same awful experience can have their wish. May’s Dad, Neil, has made this short video and would like as many people as possible to watch it and support Make-A-Wish:

 

 

It's only a minute or so long, so please watch the video if you have a moment to spare. And if you could share it with as many people as you can it would mean so much to Neil and his family. If you are able to make a donation too, to help grant a wish to another child like May, you can ‘Remember May’ at www.justgiving.com/RememberMay.