Sun lounger swapped for a surgeon’s table

However, instead of packing her suitcase with all her fashionable summer clothes, Deborah Caulfield’s 17-year-old daughter Saoirse, found herself with a hastily packed hold-all being rushed into Altnagelvin Hospital for an appendectomy.

Saoirse had gone out to Durban in South Africa in a project put together between her Limavady Youth Club and the Junior Rotary Club in the town, known as ‘Interact’.

Mum Deborah said it was not until Saoirse was about to come home that she began to feel unwell.

“She had a great time helping with the building of two houses for the orphans, and did not feel very well the night before she came home, and thought she had picked up a stomach bug. However, she took ill on the flight home, but even then thought it was a tummy bug.

“When she got home overnight instead of getting better she got worse. I was doing rehearsals for a play when she rang me the next day and said she was worse, so I told her to go and see the GP. The GP saw her and referred her straight to Altnagelvin with suspected appendicitis, so I had to come home from rehearsals and take her into hospital,” said ms Caulfield.

Thanking the staff for the care and attention shown at both the doctor’s surgery and in the hospital, Ms Caulfield said Saoirse was told at 7pm that night that she would be going under the surgeon’s knife that very night.

“At that stage she was a bit upset because she had a holiday planned and wanted to know if she could still go to Spain on Monday, but I told her that she probably would not be going. The doctor overheard and told her she definitely would not be going,” said Ms Caulfield.

The holiday had been planned for a long time, with Saoirse saving hard and working like a Trojan to raise the money to pay for the flight, accommodation and her spending money herself.

“The doctor was very professional with her, explaining exactly why she could not go on holiday, and I think she was trying to establish if she could get away with going for her holiday before the operation and survive on painkillers, or whether she could fly so soon after surgery.

“She saved really hard all year and paid every penny of her holiday herself, and at Christmas had even saved all her money for it. She was also supposed to sit her driving test on Monday, but that had to be cancelled too, and had decided that she will sit her driving test when she is better and once the insurance pays out for her holiday that she will put the money into buying herself a car,” her relieved and proud mother said.