Category: Useful Things I did Today

Since becoming in-valid…. I am really excited by every little thing that I can get done. No dishes yet, but I can stack the dishwasher!

Custard

My lovely dad stayed with me all day yesterday – we dropped Custard off at the vet, and then saw Pirates of the Caribbean III while we waited for the all clear.

The text message came two hours into the THREE hour film. I left the cinema to call Matthew, and chat with him about the surgery. It wasn’t good news.

The abscess had two branches, the one I could feel on his jaw, and another behind his upper back teeth. The abscess had wrapped itself around his jugular vein, and also his left facial nerve, which meant Matthew was only able to remove about 95% of it.

Normally, an encapsulated abscess has a good survival rate if the surgeon is able to remove the whole thing, and no infection remains. But even a small pocket of infection will usually come back, even with aggressive antibiotic treatment. There is a chance he will respond well to the antibiotics, and we can stop this thing in it’s tracks, but he will be on the treatment for the rest of his life. Realistically, the chances are that it won’t be a long time.

Custard had a very large abscess in his nasolachrimal duct when he came to live with me, and he was given only six months to live back then – over six years ago. Every day since then has been a blessing, and I am determined to give him the best care I can until the time comes to let him go.

Thanks everyone for your messages of support. He has been getting lots of cuddles.

Back to 2005

Thanks everyone for your lovely comments and support. The last week has been pretty challenging, but at least I have learned that I am stronger than I thought I was. The pills that the Dr at the hospital prescribed were $91.35 for ten tablets, and I was to take 2-4 per day. I took the last pill on monday night, and spent most of yesterday in bed. Today I dragged myself off to Cherryhills for the knitting group, and managed to put on a brave face after 10 minutes of deep breathing in the car after the drive. I had a lovely time, and I do hope that my colourful language wasn’t upsetting the regulars.

Candy invited me over for lunch, but I as ready to get back to bed after all that excitement. Was home in time for Oprah, but fell asleep during the first segment, and woke up to Judge Judy – the horror!

Got up to do some useful stuff, felt vile, went back to bed. At 4.30pm, I put the dishwasher on, and cut up some veggies to bake for dinner. This furious burst of activity was enough to have me racing for the toilet again, and after that I slunk back to bed with my tail between my legs.

Tomorrow, I was planning on spending most of the day working on my secret project, but since I’ve discovered that activity sets off my nausea, I think I’ll be doing more knitting, and less getting out of bed. Or maybe I’ll visit the GP and try to get a referral to an obstetrician – though I don’t think I’ll need one long term, it might be good to talk to an expert about what is happening to me right now, and maybe get some answers. And I’ve decided it wouldn’t kill me to see what sort of early intervention programs for pre natal depression are available. I may not need it, but if anyone has a red flag over their head for PND, it would be me – and my experience of pregnancy has been pretty awful so far.

In case you’re interested, I am now into my 15th week, well into the second trimester. 182 days to go.

Thanks Candy!

Candy rang today, and encouraged me out of the house. We had a lovely chat, and I am again reminded about how lucky I am to be part of such a wonderful group of women.

Tomorrow is my birthday, and I’m hoping to make it to Cherryhills in the morning, have lunch with mum, and then go out for a family dinner in the evening. A little bird told me that I’m getting a pretty cool present tomorrow, so I promise pictures.

We visited Aunty Emily tonight. She is out of hospital, but still pretty frail.

Thanks for the black bean sauce tips – the recipe I remember had spring onions, and garlic I think. It involved chopping roughly, cooking, and then processing in a blender.

And the Apple Store is down. Looks like we might be having a product announcement overnight. I don’t work in the industry any more, but I still feel the buzz.

More Abortion Stuff

I haven’t read Freakonomics, but I have heard quite a bit about it, and am intrigued by the book. So I was interested to see Kris link to the Frekonomics blog today. One post struck me as interesting, but missing something.

This post talks about the rapid decline in Down’s Syndrome births since routine testing became available, but questions the almost universal decision to abort when faced with a positive test result. Many sides of the issue are discussed, but what is not mentioned is the long term care that many such infants will need. For me, the overwhelming deciding factor is not wanting to die and leave a dependant child who has never known a life away from home. I’m not going to live forever, so having a dependant at age 37 that will still need care in their 50’s is not rational.

Luckily, my test results have been analysed in conjunction with my blood test, and the adjusted result is a 1:934 chance of Down’s, and greater than 1:5000 chance of the other syndromes tested for.

And in unrelated news, mum bought me a maternity bra today. An E cup. E for FREAKING ENORMOUS!

Ampersand probably isn’t manky

So. Nuchal Translucency Scan day today. Appointment was at 9.30am, got the results at 3pm. 1:908 chance of Trisomy 21 (Down’s Syndrome), and 1:2795 chance of Trisomy 13 and 18 (someone else’s syndromes). I also had another blood test (only 2 litres this time), and the results of that test may or may not change those numbers. If the numbers don’t indicate an increased risk, then I don’t think we’ll have any further tests.

Got some more pictures of &, but won’t scan them for the blog because ultrasound pictures are boring.

Instead, I bring you my St Vinnies purchases for today.

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First, a hand knit and handspun child’s jumper with koalas. $3. I hope the talented knitter who made this knows that the jumper is loved again.

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Secondly, since I decided that now would be an appropriate time to start bonding with the invader (because, after all, mothers day is coming up), so I bought Volume 1 and 2 of “Mother Love” – stories about births, babies, and beyond. A welcome change to the pregnancy books. $1 each.

I also bought a 1970’s book of animals with loads of colour pictures. Because if this kid has any future mapped out already, it’s a future as an animal lover. $3. $8 all up.

And speaking of animals, her is a picture of our newest family member, in her new house.

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I also popped in to Cherryhills today for the S’nB, and met Grandma Flea. She is even lovelier than I expected (and I had pretty high expectations), and she makes a fabulous lemon cake. Yum! Purchases were made (no yarn, baby pattern books), pictures to come later.

Diary of a pregnant woman

(notice how the pregnant goes before the woman? A little sinister if you ask me)

5am Awake. AWAKE!!!!! Pee. Grab laptop and obsessively read all new items in my news aggregator. Can you bloggers post a little more? Or recommend some really prolific and entertaining blogs? I am reduced to reading the new mac software announcements. It’s a little sad. Drink a large amount of juice mixed with soda water.

7am Mark gets up and makes me coffee just as I crash.

8am Wake to cold coffee and a cold baked potato. Kind husband takes pity and microwaves coffee while I pee again. I should note that coffee now consists of a bucket of calcium enriched vanilla soy milk with a healthy dose of Nestle Chocolate Quik Plus (fortified with iron and calcium & stuff). No actual coffee to speak of – aren’t I good?

8.30am Call Pennant Hills Diagnostic Centre to schedule my 12 week scan. Am booked in for 9.30am tomorrow.

10am Still in bed, perking up, contemplating the mountain of work that needs to be done before our rental inspection this afternoon. Receive phone call from dear friend with 1 year old child who volunteers to come over for moral support.

10.40am In a burst of enthusiasm, leap out of bed, start tidying and cleaning, put dishwasher on, put out recycling.

10.45am Back in bed. Feeling vile again.

And so on….

Until 8.30 tonight, when I put “The Joy Luck Club” in the DVD player, and wept uncontrollably for 2 hours.

Eek!

Just been to the Doc. I felt too vile to get out of bed at 7am this morning, so I emailed work to let them know that I would be in later, when the world stopped spinning.

At 10am, after I had a nap and some breakfast, I decided that work was not on the cards for me today. I rang my GP, and made an appointment for midday. My blood test results from last week were in, all normal, but I still need to keep up my Vitamin D – more sun exposure I suppose. I am not anaemic, and I don’t have syphilis. I am sure Mark will be glad to know that. My blood pressure is fine (for “my condition”), so unless I am hypoglycaemic, he is at a loss to explain why I am having dizzy spells.

What is a worry, is that I seem to have lost 3 kilos in about a week – despite the fact that I am eating as much, and as well, as I can.

I’ve been given a week off work, so I have stocked up on carbs, and got home in time for Oprah.

I have promised to do some product shots for work today, so I will also photograph the gorgeous booties that Bex made Ampersand on the weekend. Prepare for extreme cuteness.

Comments Redux

I have found the Subscribe to Comments link at the bottom of the page, and made it a little more prominent on the right sidebar. Hopefully that will make things a little easier.

Thanks everybody for your comments, I have decided to take your advice, and respond in comment unless the content is too scary for public consumption!

In spawn news, we have just met Anna, our doula for the first time, and found her to be lovely. Yay!

Life in Denistone

Friday night was a long one. Aunty Emily had a heart attack, and has been taken to Liverpool Hospital. She “came over all weak and floppy”, she has had a blockage removed already but may need more surgery. We went over to Hurlstone Park to collect Cocky, who spent Friday night in our shower. She wasn’t impressed with being put in a cat carrier for the trip, and bit Mark thoroughly through his welders gloves. I am afraid she may have hurt a wing, but since I don’t know what is normal for this bird, I am loathe to put her through the stress of another car ride (the only avian vet that is open on a Sunday is miles away) while she is just settling in.

We have made her a much bigger house (though still tiny for such a large parrot), which she will hopefully learn to like more than the tiny cage she has been in for the last god knows how many years.

Saturday morning we made a quick trip out to Dural for the 80th birthday of an old family friend. Mary and her family lived next door to us when we were growing up, and Mary was like a third grandmother to Adam and I. I haven’t seen her in years, so it was lovely to be able to see her on such a momentous occasion, and to introduce her to Mark – and to tell her our news. It was also great to catch up with Donna, her daughter, who I have always adored.

We then went to Bunnings to buy Cockatoo house fixings. Note to self: Just because one’s husband has an honours degree in pure maths does not mean he is capable of simple calculation. I believe we’ll be popping in to Bunnings again today.

Then off to Rubi + Lana’s for the late shift. THe shop closes at 2pm, I got there about 2.30pm, so no shopping for me (which could be a good thing). Too ill to do much knitting, but the (insert superlative here) Kate gave me three balls of gorgeous fluffy orange stuff with an alpaca base, and a bath bomb which will get used very soon. Thanks Kate!

Still feeling vile, I dragged myself home, and into bed. Got up a couple of times to supervise cockatoo house building, but head-spins and dizziness drove me back to my bed.

It’s now sunday morning, and I promise some pictures of the new arrival as soon as Mark gets up. I can’t contemplate getting out of bed without a full breakfast, and a significant lie in.

PS. Cocky needs a name. I can’t go to the vet with a magnificent bird with a name like “Cocky”. The ignominy.
PPS. I hate myself a little for saying this, but 45 days in prison for Paris Hilton brings me joy. Hopefully that means 45 days of no “Paris News”. I can hardly wait.