I’ve had a bit of a break from all things normal in the last month. There will be no more gorgeous garden pics or exciting harvests for a while because it’s all been left alone for too long & most of it is dead. Let me tell you why…
Just when I was recovering from my dud back and getting back into a normal life, my much loved Auntie was going into hospital to have surgery on her spine. Touchy stuff, which left the family nervous – none as nervous as her of course, wondering if she’d ever be able to walk again or even have control of her bladder.
As we’re very close – in relationship and location, I had arranged to drive her in, look after her when I could, look after her house and cats, and look after my Nana’s housework and shopping which my Aunt normally does. A fair extra load on my plate when I’m already feeling strained and still have to go easy on my back – but geez I’d do anything for my Aunt, and what’s 4 days? No biggie.
The hospital screwed up in almost every way imaginable – except, thankfully, for the actual operation which was a success – so it was much longer than 4 days. Not so smart of them to give her Morphine when they already knew she was allergic to one of the ingredients – she ended up in ICU. And then she couldn’t even return to her ward afterwards because they’d given up her bed and had none spare. The day after she finally went back to her ward she was back in ICU again after having a seizure – again due to the hospital giving her pain meds with the same ingredient that they should have already known she’s allergic too. How pathetic is that? Oh but it gets worse. They sent her home with another pain medication with – you guessed it – the same ingredient, so she spent her first few days at home getting progressively sicker until my Mum looked up the meds online and discovered the balls-up. I haven’t even started on the rest of the mess – like how they were going to take her in for a stomach operation instead of spine! Eek.
During this time my son got sick for the first time in years (7? maybe 8 years?) and it turned out to be Rubella (or something very much like it) so I couldn’t visit my Aunt, or help my Nana, or do much else. Of course I couldn’t take Kiddo anywhere – especially not to the hospital to visit! Thankfully we contained his bugs and he didn’t spread it around to anyone that we know. A huge relief, especially knowing one of his friends is on meds that cause him low immunity, I was really worried that he’d end up sick!
A few days before all this I was in the dentists chair having an old filling fixed up. He discovered a cracked tooth that in hindsight I probably should have known about myself. It did hurt, but I thought it was just my sensitive teeth playing up. He fixed it up and I couldn’t wait for it to settle down – however it never did, in fact it got so much worse that I was having trouble eating and sleeping, and even walking sometimes hurt it if I put my feet down too solidly. So I was back to the dentist amid all this drama to have the thing removed. I just didn’t need any more farting around with a tooth when I’m already dealing with a sudden return of my menopause symptoms (Did you think I was younger? I am … for some reason my immune system decided to play with me and kicked off menopause when I was 27. Didn’t even know that was possible. Bah) Anyway, one tooth GONE. Peace, at last!
When kiddo started looking better (but was still contagious), and my aunt was still in hospital a week after she was meant to be out, I was desperate to see her. So I arranged for my sister to babysit, knowing she’d already had Rubella and couldn’t (crossed fingers) catch it again. I was so excited to finally be seeing my Aunt again!
What would normally be a 45 minute (max) drive in to the hospital became a 2 hour drive. As I was pumping air into my tyres I got a phone call from my sister. The tow truck I’d seen slowly driving down our street as I left was now parked outside my house, and the driver was busy trying to steal my van. My sister approached him, only to find he didn’t know my name, wouldn’t give his own name, and had no paperwork or proof of any kind to say he was meant to be picking up the van. My sister didn’t give in and wouldn’t let him take it without proof (yay for her, she has balls!), which made him angry, yelling and swearing and her and my son. But he left and I still have my van. It would have been nice if it was stolen to be honest! But we didn’t need the drama that went with it. Unfortunately no one could read his licence plate or even the name of the towing company, so even though the police were informed, nothing could be done about it.
So I was back to driving to the hospital.
15 minutes down the line and the traffic suddenly stopped. It appeared someone had driven their car straight into the side of the hill. I was about 10 cars behind all this, and there I sat, stood, twiddled my thumbs, wandered about and idly stared at the ocean for a good 40 minutes until the mess was cleaned up, the driver taken to hospital, and the car towed away. (Why they couldn’t let us pass is anyone’s guess!). I hope the driver is OK but I never heard anything about it afterwards.
It was while I was sitting there in a lonnnnggg line of bored travellers that I thought to call my flatmate, in case he knew of anyone who would have come to tow the van away. No, he didn’t, however he had news… his brother in law had just killed himself, upset because his wife (my flatmate’s sister) had left him. Ohh myy gawd.
So, with all of this happening in the space of about an hour, I was wondering if it was wise to keep driving to the hospital! But I did, and I’m glad, because seeing my Aunt made everything seem a lot better.
I called a friend to let him know about my Aunt’s condition after her seizure – when we were all worried that we may lose her. He decided to fly down here to be with us, which was nice of him – I needed the support! A couple of days later it was time to take him back to the airport, which was when my car’s overheating warning light decided to play up, making me think that my engine was about blow up. We pulled over a couple of times to check everything and all was well, so we can safely assume that it’s a bad sensor, but I was quite nervous driving it the rest of the way and then all the way home!
The drama isn’t over yet. Oh how I wish it was… A day later I hear from my father – he was in a car crash. I freaked. He and 2 of his brothers were on the highway. As they were passing a truck, the truck driver decided he also needed to pass the truck in front of him. He mustn’t have seen Dad’s car for quite some time, as Dad was pushed into the other side of the road and left to chose between hitting a lamppost on the other side of the road, or driving into a ditch in the other side of the road, or flat-footing it to pass the truck. He put his foot down and almost made it… but the truck’s bumper caught his car. He managed to keep control of the car but with a fair amount of damage along the side of the car (and he and his brothers all swearing, wide eyed and freaked, of course!). OMG I had visions of his car spinning and ending up under the trucks wheels and other horrible things that could have happened! Dad is fine, his brothers are fine, and the truck driver was very apologetic and takes full responsibility. The car looks a little weird but is still ok to drive. COULD have been a horrible story – but thank god for a happy ending.
Things did calm down for a bit after that, though once kiddo was definitely not contagious any more we were back to helping out my Aunt & Nana, and offering a listening ear for my flatmate. The only thing we had to deal with now was arranging the routine flea & worming treatments for my cats. Sweet – back to normal life! It felt good to get out and do something normal. However…. of course there’s more, this is very ‘Days of our Lives’ isn’t it… as I stepped out of the shop I noticed a woman a fussing over something by my car. It turns out she’d scraped my car as she was pulling into the car park. Her front bumper was well damaged, dented & cracked with a nice scrape of my car’s paint embedded into it. My car is fine – just missing some paint, which is no big deal – the bumper is plastic and I don’t need to worry about it rusting.
After all I’d been through in the last while I just couldn’t take this seriously – I laughed it off. I made sure she was ok, ooh-ed and ahhh-ed at her car’s damage, but refused her details. It’s only a car, I didn’t want her stressing over things and having to deal with insurance companies etc. I wonder if I would have reacted the same way if I hadn’t have had such drama before that? Probably – but my reaction surprised me, I really couldn’t have cared less about the damage (as mild as it was), I just wanted to make sure no one was worrying about anything. It seemed to have made her day, although she still has her own car’s damage to worry about.
So this, my dear readers, is why I haven’t been blogging, why I haven’t been watering my garden, why most of my plants are dead (*bawl*) and why I’ve had so much practice in not getting stressed in stressful situations (I actually sort of succeeded, too. Sort of. Argh.)
So please, life, can we keep it calm for a while now… I’ll beg! Please?