A Short Note

Sorry for the lack of updates.  We just didn't get around to it last week.  I promise that there will be a lengthier post this week.  Unfortunately I have moved rooms again to Room 3 so don't go looking for me in Room 1:-)   More news soon, I promise.....

17-10-12

Last Monday, Jack and Geetha arrived bearing chocolates that were so good that Norm and I finished them before the week was out.  We had an enjoyable lunch at Cafe Essence.

Russ and Colin paid me a visit on Tuesday evening.  It was lovely to catch up with both of them.   Despite their adventurous appetites, we couldn't convince them to try any of Norm's or my dinner (which was caviar on toast).  Later that night the nurses informed me that they had scheduled me for a minor operation on Friday which of course caused me to break into tears, as I am a complete wuss about needles.

Norm and I paid a visit to the QUT testing laboratory at Banyo on Wednesday to witness the testing to destruction of a new roof profile we have been looking at.  I love to see things tested to destruction.  Perhaps I shall apply for a position with Myth Busters next year ;-)

We were back at the Hospital by 4 pm.  Ev arrived around 5 pm and has generously loaned/donated her backgammon set to me for the duration of my stay in Brisbane.  As I haven't managed to throw the dice myself yet, Ev had to roll them for me.  I won the game thanks to all the double sixes she rolled for me, not for her!

My Physio Tiffany had her last day here at SIU on Thursday and managed to schedule me for hydro-therapy at the last minute, which was a great start to the day.  Tiffany has been replaced by another physio also named Tiffany.  She will have to work hard to keep the Tiffany standard up!  They whisked me off for an xray of my knee straight after hydro: my knee had been very painful for the last week or so (unfortunately it still is).  On return they decided to put a canula in for some anti biotics as a "prophylactic" before surgery on Friday.  This precaution, while probably valid, is nonetheless worrying for a major hospital in a first-world country!  All of this meant that I missed OT once again, thus got to keep my Permobile wheelchair for another few days.

Friday was Nil by mouth and a complete write off due to the operation.  I am fine with anti-anxiety medicine that ends in 'pam', but not in 'lam': understandable as I am a pescatarian.  Fortunately the nurses and anaesthetists remembered this.

I had hoped to be able to meet Martin at the Norman Hotel for a few games of scrabble on Saturday, but we changed the venue to the hospital as I didn't fancy dragging an IV stand down there with me!  Norm headed back to Townsville at 2 pm; he may have taken part of my brain with him, as Martin flogged me convincingly in the first two games.  Luckily Suzy arrived for a surprise visit in time to pick out letters for me for the third game (all the S's, Z, X, Q and K); not only that, she also found me a seven letter word "crashes" (which I understand is her first bonus word in scrabble!  Thus, with all this help, I managed to beat Martin in the third game.  I listened enviously to Suzy's vacation details, I expect Machupichu is out of the question for me for the next few years, the Inca's not being terribly focussed on wheelchair access.  After Suzy and Martin left, I got the nurses to set up the Kindle for me and read another 50 chapters of Jack Reacher.  I finally quit at 1:30 a.m. as I was scared I would fall asleep and lose my place :-)

Val and Sam arrived at lunchtime on Sunday.  Sam bought me a pistachio cream apricot danish at the markets as well as a huge back of cherry tomatoes, so you can guess what I had for lunch :-)  Uncle Keith and Aunty Di arrived from Perth to catch up with Val and visit me.  It is lovely of them to come all that way.  Uncle Keith got roped into being scrabble hands almost straight away;-)    We had a quiet and enjoyable afternoon on the verandah.

This week to date has been getting back to the routine of physio and OT, with the exception of an MRI of my knee yesterday.  Hopefully this will give some results, as the Xray certainly hasn't.  For some reason the loud thumping of the MRI machine puts me to sleep - go figger!   We all (Val, Keith, Di and I) had pizza for dinner last night.  We had plenty of room as Joy left yesterday.  It was sad to see her go but also it was happy for her to be going home, even if she had to wait from noon until after 4 pm for drugs from the Hospital pharmacy.  

Karen Sanders rang last night with an invitation for Val and me to go to the Construction Awards Gala on Friday night.  Ky has kindly agreed to express post my ballgown and shoes to me.  Val has said she is happy to shop for a new outfit and shoes - the theme is high glamour.  Of course, Val didn't want to put anyone to the trouble of going to Magnetic Island to find an existing outfit: I think she just wants to shop for something new!  Sam also called and is coming in later today (Wednesday) for a game of scrabble.  She also kindly offered to bring in dinner so Val could have the evening off to take her brother Keith and sister-in-law Diane out to dinner.  Good timing! 

On that note I think this blog is long enough!   xxxx

 

Ladies and Gentlemen (who lunch)

It has been a very social week.  Last Sunday 30 September Larissa, Julie (ET), Emmy and I lunched at the London Club in Teneriffe.  We had a great time and I learnt how difficult it is it wheel a wheelchair out of a taxi when it is on a hill - by 'difficult' I mean terrifying!  We adjourned to the deck of the hospital to continue the scrabble until Larissa had to leave to catch her plane.  Sam also stopped by with some lime and coconut cupcakes for afternoon tea.  Delicious!

The last 3 scrabble games went to me for which thanks is due to Emmy for her excellent tile picking :-)

Val and I sneaked a game in on Monday afternoon before putting the scrabble aside until Friday.

Margie and Ralph (Swiss) arrived bright and early on Tuesday morning with coffee to help me through physio.  Ralph was volunteered to act as my "punching" bag: he had to hold his hand at arms length in front of me and I had to try and hit it.  Very tiring work: he had no cause to say "ouch" at any time.  Apparently my career will not be as a boxer.  In the afternoon Ralph was seconded to the Dockside apartment for IT assistance: he fixed the printer so Ron  is out of a free trip to Brisbane. 

On Tuesday evening Margie and Ralph introduced me to a new puzzle which is called "Kakuro". Highly addictive, a whole hour passed without our noticing, I recommend it to all puzzlers.

On Wednesday we went to lunch at the excellent Sono at Portside.  Val and I were joined by Margie and Ralph, Christine Baulch, Julie (ET) and Celeste.  We found time for a spot of shopping after lunch and rewarded ourselves with a late afternoon tea at Max Brenner.  More Kakuro puzzles finished off the evening.

Thursday was Margie and Ralph's last day.  We lunched at Cafe Essence and made it back in time for OT at 1:30.  Margie was volunteered to act as bed tester so I hope Darrel approves of her choice of mattress!  We also spent nearly two hours getting the power chair scripted; sadly now that this is done they will take my current chair away from me on Tuesday.  I am considering bribing the rep for me to keep the chair until my new one is delivered: or perhaps chaining myself to the chair like an environmentalist tree hugger.....

I received a call from Darrel on Friday morning with bad news.  None of the airlines could find his reservation, the booking must not have gone through as planned.  As it was the last weekend of school holidays, it was way too expensive to find new flights.  This disappointment has had a silver lining in that he was able to fix the air conditioner at my place (again!) before holiday guests arrived.  Thank you again Darrel (smooches) I can't wait to see you again soon.

I had my third hydrotherapy session on Friday afternoon.  It is hard work but still my favorite part of physio.

As tuckered out as I was, I managed to prove that I am able to turn a power switch on and off without needing assistance.  As my future power chair will be able to go up and down, this means there is no need for any major changes to the wiring in the Dalgety Apartment.

EV stopped by for a game of scrabble late in the afternoon on Friday, having cycled from Annerley.  This gave us a wonderful excuse to eat chocolates.  I chickened out of playing the word Homager (it's good); I had also chickened out of playing "derivate" against Val earlier in the week", also good :-(   This place is making me lose my 'mojo'!)

We celebrated Helen Maurus's 30th birthday with her and Shane at Sardine Tin and then Movenpick.  I think Shane was relieved we left the scrabble board at the hospital :-). It was great to catch up with them both.  Val predicts wedding bells ;-)

Recently the Hospital has been delivering meals to patients bedsides while the dining room is being renovated.  Most of mine have of course been returned u eaten, particularly with all my eating out.  This prompted a visit by the dietitian who was concerned I wasn't eating, I should have simply directed her to this blog :-)

One of the nurses informed me this morning that Anita and Geoff were here to visit me.  Of course this turned out to be Geetha and Jack from Perth, so now I have another lunch date tomorrow:-)  In the meantime our apologies for worrying Sue about whether daughter Anita was at Tinaroo or in Brisbane!

Belated congratulations to my darling niece Cali for her great success in this year's Townsville Eisteddfod.  Loved the photos!

Thanks again to everyone for all their  love and support. xxx Julie

 

Same old same old

Since the last blog there has been a lot of scrabble action with Val, Martin, and Sam last week (I got to play eunuchs and bitching against Sam). This week I attended another scrabble tournament at the hotel Norman which was very enjoyable even though I only won one game out of six. Alistair Richards showed me how i could have won two more games, strategies I wish I had thought of at the time :-)

On Monday I faced up to another cortisone injection in my right shoulder which I spent the time up to the injection crying and the time after it sleeping, hopefully it will work again this time.

My driving has improved markedly but sadly the chair still wants to kill pedestrians perhaps this is a subconscious desire on my part. On a more serious note I have been venturing further afield in the chair.  Darrell and I went to the Boggo Rd markets last week end. The markets were further away than I thought as I used a "shortcut". The sour cherry Danish and bargain seafood were worth it.

Last week at hydrotherapy I managed to lift my left knee partly out of the water, sadly the pool was fully booked this week,. I will keep you updated on my progress.

In OT I have successfully opened a sliding door and a handle door with relatively little damage to the door.

Plans for the Dalgety unit are progressing and I am still hopeful that the mods will be complete by Christmas

Apologies to all for the lack of posts and the brevity of this one  but there is so little time and so much to do.  My scribe is weary and my two finger typing is too slow.

Like sand in the hourglass, with apologies to Days of Our Lives

Stardate Friday 7 September
Val and I had a very good game of scrabble final scores me 523 Val 399. This did not deter her from taking me on again on Sunday :-) . On Saturday Val Karen Sanders and I went to Chelsea at the barracks for lunch we shared a surprisingly dry bottle of NZ sav blanc. I had the ricotta gnocchi with peas and asparagus which was delicious.  It was great to catch up with Karen before Val and I dashed off to the movies to see The Sapphires, it was a very funny movie I give it 4 stars.
On Monday we went to the Buranda shopping centre and got vegetables to steam for dinner. The carrots were cutt julienne style for quick cooking but alas the shape does not facilitate self feeding as the bits slide all round the plate trying to elude my fork,  something they must have learned from the beans
Sore shoulders on Tuesday from 30 minutes and 5.5 km on the arm bike. This was relieved by the nice lady at the Chinese massage place.
Norm went to Tamworth on wednesday and I managed very well on my own ( well on my own with visits from Karen and Paul Richards, Martin and Sam). I won four out of five games of scrabble and had a lovely dinner courtesy of Sam
Yesterday I did 45 minutes on the leg bike which was a bit of a cop out as it pedals for you. But I did 400 arm stretches in the afternoon which necessitated heat packs on the shoulder to relieve the pain. Chunky food for dinner which was good as I was able to search and stab every chunk without assistance, even the grape.  I rewarded myself with a chocolate before cleaning my teeth.  Norm left to watch Inspector Morse but fell asleep before it finished so doesn't know who the culprit was so I guess he will have to wait for a rerun.
Friday I had my first hydrotherapy session I just wish it could have been longer. Hopefully another next week if not I will complaining to anyone who will listen to me and many who won't 

05/09/12

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated...i was actually allowed out today into the general public in the right hand drive chair! 
 

Darrel arrive Saturday morning with his BBQ face on and made us a delicious lunch of BBQ garlic butter crayfish and salad.  We had a fairly quiet weekend as I can't drive far without taking a little nana nap but it was lovely sitting in the sun and reading the weekend papers together.  Poor Darrel had to leave on the red eye flight on Monday morning to get back to work.  He was very lucky to make it as two burly security guards pulled him aside at the hand luggage X-ray and asked him if he was carrying any weapons.  He said "no" but then had some serious explaining to do when they found the meat clever in his backpack!  He had forgotten to return it to the cutlery drawer in the apartment after chopping the crayfish for lunch;)

On Sunday we discovered some new movement in my left hand, the index finger and very useful rude middle finger.  Very happy about that!

I have had a lovely few days with Kylie.  On Tuesday night we had hot smoked salmon, baby potatoes and beans which I was able to eat with the modified fork.  There may still be a bit of salmon left in the carpet and the beans outwitted me by disguising themselves in slippery butter but all in all it was a success.  On Wednesday we went to Sono in the city where I managed a three point turn in the lift only to be greeted by two huge steps.  The restaurant manager bought out a portable ramp which was fairly scary and defeated my driving skills.  She then offered to have "a boy" lift the chair (150kg plus me).  We settled for about 8 people pushing my chair up the ramp...lunch was worth it.  Go there!

The other exciting news is that I have booked to go on the scrabble cruise in July 2013.  Darrel is coming and looking forward to trawling for mackerel from the balcony on P & O Dawn...

Physio

 

Physio was soooo tiring for Don and me...