Blink Twice if you are okay

 So yes, Debby, the second operation was on Wednesday.

I am on the other side safely.

 

I would be holding a newspaper, but they aren't a thing any more around here.

Wednesday was, by all accounts, a beautiful day - I did wake with a slight niggle of a headache, but I thought little of it.  I had eaten my last food well before the midnight deadline, and was on water until 9am as it looked like I was a fairly late in the list.

Turns out, however, that the slight niggle of a headache was in fact the migraine fairy's gift, and by the time I thought "hmm, I should hit it with the good medicine" (as I now know from previous experience I am allowed to) it had amped up to the second cycle of migraine hell, whereby all within is evacuated.

By the time I got into the hospital, we were at the far end of this cycle, which means that the nurses could tell pretty soon that I was to be put in a dark corner to endure my misery without too much interruption.

Unfortunately, hospitals work on systems - and not all hospitals are equal.

The first eye operation occurred in a very old hospital in town - I have now had 3 operations in that one, and, while "very old" is the first expression that comes to mind, very organised and efficient can also be applied.

This operation is the second that I have had in the newer hospital - the other being the colonoscopy in 2020 linked above - and I don't know if my experience tainted by both being associated with migraines, but this go around was neither organised nor efficient - at least, not from the dark corner in which I lay moaning.

In their haste to get me through to this side of the waiting area, they failed to stash my personal belonging - that oversight required far more interaction than I could actually consciously navigate.

The other hospital has a nurse hand-off protocol to the pre-theatre room which has an extremely well-organised nurse's station.  This one had a row of chairs, a few beds and the nurse balancing files and pre-op requirements on a small desk.

They lost my file.  They failed to give me a shower cap (not so technical term for the keeping of hair out of ones eyes - or indeed theatre - when one's eye is to be operated on).  The man in the next bed droned on and on about his numerous surgeries at the hospital, casually throwing racist terminology about and using his deafness and age as an excuse for ignorance. 

The nurse was not the best at administering eye-drops - I mean, I may not have been the best at receiving eye-drops also, given the sheer effort to open my eyes at that point, but she was very short with my shortcomings in that regard and did nothing to up her own game.

Then they had a poor student nurse come around and check vitals and details - I advised the one vital I required - stat (I love medical terminology) - was an emesis bag (see, another medical term!) and the poor dear didn't have the time (or training) to pull the curtains closed before I used it.

The anaesthetic nurse then came down to see what was the go, and after a discussion with the Dr advised I could stay and have it or come another day - given the 100% rate of migraines for operations in this hospital, I figured have it I would - and she put some drugs in the dripline to help me through. 

There was a short comedy routine about finding something to put the drip bag onto - I thought that surely there must be something attached to the whizz bang hospital bed to use given ironing boards in the 1970s had already dealt with similar requirements - holding something high attached to the hot thing moving around on the horizontal surface - but finding such a thing was outside their scope.  When the orderly finally arrived to wheel me down to the corridor outside the next waiting area before theatre he proved my theory right.

I remember absolutely NOTHING about the operation.  

The usual sandwiches (one meat & pickles, one ham, tomato & cheese) and the cup of coffee for post recovery that they gave me (instant, white) were A-MA-ZING (after I removed the plastic cheese)!  I think there is extra chew in the crusts of hospital sandwiches or something.

I didn't really come out of the migraine stupor until about 8pm that night.

The general routine for my ophthalmologist is to do checkups the next day, and they have found a little bit of a pressure issue in the second eye, which, while it is not entirely unusual can be a concern when you have an added layer of WTF with your eyes, so that means closer monitoring - and the joy of some sulphur tablets for two days.

The side effects of sulphur tablets (besides, hopefully, fixing the pressure in the eye) is it is a diuretic (so more weeing), may make me feel nauseous, my food taste awful and possible headaches.

The good news is I can see distances without glasses!!  I still need something for reading, but was able to, for the first time in my life, go into the chemist and buy some cheapies from their stand.  They all looked ugly, so I bought the ugliest (and cheapest) pair that I could.

And in the blink of an eye

 So I am on the other side of the operation and it went very well. Very blessed indeed.

Of course, now that means that I have one far superior eye and my view slants to the left, but what is new! (A little political/physical play there for folks that require the explanation).

My life is a regimen of bells and whistles alerting me throughout - get up, prepare breakfast/lunch/leftovers, get dressed, get going, set up, eat breakfast, call my parents, start work, inbox, workflow, meetings, teams, discussions, deadlines, lunch, budgets, pack up, drive, collect daughter from school, drive, get home, set up, start work, phone calls, problem solving, spreadsheets, macros, shut down, pack away, prep dinner, argue with teenager about setting the table,  drink wine, watch a quiz show, cook dinner, watch local news, eat dinner, argue with teenager about eating habits, watch sitcom, argue with teenager about clearing the table, shower, get tablets, watch cop show with teenager, argue with teenager about phone usage (while sharing the couch - it's our us time - we bond over Bradford), bedtime routine, sleep.

Since the op, I have had to fit in four rounds of eyedrops in the good eye.

I was talking to V this evening.

"You have to remember" I told him " that she is a 14yo girl, and there is nothing more argumentative in the world than a 14yo girl."

He raised his eyebrows (as apparently neither of us were blessed with the cool single -eyebrow-arching trait).

"I was actually known as anything-for-an-argument-Jeanie when I was a teenager, because I used to argue anything."

"Used to?" he said.

I have not done much in the way of genealogy for a while. I have wintered with a few shows courtesy of Netflix of late.

I did Bridgerton. Apparently all of the mothers of 14yo girls are watching. I think that I might have found out why.

Queen Charlotte, The Queen's Gambit and Inventing Anna took me through the last few weeks. I am a very slow binger, falling asleep before an episode is through. How lucky are we that this is a possible way to watch, pausing for another 20 minutes tomorrow as opposed to the good old days of what you slept through you missed and waiting for next week's episode of my childhood?

12 days until the next eye gets done.

Pirate Leave 1

 I am officially on my first round of "Pirate Leave" from work.

I could have had my last food at 4am (I didn't, I slept instead) and am on water until 9am (man the coffee smells good).

10.15 I am expected at the hospital and they are doing "the good eye" first.

I am a bit anxious. 

I don't do leave. I mean I do, but generally it is in order to be busy elsewhere. I don't actually know how to relax these days, and reading is my general relaxation outlet when enforced. 

There are 3 weeks between this operation and the other to ensure that pressures stay on track due to the Fuchs factor. Apparently I can pop the lens of my glasses on the done eye and I might be useful - I have threatened to be the blind sage in the corner at work should that not be the case. 

Of course, that is dependant on my driving ability - I currently have custom hours so I don't drive in the dark so I do have a workstation set up at home. I don't mind working from home, but it does make a bit of a disconnect from the team camaraderie.

Anyway, that is my day ahead - handing over control and hoping for the best.

See you the other side.

Five go driving around Tasmania

.

December 1983 if memory serves me right.

We were in boarding school by then. I think that it was the last big holiday before BushBabe's last year of school - or maybe it was a year either way?

Anyway, I was at that rather gangly age where society and I weren't gelling all that well, and my beautiful mother decided she would try to make my awkwardness better by getting a local dressmaker to make me some clothing that would make me feel that much more uncomfortable out and about all over the nation.

It took a full day of driving for us to get to Brissy, where we stayed with the wonderful Grandma Mart.

She met us at the door, cigarette holder in one hand, hat and gardening gloves in the other.

Several times she stressed the importance of booking two taxis to get us to the airport at 5. There were two very good reasons for her not to offer her services.

The first was she had only obtained her licence the decade prior, in her sixties and newly widowed, and coming back from the airport into Brisbane peak hour traffic required a level of insanity it took years of practice to even attempt.

And the second was she didn't do Five AM.

However the taxi telephonist and Dad knew better, so it was at the ungodly hour of five am that we learned what Grandma was trying to save us from.

Whilst the taxi did indeed have five passenger seats, it also had newly converted to LPG per new taxi legislation, which meant that approximately half of his bootspace had been given to the tanks.

For a moment the taxi driver and Dad both believed that they could convince Mum to leave half of the luggage behind rather than look for a better solution.

When we got to Launceston, however, it turned out that the hire car was a sedan. Mum had not had a sedan for years for good reason. She was an awesome packer of cars but preferred to err on the side of more than enough room rather than anything resembling minimalism.

The thing about Launceston is there is so much history involving sinking buildings - PLUS it rained so much that the buildings that we were in felt like they were sinking.

The drive South involved a lot of historic sights, and then Port Arthur (pre-massacre but still gruesome enough) and the arguments regarding the Casino.

Nowhere else had a Casino in the country at the time, so Dad was petitioning Mum for them both to attend, as he didn't want to attend alone. Mum was pulling the "but I am a mother of children and I never could leave them alone" card. BushBabe threw in her offer to accompany Dad and pretend a 3-15 month older.

Again, nobody won.

Rounding the bottom of Tasmania, we drove through amazing forests with strange little timber towns that travellers dare not stop for fear of the locals.

One experience that I will never forget is rounding one corner of those woody hills to the stark nudity of the hills around Queenstown, Tasmania. Due to some fallout from mining - or the industry surrounding it - vegetation had all fled. It was cold and windy and miserable and the car was silent for the Queenstown to Strahan leg of the journey.

The Gordon below Franklin argument had just been had, and even hardened country voters had paid attention to the plight.

All I remember of the cruise that we went on is seeing some more historical sites, relics of man's inhumanity to man.

All I remember of the last leg of our journey was there were poppies - and big signs saying not to stop. I got apple perfume from somewhere.  Oh, and Mum nearly got blown down by the draft of a big truck and someone had snails or spatchcock or something French and fiddly at an overly dark restaurant.

I would say Happy National Chocolate with Almonds day, but

 that was yesterday.

Today is actually State Revolution Day, which I thought must be something to do with Argentina as it's Argentina Independence Day, but apparently something to do with 1932 and the Paulistas and Brazil. I must admit that I am very uneducated about South American history, but I can blurrily trace the lineage of the  monarchy back to Stephen, which has been useful.

It is also NAIDOC week. NAIDOC Week will celebrate and recognise the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

I find it sad that so many people fear looking frankly at such a situation and instead of thinking "what can we all do together to make it better" the way that they used to, command "Hush. Eyes in front".

I miss having an inquisitive voice. I never realised - or forgot - that I used to be reticent to take anything at face value, but my mother showed me through example the power of seeking understanding without bludgeoning - or being bludgeoned - with doggerel and sneer - or smear.

I digress. I am sorry.

I had a lovely long weekend getaway to the house of a very old friend.  

I got to listen to a curated soundtrack of my - well, in the good old days her seat would have held the navigator, but in this day and age she merely had to choose the right settings on Google maps - so offsider would have to be the term, so my offsider that was interesting.

 I was reminded a little of who I used to be many, many moons ago.

We got to fall in love with a little dog and old cat and ate and drank and shopped (within our very specific limits).

We chose recipes for a dish for a shared feast.

For old times sake, I developed a migraine (hours after boasting of their dearth) and thus thrust the responsibility of dessert on the offsider and old friend.

I got better enough to enjoy a gathering of friends, including six women aged 14 to over 5 times that (although most of us were shy of sixty) (goodness that came quick).

We discovered just how delicious grapefruit can be in this: A Zest For Life - glorious-grapefruit-sherbert-with-three-ingredients-vegan/

I got to have a talk on the phone with my Mum. I am so thankful for modern technology. Dad was preparing for a day afield, and she was manning the fort.

I miss my Mum. Too often she is only the other person in the room when having my morning phone call with Dad, as her mind is easily cloudy these days and he is craving human contact - but this one morning over the weekend she picked up the phone and she was sharp and wisps of the witty woman that she was fluttered in.

Bookending such a lovely weekend was EOFY workloads that can only be understood if you have ever worked in a finance team in the trenches at this time of year.

* I just read about Palau Constitution Day and I am starting to think that the world is being rewritten by AI and/or it is time for me to sleep.

Night All.