Stepping Down

For the past year, steps like these beauties have been my nemesis. I'm now having to go up & down stairs in the house & garden sideways like a crab & it is not a good look for a relatively young woman. My dodgy left knee is on its last legs (pardon the pun), so this Wednesday it will be hacked out & replaced with a Biomet Vanguard, the Maserati of knee prostheses, so my lovely Orthopaedic Surgeon tells me. I'm actually not concerned what marque of car it is most closely aligned to, all I want is to give the crab walk & this grinding, relentless, intractable pain the flicko.

I'll be heading into hospital on the first day of my Annual Leave, not exactly the vacation destination I had envisaged. Working up until Tuesday arvo as I want to keep my mind occupied on other matters, 'cos quite frankly I'm quietly terrified of the events of the coming week. Having a nursing degree is of no help whatsoever, in fact ignorance is probably bliss at a time like this.

I've watched the whole procedure on a Vimeo webcast, planned my post-op recovery with the bestest Physio in town, drilled the Anaesthetist about pain management 'til he could stand no more, down-loaded a years worth of mags in my iPad & 23 pages of instructions for Mr. Grumpy MOTH.

So dear Hedgies, I'll be stepping down for a while to get this whole thing done & dusted. I'll still chuck some quick posts up on The Hedge's FB page if you want to follow the progress of Millie's new knee, naming suggestions welcome. Send me positive thoughts on Wednesday morning & MOTH food. Bye for now, missing you already, love you lots. 

Call Home!

It was a shocking day yesterday here in the Adelaide Hills. It was one of those sizzling hot Summer days, the temperature reached 45C. (113F.) and an evil North wind blew fiercely. It was the first catastrophic Bushfire day declared in yonks. For the first time in 4 years I was worried, so dragged out my stash of 'Go, Don't Stay' treasure tubs, ready to grab if we needed to make a quick exit.

I've shoved the normal irreplacable stuff in them, old family photos & letters, the wedding album, computer hard drive etc. I told MOTH to lob the Insurance file in too & anything else he thought really important. Returning a couple of minutes later to close the lid, this is what I found. How different we are.



We dodged a bullet, but sadly, our friends in Tassie did not. Son #2 & his girlfriend are on a camping holiday there & are somewhere on the East coast. I've just heard that the beautiful coastal town of Bicheno is under immediate threat. We've tried calling his cell phone lots today, but haven't been able to make contact. I'm sure he's OK, but would like to hear that directly from him. If you happen to read this post mate, CALL HOME!!!

 

Addendum 8th January - ' Hey yeah no, haven't had my phone turned on since last week. Camping on the beach, it was awesome, saw the bushfires in the distance but we weren't worried. When I turned my phone back on I had 1,782 missed calls, dunno what the problem was, everything's cool. Back in Hobart today, flying home tomorrow. See ya.' 

 

This from the same son who only took t-shirts, shorts & flip-flops to backpack around Europe in December/January! Thanks everyone for your messages of concern. DFAT now issues a travel warning when they know he's on the move anywhere around the globe!