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Wednesday 1 October 2014

Meercats and the mispelt "freshwater fish of the family Cyprinidae" year continues

I've not blogged for a few weeks, although I've got a couple of posts started, because I've been having to work late days in order to make use of some equipment that is located at a suppliers site about five and a thousand miles away from where I sit in the office. I've actually been really impressed by that as I don't know anybody else in our company who has managed to do the same thing because we usually have the equipment in the same building, if not in the same room, that we're working in.

The last few weeks have been a nightmare on a personal level.

With the passing of my father-in-law in the summer we had to clear his flat the other weekend. The entire family turned out to help with sorting things out. Putting the things people had been left by him, or wanted, into two vans and putting everything else into a skip to be got rid of.

It was a tiring weekend but also just about the last time that I have to pretend to be my old self.

Most of the weekend went OK, our evening meal and breakfast at the hotel we stayed at were a bit of a disaster but the hotel itself was fine.
The evening meal we'd tried to book at the pub attached to the hotel ended up being at a restaurant about quarter of a mile walk away, which was a problem in itself because one of the group couldn't walk that far. Then the restaurant had run out of both tonic water and also fish and chips which at least one of the party had wanted.
Breakfast was absolute chaos as it was a serve yourself situation and they ran out of so many items, including glasses and mugs.

The last week has been more stressful than usual although I did discover that our local petrol station employs meercats behind the cash registers.

Yesterday I popped in to fill up with petrol before we went away for the day. As I was paying I caught a woman member of staff looking at me from the corner of my eye. She popped behind the counter and walked around the where the chap who was serving me was sat. She then looked straight at me. Completing my transaction I turned and left. As I was walking across the forecourt I turned and looked back and could see her staring at me and talking to the guy who'd served me. At that point his head popped up over the top of the till and they both stared in my direction.
Ok, I accept I probably wasn't looking my best yesterday but that was a spectacularly rude thing to do.
Still it was funny in its own way.

Last week my Dad rung me as Mum had been into hospital to get some test results. She's had a problem breathing for a while and when she went in recently for the hospital to have a look at why they'd removed what was thought was mucus from her but which they then said was a bit of food.
When they went back last week the doctors told them that she had cancer, their not sure whether its kidney or lung cancer but given her problems with breathing I'm hedging on the latter. She has an appointment at a different hospital tomorrow for some form of x-ray which will hopefully confirm what it is. We'll find out all the details on Friday when we go up to see them.

This week started off in spectacular style with Rhys being in a lot of pain. He's been having these pains for a number of weeks now. The doctors aren't sure what are causing it. Normally he has them at night just around bedtime. Sunday was no different.
Monday morning he woke up and still had the pain, a first.
We contacted the hospital and ended up spending the day there while they gave him pain relief and observed him. Eventually the pain subsided and we came home.
Yesterday he had an appointment for an ultrasound at our local hospital. The scan didn't show anything untoward and in fact showed that his kidneys were both working fine and looked normal. Something we'd been worried about after the radiotherapy.

In the afternoon we headed to Bristol so that he could have a MRI scan. This proved to be more problematic.
Everything was fine, the nurse collected us from the waiting room, Rhys got himself ready and we went into the room where they were going to do the scan. In another first I was told I could stay in there with him. I just had to sit in a chair and wear ear defenders during the procedure.
Well it was the most riveting experience, not. I almost dozed off a couple of times.
After about 20 minutes and not even a third of the way through the scan things took a turn for the worst.
Rhys pressed the panic button and the nurse came and got him out of the machine. He was in the worst pain that he had been in with his stomach. There was no way he could continue with the scan. Getting him dressed and with the pain subsiding slightly we got him to the oncology day unit where they checked him over without figuring out anymore about what was causing the problem than anyone else has done to date. They gave him pain relief and we were able to come home. Although the pain has eased from time to time its not gone away. He's managed to get some sleep over night but it looks like we're going to have to take him into hospital again today, something that is upsetting him because it means he has to miss college.
To top it all his Mum and I needed to be in Plymouth by lunchtime so that my she can see a consultant about her Neurofibromatosis. Something that we've been trying to organize since Rhys was diagnosed with his tumour. She really needs to see this consultant so that she can be monitored, the last thing we need is for her to be taken seriously ill and it be too late to do anything about it. Rhys is in such a state though that we're going to have to postpone that so that we can be around today in order to work with the doctors to come up with a plan to figure out what is wrong with him.

All in all its been a pretty mixed few weeks. Still the sun is shining and we've had the driest September for a while. As a bonus I found out last night that one of the girls from my GIC who went to Brighton the week before me has had her date for surgery. Hopefully I'll be able to get my date too. We'll see when I ring later.

Have a good one :-)

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