I hope you are all well. Jan came through his second hip replacement surgery well, and appears to be completely on track with post-operative healing and mobility. This is excellent.
However, just when I thought that family was the gift that might stop giving, Uncle Norman had to be moved to a nursing home. My mother, Mike, Jan & I worked non-stop for about three weeks to pack up his whole flat, put all his gear in storage, and do our best to wind up his outside affairs as he would have liked them done, find him a rest home, and start getting into a routine of visiting him.
It has been pretty crazy. I am glad that I took most of May out of doing my PhD, else I think I would have been going spare now.
Uncle Norman's change in circumstances also coincided with NMIT end of semester reports coming in and me needing to moderate 50 students' project work and reflections. No pressure.
Then my mother got sick and had to go to hospital with breathlessness and a lung infection. Turns out she has a heart condition, which I found out about accidentally by turning up when her lung specialist was talking to her. Thank goodness I arrived in her room when I did.
All that was two weeks out from her 80th birthday party, which I was trying to organise in the remaining three minutes I had left this month... all while waiting for Jan to go under the knife for his last hip operation, and fighting the council to ensure that they put in all weather access to our valley as they were replacing our bridge (initially they hadn't been going to do ANYTHING about allowing us to get to our homes. Perhaps they were expecting us to fly?).
Collectively, all the happenings over the past four months led to three break-through migraines last week: the first patch I have had in a year. Not surprising really. But, by crikey, I hope that is IT for a while. I need six months of peace and quiet.
Of course, I am not going to get it. Next month I am off to Australia for a PhD induction and a planning session, I have two other research papers which need to be edited ready for publication, I start teaching a brand new paper in four weeks' time which I haven't even looked at yet, my sister tells me that the rest home my Uncle is in is poor, so he needs to be moved, my mother goes to the cardiologist in a fortnight and I need to go with her, and and and...
Deep breath.
We have concreted in part of the dog run under the gate, and bought and hung a new steel gate, as Boo has turned out to be an escapologist. So far she has not escaped since "project imprisonment" was completed. Bonnie has a malignant tumour on her hind leg, so is not likely to be with us for much longer. However, we have not told her she is sick, so she doesn't know, and is carrying on as normal ;-D
And the world continues to give us visual gifts, as you can see:
Barb was back from the US this month, and came to stay in the last week, to help me organise the last bits and pieces for our Mother's 80th.
But more about that next month... and hopefully this time it is all good news.
Take care!
Sam (& Jan)
