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Calm before storm?
It has been all excitement in Perth and the southwest the past couple of days. A cyclone from the northwest started moving in our direction and we had a cyclone watch issued on Friday with landfall expected around 2pm today. Yesterday it was changed to a cyclone warning due to hit in early evening. People everywhere have been making preparations for the storm heading our way. Although not totally unknown, cyclones don’t generally bother finding their way to Perth and the southwest of Australia. The Scientist says otherwise but I don’t recall a single cyclone watch or warning in nearly seventeen years living here. My memory isn’t so great so maybe that is one that escaped. It’s been over thirty years since Perth was hit, by Albi back in 1978, and that was a deadly one. Overnight the cyclone lost strength and we are no longer on watch or warning here. Instead we are expecting a tropical low to hit, apparently now directly aimed at Perth, and arriving late this evening. I’m guessing this is akin to the tropical storm that Hurricane Hugo turned into before it reached us in North Carolina over two decades ago. Sure, it was no longer a hurricane but it was still pretty nasty and I well remember driving home from my job at a call center late that night and having to stop because I couldn’t see in front of me. That was one of the longest drives home I ever had. So we are all in waiting and there is a certain calm around here, along with a lot of warm, humid air. To be honest, I won’t be surprised if the storm weakens so much that it totally fizzles out before it gets here and we don’t even get a good rainfall.
Totally unrelated to the cyclone, a major thunderstorm system rolled quickly down the coast yesterday and we actually got a taste of it. We’ve been lucky to get a few drops of drizzle passing through here lately, but the storm definitely made an appearance, just as I was leaving the local supermarket with several bags of groceries. Â I was totally soaked by the time I reached the car so it didn’t really matter how long it took me to get the bags into the car and return the trolley to the bay. I got home about three or four minutes later and by the time bags were in the house and I’d got out of the wet clothes, the storm was gone. The plant life in our garden is very happy.
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Update
It’s now 7 .5 days since my surgery and I’m still recovering. Fortunately pain hasn’t been a problem at any point. I stopped taking the Tramadol on Saturday and was perfectly fine on just the Panadol. I’m not sure I even needed the Panadol, aside from the first day or so I was home. I did continue to take that until Sunday but not on as regular a schedule. I find it amazing to have had major abdominal surgery and have so little pain afterwards.
The worst thing so far has been the tiredness. Until yesterday, I had been needing two or more naps every day. I managed to get through yesterday without a nap but was past ready to crash when I finally got to bed after 11pm last night. Unfortunately my bladder woke me at 5 am  (as it has several times now) and I simply couldn’t get back to sleep. So I am almost certain to need a top-up today. I’m thinking seriously about taking a walk around the block this afternoon in hopes to getting some energy back. It’s a bit like when I’ve slacked off on exercise for way too long and just need to jolt my body out of the lethargy.
I think Monday was possibly the low point of my recovery. I think the post-surgery blues had set in and I was feeling close to tears much of the day, for no reason I could fathom. That feeling isn’t totally gone now but is much less intense than Monday. Â I did sleep a lot that but when I was awake I didn’t feel like doing much of anything. I eventually settled into finishing a book I’d started back in November then left sitting on the shelf for several weeks. It’s soon due back to the library so I guess that was productive. There were also other issues, mostly digestive, that made me feel like I’d had a bit of a setback at this point. The digestive problems didn’t continue yesterday so I’m hoping that was just a temporary obstacle in recovery.
Monday I finally braved removal of the dressings for three of the four incisions. I was expecting a bit of ugliness but none looked particularly noteworthy at all. The belly button incision is a bit more obvious if I look at it but due to its location, it’s the least visible. One just under my breastbone looks like a mere scratch although the skin feels a bit irregular. The other open looks like a bit more than a scratch and that is the one that has been uncomfortable since removing the dressing. Every time I moved, it felt like it was being pulled around and sometimes it felt like it was going to open. It’s location below my breast and near the lung area is more prone to be moved about that the other one so I’m sure this is normal. That has improved but it’s still distracting me. I haven’t removed the dressing for the fourth incision because the nurse said to wait until it looks “tatty’ and it doesn’t even though it’s been five days now. That’s where the drain was and I suspect it will be more bothersome than the one next to it has been.
I’m now looking forward to that magical two week mark where I supposedly will be mostly back to normal. I do have a ban on heavy lifting until six weeks but I don’t think that would be an issue anyway. I’m really glad this surgery is now available laparascopically and has such a reduced recovery time. I can’t imagine having several more weeks of this to look forward to.
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Further observations on surgery
Most of this post was written not long after the previous one but I wanted to see if anything else came to mind before posting. I ended up doing almost a full rewrite after a a note I’d added using the WordPress app on my ipod completely messed up the formatting and I couldn’t be bothered trying to work out how to fix it. Funnily enough, I ended up with a shorter post despite elaborating on the note I’d added.********************************************************************************************************************************Some time during my first night I realized my eyes had become very dry and asked the nurse if it was possible to get some tear replacement drops. Apparently this wasn’t possible, either because it was middle of the night or some other reason. Â Or maybe she didn’t quite understand the problem. She did offer to bring some saline-soaked gauze to put on my eyes to help soothe them and then forgot until morning. While that was helpful, I had more relief when the Scientist brought my drops from home.****************************************************************I’m wondering why my drain wasn’t removed until the day I left hospital. I’d been told it was due to be removed the day after surgery but it wasn’t until the second morning it was finally done. The only reason I can come up with is that the plan was changed when I required the second catheter for my bladder. While my second night’s sleep was a huge improvement over the first, I think I’d have slept even better without the extra tube keeping me on my back.****************************************************************The nurses seemed to have varied ideas of appropriate sites for doing the heparin injection. The first ones were done on the front of each leg. The third one said stomach was better and it did seem to have little bruising. But then another nurse thought it was better on the fatty outside part of the upper thigh. Due to timing, she did two of the injections and I found when I was home there was still quite a bit of bruising there. That was more uncomfortable than the big bruise on the front of one of my legs since I sleep most of the night.A cholangiogram was done during surgery to visualise the bile ducts and the film and report were left for me in the room on day two. When I looked at the report later, I found it showed an area of the common bile duct which had underfilled with contrast. It also showed some mild narrowing of the duct but it went on to say there was free drainage to the duodenum. I plan to ask the surgeon about this at my follow up. Meanwhile, my understanding of this is that a stone was either still there during surgery or had recently been there but possibly had passed out of the duct. From what I’ve read, stones in the common bile duct are uncommon so I wonder if this is the same area that showed evidence of a stone back in November when I had my last attack or if there was a second stone. I stopped having pains after any food in early December so presumed the stone had passed. But I started having some mild pains again a few days before my surgery.****************************************************************I was really happy with the bedside manner of pretty much everyone who looked after me in the hospital. This includes the surgeon, anaesthetist, all the nurses and other staff. It would seem that at least one of them might have been having a bad day but either this wasn’t the case or it was covered up well. I don’t know if the fact this was a private hospital had any bearing or not.****************************************************************After I’d had my surgery and was back at my room, I got the guide to having laparascopic gallbaldder removal. I knew I’d be getting something since the nurse who’d spoken to me by phone told me she’d put information about what to expect at discharge in my file. But the guide should have been given to me before surgery since half of it was related to the the pre-surgery period. While most of it wasn’t of much consequence in the end, it might have been nice to know exactly what to take with me to the hospital. A minor thing was the need of a pen to fill out menu cards while there. It happens I did have a pen with me but only because I planned to work on puzzles while there. More important was the information advising me to take deep breaths after surgery to prevent clots occurring in my lungs. While I was told by the nurse ahead of time to make sure I moved my toes/feet around to keep circulation in my legs, this wasn’t discussed at any point, before or after surgery. Deep breathing really hurt and made me cough so I tended to avoid it. But I’d have made an effort had I known this was expected. I plan to provide some feedback on this since it could be important for some patients. Ironically, the foot/toe movement probably was less of an issue due to the dvt prevention treatment I had over the first night.***************************************************************When I first woke up in recovery, I am almost certain I woke from a dream and remember being a bit surprised by that. I haven’t had that feeling when I’ve had general anaesthesia in the past and I really thought that the type of unconsciousness would have ruled out any type of REM sleep. Either that or I moved into that stage of sleep after the GA was removed but before I regained consciousness. -
Lost
I went to the state library in Perth this afternoon to do a site visit to the archives area with a group of students from information studies area at our university. It just happened that train drivers were all calling in sick today so public transportation was a bit of a nightmare. I opted to drive in and park in the underground parking facility near the library. I arrived with plenty of time to spare and we did our tour/visit. I found the visit incredibly informative and enjoyable. It fit in very nicely with the conservation and preservation class I am currently taking to complete my degree. I particularly enjoyed seeing how they do the conservation work and I saw some pretty amazing results. That area was far more technical than I’d ever want to be but it was pretty exciting stuff. I came away thinking I might be interested in working at the state library in the archives area so will keep that in mind for future reference.
I spent a few minutes talking to another student as I was leaving before going off into the parking facility. I couldn’t find my car when I got there. The place where I thought I’d parked appeared to be a handicapped space…I was quite sure I didn’t park in a handicapped space but it looked very much like the place I had parked…except it was a lot brighter here and I didn’t see a sign on the door that I thought I remembered when I had parked…I went walking around in circles and was sure I had done something really stupid and parked where I shouldn’t and the car had been towed. Eventually I ran into the student I’d been talking to earlier and in a roundabout way she helped me find that I had parked a level down from where I thought. My car was absolutely fine and I hadn’t missed seeing all the signs of a handicapped space…I’d just gone a bit bonkers, temporarily, while trying to find the car. I must admit I was kind of wishing I’d braved the overly crowded bus when I thought I’d really goofed…
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Spring has sprung
I think spring has finally arrived. Usually we get quite a bit of warm weather, even in August. But this year it’s been mostly mild days and very cool/cold nights. This week seems to have heralded warmer weather. I’m sure it will be hot and dry before we know it. Actually, it’s already dry here so it just needs the warmer temperatures.
I noted the seasonal change when I went out in the night to pull something off the clothes line last week and it wasn’t even damp. We don’t have a dryer so winters can be a bit tricky when it’s cold and humid much of the time. Days aren’t so bad if the sun is out but drying clothes at nights is nearly impossible in the winter. I usually have clothes draped all over the house on the worst nights.
Another sign of the season is pollen. It’s showing up everywhere and our whole family has hayfever in one form or another. I’m not sure if it’s related to the season but my eyes have become incredibly dry. My Sjögren’s syndrome does give me a lot of dry eye problems and I use artificial tears like Refresh as needed. Usually, I can get away with one application a day and sometimes I just never get around to using them and get used to slightly dry eyes. In the past week I’ve found I absolutely have to use drops at least three times a day, especially when I wake up in the morning. I literally cannot see clearly some mornings until I’ve used them.
A rather exciting sign of spring is the re-emergence of leaves on our grape vine. We planted it last year and not much happened with it. At the end of the season, the leaves fell off and we weren’t sure if it was alive or dead. But little green leaves have come out all over the plant so we are looking forward to watching it grow this year. We will need to find some sort of support for it to grow this year. The garden arch we installed last year was very cheap and every time we had really strong winds it fell over. The passionfruit vine is still attached to what’s left of the arch and is looking quite decent but hasn’t started flowering yet. I seem to recall it flowering around this time last year so it should be too long now.
The bees are buzzing everywhere in our garden. We have a grevillea bush outside our laundry room door and every time I got out there is a loud hum from the bush which is currently in full bloom. The bottlebrush plants are all starting to bloom and will soon be heavy with flowers. It will be quite a sight to see the branches laden down with red flowers that resemble a bottlebrush.
The Scientist and I planted some native shrubs along the back wall of the house about a month ago. Previously I had planted tomatoes, lettuce, bell peppers and basil there. The only things that have ever really grown well there are the cherry tomatoes from last year (which were fruiting right through winter) and basil which grew like a weed there a few years ago. The cherry tomato plant only had a tiny bit of green left by winter’s end so I pulled it out. Our plan is to do a raised garden for the veggies this year. I’m hoping to do a no-dig garden in hopes of having more optimal soil than our usual sandy soil is for growing veggies.
I had a great disappointment a few weeks ago when I pulled out the beets we planted in May and discovered they hadn’t grown any beets. They looked perfectly fine other than the missing veggies. I put them back in the ground and will wait and see if they will grow in a few months. I planted some rainbow chard and after a slow start, that seems to have taken off a bit. I haven’t harvested yet but might give it a try some time soon. And some spinach I planted was nearly eaten by creatures during the winter but one planted remained in a rather shabby state. It has started to grow a bit more during the last couple of weeks so maybe it will be okay for a spring vegetable. I also planted out some oregano and mint in May and both are starting to take off. I hear that mint can be a bit of a weed but I think we’ll be able to make good use of it should that happen. The habanero chilli I planted last summer is looking very good right now and surely will start flowering in a few weeks. I’m feeling uncertain about some of the other chillies. The jalapeño is dead and the Thai chillies aren’t looking that well. The others seem like they might be okay in a few weeks. There is also a cherry tomato plant that has survived two winters along our back fence. The healthy part of the vine is a couple feet from where the plant is rooted. Near the roots it looks to be nearly dead.  There are Asian red mustard plants growing wild from seeds that fell from last year’s plant, more or less in our footpath. We haven’t removed them but they really aren’t in an ideal location.
I just about forgot to mention that a rather horticulturally-minded friend has given me seeds to plant a climbing plant called Kennedia nigricans, which is a native in our area. I’m really hoping a few of the seeds take off so that we can have an easy-to-grow climbing plant to cover some of the fence.
I’m looking forward to opening windows over the next few days with temperatures expected to rise several degrees. That is assuming we don’t get smoke drifting from any fires in the area. We already had a period of smokiness in the house today when I left open sliding glass doors at the back part of the house.
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Bits and pieces
As is obvious from my last post, I’ve finally made some progress on writing about our holiday. I wrote most of that a few weeks ago but it was only tonight that I finally edited it in preparation for posting. I fear I will forget much of what I wanted to write as time goes on but there is nothing to be done about it.Â
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I’ve been in a much better state of both physical and mental health over the past couple of weeks. While I don’t exactly feel energetic, I don’t feel like I need to sleep all the time. It seems the thyroxine must have been doing something after all. My tonsillitis episode did mostly resolve after about a week and a half.
This week I had my annual appointment at the immunology clinic in our local teaching hospital. Last year I had a disastrously incompetent doctor, and despite the other doctors being good to great, I was worried about a repeat. Fortunately, it was all fine, although it took longer than I expected. She was rather abrupt and gruff when we first got started but improved as we talked further. She later mentioned that she’d only been in immunology for a week so I assume she’s still settling in and that might have been the reason for the less than friendly start to our discussion. We covered my low thyroid issues caused by being off my medication and also discussed some abdominal pain episodes which had occurred while I was away and for a while after I returned. She examined my hands and found them quite cold, then asked if my feet were the same (which they were). Later she checked my blood pressure and found it was quite low (95/55) and was worried that I might be light-headed (which I wasn’t). She checked my abdomen thoroughly for anything unusual and presumably found nothing amiss. She asked about a couple of spots/rashes on my stomach but I wasn’t able to provide any useful information except that one has been there for a couple of years and the second, smaller one appeared recently. I’ve presumed they were due to some sort of skin condition but the only notable thing about them is the larger one sometimes seems to change color slightly. She had a thorough look at my mouth and throat and noted my tonsils are swollen.  After we covered pretty much everything, she went off in search of the consultant (head doctor) for the department to confer before we finished.
 The doctor was on a phone call for quite some time before she was able to reach him. Eventually he came to the consulting room and they discussed my case right there, which was kind of unusual. I’d seen this doctor at two previous appointments and he’d concluded that my autoimmune condition is Sjögren’s syndrome based on my symptoms and my ANA. I have antinuclear antibodies of at least two types. One type is called anti-coilin and seems to be fairly unusual but mostly is seen in people with primary biliary cirrhosis and Sjögren’s syndrome. The other type is common and also non-specific but also seen in Sjögren’s. This doctor had previously given me lectures on careful attention to dental care and keeping extremities warm (as I have early symptoms of Raynaud’s syndrome). He repeated the dental lecture again even though I’d confirmed I’d had it before. It may have been as much for the registrar’s benefit as mine. Discussion was had over which blood tests I needed to have done and it was decided I’d be reviewed again in a year. Appointment concluded.
In addition to the usual auto antibody tests, I also had tests specific for autoimmune liver disorders along with immunoglobins added in. I found the pathology department at the hosptital was too busy for me to wait so had them done today at a local pathology center. I think I’ve reached a record with seven tubes of blood this time. Apparently I will be contacted by the clinic if any results need any follow up.
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The semester started last week at my university so I’ve started my last class for my degree. It’s an external unit and it seems to be a small class as there has been almost no discussion online so far. Also, the unit outline hasn’t been updated for this semester. I pointed this out to the teacher but have had no response after several days. It would be good to have some interaction with others in this class. It’s already isolating to study by distance education but it’s worse when you feel like you’re the only one out there.
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My favorite band, Crowded House, are coming to Perth in Novemeber and I have purchased tickets for the event. We are fortunate to have them playing at a nearby winery so it will just be a fifteen minute drive instead of 30-60 minutes to reach Perth or Fremantle. The Scientist and I will, however, be trekking down to Freo for a concert with Megan Washington and support act Dan Kelly at the end of the month. Tickets were quite inexpensive as these are up and coming artists…so it should be good value for money. We’ve seen both as support acts for other performers and both were excellent.
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Counting down
A week from tonight, Lego Lover and I will be embarking on our travel adventure. Right now, a week still seems a long way off but I suppose it will be here in no time at all. All the major spending has been done on tickets, passports and travel insurance. I still need to see my gp next Thursday morning to get a couple prescriptions sorted out before I leave. I’ve been working on getting my laptop ready to travel. I’d been trying to use the wi-fi at our local library and it wasn’t working properly after a couple of tries. Yesterday, the Scientist accompanied me and worked out the problem was settings-related. I’m glad this is sorted out now instead of while traveling.
I’m planning to use a backpack to hold my laptop and carry on items unless it works out to be too heavy that way. Otherwise, I will use the backback as my carry on luggage and put the laptop in it’s usual case. I still need to find a backpack for Lego Lover that won’t be too heavy or too expensive. We’re not having much luck finding anything with a reasonable price as yet so we might end up changing to a more affordable option.
And speaking of money, I’m really not too pleased to see the value of the Australian dollar has been plummeting just before we are set to leave. We’ve had a good exchange rate for months and this happens just now. I’m going to try to be optimistic and hope it stalls and recovers now.
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Games, games and more games, part 2
A few months ago I wrote about our family’s recent interest in board games. I had intended to write another post a short time later but that somehow never happened.
The family was so enamored of the new games that I ordered more games from the supplier on the east coast. They’d had a sale on for all of January and I think I ordered a second time right at the end of the month. New games this time around were Puerto Rico, Blokus Duo and the card game Fluxx. It was a bit like Christmas again when the package arrived quite promptly within a couple of days of ordering. Not only were the prices cheaper than anything local but they offered free one day shipping.
I think Puerto Rico is one of my favorite games now. It seemed incredibly complicated when we first started but once we got going, we all enjoyed it. And once you know the basic play, it sort of falls into place. We’ve played this quite a few times since we got it and it never fails to be a couple hours of fun for us. I somehow managed to win my first game against Lego Lover and the Scientist when we played this weekend. Lego Lover was doing quite well so it was something of a surprise when he was a couple points under me at the end.
Blokus Duo is just a two player version of Blokus. It’s a smaller board and players don’t start from the corner as in the original game. It’s far more competitive for two players. This works really well when we aren’t playing as a family. Unfortunately we are kind of stuck when we have three players, as has happened recently. The original game board is a bit too easy with three players. When we played over the weekend, we all finished equally in one game. In the other one, the only difference between winner and loser was the fact one had played the single tile last. It would be good if there was a travel version available here because it would be a good game to place with Lego Lover on the plane. It has been released on the iPhone/iPod Touch but it takes up 95mb and I don’t want to use up so much space on my iPod.
I bought the card game, Fluxx, on a whim when I placed the last order. The game is incredibly easy to play because there is a very simple basic rule to start and the cards provide new rules as you go. The new rules can get pretty silly and strange at times but it’s definitely never dull.
More recently, I found a Lord of the Rings board game at a Salvos (Salvation army) secondhand shop for just eight dollars. It normally would sell for over $70 new. It is missing one piece, but it’s just a marker and is no loss to game play. We haven’t played this one so I can’t say anything about it just yet.
The next games on my to-buy list are Agricola and Ticket to Ride.
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West Coast Blues and Roots Festival (very long)
Okay, so it’s now three days after the fact and I’m still feeling rather run down after this event. But to back up, this is a festival that’s been running successfully from Fremantle for several years now. I’ve never been to the event before but when I heard Crowded House were headlining, there was no question as to whether I would go. I think the definition of blues and roots must be really stretched to include Crowded House (or a few of the other acts), especially as headliners. Anyway, I bought my ticket the day they went on sale.
This was something of a new experience for me in more than one way. I’ve never been to a festival of this nature. What seems a lifetime ago, the Scientist and I did attend a concert festival at Carowinds in Charlotte where Stevie Nicks was headlining. But in that case, all the acts played on the same stage. This festival had four stages of various sizes with acts playing throughout the day. But the biggest new experience is that I was on my own for this one. It ran from late morning until 10pm and we weren’t really comfortable with the idea of leaving the boys for such a long time on their own. Before this event was announced, we’d already booked tickets to see the musical, Chicago, for Saturday afternoon, so the boys were already going to be on their own all Saturday afternoon. So the Scientist decided he’d stay home and I would go by myself. It wasn’t an ideal situation but I went along with it.
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New posts coming…
I am working on posts about recent events but it’s taking a bit of time. Right now I am writing up my experiences from the West Coast Blues and Roots festival from just over a week ago. I also want to post about seeing the Queen Mary 2 , the big storm that hit Perth the day before my birthday, and seeing the musical Chicago if I can keep everything in my mind long enough.
I seem to also be fighting either a cold and/or allergies and could do with some sleep so will be heading to bed early again tonight.