Monday – Labour Day, a public holiday in Melbourne

H has been home for a week today – yay!!

Today was not a rest day for the gardeners, my son and I were up nice and early getting ready to go to the kinder to share the joy of wonderful soil. The above pic is a wicking bed that is similar to what we set up in our little garden – they save so much water and the plants love them! This bed at the kindergarten is ready to start planting with zoo poo in the veggie soil mix. When we got home H was on a mission to bake pies for Pi Day with her friend in California. So her brother helped her in the kitchen to make pecan and mixed berry pies, they had so much fun! I loved hearing the laughter in the house again while I was doing the garden clean up around the place!

Tomorrow is an afternoon in the hospital again for H as she has to get a mask made for scar management using plaster of Paris smothered all over her face, take out the braces that the hospital put in for the breathing tube and get a dressing change while she is under general anaesthetic. Hopefully, it should only take a couple of hours and we can take her home from recovery late afternoon. I am going prepared with a book to chill out as I have had quite a busy weekend as my body hurts from all the digging and lifting – gardening sure is a great workout!

Tuesday – The whole afternoon in surgery as an outpatient

We were told to arrive at 12pm to check in with the admissions nurse for braces removal, taking a mould of the face for a full face mask and a dressing change. We got in and H was weighed and she is now at 42 kg, which means she has put on some weight after being at home for the week. I was so happy to see this, as her body has been using all her energy to heal. We then went to the consultation room with the nurse to get a covid test and answer a bunch of questions before we were taken to the holding bay for surgery. At the holding bay, we sat and watched SBS food in between chatting to anaesthetists and nurses waiting for the time to go into surgery which was 1:30pm. Then it was 1:25pm and a doctor comes to ask for the fifth time for the consent form. To which we responded it hasn’t been printed out yet. For surgery, it is always the consent form everyone is asking for and it is not until someone accesses it from the depths of the computer and physically prints it out for a signature and then something can happen!

I had a few errands to do as I waited in the hospital I needed to take the wheelchair back as well as enjoy a tailgate lunch party for one in the back of my car! I also needed to take back the visitor card to the platypus ward plus I went to the little hospital supermarket and found some cheese and rice crackers so H could eat something as she was fasting all day! Afterwards, I had a short stint outside with some overcast clouds before I headed back in again and sign a consent form for the physio for the photos that they took in surgery. Who knows, H’s face will be in some journal article in the future? I thought H would have finished and by the time I got called by the recovery nurse, it was close to 4pm. Then your day is nearly done and that is the timewarp of the hospital.

H ate some food and had a aloe drink while we listened to the cries of many young children coming out of surgery, my head was reeling and I had to drive home in peak hour traffic. So we waited and waited until we could be released which seemed like forever. Finally, it was time to leave and we hightailed it out of there. I got home and my energy was zapped, as the hospital is like a vampire full of sick children so I do need to generate a force field around me when I go there. In the evening H was itchy all over and she said it felt like poison ivy all over her skin. The doctors have given her antihistamines to help but sometimes it is so overwhelming and uncomfortable, especially on humid evenings. Eventually, H got to sleep peacefully to heal her injured body.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at home

This image says it all for all of us.

I enjoyed a float therapy session on Wednesday night and Thursday I finally found an optometrist that can support me with my stigmatism and pellucid marginal degeneration. My other optometrist asked me to have a glaucoma field test. When I had to do this, I researched what it was and it made me so upset that I could be going blind! Great, now what next?!? According to my new optometrist, the place I went to does the tests on random clients just to get money back from the government. Thank goodness the local Good Karma network recommended this wonderful optometrist who totally understood why I needed a constant professional to monitor my eyesight each year.

In between appointments cooking has been a priority, as well as meditation and catching up on reading. The days go by at a lovely pace and it is good to have the time to nurture the family with good food again. One thing I did realise is that it is really important to exercise to release the energy that needs to get out. I am still very upset at what has happened to our family.

Saturday and Sunday at home

Being in our own isolation bubble has been good as we finally got this jigsaw finished that H won at the hospital. Actually, my hubby completed it at long last, I don’t think any of us had any input whatsoever the second time around. It seems like every second person has covid and we are just staying home to be safe for H. There is lots of baking and cooking happening in our kitchen at the moment and it is so good! As H spent most of the weekend chatting with her friend in CA and baking cookies.