It ain't half hot mum...

For a little dog that has spent both winters so far of her life, Whispa has proved to be quite up with the play when it comes to the fire. When I am setting it, she is right there being her usual inquisitive self. As you can see, she also enjoys the warmth. Another thing she has taken to doing is when I have my afternoon nap, she will sometimes get down off the bed , go out to the lounge & sprawl out in the sunny patch that comes through the lounge window about 2.00 in the afternoon. She really is rather keen on the concept of keeping warm. as I have found when I wake up in the morning, she is also not averse to snuggling down under the blankets with me if it gets cold. Either that, or worming her way in between my two pillows to keep warm. Yes, I know I shouldn't let her, & yes, I know she should sleep on her own bed on the floor, but she is such a loving little animal that I just let her be where she wants to be.

Jude has been having problems with her stoma lately with infection. The ointments aren't helping & she is in constant pain with it. The pain patches make her nauseous, so we have been using liquid paracetemol. The last time we went to the doctors, he took a swab & gave her 2 different creams for it. which haven't significantly helped. The District Nurses have been coming twice a week & treating granulation on it with silver nitrate, which does help a little. WE have a big day booked tomorrow. Our carer comes at 08.30ish & the district nurse soon thereafter. Sheena, the District Nurse, has lit a fire under the physio at the hospital & we have our first hydrotherapy appointment at 12.30 as well. I think I am going to have a tired little chicken on my hands by the time I get her home.

One of the problems that I thought we had surmounted raised it's ugly head again this weekend. Communication. She saw fit to tell her son that the cold water & cold Fortisip that we pump in to her is giving her the chills. Not so bad in the summer I guess, but most uncomfortable in the winter. I've solved it. Warm water, & remove the straws off the sides of the Fortisip bottles, take the foil seal off the top & put the 3 bottles in the microwave for 1 minute.

The open fire is good, but we have to be very careful about smoke coming into the room. I think it's going to be a difficult winter.

Blue Smoke goes drifting by

Very much so over the last few days. Sadly it hasn't been drifting so much as hanging around. There hasn't been enough breeze to shift it. Jude has also had a couple of really bad nights as well, but I didn't connect the two until about 2.00 AM this morning when I got up for about the 4th time to suction her mouth out. I could feel the smoke in my eyes & smell it.

Perhaps I should explain. Normally I fill our firebox with wood & shut it right off. That way it smoulders all night, keeps the lounge nice & warm for Jude when she gets up & all I have to do in the morning is open it up again & add more wood. It does produce a lot of smoke though & if there isn't any breeze at all the smoke doesn't go away. If it doesn't go away it ends up in our lungs. Not so much a problem for an old smoke eater like me but for someone as delicate as Jude is these days, its absolute bad news, so I opened the dampers & burnt the wood off. We both slept better after that. So we know now that we need to save our fires for windy or rainy nights. Live & learn I guess.

It's been a funny old week. last Thursday, while we were out for our walk, my little dog got attacked by some mutt not on a lead. When I finally got it off her poor little Whispa took off like a rocket. We found her about an hour later something like 2 kilometers away. I found out how much she means to me then I think. Christopher came down again this weekend. He is always good to have around. Not only does he provide good moral support, he also just quietly puddles away doing stuff round the house without being asked, which is wonderful. Jude's brother & sister also came down for a flying visit on Sunday morning for the second weekend in a row. Elsa left her rings here on their last visit & they decided that it was a good excuse for a second visit to come down to get them. It was good for Chris to get to spend a little time with them as well.

Tuesday saw me doing my second gig at the library. Attendance wasnt that great, but I counted it a win because a reasonable amount of people stopped for a while to listen to at least one of my songs. All the bugs have been ironed out with my new strings & the old beast stayed sweet sounding for the whole hour & I felt really good about it so its all good.

Well, thats my week. At the moment, I'm working out in my mind an idea for a pair of ramps to raise the seat on Judes wheelchair to the same height as the seat in Sherman so that I can slide her straight across from the chair to the wagon. I think I will make it from wood first, to make sure it works, then talk to an engineering firm to get it fabricated from lite aluminium. Will keep you posted regarding it & post photos. Have a good week guys.

Anniversarys & stuff

My youngest son phoned me tonight. He realised that it was our 20th wedding anniversary today & just wanted to make sure that I was doing alright with the idea. We chatted for a while & seeing as tomorrow is his daughter Conaires 2nd birthday & seeing as we had sent her a present, he suggested that we both flash up Skype so we could watch her unwrap her pressy, so we did. That took all of 30 seconds. She surely isn't a save the paper sort of gal. I thought I did well for a present for her. Its a kitset kite, that includes paint & a brush, so that you can decorate it your self.

For a two year old, she is doing incredibly well. She is talking quite legibly & actually called me "Poppy." That was a nice end to a mixed sort of day emotion wise. I have sort of been having my ups & downs emotionally these last few days thinking about what has been, what is & what is to come. I try not to think about the bit yet to come too much. What is can generally occupy my mind quite successfully. The anniversary gift guide says china or platinum & apparently we should be celebrating ideas & symbols. Somebody asked if we were doing anything special tonight. I said, "Yeah sure. We are going out for tea if we can find a restaurant whose concept of BYO includes the concept of 3 bottles of Fortisip & a 50ml catheter syringe." Didn't fancy our chances much, so stayed home & had a tin of Irish Stew that needed eating. Was OK, but would have been nicer with a bit more meat in it.

So anyway, I ordered her a rather lovely bouquet of flowers that had some beautiful red roses in it that she loves so much. That & bought her a soppy card as well. It all made her cry, so I suppose I did the right thing....

The Last Taboo

I have crossed a lot of psychological hurdles within my own mind when it comes to dealing with Jude's illness. Without going into too many details, most of them involve what I consider to be the infringement of what I consider to be her personal space. Things that I prefer to do for myself when it comes to my own body & that I find incredibly difficult to do for someone else. Still, when you see your loved one in distress & unable to communicate that distress, you are only left with one option. That is to do what needs to be done in a matter of fact fashion in a way that is caring & causes as little embarrassment as possible.

As you know, we have taken delivery of a suction machine for Jude's mouth. What you DON'T know is that I have an almost pathological fear of invading someone elses oral space. I even went out & bought a pair of tweezers so that I could put her Listerine breath freshening strips in her mouth without having to put my bloody great sausage fingers in her mouth. Anyway, Jude had a few difficulties getting settled when she went to bed last night. All I wanted to do was settle down & watch Kevin Costner save the world yet again in "The Guardian," but she needed help about 3 times. Eventually I figured out that she was having problems with an inordinate amount of phlegm in her mouth that she couldn't clear, so off I trots to get the vacuum cleaner.

The previous times she has used it, she was able to do it for herself, but late evenings aren't good for her, so she indicated in no uncertain terms that she would like me to do it for her. I'm not good at the best of times with suction in my own mouth. Unpleasant memories of dental treatment, but the thought of slurping around in someone elses mouth gives me the horrors. Not any more though. It's another personal hurdle that I have crossed & a little bit more confidence in my own ability to cope with things. No doubt there will be more to come, but I feel that little bit more confident about dealing with things.

In other news, I've done my first of two gigs at the library. Apart from a huge case of the jitters, I've learned a lot that hopefully will serve me in good stead for next week. It's taught me a lot about doing a show on my own anyway. It's a lot of years since I have done that, but I'm getting there.

The weather is cooling down so they say. We've had it pretty good so far. have only lit the fire twice & it was more for psychological benefit than warmth, but my bones are telling me that we have reached the end of the golden weather. Jude's natural brother & sister are coming to visit today. haven't seen them since before Xmas, so that should be good. Meantime, I better get my sorry ass off the computer, get some breakfast, get dressed, walk the dog & tidy up the lounge a bit. At the moment there is music spread from one end to the other.. Sighhhh.. Its a hard life sometimes, but it's the only one I have, so I try to make the most of it..

More steam, Igor.......

Jude's vacuum pump arrived today. Thank you Atilla for your prompt action. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not complaining about it. Far from it. Its proved it's worth already. Gave Jude's mouth a good vacuuming earlier because she needed it. It does look very Steam Punkish though. Either that, or something out of an old Hammer Horror movie. Lots of visible moving parts, a delightful noise to it and a vacuum gauge that wobbles & flutters as its working. The little dog finds it all incredibly fascinating watching it. Jude finds it absolutely fantastic, so yeah, its an oldy for sure , but worth its weight in gold. I think we'll call it "Igor."

We had a very productive afternoon, because not only did we have Sally, the physio, bring the pump out, we also had Lynn , the district nurse, here as well to instruct us in its operation. I sorta had the idea though, because I very carefully watched the ED nurse at the hospital on Saturday night. It turns out that its actually easier to let Jude do it herself. She knows where the problem is & knows how far down her throat she can put it without choking. Sally is also going to arrange time in the hydrotherapy pool at the hospital to give Jude some respite for her knee, which is troubling her badly. We are both looking forward to it a lot, because she is missing our spa pool. It's too awkward for her & she still has a persistent little infection round her stoma that makes it a bit dodgy for her to go into the pool at home anyway.

I've got butterflies. We went to the library yesterday & got to see the publicity that they have set up to promote my two little recitals that I am going to be given. Its absolutely fantastic, but very scary, so I'm putting in a lot of effort into organising a coherent & relevant sort of repertoire. I think I have it sorted. What is really good is that I am getting callouses back on my finger tips. I'm really pleased about that.

Hey it's good to be back home again..

As nice as it was to get away for a few days R & R, it's always good to get home again. There's nothing quite like your own bed & being able to do what you like when you like. Not that I didn't enjoy myself, I did. Had an absolute ball. Finally got to see Tane Mahuta & what a magical experience that was. Okay, so you go down a beautifully formed & maintained track with boardwalk when you get near the tree to protect the root system. But for me it was almost enough to see the beautiful unspoiled native bush on either side of the track. Coupled with that was the rain. I enjoyed it. There is nothing to me like the smell of wet native bush.. I stood & closed my eyes for a minute or two & it took me back further than I care to admit to when I prospected for a living & used to spend a week at a time out in bush like that.. Memories....

The only other thing we really did of any consequence we did was go & pretend to fish on the beach at Paihia. We didn't actually catch anything, but we didn't really expect to. It was enough just to have an excuse to sit on the beach & watch the world go by. And catch up with an old Fire Brigade buddy. What would be the odds ? We pull up, get out of the car & hear, "What are you two old bastards doing here?" all the more unusual in that we were talking about him only the night before. Good to see you Steve after all these years.

So home. It's always good when people do things willingly & gladly for you. Even more so when folk do things over & above the call of duty. Like when your stepson & his wife come down to care for their Mum while you have a well earned break. When you come home, you find that not only have they done a superb job of it, but have also had big tidy ups, getting a lot of the little jobs that you haven't had the time, inclination or general energy to do, & your house is that tidy that the cleaner grumps at you complaining that she has nothing to do. It gave me the incentive I needed to get stuck in & finish some sorting that needed to be done as well, with the upshot that just under 200 kg of rubbish went to the dump. There was a good breeze blowing, so I had every intention of round about 4.00 O'Clock to get the washing in & mow the back lawn which was dry enough to do at that point.

We all know what happens with good intentions though, don't we ? Shortly before I was going to haul my sorry ass out of this chair & do it, Jude came in, very obviously in distress. It's hard enough at the best of times to figure out what she needs unless she is using her ipad, but when she is panicking & something is very obviously seriously wrong & I am starting to panic as well, then it becomes next to nigh impossible. We sorted out eventually that some of the gunge that builds up on the roof of her mouth had dislodged & gotten itself into her windpipe. We ended up calling the ambulance, but by the time he got here, we had just about got her right. For all that , we decided that it would be best if she was transported to Hospital. So we spent the rest of the afternoon & part of the evening there while they checked her out & aspirated her mouth. A really great team up there & although it was quite a busy Saturday night, we got looked after fairly promptly & very well . The upshot of it all is that there is now an aspirator on its way over from Waikato, so we can sort problems like this out ourselves. I think that we will be using it on a daily basis rather than the sponges on sticks to clean the crap out of her mouth before it becomes a problem.

Chris phoned tonight. It seems he has been talking to someone at work with a nursing background & she has come up with what seems to be a good suggestion. Listerine apparently produce these little thin squares of mouthwash that dissolve on your tongue & freshen your mouth up. Going to check it out tomorrow. I have a lot of time for Chris. He devotes a lot of time & energy into trying to find ways of making his Mum's life that little bit easier. His wife, Melanie, supports him in this unconditionally. I count myself very fortunate to have the two of them on my side. It just makes my life so much easier. Thanks guys.

It's New Zealand Music month this month. This is what I'm doing for it.


Pretty cool huh ? I'm doing about an hour for each show. Have you got any idea how many songs you have to sort out & practice to fill an hour ? Its a lot. I have been combing You Tube for new takes on some of my old standards & there is plenty to choose from. I have restrung The Beast with a brand of string that I haven't used before, but had recommended to me. They are lovely. The base strings have a wonderful booming sound that I have looked for for years, so I am adapting some of the old standards to accentuate this. I'm also going to jump in at the deep end & do something that I have never done before, namely use my harmonica rack in public. Hopefully, it should go well. Fingers crossed. Also hopefully, I have left enough good songs for the second show. Don't really want to repeat too much.