This blog has been dragging on for so long now that it has established traditions of its own, so we have posts on various festivities, Down’s Syndrome Day, Ava-Jane’s birthday of course, and also the unfortunately obligatory “Winter is coming: we’re back in hospital” post. So, yeah, we’re back in hospital. Given that the decor is Halloween themed, rather than Christmas themed like last year, we must be here earlier this time round.
Ava-Jane has developed proper pneumonia so she needs to be plugged into proper antibiotics intravenously. She has been really weak for over a week now but not running a temperature or having low oxygen levels, which felt almost more worrying than a full blown fever as if something else is going on. Fo was worried and I was less worried, which was the wrong way round as I am normally the worrier. So Fo got me worried and then she stopped worrying as I had taken over. It’s all rather worrisome.
Update: I was in Friday and Saturday night and Fo took over on Sunday morning. Ava-Jane seems to be on much better form and there was talk of her coming home but she has just had a high temperature, so she is staying in for another night. The doctor had said that she was likely to get worse before she gets better as all the infection works its way out of her body.
So hopefully we can all stop worrying now.
A couple of nights in hospital is always a little frazzling – sleeping on a drop down-bed surrounded by machines that go bleep, either because something is up with your own child or someone else’s, and surrounded by wailing children, either your own or someone else’s does not make for a restful slumber.
It’s a nursey power to be able to glide around the ward at night, doing observations and administering meds by the light of a smart phone but it’s always a little startling when you roll over and there’s someone looming over you, lit by the ghostly blue light of the phone.
All kids now have their own tablets, which means that in hospital they can all listen to their various favourite shows all at the same time, which is pretty horrendous. At moments like this, noise-cancelling headphones really come into their own. We really can’t complain, Ava-Jane was watching Strictly re-runs.
Ava-Jane did seem to be on the mend when we went on one of our walks round Stoke Mandeville Hospital. She was clear when I asked her if she wanted to go back to the ward, “No, walk.” As she has been very floppy and not really using her good arm, it was heartening to see her pointing a bit and hanging on to me as we wandered along the corridors.
Epilepsy meds bingo. There’s a chart on the wall in our ward of all the different epilepsy medications. I thought Ava-Jane would have had most of them but she couldn’t even get a row, let alone a full house.
Politics anyone?
The choice the Conservatives had was between a true right-wing nut and a fake right-wing nut, and they chose Badenoch. We will never know what might have happened had there not been a botched plot by backers of James Cleverly, which ended up with James Cleverly getting booted out of the contest. Well actually, we might well know soon enough if, as many predict, Badenoch crashes and burns – she does like a controversy, and the Tories do like a leadership contest. I was going to try a Rory Stewart-like “you heard it here first” prediction that Badenoch won’t make it to the next election but everyone and their dog has made exactly that prediction.
I can’t see that it can be anything other than a bad thing having someone who is famous for being divisive in charge of the Opposition. Kemi vs Keir could make for a good show – she might monster him. Paid-up Members of the wokerati such as myself really do need to give it to the Tories. This is the fourth full-time female leader to Labour’s none and second BAME leader, again to Labour’s none.
But this whole shebang could soon prove entirely inconsequential given the epoch-shaping election going on in the US. This could be the last blog from the free world… hyperbole?
But anyway, the only politics that really matters is that Labour haven’t fixed the NHS yet. This is the commode that we had last December and it was broken then. The only improvement is that someone has unsuccessfully tried to fix it with some sticky tape.
I am back home now. I kept myself awake plotting my yummy, healthy meal for when I got home. After a few days on hospital food, you end up craving vegetables that haven’t been microwaved to the edge of existence. So I am making a chicken and vegetable broth. Since no one asked: I make a vegetable stock with any old bit of veg and stalks lurking in the fridge and a bouquet garni. I poach a chicken breast in that. Then I get a whole load of new fresh veg, slice that up finely, shred some of the chicken bread and add that to the stock with some miso paste and probably some spicy sauce. I have got some lovely red Camargue rice, so will chuck some of that in. In one health book, they said you should eat 20 plants a day, which sounded a bit over the top, but this bowl of soup, will almost get there. I also got some tempura prawns, so I will fry those up and serve with sweet chilli sauce – you need to balance everything out!
And as no one certainly did not ask, I am going to watch the Director’s Cut of Napoleon – about three and a half hours of “historical” movie. I need to take advantage of having the house to myself, Fo and Ava-Jane can catch up on Strictly when they get back. I think Napoleon is a bit light and squiffy on the history but heavy on the spectacle, which is fine by me. I am the kind of philistine who loves Braveheart, which famously very historically squiffy.
In a vague attempt to editorialise, I just read through the above, it really is just a random collection of disconnected thoughts, as is this paragraph, I suppose, but I think that this quite accurately reflects the last few days.
Misliterature 