Sign off!

Today was a pretty special day. A full circle day. An opportunity to thank the surgeons and airheads (anaesetists! Cannot spell this word even now!) and nursing staff who cared for me, and who cared for J it has to be said. D-day was 5 months ago already! It feels a lot longer. I have really come a long way in this short time - it's incredible. It is so easy to forget the journey once you get back into the grind of the everyday life. Once you've stopped living from one nap to another!

Look at me now, I'm not blogging half as much! Must be feeling better! Don't need this anymore do I? Far more interesting things to be doing is it? Too much Tipping Point and Coronation Street if truth be told! No that's not true. I've been creating. But more on that later. Back to today...

So this afternoon, me and J had what turned out to be our final outpatient appointment with Dr Griff Rhys Jones at Plastics, Hutt Hospital. We were loaded down with bottles of Pinot Noir and chocolates galore and lovely cards filled with thank you and You're awesome! As we waited the obligatory hour we reflected on how wonderful it was to be there without those pesky butterflies in our stomachs. The waiting room was packed and I felt a fraud, as I usually do, looking around the room wondering what these people are having to deal with today. The little toddler not much older than our great nephew, the middle aged ladies, the younger lads, the older couple, those on their own at their first appointment. What will their journey involve and how long will it be? What support do they have? What will they have to face? Then I thought about my own journey. Well this section of it anyhow. I am so glad I started this blog. Cos I'd never be able to really remember the details of how I felt at the time. It's like when you go on holiday. You live it at the time but it gets condensed into a little pocket in your memory. If you don't take pictures you won't believe you were even there! God help us all when we hit the dementia years! It's bad enough now!

Dr GRJ was a little emotional when we gave him his present. Maybe he doesn't get too many gifts from patients. He had already given me the once over in terms of flappy. I said do you wanna have a  look? And he remarked, "Not wearing a scarf today?". Nice he noticed cos it was a big deal for me to let flappy run free as a bird. It was bloody freezing today so the scarf was in me bag! Hahahaha! Don't want flappy catching a cold. "Oh there's a couple of staples that might work their way through". Mmmmmm he's looking for an excuse to see me again. "Well if you can't pick them out with a sterile tweezers pop some betadeine on and a dressing and come back. Well take them out under a local anesthetic". Right you are then, cos sterile tweezers are things I normally have in me bathroom cabinet. Blimey the district health board is really under the pump if they're pushing DIY plastic surgery! Best pop to Bunnings for some supplies!

We said our goodbyes and hoped we'd ne'er meet again! You know what I mean. I bet we keep bumping into each other in the supermarket. Can't imagine him doing the weekly shop though. Or DIY for that matter. Well he'd have the perfect excuse wouldn't he? Maybe I should've got him a voucher for a manicure! Nah, that's all a bit "Nip n Tuck" and he's definitely not US TV serial material. Well he'll always have a place in my heart and I'll be forever grateful for this man walking into my life.

So what have I been upto lately? Well June has been a busy month with both our birthdays. We went to Nelson for Queens birthday weekend for the Ceol Aneas Irish music festival. We usually take our instruments and do the music workshops. This year we just wanted to relax and mooch around. It was a great weekend. Weather was amazing. Really love Nelson. Then we had a weekend in Wellington which was gorgeous and filled with good food, lovely waterfront walks and shopping. Winter is truly here so we've been cooking lots of yummy soups and J has been mastering his baking skills. Oh boy his cakes are amazing! He's a natural! They all rise! Banana cake, rhubarb cake, ginger cake and the latest is chocolate cake with chocolate sauce! Awesome!!! You'd think with all this cake I would be the size of a house but I'm not. Still struggling with my weight. I'm mainlining protein shakes now. Ah well maybe they liposucked me when they relocated my abs.

Creatively speaking I finished the mosaic mirror I was working on. Here's Woody doing the final quality checks...

And for my birthday I got my first power tool!!! Very exciting! A twist-a-saw. Does everything like sanding, cutting, engraving. Looking forward to getting medieval with that little puppy. No not a REAL puppy, you know what I mean.

But the project that has me all excited and busy is something me and my lovely niece have been conjuring up. But you'll have to catch up with me later on this cos it's way past my bedtime!

I really wanted to blog today because this is a huge milestone that we've reached. And with ensuing normality it is easy to overlook days like these. So here it is, in black and white, in Reeniesblog - CLOSURE. That's a good word for it. CLOSURE.