Photo!

What a great weekend!

So it started with Psychic Friday, "answers from the other side" an evening with Sue Nicholson from TV's Sensing Murder. Now some of you will be thinking, hang on a minute, how come Reenie is going to see a Psychic when she's a scientist? Has she one short of a full deck? Truth is I've always been open to a bit of psychic mallarchy. I think it's in me genes..... Let me explain before someone takes my PhD away from me. A couple of my aunts either read the tarot cards or the tea leaves. We've probably got gypsy blood in our veins but for heavens sake don't say that out loud! My Irish aunts may like to dress up but no way is it big fat gypsy wedding material. When people 'pass over' we often have them reappearing in our dreams or when we're awake we'll have a sense of them being there. When my dad died a couple of weird things happened that I couldn't explain like when I was sorting music for the funeral there was a list of possibles written on a piece of paper. I was on my own and left the room for a moment and when I came back the piece of paper with the list of songs on was screwed up on the floor. Never could explain that apart from me having a total blackout and doing it myself. Also, I am sure he was directing his own funeral arrangements through me cos I would never have come up with a royal blue coffin in honor of the Blues (soccer team) which we had adorned with white lilies. He came to me in a dream a couple of days after his death - he was calling from a pay phone and clear as anything, shouting down the phone all excited, "alright bab, it's great here, I'm being looked after by a black man, the foods great, don't worry about me". Anyhow, it's not proof in any way that there is life beyond but I can understand why people go to psychics, especially when there is unfinished business. Especially when you didn't get to say I love you. Call it therapy at the very least but what harm is there in it? 

We didn't get to connect with anyone on the other side on that occasion. Although at one point I did think mom was channeling my recently deceased uncle D who was a bit of a trickster and would have taken the piss out of the evening. Maybe she just wasn't that into it. The aura was definitely on the negative side! Sue, the psychic was up there working for four hours. There were a couple of standout connections which were fascinating just in terms of a good story. They were mysteries where someone died in unusual circumstances. One young man came through who said that how he died wasn't as it looked. "Mom, my feet could touch the ground". This must've been a suicide, hanging which was suspect. A murder.  Interesting. That would make a great Serial podcast. There were at least 20 connections made that night. A couple of pets came through too! A big chestnut pony was trotting down the aisle apparently. She also shared her experience of the other side when she told us about her own attempted suicide. She now counsels people who have attempted suicide. She reads people really well and is able to advise them and send them away with a little more self esteem. So it's not all about hocus pocus. Skeptics beware, don't knock it till you've tried it or experienced it. Keep an open mind cos we don't have all the answers. 

The rest of the weekend was filled with fabulous family time. The sisters had a sing song and my niece had a birthday BBQ on one of the hottest days so far this summer. All in all a wonderful
weekend making memories. Here's a few photos and hopefully a video! Watch out for special guest appearance from flappy!

Killing the 'Green Green Grass of Home'

Psychic Friday!

So here it is the felt elephant in the room who is not gonna be ignored.

Its's Friday people!!! And I must say I am feeling pretty good. It's 4 weeks post surgery so let's have a quick run down on sites 1, 2 and 3. The donor site on my right thigh is almost completely dressing free. Just two strips of 2cm hyper flex left. It's looking mostly thigh like with a few blotchy red areas that look like a scald. The tummy tuck has no dressing left! Yarooooo! It's getting lathered in vitamin A protective ointment to keep it moisturized. It's like a long pink river. Still needs to colour down a few shades. Flappy is free of the surround sound system of hyper flex and is enjoying some freedom of movement and some fresh air. Still have a couple of small dressings where the infection was and is no longer. Purest silver is under those dressings. Doing a grand job according to the district nurse who still comes in every two days. Flappy is colouring down really well and the structure of the new neck is looking amazing. Texture looks a little chicken skin-like but the vitamin A ointment twice a day is working through that. Appearance is like a pastel colored lava lamp. Everyday the fleshy areas take over some more of the purple bits. We're only 4 weeks in and it's already looking amazing. Come the winter, I think I'll be losing those polo necks once and for all! Oh yes! In the meantime I'm UV protecting flappy with a scarf from my vast collection. 

So, big night tonight. It's my first night out of the house. Girls night out, unfortunately I am sans alcohol as I attempt to ensure complete healing of flappy. Me, my lovely new-mom-niece, my mom and the three sisters are off to the cossie for a Psychic evening with Sue Nicholson, the lady from Sensing Murder on TV. 'Answers from the other side' it's called. I reckon that at least one of my aunts could give Sue a run for her money. I'll let you know how we get on in the next post.....

It's About Time

Humor me. Give me abit more of your time. Again. I can't be with you and if I were with you we probably wouldn't be having this conversation anyhow. It would take up way too much time which we wouldn't have. So this time we have right here is precious then. It's a record that we can go back to and reflect on, laugh along with, remember, cherish. It's going to be a memory that we'll share when we do finally catch up again. When I'm better and we find the time. 

"Making memories" is a phrase I use a lot. I love it. I love putting it in cards to encourage others to do just that, make memories. I use it on photos of key events throughout the year so we can look back and remember that moment. Looking back is something that is usually associated with getting older, the oldies digging out their photos and making collages for the wall, something my dad was obsessive about in the last year of his life (not that any of us knew it was his last year, unless he did of course). Collecting those memories and keeping them around him - was this a way of reliving the past? Reflecting on his life? Did it give him a sense of pride perhaps? We don't just do this with photos but also videos. In our family we were fortunate to have an annoying uncle who would thrust a video camera into your face at every family gathering. Stoppit not now! He had decades of family footage on VHS which he painstakingly transferred to DVDs and distributed out to the family. There's stuff from when I was like 9 dancing at a family party, there's my 21st party, the "welcome home" party coming back from college, right through to our wedding day in 2000, me the Millenium bride and J my handsome Prince. We are truly, truly grateful to our dear uncle G for these precious memories. At times embarrassing! But golden all the same. 

The thing about memories is you do need to take the time out to make them. Agreed? And there's always something else that is a greater priority isn't there? It's all very well me sitting here rambling on, putting you under pressure to squeeze in that call to your crazee Aunty who lives in a home, when I've got nothing else on my list to do today except enforced restfulness. Eh? I'll make a deal with you then. I'll let you spit this back in my face when I'm up and about running like a Brummie again, not finding time to take a freakin pee break let alone text you "hi bye". As long as you give me 5 more minutes today (or come back another day) to work out how many books you're gonna read, how many films you've got left to watch, how many visits to the crazee Aunty you have left in your life, allegedly, cos I've done this exercise and it frightened the hell out of me. And I'm Ironman. So click on the link below -

how to count the time you have left

Cos I know it's gonna change the way you look at your life, for the better. And for all you Instagrammers out there, there's pictures! 

References

Thanks to JAX for the kindness quote and to Zed for the link. Too good not to share.

No news is good news - are you ok with that?

We had a long weekend here in NZ, it was Waitangi Day - Google it up non-Kiwis - so Monday was a stat day. There's no Wifi at the beach so I've been unable to post for a few days. I came back to a few concerned texts asking "Are you ok? Haven't seen you post in awhile. Hope you're well".  I felt loved and missed and warm inside. Lovely to hear from my blog readers as I have no way of knowing who, if anyone, is reading my blog. It got me thinking about who has actually read it and how I feel about non-readers. Not wanting to dwell too much on the self-obsessed line of thought, I can't help being interested in the feedback I have had so far whether it's positive, negative or mwah? Silence or lack of acknowledgement of having read the blog is also intriguing me. I believe most readers have acknowledged within the first one or two blog posts that they have read it and enjoy it, love it, etc., and I have been overwhelmed by the support for my writing style (which is just me blathering on) which in turn keeps me going. My number one fan and rock is of course my yummy hubby J who keeps gently pushing me along to keep writing. 

I caught up with one avid blog reader at the weekend who I hadn't seen for a few months. We poured over the concept and process of it all, the why do it, the benefit of it and also the "does it matter if someone doesn't read it?". Sharing stories about ourselves that we'd never shared before, getting to know each other a little deeper, writing the blog with such honesty made it feel perfectly natural to talk so openly together. Making better connections with people was one of my New Years resolutions.  Writing the blog, stripping myself naked from the inside out, exposing my vulnerabilities has not only been a huge release for me but it seems is helping me to connect and develop my relationships  with the people around me on a much more honest level. 

Without being too dramatic, hell I'm allowed to be a Diva about whatever I like girlfriend, after what I've been through, beetches! Listen up. Life is too short, we say this, but do we really act on this? On a day to day basis are we really living life as though today could be the last day we are here and we could never see our mom, dad, sister, brother, son, daughter, cat, dog, husband, wife, aunty, uncle, nan, grandad, again? We bloody don't and you know it. We're reminded of our mortality when someone, anyone, dies. The age of the deceased, a bit too close to my age? A suicide, a bit too close to my son's age? Cancer, fingers crossed. Alzheimer's, please God no! A car crash, could be any of us at any time. These are things we choose not to think about on a day to day basis. Mostly we're too busy multitasking and haven't got time to navel gaze. But we don't have to think morbid thoughts on a day to day basis. No, we can turn it into a positive quite simply. Make the connection. Pick up the phone. Text. FB message. Pop round. Send a card. Do it daily. Do it every other day. Weekly. But don't leave it any longer cos you look like you don't give a shit about your mom, your dad, .... Here's an exercise worth doing, put yourself 5 years, then 10 years ahead of where you are now. How old will you be? How old will your children be? How old will your mom and dad be? Will your nan and grandad still be alive, based on age? What can you do now that you are unlikely to be able to do later? Then ask the same question of your family. Really walk in those future shoes and think about where your relationships are likely to be if things remain on the same level as they are now. That is, if  you don't change the way you connect with people around you from today. What will you miss out on if you don't connect daily, weekly? 

How many of us have phone accounts with unlimited free texts, free calls, too much data allowance? As well as bags of Wifi at home. Let's put them to good use. Me included (comment away please on how lazy I have been when it comes to texting). If we've learnt one thing from this surgical roller coaster it's that life is really too short, it can be taken away in a second, life without the people we love is something we will all have to face at some point for whatever reason. Some of us may already have felt this pain and live with those regrets. I don't know who first said this but the greatest gift you can give someone is your time. Leaving too much time between virtual visits or physical visits translates as "I don't care enough about you to contact you".

Let's just try to be kind. 

(Oh right on time, I just felt an earthquake, GeoNet says it was a 5.7 at top of the South Island. All ok just thought Woody was tapping the chair). Well there's a reminder of our mortality right there. 

3 weeks post surgery

Three weeks ago today..... I had my Iron Man suit on in ICU and today I got this in the post. An Iron Man key ring from J's lovely sister D. I absolutely love it! It's bang on. You know I did one of those FB quizs while I was in hospital, which Superhero are you, and guess what? Yeah, I'm Iron Man. F****in A, maaaaannnnnn! 

So how am I doing? Pretty good for 3 weeks post major surgery. Let's recap on the 3 sites. Flappy is looking less raspberry ripple and more like rhubarb and custard. The thick white dressing is off the site and the edges are sealed with white hyper flex tape. The small area of infection on the lower edge is nicely covered, drying out and not sore. Flappy's texture is dry and there's no feeling in the area. It is in need of some serious spa treatments. I have started moisturizing with vitamin A cream which feels like Vaseline, feels very strange. The second site is the Donor site on my right thigh. The white dressing is off and it's looking like I've fallen off the table at the Sprig n Fern after a couple of Pinot Gris' dancing to Son of a Preacher Man. Bit of a graze going on there. This is also getting the Vit A treatment too. The third site is the Tummy Tuck which reduced my 6 pack to a 3 pack. This is troubling me it has to be said. I miss those abs. The scar runs about 20cm down to my bikini line. Pretty significant tuck. Sore ribs, sore to laugh, funny to touch. There are dissolving stitches in this site just like flappy and the scar is covered in a hyper flex strip. Not been on pain relief except the odd panadol and the oral morphine stopped after one day out of hospital. I've been lucky in that way. Must have a feckin high pain threshold. The only way I knew I needed pain relief in hospital was when I started staring at the wall. I could sense I was feeling uncomfortable and getting a bit edgy. But that would be the worst of it, pain wise. I'm probably an exception so if any of you are considering similar surgery, the disclaimer stands! 

I know I'm feeling better today cos I started a new craft project. Another present, from my dear friend Zed, a bag of felt with a note "do your worst". She also put a kids craft kit in the bag - for 4 year olds - a DIY felt elephant! 

What's the betting that the stats for the number of page views drops off in anticipation of the next blog post - "Crochet your own elephant for your room". 

Update on speed bump

As you know I'm on antibiotics to treat a wee slurry of an infection on the bottom edge of the flap. Went to the dressings clinic this afternoon to have it checked out. Saw one of the plastics surgeons who operated on me and she was chuffed with the look of the flap. She confirmed it was an infection and from the swab results she was happy that I'm on the right antibiotics. The nurse applied some brown sauce antibacterial ointment and redressed it. All looks good. The best thing was they removed the blanket of a dressing from my thigh. So no more glad wrap and hubby help in the shower, not unless he REALLY wants to! 

The last couple of days have been exhausting and I don't know whether it's the heat, the antibiotics or just the tsunami following the earthquake that was surgery. It is like a tidal wave of tiredness. J has it too. I think we're still processing the trauma of the last few weeks. We both have moments of elation, we did it, we got through, sheer blissful happy moments. But we also have dips. Big, dark blue, deep water dips, freezing cold feelings of .... What, I don't really know.... Can't define it. Is it the "what ifs" that come back to haunt us? Or is it the monkey still on our back, chittering away at our false sense of security. 

I think we need a holiday. 

Sitting Still

This piece of art is from crispin korschen. I bought it online at Barking Mad it's a picture block about 10cm square. At first you think, "what is this? How absurd" but it makes sense when you need it to. 

In the pre-flap days, when I was walking round with two holes in my neck thinking I was invincible, I was prone to infections. I had 3 infections over the course of about 5 years. All required hospitalization and IV antibiotics. On the back of this block is a date, 2012, and a message, "lesson learnt". That was the last infection I had and it was the worst. I spent 5 days in hospital and didn't sleep or swallow the whole time. Well it felt like I hadn't slept but I must have at some point. It was after this episode that I realized I needed to listen to my lovely J, as well as most of my dear friends and family, and make a plan to pull back at work. J was desperate for me to finish work altogether but knew it had to be my decision. My career, my PhD, my friends - I'd allowed my work to define who I was. So it was impossible to let go and admit that my body couldn't keep up with my brain. That head of mine just doesn't switch off, even at 3 in the morning! But I need my head to help my body heal. 

Anyhow, if I was to keep sticking the band aid (or more expensive equivalent silicone dressing) over the holes and not face the surgery then the least I could do would be to drop down my hours at work so I could rest up midweek. With the support of my husband, my workplace and my team I was able to accept and flourish on four days a week. My "Wednesday's off" were awesome. One friend said "you've just put another 10 years on your life". 

Sometimes you need to stop, smell those roses, sit still with that bird on your head and hum awhile.  That's pretty much what I'm doing this week. Give it a try!