There are two types of meningococcal infection – meningitis and septicaemia. Rosie had septicaemia. Or rather, she HAS septicaemia. She’s still pretty sick. Septicaemia is when the meningococcal bacteria infect the bloodstream, and travel all around the body causing the immune system to react with a scary-looking dark red rash.

Rosie was taken to the Emergency Department of the RBWH on Thursday afternoon, about 2:00pm, by her housemate, Jenna. We are all lucky that Jenna was home that day, as she was supposed to be out with her mother, but she slept in and so didn’t end up going out. Rosie had been sick from the early hours of the morning, with vomiting and fever. Rosie had told Jenna she didn’t want to go to the hospital, but by the afternoon Jenna insisted. When she saw the rash on the side of Rosie’s abdomen, she was even more adamant.

By the time Rosie was in the Emergency Room, and being seen by doctors, her temperature was extremely high, her blood pressure extremely low, and she was delirious. I, meanwhile, had been told by Lauren that Jenna was taking Rosie to hospital. Lauren was at work and unable to go anywhere – she was waiting for her boss (and father-in-law) to get back, and for her mother-in-law to get there so she could get a lift over to the hospital. I was at home cooking – Tim’s brother, Matt, was coming over for dinner that night. As soon as I heard about Rosie’s symptoms, part of my mind brought up all the fractured knowledge I had of meningococcal – which wasn’t much. I called a taxi straight away, however, the taxi I ordered never showed, despite assurances from the taxi call-centre that he was “on his way, just five k’s away”. Apparently he wasn’t, because half an hour later, they were sending a new cab my way, with me now in tears at my inability to do anything get over to the hospital any faster. A drivers licence would have been really useful.

I managed to get to the hospital by about 3:30pm. I was told by the triage admin person that Rosie was still waiting in the corridor, and had yet to be seen. I was more than a bit agitated by this news, but it seemed the admin person didn’t know what they were talking about – the minute the doctor had seen Rosie, and had seen the rash, they were treating it as if it were meningococcal, which is the safest course of action. The admin person told me to sit down and wait, and someone would be out to see me soon.

One of the E.R. doctors came out to get me, and once we were in the corridor of the Emergency Room and out of the waiting area, she turned to me and very gravely advised that they suspected Rosie had meningococcal disease. This was the first point at which I had heard any professional opinion on Rosie’s situation. Up until then, I had been hoping that my lack of knowledge of all other possibilities would see my theoretical diagnosis of meningococcal as an over-the-top paranoid presumption. Having my fears confirmed made everything seem that much worse. Images of random nightmares I’d had over the years, where Rosie was hurt, kidnapped, trapped etc, and I was unable to do anything to help her, flashed into my mind. Some of these I had forgotten about. I also remembered I had shared a drink with Rosie the day before, when we had been to a movie together at Garden City. I asked the doctor if that would put me at risk. Not too much, apparently. Still, when I was finally allowed behind the curtain secluding Rosie from the rest of the Emergency Room, I was the only one not wearing a mask (they figured I’d already been exposed to the bacteria, if that was what it was).

When they let me in to see Rosie, I felt prickly hot & cold, seeing her laying in the bed fidgeting and moaning in pain. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she stared at me blankly with glassy eyes. She looked confused and angry. As the blood pressure cuff on her arm started to inflate to measure the faint pressure of blood being pumped from her heart, she became agitated and started to shout at the doctors and nurses around her. “Take it off! Get it off me! I can’t have this on! Get it off!”

I sat quietly beside her, not sure of what to say to calm her, wanting to comfort her and make her feel better, help her feel not so scared, not so angry, not in so much pain. I smoothed the hair back from her forehead, and she told me angrily to stop. I held her hand, at the nurses request, so that she didn’t bend the arm that had a drip in it. She didn’t take her hand from mine, except to swipe at the blood pressure cuff as it inflated again. The doctors and nurses asked her questions, to test how aware she was, how conscious of her surroundings:

“What day is it today, Rosie-anna?” (I’m surprised she answered them at all, considering the amount of times they stuffed up her name). Rosie answered, “Friday.” I wasn’t sure if this was right, because I wasn’t sure what day it was either.
“Who is this sitting beside you, Rosie-anna?” asked a nurse called Palla. Rosie turned and looked at me, and turned back to Palla and mumbled, “my sister”.
“And what’s her name?”
“Cassie.”
“And is she older or younger than you?”
“Older.”
“By how many years?”
“Five.”

The nurse turned to me to confirm this was correct. I nodded, and she smiled. I was relieved that Rosie was still mostly aware of what was happening around her. She knew where she was, after the doctors had told her, she answered each question of, “Do you know where you are, Rosie-anna?” with a quiet and impatient, “RBH”. This was a good sign. Many meningococcal patients fall into comas, and this can lead to brain damage and all sorts of other problems.

The nurses told me Rosie was going to have a catheter put in, to enable them to monitor everything happening in her body. They ushered me out of the room, and I stood in the corridor, against a wall, feeling numb. Various medical staff approached and questioned me on any allergies Rosie might have, has she been overseas recently, has she been around anyone else sick, is she a smoker, does she use drugs, could she have injected herself with anything recently… I was overwhelmed with everything, and so answered the questions slowly, most of the time with a useless, “I don’t know… I’m not sure… maybe?” I was terrified this information meant the difference between life and death, and I couldn’t be any help at all.

Sometime between when I arrived, and when Rosie had the catheter put in (I can’t recall events in sequence), Tim arrived, and some time after Tim, Lauren and Nathan arrived. We were shown to a family room by a brusque nurse, and told that we would be collected by someone when we were able to go back into the curtain room to see Rosie again.

To Be Continued…

Luck is not measured by that which others believe we should be thankful for, but rather the things that make us feel fulfilled. The things in our life which bring contentment. Sometimes they can be that which you would expect someone to feel fortunate for having – a roof over their head, food in their stomach, money in the bank. Sometimes it’s smaller things, such as getting a new video game you’ve been waiting weeks for, or coming home to find someone has cooked you your favourite meal for dinner.

I don’t think of luck as in singular moments – “I got lucky on the pokies!”, but rather a series of events and states of existence that lead you to feel life is not always a difficult, up-hill climb.

Some things that I feel lucky for:

* Living in a place where we can paint the walls if we want to, or put in picture hooks, or rip out the spiky plants in the garden, because we own it!

* Being in love with someone who is in love with me

* Tim’s family – his quiet, thoughtful father; his caring, protective mother; his vibrant, beautiful sister; his funny, skilful brother; their gorgeous, aloof, fluffy cat.

* Having a positive outcome from my spinal surgery

* Having an awesome, weird & wonderful family

* Owning a Napoleon cat, and before him, my wonderful Dinnacat. RIP, Dinna.

* Having a place to go home to in Yamba, our family home, with my amazing mother now living there and enjoying the peace and tranquillity

* Having tickets to San Francisco next May (woohoo!)

* Being able to watch and be part of the process of my beautiful older sister getting married to the love of her life

* Having a seriously cool brother-in-law

* Seeing Rosie making her way in the world (I’m very proud!)

* Having dreams of study, and people who believe in me

* Having Chris as a friend, someone who has known me since I was about 5 years old, and therefore understands a lot about the way I think and feel! I’m so happy for Chris that he has found a Doon, and that they are happy

I have so many other things I could write, but for now I will bask in the warm glow cast by all these thoughts.

Life wasn’t always this good, but it’s worth the pain in the end.

Thursday I spent the day at mum’s place packing the final miscellaneous items that I had left behind without realising it (I actually just didn’t pay that much attention to the contents of the cupboards & drawers in my room when I moved out). On our way home, on Kelvin Grove Road, we were involved in a car accident. Nothing too serious, no one hurt (as far as we could tell). The damage to Tim’s car is minimal, but the car behind us and the car behind the car behind us wasn’t that lucky. Well, I guess being that he was the one who caused the accident his damage should be more, but that could just be me being ignorant to cause & effect with relation to car accidents. Needless to say, I suppose, by the end of the day I was in considerable pain, and muscle spasms in my back and leg prevented me from getting to sleep when we got home.

Friday we had settlement of our new house (which we now own! For real!) at 2:15pm, then a dinner at mum’s place as a small farewell to my cousin Hugh, who jet-setted off to Heathrow last night at 11:45pm, and also to transport some furniture from mum’s to our new place. Rosie, Lauren & Nathan were there, and Trevor up from Yamba, Helen & Tony down from Townsville, Cherie, Reg, Georgia, and a couple of Hugh’s friends up from Lismore, so it ended up being a pretty fun little gathering. After dinner, we loaded up the truck with the furniture for our new place, and headed over. So far we’ve got the spare fridge in the garage, and a couple of mum’s paintings on the walls in the living area. So far it looks awesome . Next weekend, Tim and I will probably get a new lounge for our new house.

Today, Tim and I were up bright and early to help mum load the two hire trucks with her furniture and other belongings. Physically, I wasn’t able to help at all (which I never know how not to feel bad about – see if you can make sense of that sentence!) but I did hang around and try to provide comic relief (which probably wasn’t all that welcome in the end anyway…) and also indirectly berate the new owners of the house for trying to make mum feel bad about not paying extra to get the carpets machine-cleaned. The vacuum cleaner is a machine, isn’t it? Grow a brain, and buy a skirt that at least covers your ass! (Quite a few people who saw her thought she was wearing little short-shorts, but when it’s at that point I could say “what’s the difference?”) And also I would have loved to tell her that her face wouldn’t look like it was melting if she didn’t wear so much heavy foundation in such hot, humid weather.

I’m so catty at the moment, not sure why… it could just be that I feel very protective of mum. Yo momma jokes are all fine and dandy, but if anyone ever hassles my mum, they got me to deal with! Probably not that daunting in my current crippled state, but I could still go a couple of rounds of a walking stick challenge.

*Whew!* back on track, tonight we had Thomas & Seona over for dinner. The menu was a bit last-minute, because I only decided on what I was cooking just before we went shopping for the ingredients at lunchtime today. I ended up making lamb steaks baked with rosemary & garlic potatoes, and served with honey carrots, spicy fresh green beans, and a mint & whole seed mustard sauce. Thomas and Seona brought a pavlova for dessert, with fresh fruit and ice cream. Then we played Texas Hold ‘em poker, and I lost all my money. At least I would have were we playing for real moneys. I’d never played before, by the way.

Now I’m going to sleep! Or something. Maybe I’ll watch TV or whatever.

Even though I’m not lifting or carrying anything, the sifting through old bank statements and birthday cards does get tiring. I find it takes a long time simply because whenever I come across something of interest I stop, read through it, then place it carefully on the ever-building pile of papers to be stored and then sifted through at some unknown time in the future (whenever I get around to it again). I’d love to have a real filing system.

I came across a few interesting things – old photographs from when Lauren, Ruth & I lived in Balmoral, when People and Dinna were just kittens; old christmas cards from people I’m not even in contact with anymore (not deliberately, just through time and continually moving house and workplaces etc); old notebooks (lots of these) with the beginnings of stories in them, old poetry from my angsty days as an angsty teenager…

Probably not interesting to anyone but me I guess.

Settlement is tomorrow!!!!!

I’ll write more later. There are lots of things I need to do an update on – my time off work (over 3 months now), my walking stick, the operation, the process of buying a house…. lots of things!

I was a little apprehensive about Tim going to New Zealand in the first place, as the last two times he’s gone something bad has happened. First time was when I was assaulted by a cab driver (incidentally, QLD Police actually literally suck when it comes to protecting females from predatory males. Seriously, they don’t give a fuck). The second time he went away was when this pain from the prolapsed discs all began. So I thought it might be “third time’s the charm”, or something like that. But so far nothing too bad has happened. I did wake up last night unable to breathe from the stomach acid in my throat (caused by one of the painkillers I am on), and had to stand in the bathroom, coughing into the sink for about half an hour, but that’s happened at least three times before anyway. Granted, it was a little worse this time, but I dealt with it okay.

So anyway, it is our (Tim&Me) six-month anniversary on Tuesday 25th September – next week. Because I don’t have much money, I’m making something for him. It’s going to be a surprise so I won’t give away any details here as I know that he does read my blog sometimes. I’m sure he’s pondering the problem of what to get me, but I can’t give him any suggestions because he doesn’t want them – he wants to give me something he’s thought of himself. And fair enough, too. I would prefer it that way.

Since Tim is not here at the moment, it’s just been me & Napoleon in the apartment. When Tim is here, Napoleon doesn’t do too many naughty things. He’s quickly learned since moving in that he is not allowed up on the bench, or the dining table, or near any cords. Also, he is not allowed to walk on the beside tables. This is more just because he has a habit of batting things around with his paws, and pushing things off edges and onto the ground.

However, when Tim isn’t here (such as during workdays), Napoleon seems to slip back into his old bad-habity ways. I sleep much more soundly than Tim does – hardly anything can wake me up – so if Napoleon is out in the living room pushing things off tables and knocking things over while I am asleep, I generally won’t know about it until I wake up. This morning I came out to find that Napoleon had knocked over the glass of water in the kitchen which we have some flowers sitting in. The water spread over the bench, but thankfully didn’t drip over the edges onto the floor. It also, thankfully, didn’t touch any of Tim’s things, which were further up the other end of the bench. However, Napoleon had batted Tim’s train ticket onto the ground… I don’t think this is a huge deal because he didn’t ruin it, and it’s almost time for a new train ticket anyway.

It’s just like in a real family, where the dad is the disciplinarian, and the mother is the mild one. Good cop/bad cop type thing. I’m not trying to be weak and let Po walk all over me, but he’s just so cute and I hate shouting at him. Lucky that Tim is there to pick up the slack, and Napoleon doesn’t seem to love him any less.

Maybe it’s a boy thing.

This is one of my new favourite sites: Strapya. They specialise in mobile phone charms and straps, but there are a few other cool Japanese gadgets there. A couple of my favourites are the things for summer: -40 degree aircon in a spraycan, and a little personal fan that has a function where you can program a message to be displayed when the fan is on. Awesome!

I thought I would sum up 2006 for me with the major events of my life.

1. Stepped on foreign soil for the very first time
In January of last year, Lauren and I flew to Heathrow via Brunei and Dubai from Brisbane. It was the most exhilarating, exciting, eye-opening and overwhelming experience of my life thus far. We visited 9 countries in 12 days via Contiki tour, and then added another one to our list by booking cheap flights through Ryanair (their planes were scary) and flying to Ireland. We also did a quick three-day visit to Berlin, and then toured some of the English countryside on our last couple of weeks in the UK.

2. Completely re-evaluated my life
It may not seem like it, but when I got back from our overseas trip, I felt as though I had changed fundamentally. I was no longer the same person that had left Australia six weeks earlier. I felt that I needed people to see me for who I was, as someone new, and treat me accordingly, or I would fall into the trap of acting the same as I had before and being the old me simply because that’s the way people were treating me. I went through a dark time of depression when I tried to reintegrate into my old life – settling back into the old routine of work, sleep, work, sleep, ad infinitum. I felt that I was wasting my life. I desperately wanted to be learning, to be at university or just somewhere else different entirely from my old life. I wanted to escape and keep travelling, either change the world or make a huge change in my own life.

Despite my current work situaion, I’m much happier now. I still feel unfulfilled, but I see it as a good thing because I know that there is more out there for me. I’m looking forward to learning and developing myself in other areas, and discovering which path I should be walking to get to where I want to go. I just know that the next job for me is just waiting for me to reach out and grab it.

3. Broke my arm
This was a huge thing for me. I seem to have quite a lot of injuries, but nothing that’s really obvious. Everything that I have is long term and I’ve learnt to deal with whatever effect it has on my life. In early June, I was playing around on Rosie’s new(ish) skateboard in the downstairs part of the house. The statistics of injuries involving skateboards or the title of this point should make it obvious what happened. I tried to tic-tac, and then ended up flying through the air and landing very hard on my arm, with it twisted around behind my back. It was broken in three places, as I found out later. Anyway, I eventually (about two hours later) got to the hospital, and a couple of weeks later I had to go back in for an operation to have my wrist re-set and so they could drill into my bone to screw bits of metal to it. The pain after the operation, when I was at home recovering, was so bad that I would just lie on a mattress in the lounge room writhing around and whimpering. After they took the recovery cast off, I had to wear a splint for eight weeks. My recovery was fairly speedy apparently, but my left wrist will never be as strong as my right wrist.

4. Dinna died
My beloved cat, Dinna, died on the 14th June 2006. This was also Rosie’s 18th birthday. Dinna had been sick for a while with bladder problems. This day, though, the vet discovered that he actually had a tumour on his spine which was causing all the other problems he was having. He took a sharp turn for the worse and mum called me at work to tell me that the vet recommended he be put down. He was given the injection while I was at work, and mum and Rosie picked me up at about lunch time with Dinna in the car with them, so that we could take him to Lauren & Nathan’s new house to bury him. Dinna was an important part of my life. I’d had him for four and a half years. He’d moved interstate four times since he was a kitten. He was a beautiful cat, loving and affectionate. R.I.P. DeeDee.

5. Another family reunion
Well, a reunion of sorts. I think pretty much everyone travelled to Townsville for Aunty Helen’s 50th birthday celebrations. It was great to spend time with all the cousins again, and to see Laura all grown up and FUNNY! And to see Luke and his fiancee Kate (they’re now married) and Francis and his girlfriend Bron (now engaged – getting married on the 24th March). It’s strange seeing people have changed so much while you’ve been too busy concentrating on living your own life. You don’t realise that other people are getting on with theirs until you meet up again… So I’ve grown up quite a bit, but so has everyone else. It was so good to see everyone, even Norm & Yvonne came up from Leeton for the weekend. I went home early because I got sick, which started the conspiracy theory that I always get sick at these big family events (this one was the hat trick).

6. Lauren and Nathan got engaged
I think everyone knew it was going to happen, it was just a matter of time. Nathan proposed to Lauren on her 25th Birthday this year, on the 20th September, while they were having a special birthday meal at the Three Monkeys in West End. Lauren’s the first of the Brisbane children to get engaged, and she’ll be getting married in January 2008. She’s already acting like the wife, and PeePee is their son.

7. I got a new kitten
Napoleon kitten was born in August some time. I went to collect him from D’Aguila (yeah, where the HELL is that???) on 24th September. He’s a manx kitten, now just growing out of his awkward teenage phase and turning into a real cat (he’s growing into his arms and legs). He’s a bit bitey and scratchy (as anyone who has seen my hands and arms recently can attest), but I’m sure he’ll grow out of it, especially once he’s been … you know what’ed. He is the loudest purring cat ever in the history of the universe, and he has the best smell. Kudos to Christian for the image.

8. Made new friends

Christian and Neo are very special friends, I’m glad to have met them. I’ve learnt a lot about photography, domains, self-aggrandising entries on Wikipedia, fluffyness, fully-grown cats… not to mention Trailer Park Boys, Borat, Bruno, Snow Leopards, and Fawlty Towers. I’ve also been fortunate in meeting wonderful people through work – Calum has been a great source of fun, knowledge, inspiration, and help and reassurance, as has Benyamin. Chris (Chrisanova) is important to me also. I’m lucky to have so many special people in my life.

Nintendo DS Lite
I have the white one. I got this on Friday, when Christian and I had lunch. I’ve been playing it off and on over the last few days. It’s pretty much the most awesome portable gaming system I’ve ever owned (that’s not saying much because I’ve only ever had one of those huge old-skool gameboys, plus a little mermaid handheld game, and one of those water games where you press the buttons and it sends a pump of water up and levitates the little ball); but if you concentrate on the fact that I’m older now, and more discerning in my choices of entertainment, and I’ve seen a lot more of the world, then it should mean more that I think it’s awesome now. I’m a nerd and this is a ridiculously long and drawn out paragraph.

DS Lite rocks. Go buy one.

“Groggy” Ice Crusher
I bought this from Ikea, when Chris and I visited the new Logan store on Saturday. We also managed to have a minor accident in the car park. Bloody Swedish drivers. (I’m kidding, of course. I think they were actually Norwegian). Something good did come of the day though. Groggy is my new favourite kitchen thingamy. You put ice in the top bit, and then turn the handle, and it crushes it and it goes into the clear bottom bit. Then you can put it in a cup and have a sort of poor man (or woman)’s slushy. You can have whatever flavour you want (depending on what you have at home), plus the sound it makes as the blades crush the ice is really satisfying.

***

I didn’t end up going out last night. There were several reasons for this – none of which I’m going to bore you with now. I stayed in instead, and watched Happy Gilmore and spent some quality time with Napoleon. It was good to just do nothing, especially after the pretty full weekends I’ve had lately. I’m relaxing and recharging for next week, because there are quite a few things coming up, including Noelle’s 22nd Birthday (Wednesday 15th Nov), Noelle’s birthday party (Friday 17th Nov), and Lauren & Nathan’s engagement party (18th Nov). Then, the next week on Tuesday I have my second 8-week orthopedic review for my arm. It’s not that big a deal, it just seems like it because I used to go to the hospital twice a week for my arm, and now I haven’t been in two months.

I might go see if I can have a catnap, like Napoleon

Anyway, the reason for the title is because yesterday morning I hit my head on the broken soap dish in our shower, and had to get six stitches and a tetanus injection. I bent down and when I stood up, I hit my head against the sharp edge of the soap dish that Nathan broke previously with his head. I stood for a while, washing the conditioner out of my hair, and realised that the water off my head tasted salty, and that there was liquid running down my face even when I wasn’t under the shower. I put my hand up to my face, and it came back with blood all over it. It was then that I realised there was blood all over the floor. I went into mum’s room, and she initially thought that I had botched a dye job or something. She took me to the hospital though, and went dressed in her PA uniform (it seems like we get preferential treatment when they can see mum’s a nurse) so I got seen straight away. It still took a while for them to stitch me up and send me off.

I was seen by an intern, who didn’t use enough local anaesthetic to start with (which, by the way, hurts A LOT more than either the injury OR the stitching) so I could feel him pulling the needle through the cut. Mum thought that I was only going to have a couple of stitches, but I ended up needing six. When I stood back up again after the intern had finished stitching, I looked back at the pillow and it was just red from all the blood.

I was lucky that the cut is just back from the hairline, and so isn’t visible or anything. The registrar came in to see me before the guy started stitching and asked if I could handle some mess for a few days. “What mess?” I said. She said “We could glue your scalp together.” And I said, “Probably not a good idea. I have an awards night tomorrow night.” So stitches it was. I’m relieved. It was bad enough having blood all through my hair, let alone glue. I wonder if I’d even be able to wash my hair? Granted I haven’t washed my hair since it happened, not with shampoo and conditioner anyway, but I’m definitely going to before tonight.

Christian and I watched a few episodes of Jericho last night. It’s a good show. I haven’t watched it since the first episode was on TV, because I don’t keep track of the TV schedule and I don’t really watch TV at all, but this was a show that I would probably buy when it’s out on DVD. Like Lost, which apparently has started its third season, and I haven’t even seen the second one. I really need to catch up.

I have come to the conclusion that there aren’t enough hours in the day. With work, friends, family… how does anyone have time to do anything they want to do? I guess it would be good if what you want to do includes spending time with friends and family (which it does), but it seems to be a difficult balance to be able to do really well at work, and still be able to concentrate on the other things. It might be simply because of overtime at the moment (which wears me out, but I can’t turn it down all the time because it’s good money) and the fact that I feel guilty when I can’t get my usual 15 files done in a normal working day. On Thursday night I hit the wall, as far as productivity is concerned. I did 15 files (I think – as I wasn’t at work yesterday I couldn’t check the report), which should be a good day, but by the end of it I just literally could not even look at another file, I’d just had enough of it.

I’ll have to do a whole heap of work on Monday to make up for my clumsiness on Friday preventing me from being able to go to work. We’re so short staffed at the moment.

Awards night tonight, at City Hall. I wonder what it will be like. I wonder if we’ll win prizes? There will be a couple of different people there this time, I think… Ben will be there, which will be fun. I think it’s Kathryn, Melinda, Penny, Aileen, Scott, Stephen, Debbie, me, Ben, Karen. Maybe. Not sure if I have that right. Or maybe Denis will be there, and someone else not… I’ll find out tonight.

I have to pick up my dress from Scaasi! Yay.

It’s dumb, because I’ve felt really sick these past two days, and so I haven’t been able to eat anything, but then when I don’t eat, my physical reaction to the drop in sugar levels in my blood is to cry. For no reason. Well, maybe I had reason to this time, but most of the time I have no reason, and it’s just a coincidence that this time there was a reason.

I remember when we were in Berlin, and we had just gotten to the hostel. That morning, when we had left, everything was great. When we arrived in Berlin, at the airport, when we got outside there was SNOW everywhere, and it was SNOWING! And I made footprints in the snow on the side of the covered path from the airport to the subway. My boots, due to the fact that they were so awesome, left imprints of “GET LOST!” and a picture of a kitten in the snow. So it was always a novelty to make a perfect boot print. Anyway, there was an actual reason for me telling this story of Berlin. That being that the day started off so good, and due to the expenditure of energy required to carry bags from the airport to the subway, and then catch the subway and find the stop we needed to get off at, then transport our luggage from the subway stop to our hostel, all of this along with trying to keep warm was VERY exhausting. So I used a lot of energy, and, consequently, started crying and couldn’t stop until I’d had something to eat.

So, therefore, me being sick and upset is a really bad combination. And most of the time, if I’m sick, I’ll also be depressed for the very reason that I don’t/can’t eat.

Whew. Good story is a short story Cass! Thanks Calum. It’s not that I’m not aware of that; it’s just that I’m such a stickler for details.

Anyway, NCIS is on. Ima go watch.

I’ve got my final (at least I think it’s the final one) orthopedic appointment tomorrow at 11:30am. I’m wondering what they’re going to say… I’ll have to ask if they’re going to take the pins & screws out eventually. I hope so. It’s also Kirra’s birthday tomorrow. I’m not saying any more about it in case she goes online tonight and reads it (though I don’t think she will, but you never know. Murphy’s law is probably the safest for me to live my life by.)

I sent off my application for salary sacrifice this afternoon. I’m supposed to be working right now, and I just realised that for me to do two hours of overtime I’ll have to work until 10:30pm tonight.

Sucks. I guess I should go make some coffee or something…