Lovely staff and good coffee

On the drive to visit Mavis at some point I usually cover my eyes in shock at the 'city driving', there are often traffic jams, it can take ages to find a parrking space, the hospital is huge and busy, the ward hot and stuffy but I must say the staff have been lovely.

And there's a good coffee shop.

Bad driving

On the way to the hospital we saw what was I think the worst driving I had ever seen. We were second in queue at traffic lights at T junction but when they turned green there was so much traffic that car in front couldn't turn without blocking the junction. Cue lots of angry beeping and a woman got out of her car and berated the driver.

Then...

After lights had turned red two cars overtook both of us by driving on the wrong side of the road and then went through the red lights and barged their way into the queue of now moving traffic nearly causing a crash!

Never seen anything like it.

Mavis has an ercp

Well there was good news about Mavis today - the MRI showed three gallstones in her bile duct and they removed them with an endoscope this morning - a procedure technically called Endoscopic retrograde cholangio-pancreatography (or ercp for short).  Amazing what they can do! Hopefully she will now start to recover. She was very dopey and only briefly opened her eyes. Will see what she's like tomorrow.

A difficult hospital visit

This afternoon we went to visit Mavis as in elderly lady from our previous church whom we have been supporting for years) who is in hospital. She is ill with infections in her liver and gallbladder but they haven't managed to diagnose what's causing them yet. When she has an infection it somehow affects her brain so she can become unco-operative and well, just plain stroppy.Yesterday when we went in a nurse was trying to get her to drink but she wasn't opening her mouth and she didn't speak or look at us. In the end we felt her condition must have worsened and she was actually unable to speak. I cried on the way home, thinking that she was dying.

Today when we went in she was talking again but in a really bad mood and actually being what you might call a bit horrid to us.

I know she can't help it. It's just toxins affecting her brain but it's  hard.

What am I like?

Well we have been away. Perhaps I'll write about that tomorrow.

Went to church this morning where we had a lively and unusual service.

A cute little baby was crawling around playing with a ball when it rolled out of reach under my chair. I picked it up and rolled it back and missed by several metres. He sat there bewildered as it shot past him and everyone nearby was laughing. Oops! And I used to wonder why I was always picked last for the teams in PE.

After the service there were two drink bottles left behind. They had names on - the children in the family who were leading the service. We took them home, I texted their mum, they came and I handed them over. A couple of minutes later mum texted and said one of them wasn't theirs - I'd given them P's drink bottle instead of the little boy's.

What am I like?

You're never too old to learn to use scissors

P has just pointed out that there are obviously serious problems with my scissor technique and wasn't I ever taught not to cut right to the ends of the blades?

No.

Nobody ever taught me that.

Er Sister Veronica...

Still, as they say, you're never too old to learn.

A better way to shorten a t-shirt

Ok if you want to cut a piece of a T-shirt in order to shorten it the best way is not to attack it with a pair of scissors as I did the first one. A preferable method is to get a rotary cutter and a cutting board and a ruler then you have a much better chance of getting a nice straight line. Eat your heart out Sister Veronica aka my needlework teacher.

Tennis finals and t-shirts

Well we had two amazing tennis finals didn't we! When it came to the men's tennis I really didn't know which one of the 'big three' I most wanted to win. I wanted them all to win really.

So there's now a bit of an empty space in my life in the afternoons. I have been filling it up this afternoon by cutting up t-shirts. This is because some of my t-shirts are annoyingly long. I didn't cut the first one very straight though.

Don't know what my needlework teacher would have said. Well yes I do actually.

Today didn't really get off to a very good start. I woke up feeling bleh... P bought me some Weetabix and two mugs of tea in bed. These were on a tray. I ate the Weetabix and drank one mug of tea. I got up. I sat down rather bouncily on the bed to do my hair. Tea everywhere! This was a bit frustrating as we had changed all the bedding last night but thankfully we had a waterproof mattress cover.

In fact I'm still feeling bleh so I'm now resting instead of hacking t-shirts to pieces.

Come on Konta

So here I am waiting for the Konta match to start.

 P is at the maze ("Do you want to come with me?" "Nope").

 J is still at uni. I miss J. 

I am feeling tired and my fingers are aching.

Part of the reason for the relapse with my fingers was massively overdoing things when clearing out Mavis's house.

Almost a year ago Mavis was walking down the garden path to take her rubbish out (which she didn't need to do because the bin men would come up her garden path for her). She fell against her fence and broke the upper bone in her arm. She was in hospital for several weeks. She needed surgery but it would have been a long operation and they felt her heart wasn't up to it so sadly she is in the position that her arm will never fully heal and she will have to wear a brace on it for the rest of her life. She was discharged to an old people's home where most of the other residents had dementia. They had a policy of allowing the residents to eat as much as they liked because most of them hadn't got very good appetites. As a result of this Mavis, who was already very large, put on a huge amount of weight. This put a strain on her knees, decreasing her mobility further. She is now in a wheelchair and because of her size it is very difficult to take her out. She has now moved to a nicer home but she had to permanently give up her house and we and some others from her church had to clear it out although we did actually get a house clearing firm to do the bulk of it.

So one minute Mavis was walking down her path and then she was never able to go back into her house again. So sad for her.

We put Cyril her cat in a cattery for a while but eventually it came to the point she had to let him go. Thankfully the cattery owner's brother had fallen in love with him and took him in.

Visiting Mavis and sometimes having to battle to get her the care she deserves (and sometimes not actually succeeding in getting it for her) has taken up quite a lot of our time and energy really.

Anyway on with watching Konta...

 

Hello again

Well this is me back again after a long break.This was partly caused by not being able to get into my Google account because I had forgotten I had changed the password. And also because life has not always been easy and at times has been busy. And also because my paws have been painful - as in the arthritis flaring up. I'm mostly using 'voice type' to do this - I speak it types. Mostly it understands me.

So here I am sitting doing what I normally do at this time of year - watching Wimbledon and thinking how amazing Federer is and can Dan Evans possibly turn it around?
Tomorrow I'll try and have a bit more of a catch up.