Kia Ora
February has been hot and dry - a lot of the grass is brown (only the weeds in the lawn and paddock are green). We put weedmat down around all the kanuka hedge and put bark down to help keep the moisture in. We also put some weedmat and bark down between the strawberry beds as they were a bit of a problem to mow.
We decided to treat ourselves to a new mattress which is lovely and firm.
However it’s twice as deep as the old one so a couple of our old sheets from the UK are not big enough to use which means Ann has to go shopping for new ones.
Since the old mattress is a latex one Peter has cut it into thirds, made a frame and we’ve put one piece down in the garage for a bed for the dogs. |
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The girls seem to like their new bed.
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Ann's hip replacement surgery was up and down - she opted for a spinal - so she would be awake during surgery but it gives a much quicker recovery time and no general anaesthetic side effects. Then they took four goes to get a cannula in her for the sedation, three goes for the spinal block - which then refused to work properly so she ended up with a spinal, sedation AND a general anaesthetic. Needless to say the first twenty four hours post surgery were rough.
Eventually the vomiting stopped and pain was under control. Then she had some of her palpitations that she gets and have always associated with the menopause. Well apparently her heart rate was so fast that everyone was running around panicking and she ended up with a heart monitor on.
When the doctors came around on Thursday one of them said that she'd be in hospital about a week. Her goal had been to be out in three days and for someone to tell her she would be in hospital for more than twice as long as she'd planned - well. By Thursday evening she'd got one of the nurses to help her get up and she had a short walk down the ward, Friday morning she got showered and dressed and sat in the chair looking ready to go home. |
The OT and Physio were both great and because she'd already been practising with the crutches she was a whizz at the steps. Then Friday 6pm the surgeon arrived and asked how she was. She told him everyone was pleased with her, and the cardiac people were going to assess her in out patients so we were waiting for his say so. He laughed and said she looked ready for home so he let her go - we were home by 8pm - beating her goal by a day in the end!
And ever since she's been walking a bit and sleeping a lot - but at least it's quiet at home - not all the noise of other patients and machines. |
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Ann has been walking around the garden checking on the bonsai and exercising her hip since her surgery |
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Peter bought Ann a ‘knicker grabber’. |
| School sent a beautiful bouquet of flowers and she's had plenty of fruit (and chocolate) from other visitors. |
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Peter took the week off work to care for Ann and he’s been the perfect nurse – except when she put her knickers on back to front using her new grabber – then he was too busy laughing to help her! Actually he's been great - doing her dressings, medication, laundry, fetching and carrying. The only problem came when he did a load of washing but didn't check Ann's pockets for tissues! So now we'll both be wearing fluffy undies for the next few days.
The girls missed Ann whilst she was in hospital and gave her a riotous welcome home. But at the moment Jaz is more interested in Peter because he’s doing all the feeding and walking – talk about cupboard love!
For all those people who never throw stuff away – you’re right not to. Ann’s right crutch handle has been making her hand (between thumb and forefinger) very sore so Peter was sent off to find something to pad the handle with. Ten minutes later back he comes with a shoulder pad from one of Ann’s old blouses from 30 years ago. Just to be clear – the blouse was thrown out years ago - heaven knows why she kept the shoulder pads but it’s doing a perfect job protecting her skin!
Our lovely kiwi made sofas are too low and squashy for Ann to sit on at the moment so Peter’s had to swap a sofa for one of our arm chairs from the three piece suite we brought over to NZ with us. It’s perfect – much more supportive for the old hip – however it does mean the girls are unable to snuggle up for cuddles (no cuddles for Peter either!)
Not many apples on our tree for the girls this year but there are plenty of pears for Peter. We also managed to get the net over the grapes in time so we have fresh red grapes straight from the vine. |
