Ruby was too young for the squad this year, but Alexander made it in. He swam in the 11 year old boys 4x50m freestyle relay (although he isn’t 11 for a few months yet!) and the team came second – he was pretty pleased with that

Here he is in his school bathers. They say ‘Melton’ over the bahookie and I should have asked him to turn more because these look like Elton John fan-trunks!!!

I spent the whole morning lathering these boys in sun cream. It was so hot that they didn’t want to wear their tops but they hate standing still while they get their cream on. Thankfully there is none of the ‘no-one can touch a child, even if it prevents them frying to a crisp’ nonsense here. Sun protection is a necessity and if a child needs help to apply it then parents or teachers step in to help and there is nothing dodgy about it.

Here is the whole team with sports teacher, Mrs Webb. The kids love her and she is such a fantastic teacher. She has been at school every morning at 7am getting the kids in for extra training – then her Mum and I (every time I wasn’t working)made breakfast for them all before they went to class

They are a really great bunch of kids and they did so well today, both with their swimming and their conduct

He was concerned that it would either be squished by a car or spotted and eaten by a bird and while I am more inclined to try to shoo it over to the verge but otherwise leave it to its own devices rather than touch it, Alexander has no such qualms!

He did some kind of ‘mantis charming’ to get it to walk over onto his hand and then whisked it away to some wasteground where the beastie skulked away, completely ungrateful for the rescue!

*shudder* rather you than me son!

On arriving at school I was met by three boys about Alexander’s age who were apparently on sentry duty at the front gate. They must have been sent to wait for someone as they were standing to attention like three little meerkats

There followed a conversation which, for numerous reasons, I just cannot imagine happening had we continued to live in Scotland …

Boy 1 – Are those Alex’s bathers?
Me – Erm, yes. (Look down to check if I am wearing ‘Kiss me, I’m Scottish’ apron, ‘Alexander’s Mum’ badge or other identifying garments – nope!)
Boy 2 – Aww great! He’ll be rapt!!
Me – (chuckle) good stuff!
Boy 1 – He’s not in his class just now though.
Boy 2 – He’s at bat tennis. (Strange australian game, sort of like table tennis without the table, but not like tennis! Wooden paddles for racquets, no throwing to serve etc.)
Me – Oh, ok, well, I’ll maybe just drop his kit into his classroom.
Boy 1 – Yeah, that’ll be ‘right. Just leave it with Miss Jackson.
Boy 2 – She’s the one with blonde hair.
(And, I assume, 20 years on everyone else in the room and a teaching degree)
Me – Well, thanks guys, see you later!
Boy 1 – See ya! You look like Alex though!
Me – Do I? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Boy 1 – Aww, a good thing! See ya!

Boy 3 took over the watch while the others chatted but smiled and gave me a wave as I set off to Alexander’s class, chuckling all the way!

I love the friendly, open hearted nature of so many of the kids at this school

This is their school playground – nice huh?

The weather over the first few days of the year grew warmer and warmer until yesterday the mercury pushed past 40c.  All you can do on those days is sit under the air conditioning vent and wait for the temperature to become bearable again.  I do find it a bit funny that in Scotland the kids couldn’t play out after Christmas because it was too cold and wet, yesterday they couldn’t go out because just walking from the house to the car you could feel your skin sizzling!!

The forecasters predicted a cool change last night but at 1am it was still over 32c.

When I woke up this morning it was a very pleasant 23c so we got ourselves organised and ready to go out while it was nice out.  We were going to do another day on our A-Z but all the places beginning with D are far away or in fire zones (yesterday there was a statewide fire ban and the warning had been raised to ‘extreme’ on the fire rating signs – one step before ‘grab your kids, passports and hard-drive and go and stand in the sea while all your worldly goods go up in smoke’) so we didn’t really want to go there.  Instead we went to Williamstown again

Alexander was not in the mood. 

He is 10.5 years old and this appears to be the age when sullen, grumpyness sets in.  He would much rather be at home, looking at a screen of some description, not talking to anyone.

But I am his Mum and I knew that a few minutes on the rocks

and with the aid of Larry splashing around with him

he’d soon get into the spirit of things!!

Soon enough everyone was clambering about on the rocks, searching for limpets, starfish and sea urchins.

We saw the Westpac rescue helicopter zoom past.  Not sure if they were looking for someone or just having a test flight.

A lovely old bi-plane flew over a few times too.

Ruby managed to get her feet FILTHY and then made matters worse when she took her flip-flop off to wash it, but couldn’t stand on one leg so got her foot dirtier and while washing it off, her other foot slipped and was also filthy!!!

We sat on the rocks for a while until her feet and thongs dried off!

We stayed on the rocks for a while enjoying the breeze coming off the sea.

Then it was time to leave so Alexander and Larry ran back through the water

and jumped back over the rocks

back to the tree where we had started.  Ruby had a little posing break

while Alexander climbed in the tree.

For a boy who didn’t want to be here, I think he had kind of enjoyed himself!

We rounded off our visit with a trip to the best fish and chip shop ever – ‘The Top of The Bay’ on The Strand.  The fish is so delicious and could only be fresher if it was still swimming!!

It takes about an hour to get to Creswick from our house, which makes it about an hour and a half from Melbourne.  Creswick started off as a little rural outpost but, like many places in Victoria, it had something of a boom when gold was found in the late 1800s.

We started our day at the Creswick Museum.  This is run by volunteers and is a great collection of all the areas of Creswick’s history. 

We had a good look at all the young, handsome, hopeful faces looking out at us from the Roll of Honour from Creswick School.  It was so sad to see groups of three and four young men with the same surname and a year or two in age between them all displayed there – I couldn’t help but think of their poor mothers, all her boys gone …

Moving on to another room, I was tickled by this picture of the council in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year.  I especially like the bloke in the back row who couldn’t bear to stand up straight long enough to get his picture taken!!

There was a collection of ‘everyday objects’.  My sewing machine is not quite as ornate as this little beauty!!!

I loved this mini butter churn.  I could imagine Ruby being in charge of the butter churning in our house if she was born when this was the go

I spotted this beautiful clock – clocks like this always remind me of my Grandpa as he had collected some gorgeous clocks

Back out in the sunshine, we had a walk around the town.  Creswick is a funny little place.  There are old, ornate brick buildings right alongside modern shops.  There is this lovely old Post Office building

and just across the road is a drive-thru bottle shop (I find this a hilarious phenomenon, who doesn’t have time to get out of their car to buy drink?!!!)

I loved this hardware shop – established in 1854 and still in business today, occupying both the brick and cream shops.  I’d like to think it is the same family who have owned all this time, but it was closed so who knows?!

The town has lots of very typical verandahs to shelter shoppers from the sun – and the rain, considering my previous experience in our  current location!!

But just in case you forget you are in Australia, there are dodgy shop signs to remind you.

Seriously, Dazza, I know you are proud of your butcher shop but that is a terrible shop name!!

We walked past this pub, the name made me laugh because in the local accent it would be called ‘The Faaahmes’ Aaaaaahms’.

A few years ago, just after we first got here, Creswick was affected by terrible floods.  The whole of the main street and lots of the surrounding areas were underwater.  This was not something we had to worry about today – quite the opposite in fact. 

The bushfire rating was raised recently as the summer has been so dry so far.  Creswick has had it’s fair share of bushfires too.  I love all the disclaimers on this sign!!

We had a drink in one of the many cafes on the main street.  Alexander and Ruby had a quick go of Alexander’s ipod – it had been a good two hours since they had looked at a screen!!

And Michael stared into the middle distance while drinking a chai latte

We drove down the road to Creswick State Forest to have a bit of a bushwalk

It was a beautiful place and definitely somewhere we would go back to – maybe with fishing rods

We took a wander up the track a while

There were butterflies everywhere – can you spot them on this bush?

I still get a kick out of the odd Australian trees.  This one is moulting bark in a pretty spectacular fashion!!

And I like these crazy seed pods!!

After a decent amount of scenery appreciation and little lizard spotting, it was time to head home

We drove home through a tunnel of gum trees

and open, yellowing fields

We’ll be back to Creswick, it’s a lovely town to visit (and we never got as far as the woollen mill – that might be a jaunt for Ruby and I while A & Michael are fishing!), and hopefully next time we are camping there the weather will be as beautiful as it was today!!

We had our second Christmas Eve gathering at our house.  I am really pleased that we have taken over the mantle of this tradition from Auntie Eveline.  All the cousins, wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends and kids came round to our house for the kids’ mass present swap

It was a really lovely day and I love it that we now have a big family!  It’s such a novelty!  We gathered the kids together for a pic before it all went crazy …

Then it was time for the present swapping

It’s a bit of a free for all

but it is a lot of fun!

Alexander and Ruby LOVED having all the kids over and they all played so well together.  The girls played in Ruby’s (still tidy – oh Christmas Miracle!) bedroom or out on the hammock

And the boys had a good bounce on the trampoline and a huge nerf gun fight

After everyone left, the kids put on their Christmas Eve pyjamas and we watched ‘The Polar Express’ as we do every year.

Santa decided that Alexander and Ruby were very good this year, starting yet another new school, doing well at their swimming and soccer/calisthenics and particularly while Dad has been ill, and so he brought them both an Ipod touch.  They were over the moon!

We gave them the new Skylanders Giants game and so they went to play that while Michael went back to bed (also a Park family Tradition ) and I made breakfast.

Mum came to join us for Apfel Pannkuchen , croissants and Bucks Fizz - I don’t have any pics of this as I was too busy (bah Dad – I needed you!)

We went into the hospital after breakfast to see Dad.  It was very quiet in there.  I suppose they try to get everyone who is able to go home.  We spent a couple of hours in there with the kids telling them about their presents and us telling him of all the news from the cousins from the day before.

We came home and had a wee lie down and then had our non-traditional but totally scrummy Christmas dinner. 

Mum and Alexander got a little bit competitive with the crackers

We had asparagus in proscuttio then mango, cucumber and tiger prawn salad to start, then ham with potato salad and Auntie Carol’s greek salad

Followed by my all time favourite – Barbarine

(that dish was for all of us, I was just comedy posing – honest )

And after dinner there was a little bit of playing games and blethering and then it was all over.  It was different, a little subdued, but way, way better than we thought it would be a couple of months ago.

Ciaran is getting so big – it’s just not on that all my friends’ babies are getting bigger without me there to smoosh them!!

Ruby and Alexander loved seeing them both too.  Ruby would be such a lovely big sister, she is so attentive with my friends’ babies.  Not going to happen

When we came home, we put the Christmas tree up.  This year, A and R built the tree while I ate an icy pole – I do love having older children!

Alexander found that the spiky branches where perfect for scratching his sunburn – not something I had to think about when I was growing up!!

I gave the kids free rein on decorating (once the lights and star garlands were on).  I don’t really understand Christmas Tree Control Freakery.  To me, it is about seeing and enjoying all the decorations we have collected through the years and that is much more important than a colour scheme.  I love that I have decorations from when I was a little girl and we have special decorations that have been given to us as gifts or given to the kids for Christmas when they were little.  Every year, Ruby searches for the ‘Ruby Slipper’ decoration that my parents gave her for her first Christmas.  Alexander is a little more cynical and scathing about it all but we still have a chat about all the baubles and where they came from.  I would miss all that if we only allowed purple and silver decorations or whatever!

When it came time for her to have her stitches removed, some helpful child at school had told her that it was more painful to get them out than it is getting them in.  Super!  She was very nervous, but my friend, Leesa, one of the lovely nurses at my work managed to talk her down off the ceiling.  She told her all the steps of what she was going to do, showed her all the kit she would be using and then told her lots of stories about her naughty poodle/schnauzer puppies while taking out the first few stitches – the perfect way to distract Ruby!

Once the first three stitches were out, it was clear that the cuts hadn’t healed as well as we had hoped they would, so Leesa glued her back together and we left them for another few days.  Ruby didn’t mind this at all – she was just glad there were no more needles involved!

She now has two different creams to try to minimise scarring – one that smells divine for the daytime and bio-oil for night.  We are hoping that by next year the colour will have gone from the scars and in time they will fade and stretch so they aren’t too noticable.  Her skin is young and stretchy so they should be fine.

Ruby is such a wee trouper that it doesn’t seem to bother her at all.

One of the biggest challenges of the last couple of months has been trying to keep things normal for Ruby and Alexander.  Things are very far from normal but as much as I would like to ONLY have to focus on Dad’s recovery, I have a job, a husband, two little darlings and a golden boy to attend to too.  My work have been really supportive, I had the first two weeks off when Dad was sick but after that I really had to get back.  Michael has been a tower of wonderfulness, taking over everything at home while working full time and supplying me with chocolate, tea and hugs as I rush in and out out of the house. 

In an effort to get things normal again and to reconnect with each other we went for one of our Sunday jaunts this week We drove down to the dog beach at St Kilda and had a lovely afternoon of gadding about!

It was warm but not blistering and so it was perfect to let loose in the sea!

Michael and I still have the Scottish habit of bracing ourselves before setting foot in the sea – an old throwback from summers spent in St Andrews and Musselburgh – we always get a pleasant surprise when the water is beautifully warm

Larry was in his element!  He is not a great chaser of tennis balls or catcher of sticks but he is happy just to run about in the water.

Any day when he gets wet and revolting is a good day for him!

It was lovely to be out in the sunshine with the kids.  After I took this picture I realised how grown up Alexander is becoming and the shadow of them not wanting to spend days out like this is hovering over me but for now I just want to laugh with them in the sunshine.

Thankfully, they are very quick to have fun and made up this game of throwing handfuls of sand straight up, before dodging out of the way of the falling clumps!

Alexander would have played this all day long

Ruby joined in too.

How lucky am I to have these darlings as my family? 

We left the sand and walked along the esplanade for a while.  It’s a great walk and wasn’t too busy today.

Further along the front there are some showers where the kids washed their sandy feet.

Michael helped them to dry off.

Larry found his own way to dry off, rubbing himself on a concrete stool!!

Ruby found a water fountain and so we had to take our customary picture of her being RUBBISH at drinking from these things!!!  Look how wet her t-shirt is!!!

We stopped off at a swing park that we first visited back in 2009 when we were here for our visa verification trip.  One of the joys of having older kids is that they can go the swings by themselves

Of course, Alexander has now moved on to daredevil dismounts, especially designed to give his parents a heart attack!

Ruby is delighted that she can swing herself so high now – it took her a long time to get the technique!

When we were here back in 2009, Ruby had to be lifted up onto this swing and needed a good push to make it to the other side.  This time she could do it all by herself!

Alexander is always King of the Castle!

And of course, what would a Park family day out be without ice cream?  One of my favourite ice cream shops has a branch in St Kilda.  When we visited in 2009 the kids looked like this

and this

but on Sunday we looked more like this and life is good

Around the beginning of October my Dad got a cold.  He felt generally rubbish and we were mildly sympathetic.  It was only a cold.  He was still going to work, still getting the kids from school but sleeping lots and feeling yuck.  He gradually went downhill, losing his balance and getting confused before Mum called for an ambulance.

The day Dad went to hospital was the 15th October – at the time I thought that was the worst day ever – a few weeks later I was wishing that things were only as bad as they were that day.

That day was pretty awful.  It started with me attending the funeral of a lovely lady I had met just after I moved here.  She had found out that she was really sick not that long after we met but she was always smiley and always had a kind word.  She was only 64 when she died.  As I was leaving for the funeral, Mum called to say she was phoning for the ambulance as Dad had become much worse over night.  The funeral was sad, this lovely lady had died too soon and left so many people lost without her, but I sat there thinking, ‘I can’t do this for my Dad.  Please let him be ok.’

After the funeral I drove down to the hospital and met Mum and Dad.  Dad was shivering uncontrollably and had times when he seemed confused.  We sat there for hours while he had blood taken, doctors came in and out, questions were asked and answered, asked again, answered again, asked yet again and answered yet again.  Dad was exhausted as he hadn’t slept for a couple of days but every time he closed his eyes, someone else came to do something.

I had phoned Michael to ask him to come home from work to get the kids from school, that way I could stay with Mum and Dad until we knew what was happening.  At a little after 4pm my phone rang, it was Michael asking me to get to my work ASAP as Ruby had fallen in barbed wire and needed stitches.  I knew it must be bad because he knew how worried I was about my Dad and how important it was for me to stay with him.

I tore back up the road (thanking the universe for every green light and my friend, Julie, for hypnotising me into learning to drive, almost two years on the novelty still hasn’t worn off!!) but I wasn’t prepared for how bad my wee Ruby looked when I arrived.  When asked later to describe how bad it looked, the only thing I could think of were the pictures of Jesus on the cross.  She looked as though she had been flayed.  There were long scratches all over her legs and two gashes about the diameter of a 50p/20c. I could see layers of skin pulled back revealing little fat cells – like an orange segment turned inside out.  Ruby was wild with the pain but the doctors at my work had given her painkillers and an antihistamine.  Michael and Alexander left to take the dog home – all three in a state of shock.  I was glad Michael wasn’t there for the next bit.  Ruby needed to get stitches – eleven of them.  She is not a fan of needles at the best of times – she carried on like a pork chop when she got her flu jab earlier in the year!  She needed an anaesthetic injection before the stitching could start.  She went BALLISTIC and kicked my boss (the doctor wielding the needle) in the head!  Ooops!  He managed to slide to safety while I pinned her arms and legs down and insisted that we DO NOT kick doctors!!  She was really brave but in such a lot of pain as he stitched her up.  She ended up with one straight cut about an inch/2.5cm long and a triangular one about the same length across.  She had a few steri-strips on other cuts that were just bordering on needing stitched and a few long, but shallow cuts were cleaned and left to the air.  We were sent home with lots of hugs from the girls I work with and Ruby was installed on the couch, doped up to the eyeballs.

Poor Michael was traumatised.  Of the two of us, he is always the one to warn the kids to be careful, don’t jump off that, slow down etc but he took the kids and Larry for a walk and they were playing hide and seek in the bushes by the path.  Ruby had gone round the back of one of the bushes – where it borders with a salad grower’s field – and tripped on a piece of barbed wire that was entangled in the undergrowth.  Michael kept saying ‘What if it had been her face?’ and ‘I shouldn’t have let her play like that.’  But there was absolutely no point in blaming himself.  There was nothing he could have done.  That didn’t stop him beating himself up though.

I went back to the hospital to bring Mum home at 10pm.  Dad was still in the Emergency Department as they still couldn’t work out what was wrong with him and so where he should go next.  We stayed with Dad for a while longer and then came up the road.  We went to bed to try to get some sleep but Mum just couldn’t rest knowing that Dad was there all by himself so around midnight I drove her back.  Just as I got back to bed, she phoned to say that she had left her electric blanket on, could I go and switch it off?  LOL, a house fire would just top off the day, don’t you think?!!

Around 5am Mum called again to tell me to come to the hospital.  Dad had continued to get worse through the night and they were unsure of whether he’d pull through.  I drove down the road again and arrived just as Dad was about to be moved to the infectious diseases ward of a neighbouring hospital.  They had decided that he had an atypical bacterial meningitis.  We followed along behind the ambulance in a daze.  Meningitis was bad but any diagnosis was good because now they knew what they were dealing with they could make him better … right?  If only.

So the next few days all merged into one.  Partly because I can’t remember what happened when and partly because I didn’t really sleep at all.  Dad was put onto IV antibiotics but continued to deteriorate.  He became really agitated and was hallucinating – he saw bugs on the walls etc.  He lost track of where we were (he thought we were in Paris) and who he was (he thought he was God at one point and tried to give us communion with a banana!).

Every few hours he was asked his name, our names, where he was and what date it was.  He lost track of where we were almost straight away, the date went next and then it was hit and miss as to whether he would say our names.  One time he was asked my name and he faltered before saying ‘FFF…FFF’, the staff knew by this time that my name is Laura so they started to make their note that he had failed that test when he spluttered out, ‘Flossie’, this was my nickname as a little girl and Dad still refers to me as this quite often after a few days of dispair it was a moment that reminded me that he was still in there.

The first time he couldn’t say my name I was heartbroken.  I came home and sobbed and sobbed.  This was not fair.  My lovely Daddy never hurt anyone.  EVERYONE loves him – as was obvious from the HUNDREDS of messages from all over the world sending him vibes, prayers, love and wishes and he just didn’t deserve this horrible illness and what it was doing to him.  The simple thing of someone saying your name is so precious but you just don’t realise until that person can only look at you blankly.  A few weeks later, I had become used to him not being able to say my name and that made me cry all over again!  How awful to be used to something so horrible!

When it was clear that he wasn’t making a remarkable recovery but instead was continuing to get worse, Mum asked my brother to come over from America.  He managed to arrange flights really quickly and was with us within a few days.

I hadn’t told the kids that he was coming and when they saw him they were DELIGHTED!!  David is just a really great bloke to have around and while I hated the circumstances that brought him here, I was so glad to have him here!

While David was here, the doctors decided that it wasn’t meningitis at all but post viral auto-immune encephalitis.  In simple terms, the cold that he had had at the beginning of the month had kicked off his immune system (as it had dozens of times before in his life) but his immune system went into overdrive and started fighting off healthy parts of his body.  His brain had swollen and this was the cause of most of his problems.  The doctors didn’t know how extensive the damage was, or what we could hope for in terms of recovery.

Dad was now asleep or in a very low state of consciousness almost all of the time.  He had a naso-gastric tube inserted as he was unable to stay awake to eat.  He very rarely said anything – with notable exceptions, like telling David to get out of his light or telling me to move so that the cleaners could mop the floor!  These tiny glimpses gave us hope that Dad was still in there – we just didn’t know how to get him out!

We took it in turns to sit with him so that when he would open his eyes, we would be there.  On one day when I was there the doctors came round and told me, “The part of his brain that has been affected is the part that regulates consciousness.”  It was all I could do not to answer, “No shit, Sherlock!” they decided that after three weeks of antibiotics which had made no difference at all, they would try him on some steroids and antibody therapy.  The antibody infusion is called ‘Octogam’ which we thought sounded like a superhero It was going to need to have superhuman qualities to haul my poor Dad out from the fog he was in.

We were told that if this didn’t work then we might have to consider what Dad’s wishes would be.  That was a scary thing to hear but I was so glad that we were all together to talk about it and support each other.

We also made good pratical use of David being here by doing Dad’s garden.  He had big plans for the garden and he and Michael had made troughs for planting his flowers in.  We went down one day and got everything in place then celebrated with bacon rolls – as is customary for a work party

One positive thing about David dashing over here was that he was here for his birthday.  While that was not good for my lovely sister-in-law, Carol, or all his Minneapolis friends who celebrate his birthday every year with a fancy dress Halloween party (his birthday is the day before), it was lovely for Mum and I who haven’t celebrated his birthday with him for about fourteen years!

We had a birthday tea for David and Michael (Michael’s birthday is on Halloween) complete with Freddo ice cream cake.

I had also made a hat for David – I had thought I’d be posting it but I was able to give him it in person.  A few months ago he posted a picture of a hat he had seen on facebook.  It was a crocheted version of ‘Bender’ from ‘Futurama’.  I made it to fit his huuuuuuge melon of a head and when he opened it he giggled like a little girl!!  I was so pleased that I was there to see his reaction!  Together we make quite a pair don’t you think?!!!

We were so sad to see David go home, but I am glad he had been here.  It is very hard for him to be so far away when all this going on.  Waiting for news is hard enough when we are here, it is horrible when you have to wait through time zones for updates.

So David left on a Wednesday, on the Thursday Mum and I went into the hospital as usual.  When we went into his room, Dad had his eyes open and was having his blood pressure taken.  The nurse said to him, “Who are these people?” and clear as day he said, “These are MY people.”  We would have gone home happy if he had stopped there but he went on to tell the nurse our names and how we were related to him!!  It was like Christmas morning!!  We stayed and chatted for a while.  Dad was quiet and spoke slowly but he was definitely back with us.  When we left, Mum and I did a happy dance in the car park!

Every day we went in, Dad seemed to be slightly better.  He couldn’t remember much from day to day, it was a shock to him every time we told him how long he had been in hospital, but he always knew who we were and was happy to see us   As he continued to improve, the staff started making noises about sending him to a rehabilitation ward.  How exciting!

As soon as he was considered stable enough, Dad was moved to Sunshine Hospital (sounds lovely, doesn’t it?  Well, it isn’t!)  Without going into too much detail, the ‘care’ Dad received here was severely lacking.  I wouldn’t have left a dog in the conditions we found him in and when it was clear to us that he was going downhill again, the staff dismissed our concerns.  At one point Dad vomitted and when I told the nurse he had been sick, she replied, “Yes dear, he is sick, that’s why he’s in hospital.”  as though I was an imbecile!!!!  I thnk I did very well not to lamp her!!  After a day or two of this, he was transferred back to Footscray.  The nurses in the neurology ward welcomed him back and we were so glad that he was out of Sunshine!

There followed a few more days of decline.  Dad became agitated and paranoid again.  He had some pretty crazy hallucinations.  At one point when I was in I was patting my hand and he stretched over to stroke my face.  I thought, “Aww, that’s sweet.” until we had the following conversation ..”Laura, you need to get some cream on your face.”  “Oh, really?”  (Dad has NEVER made known any sort of judgement on my appearance!)  “Yes, it’s all white.” he replied.  “What sort of white?”  I asked.  “Like a beard, a big white beard.”  LOL!!  I hope he was hallucinating anyway!  On that day he also saw cows in the room and beasties on the wall so I am fairly sure I am not a Santa doppelganger!!

The doctors put him back on Octogam and steroids and he was soon getting back to normal.  As he recovered again, he seemed to have better movement than before.  His legs had had limited movement but now they seemed free-er.

The doctors started rumbling again about rehab.  We were NOT in a rush for him to be moved and we CERTAINLY didn’t want him back in Sunshine.  The doctors at the hospital really wanted him to go there (as it is a sister hospital) and kept giving us the reasons why he SHOULD move him there but we started to look around for other options.  One of the doctors at my work suggested a private hospital in Ballarat – about 45 minutes from where we live (and home of the Gold Museum we have visitied a few times!) so we drove up there to have a look around.  It was lovely and we really wanted Dad to be looked after there.  It was lovely and quiet and they seemed to have a great program for their patients.

The final say came from the consultants at the hospitals – the Ballarat chap had to phone the Footscray chap who would fill him in on Dad’s condition and then the Ballarat chap had to agree that Dad could go there.  Well, he didn’t agree.  It was decided that Dad was too ill to go to his hospital – boo!!

So against our better judgement he has been moved to Sunshine.  Behind the scenes, I requested a meeting with the Head of Nursing to address the misgivings we have and how we can ensure that this will be a positive move.  We’re not being ultra demanding here, I don’t want the red carpet treatment but he’s the only Dad I have and he’s very precious so I am adamant that they should look after him!

So that’s us up to date – well, almost, today Dad started his rehab exercises and for the first time since October 15th, he stood up.

On one of the first days after he was taken into hospital when he thought that he was losing his mind, I explained to him that he was really sick and we just had to find rock bottom so that he could start climbing up again.  Every time we thought he had reached rock bottom, we found a new, deeper cavern and it looked as though we might have lost sight of the way out altogether but today we started climbing …