Amazing...I'm actually well!

OK, I have hole in my leg, but I feel pretty amazing, nonetheless! I ended up in the ER to have the huge growth on my leg cut open and drained. I got diamorphine for my pains and IV antibiotics.

Mmmm, warm, fuzzy diamorphine!

Anyway, it's taken about two weeks to heal properly as it had to heal from the inside out and they cut right down to the muscle. I have a small cut left and a little hole.

Now we have the lovely game of finding out why this is happening as it's not just happening to me. The kids seem to be getting quite random infections and Miranda keeps getting skin infections when she gets her reaction to tree pollen in the spring. So I'm seeing an immunologist as well as the infectious diseases people to see if anyone can pinpoint it.

I suspect, though, that the cause of my problem is easier to work out as I have a feeling that my blood sugar is a bit abnormal. My endocrinologist has me on a quite high dose of my synthetic thyroid hormone which means I'm slightly hyperthyroid. This, combined with the fact that I've put on every pound that I has lost before I had Gabe so my pre-diabetes has probably kicked in again, means my blood is super yummy to the bacteria on my skin, so whenever I get a little blemish, like a shaving cut or an ingrown hair, they have a field day. Great excuse to not shave!

I've done my utmost to diet this week and seem to have shifted a couple of pounds, so I just need to keep with it. As soon as this damn thing has healed completely then I'm going back in the pool. Until then, though, I'm getting out the yoga DVDs!

Can't wait till Christmas, though! Hopefully, my lovely man will be getting me a Wii Fit. I've dropped him enough hints!

Actually, Christmas is making me all excited! I've done quite a bit of shopping for the kids already. I have actually also bought my sisters' presents and something for Sean. It's a bit more difficult to do the kids though as I buy one whole load of gifts then split them 3 ways - birthday, Santa and tree! Imogen's not so difficult this year as she's getting 3 big pressies, but still needs a Santa sack. I'm finding it really difficult to buy for Miranda because we pretty much have everything for her age group that she likes to do; it's kind of more of the same which is a bit sad really. Gabe is fun to buy for though. I'm buying cars and garages and cool boy stuff!

Lord knows what I'm going to get for Sean though...I can't buy him a plane!

We've also sorted out their parties already, which I am very thankful for. Imogen's taking some friends to see Madagascar 2 and Miranda wants hers at the same gym as last year and I'm quite happy about that!

Hopefully, we should be spending Christmas at home in the UK. That's the plan, anyway. We'll see if it comes off. As this is the last time it's going to get paid for, we really should do it! It's a logistics exercise getting all the pressies there and back but we've done it before, we'll do it again!

Something that has made me very happy this week is that Imogen got brilliant grades in her Connecticut Mastery Tests (CMTs). She was in the 'Advanced' section for two and one mark short of 'Advanced' for the other. It has no bearing on anything but the school's placing in the district and the county but she was invited to try out for the Johns Hopkins University Centre for Talent Youth's Talent Search. It's a big countrywide competition that about 1000 students win through to, out of about 75,000 invited to enter, so it's pretty good odds! I'm just amazed at how well she did and how far she'd come in a year. I know they coach them to the nth degree but I'm not disrespecting her acheivement at all. I think she's done remarkably well and I want to tell everyone what a superstar she is!

Urgh...

Another boil gone rampant.

My first one was in April and it was somewhere delicate so I couldn't walk. Result? Flu-like symptoms and being told by my doctor when I finally went that I should have gone to the ER. Two antibiotic shots in my backside and a course of horse pills later and it went away.

Then I had two less problematic ones on my legs that took lots of soaking and draining and a month or so to get rid of.

Then, while I was in the UK, I had one on my wrist. It was huge. It was obvious and it was embarrassing. A course of antibiotics and cream later and it drained...horribly.

Two weeks ago, I had another one in the delicate place but it was less deep than the first and when I got it to drain it went away quite quickly.

But I now have one on my thigh, which is fairly obviously an ingrown hair gone mad and the pain is ridiculous. My heat pad is out again. I have antibiotic washes and creams coming out of my ears but nothing seems to be working, so I'm off to the docs later...

Marvellous.

The bigger point, I feel, is why am I getting them? Apparently, one of the reasons possible is that I may be diabetic. Thing is, the actual healing thing is not a problem, once they drain. They go pretty quickly and the scar is quite small, so that's not a good indicator of being diabetic. I also have no ketones in my wee. But still, better to be safe than sorry, I feel. I still have all the paraphernalia from the gestational diabetes so I shall check my blood sugar later; just need to get a battery for the unit.

I only use this blog to moan...LMAO!

Long time, no write!

Yes, it truly has been a looooong time! March and it's now September. Much of that time has been eaten away by life in general. I suppose I wasn't really properly well until June any way.

So, what's new? I went home to the UK for the summer. Literally! Spent 6 weeks there, 3 with my MiL and 3 with mum. MiL is lovely. She looked after us so well. We went all over the shop with the kids and they had a ball. They ran her absolutely ragged, insisting that she went round the block with them every night. While we were there she went off her diet (she's lost 3st since last summer) and didn't think she'd put a pound back on with all the walking and running after the kids she did!

Mum was also great but she is in so much pain she can't do much. I went with her to the docs and argued the toss about getting her an appointment to see the orthopaedic surgeon so that she can have a new hip. Originally, the man she'd seen at the hospital had told her that she couldn't have the operation until she had got her BMI down to 31. Not being funny or anything, but Mum was on a 500 calorie diet and put weight on because of all her various hormonal issues. She is also in so much pain that she can barely walk, let alone exercise to shift weight. So basically asking her to lose that kind of weight (4st), whilst leaving her in agony, is tantamount to human torture. I put my point thoroughly to the doc. The doc wrote the letter, she got to see the specialist who told her that he didn't know who'd told her that she had to get her BMI down that far but he was talking rubbish and they scheduled her in for 18 weeks.

Gah!

Anyway, my Grandpa, who will be 95 in December, is also quite sick. The hospital can't quite decide if they're going to send him home because he's doing so well or whether he's never going to go home again... His sister, my great Auntie Marie, came over from Australia to see them for what she though would possibly be the last time and seemed to be on the money. She's been kind of looking after my Nan, who's not always very lucid, while my Aunt Pam has been away as Mum isn't really able to do so. This is frustrating for everyone. Mum because she can't do the looking after, Pam because she had this holiday booked and then Grandpa took sick, Marie because she's kicking on a bit herself and didn't expect to go on holiday and have to look after her much older SiL and Nan because she can't understand why Grandpa just can't come home.

Mum's also dealing with Dad and his failing business. I think we always knew it was a lost cause but everyone was pleased that he could give it a go. I just wish that he had taken some advice and not just played at being a boss. I'm still not sure that it would have succeeded, but at least he would have been able to say that he gave it everything. As it is, they're going away from the business about £40k to the wind at a time of their lives when they need to have put away every penny *sigh* He's not taking the loss very well. I think he felt he had something to prove, having lost his first business to a scummy business partner. Now, he has no one else to blame, though he's trying to blame Mum...

Anyway, we had a lovely time at home. Coming back here was hard. Don't get me wrong, I do love where we live and I love my house and our standard of living is crazy high but with Grandpa and Mum sick and Dad depressed, I really wish I was 45 mins down the road and not 3,000 miles away.

We've fallen back into the old place and the kids have gone back to school now. Miranda's started half day Kindergarten and is loving it, though she's so tired by the end of the day she can do little else but lie on the sofa watching Spongebob! Imogen's in 5th Grade and the homework amount has gone through the roof. To be fair, she's thriving on it at the moment; she hates school when it's slow and dull!

We bought a kitty last week. The kids have been going on forever about getting a pet. I don't want rodents (have enough mice in the walls thank you!) or lizards and I wasn't sure about getting a budgie, so we compromised and got a 'low allergen' cat. He's a Maine coon and he's called Jones. I'm not sure he's that low allergen as Imogen started sneezing the moment he arrived but she's very good at taking her meds! She knows full well that if she doesn't, the cat goes back and she'll do anything to avoid that!

Here is the little man. He's quite handsome!



Anyway, enough of all that. That's where I'm at today. Not tremendously interesting, but there you are!