Let's hope next week is better.....

It's not been such a good week. My Monday blood test showed that my neutrophils were still only 0.6, so my haematologist asked me to have more blood collected yesterday. The results today show that the neutrophils are up to 0.8 (not brilliant, but we'll take any improvement we can get at the moment). My haemoglobin is still low, so I'll be going in for a blood transfusion next Saturday. I know that it's all incredibly routine and everything, but I'm a little apprehensive. I said to Mum this evening "they should keep the blood for the people who need it". She said "If the doctor is recommending this, you're the people who need it!" She also said that it's for this reason that she donates blood - to help people who are unwell. I wish I could just request a couple of units of her donations....

But even worse than that, my wonderful, special Uncle George had an operation earlier this week that didn't go according to plan and now he's in hospital, very sick and possibly at risk of dying soon. I feel so bloody far away from my Sydney family right now. I looked up flights for this weekend but they're very expensive. At the moment I'm waiting for news as it comes to hand, and hoping, hoping, hoping that he'll be okay.

Uncle George last October at Jill's wedding. (I know the corners are missing but for some reason this photo was taken on an angle so I had to rotate it and crop but it was still missing bits.....)

Helmets, babies, water restrictions, birthdays and bone marrow tocixity

All of these things are a part of my life at the moment.

The Man and I decided to buy helmets to protect our little headsies and brainsies when we ski. I selected a size small, which seemed right in the shop but when we got them home and tried them on with goggles, it was too big so I had to go back and get an extra small. Good things come in small packages, like my tiny head, obviously. We got a helmet for The Boy a little while ago, so we will all have lovely protected heads for our upcoming ski trip to the land of the long white....ski run (hopefully).

Our good friends A and M had a little girl last weekend. I am madly trying to finish a gorgeous little rose-pink jacket that I've been knitting for a while....my fault that I've been procrastinating and working on other things, but there's only one sleeve to sew in and the buttons to sew on, and to give it a good wash and block and it will be done. Photos when it's finished, I promise.

Our technical writer at work is on tenterhooks because his partner is 5 days overdue with their first baby, another little girl. Aaargh.....I'm running out of time to knit booties.....

We are well into level 5 water restrictions and some recent rain hasn't been enough to really affect the dam levels at all. We are all being encouraged to use 140 litres or less of water per day per person, with full dishwasher and washing machine loads and 4 minute showers. To assist with this, the government recently had a massive mailout of 4 minute shower timers. I'd already bought a timer, so we had one in the shower already, but we put the new one in the shower and it fell off the wall and broke after less than one day. Damn. I was looking forward to being allowed to have 8 minute showers. *ha ha* Now it's back to attempting to get finished in 4 minutes. (I try, I really do, but it's hard to get the water to the right temperature and wash your body and shampoo and condition your hair and comb the conditioner through and wash your face and rinse off in 4 minutes....oh well, gotta keep trying.)

It's birthday time here at the moment - My niece's 2nd birthday tomorrow, The Boy and his best friend at the beginning of July, our friend Nicky is turning 40 in the middle of the month, and my birthday is later on in July. The Man and I are finally managing to get out for the long-awaited dinner at Gambaro's seafood restaurant in a couple of weeks and we're going to stay the night at the Sofitel in town. The Boy's Grandma is coming down to take care of him for the night. I can't wait...I haven't had prawns in sooooooooo long, not to mention oysters, crabs, moreton bay bugs......

And in health-related news, the Puri-Nethol (6-mercaptopurine/6-MP) I was taking for my crohn's disease has started to make me sick. It had started to be toxic to my bone marrow, my haemoglobin had got down to 71 (should be 115 plus) and my neutrophils were 0.5 (should be 2+). So I'm tired, pale, have a tendency to nearly black out when I get up too quickly and have lowered resistance to infection. I'm off the drugs for the next week and a half and having blood tests once a week, so I'll have to see how it all goes. The gastroenterologist thinks that I will recover on my own without treatment so fingers crossed. I should have some idea tomorrow when I call to get the results of today's blood test.

Anyway, I hope you're all well, you didn't wash away in NSW's recent storms and that your winter isn't too chilly. :)

I love long weekends

I love that it's Sunday night and I don't have to go to work tomorrow. Love the new job, but love Mondays off too!

We went shopping today to get new long-sleeved shirts for The Boy, and we went to the movies and saw Shrek the Third as well. I realise it's been getting some less than favourable reviews but I kinda liked it. It wasn't fall-off-your-chair funny, but The Man and I both giggled in parts. The Boy was pretty good and only occasionally made his own commentary ("Why do these ads have to go so long?", "He's a nasty man, he's a nasty man!").

And in work-related news, my new company got sold on Friday to an American company. No idea yet what they're going to do with everything, but I've got to hope that my bosses, knowing they were selling the company, wouldn't have recruited me if they knew it was unlikely I'd have a future longer than two weeks! The Man keeps telling me that I've just got to go with the flow, and I'm trying, but it's a little difficult to go from a not-so-great job to being unemployed to finding a great job and then having this new uncertainty. Oh well. We'll know more on Tuesday when the new bosses come in to meet us.

It's 10:20pm and I'm about to go to bed.....

I'm enjoying my new job. I haven't been there two weeks yet and haven't really done much yet, but everyone is really nice and I like the atmosphere. I'm madly cramming Java training into this little old brain of mine so I can actually be useful at some stage.....Some of it is coming back but some of it is taking some really hard thinking.....hopefully it will all start to click once I actually start doing some coding for real. Fingers crossed.

On the knitting front I've almost finished Tivoli. Only about 11 rows to go.....I might get it done this weekend, just in time for the weather to turn cool enough so I can't wear it......how's that for timing? :)