Jenny hosted a few of us at her place for Christmas, Joe, Kate, myself and Nanna. We started at 12 noon and in her usual way Jenny did us proud with all sorts of good things to eat. Ham and a chook were the main features plus all sorts of veggies and additives. I brought along a bottle of Seaview champagne and Joe and Kate did their bit by coming over early to help set things up.
We had it in Nanna's apartment because Nanna was not up to getting up the stairs after her recent two heart attacks. It was the highlight of the occasion to see her still in reasonable form at 94. The two people present who had Nannas's genes in them must have been much encouraged by that.
We started off by opening presents under the Christmas tree. Kate got lots of things to do with cats and I got booze -- both of which reflected certain realities.
Sadly, I wasn't feeling very bright so could not do justice to the food. But the brain was still working so I was able to inject a number of different topics into the dinner table conversation. One that was of great interest to Kate and Joe was the place in history of Jon Burge, a notorious Chicago police chief recently deceased. Joe was rightly horrified and outraged at what Burge had done but I suggested some ameliorating circumstances. I am putting up an expanded version of that discussion on Thursday (27th.) on Dissecting Leftism
So after a few hours I went home for a nap and Anne arrived a bit before 6pm after having spent most of the day with her sons. We were of course not up to having much to eat for dinner after a big lunch so we had our Sunday evening dinner in the form of leftover ham with mustard on sandwiches.
I got Anne for Christmas a number of things that I hoped would be useful, chief of which was a silver gravy boat by Rodd, big-time Australian silversmiths since the '30s. I believe some of their stuff ranks as collectibles these days. One of the things Anne got me was a cocktail shaker. I make her a Martini occasionally but have always stirred the mix rather than shaking it.
And that night the family nearly lost me. At around midnight I began making multiple trips to the toilet. And the trips were all ones where I passed lots of blood. After 7 such trips I had to consider that I might be a goner. My good natural clotting ability cut in at that point however and the bleeding from my bowel stopped. But for that clotting ability I might not be here to write this.
As soon as the bleeding seemed to have stopped, therefore, I got Anne to drive me in to my usual private hospital -- where I was very promptly seen to. I have a history of diverticulitis -- so severe diverticulitis was the provisional diagnosis -- later confirmed by a scan. Getting a CAT scan at 2am in the morning of Boxing Day was pretty good going but that is the sort of service we get from at least some Brisbane private hospitals. And thanks to my health insurance, it will not cost me a cent.
So I was admitted to the hospital for the rest of the morning without incident and was seen by a gastroenterologist about lunch time -- who discharged me. My body had basically done the job of curing the problem and all the hospital had to do was diagnose and watch over me until I was sure I was in the clear. Had the bleeding resumed, they would have had to operate. So that was a very bad Boxing Day.
I got some pics from the twins in NZ however and they clearly had a much less troubled time. One of the presents I bought the kids (via Von) was a Garden Tennis set, which was apparently a great hit with the kids. Pic below.
No comments:
Post a Comment