Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Back From the Dead and Sunset.

Well we finally have a broadband connection again. The previous occupants of the house we have moved in to didn’t disconnect their phone service. So until that was sorted out we couldn’t order our new connection.

The nine or so days since I last posted have presented one problem after another. As if moving house wasn’t enough we had to deal with one minor family tragedy and face the fear of another.

On Friday we took the hard decision that we had to euthanize our 14 year old family cat. We have had Sapphire since she was a small kitten. As a purebred Siamese she was getting quite old. Physically she was still fit, but she has been getting confused lately and clearly suffering a cat form of dementia. In the past she has always been content as long as she had her people around her. Previously moving house has never distressed her but this time she was continually crying and was obviously distressed.

So when I came home from work on Friday, four of us took Sapphire up to the vet and said goodbye. Then as Io my middle daughter cradled her, the vet put her to sleep. My three girls were all reduced to sobs and I have to say I was in tears as well.

On Sunday we were over at the old place cleaning up. Lu, our youngest managed to trip while walking backwards. Her head went straight down onto concrete with a sickening crack. She didn’t loose consciousness but she was clearly groggy, and had a lump the size of an egg inside 20 seconds.

You don’t muck around with head injuries, so it was straight up to the ER at the local hospital. The diagnosis “minor concussion”. Lu was held for observation for 6 hours. During that time, she was prevented from going to sleep and had obs taken every 30 minutes. Gradually her condition improved and the doctor said she was fine to be discharged.

The instructions we were given on discharge were that during the night she had to be woken every two hours so we could check she was responsive and assess her coordination. On one level I felt quite confidant that she was “on the mend”, but it was one long night.

The next day Lu was a bit quiet (which is not at all like her), but the past two days she has been back to her normal self. All in all a frightening experience, but no harm done. Except perhaps to my grey hair count!

On a lighter note we are settling in to our new house (although unpacking seems to go on forever). As a bonus the back veranda looks roughly west and we have had a couple of nice sunsets.

Me being me out came the camera:
This was Monday nightAnd this was Tuesday night

6 comments:

Jem said...

Gosh, you guys do have a lot going on. Glad that your daughter is okay after the concussion.

Amanda said...

O my gosh. What a time you've had! I am so sad to hear about your cat. I don't know what I'm going to do when our dogs have to go. Tear. But I'm glad to hear your daughter is doing ok. How scary!! Ouch!

Anonymous said...

I'm happy your little girl is okay. Head injuries are scary, yes. The sunsets are beautiful, though... it's nice to have something to be thankful for.

Lisa said...

Sometime I'd like to do a comparison of gray hairs on the heads of people that have children and those that don't. I swear I got them younger and now have more than people my same age that never had a child crack their head or not come home on time or spend an entire day sassing you!

Al said...

Hi Jemima,
we have been busy haven't we?

Hi Amanda,
We were all so sad about Sapphire. It is soo hard to say goodbye to a loved one, "even" a pet.

Hi Christy,
Thanks. It is nice when things work out for the best.

Hi Lisa,
I certainly have a lot more grey than some other people I know. How much alike kids are everywhere.

Anonymous said...

What a great web log. I spend hours on the net reading blogs, about tons of various subjects. I have to first of all give praise to whoever created your theme and second of all to you for writing what i can only describe as an fabulous article. I honestly believe there is a skill to writing articles that only very few posses and honestly you got it. The combining of demonstrative and upper-class content is by all odds super rare with the astronomic amount of blogs on the cyberspace.