For 3,5 days I have been wearing Mr Esther’s wedding ring as well as mine as he was in hospital for the removal of his heavily infected gall bladder. At the end of this morning the man came home! We’ve been having gorgeous weather here lately and as he has hardly been outside since last week Wednesday when his stomach pains started, he relished the opportunity to just sit in the sun. I planted him on a chair in our front garden with a cup of tea and a stroopwafel (typical Dutch syrup waffle – yumm); it was warm enough for him to be sitting in a t-shirt (his fave Monty Python one with the “What have the Romans ever done for us” print)…
… and afterwards he put his own wedding ring back on…
The scary part is over, this is the perfect sign for me that everything will be alright now! He’s still on painkillers and has very reduced mobility but he’s OK and can finally get some proper rest. Hospitals are fine (and seriously, our hospital is the best with the most empathetic care you could hope for!) but still they are very busy with doctors and nurses at your bed constantly, sharing a room with a stranger (albeit a very nice one), a stream of visitors coming to see you and being subject to hospital schedules which differ from your own. The man hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in a week and is exhausted. Mr Esther is also a bit of a hypochondriac, his over-worked mind and overwrought feelings need a little calming down. Now he’s back home, the wedding ring is back on and he can finally have the peace and quiet to settle down, process what happened and recover. When he took a little nap after lunch I laid down in bed with him for a little bit and it felt so good to have him beside me again. Welcome home, Mr Esther! ❤️
Mr Esther’s gall bladder surgery went well. I know it’s a relatively common procedure and doesn’t take too long but still, I was worried. That was my soul mate they operated on, everything just HAD to go well and luckily it did. 🙂
Mr Esther has never had any gall bladder complaints before until Wednesday evening when the pain started and soon became intense. Turns out it wasn’t just gall stones that were bothering him, his whole gall bladder was completely infected. The surgeon called me after surgery and told me the gall bladder had been ‘close to death’, it’s good that it’s removed now. They want to keep Mr Esther in the hospital for a few days for observation, give him antibiotics and make sure the infection is gone. Hopefully he can come home again after the weekend. They gave us a little pot of gall stones that came out of him…
… and my goodness, I can’t believe he never had complaints before! He’s still groggy after surgery. We left him an hour and a half ago so that he could sleep a little. Going in to see him again in an hour. Thankfully all is well and all he has to do now is have the patience to recover.
Thank you all for your kind thoughts, support and reassurance!
These days I find myself singing this David Bowie song in my head…
There’s a lot to deal with over here in the Esther-household.
Things with my daughter (I call her Sec here) and her friend (Tem), who has been admitted to a closed institution, have come to a head. As much as my daughter wants to support her friend, it has become impossible for her to do so now. Tem is putting Sec under pressure to do certain things for her (not only during visits but also in phone calls), trying to manipulate her, venting her frustration onto my daughter and it is causing deep depression, anxiety, sleeplessness and even fear for Sec. For my daughter’s own protection we’ve decided (and she has come to that conclusion herself as well) that it is best to break off contact with Tem for a while. Things have become so toxic that, together with a psychologist, this decision was made and Sec has felt lighter and somewhat relieved because of it since. We always knew the friendship was close but had its problems (hence us separating them in school a few years ago) but it is only now surfacing how deep those problems have become and how much Sec has slowly slipped into a role of suffering friend doing everything for her friend but getting very little in return. There is of course much more to all of this than I wish to write about here, but suffice it to say we have been very worried for Sec. Now, things do seem to be looking up a little for her, so that is good. Still to be continued, though…
And then the next thing: a week ago we were hearing on the news that in my hometown a woman on a bike had been killed in an accident when a truck didn’t see her and drove over her. Horrifying news and then last weekend, while I was having a lovely weekend away with Suzy in Germany, I was contacted by an ex-colleague who told me the woman who had been killed was the former cleaning lady we used to have at the office! This wasn’t just any cleaning lady, she was the most lovely, cheerful, warm person you could ever wish to meet. I used to organize movie nights and she’d be there (she was working for a cleaning company, not for us, but she was so dear to many of us, I just invited her along every time), at company parties she was always helpful and friendly and full of mischief and laughter. I can still see her wide smile in my mind’s eye. She even insisted on babysitting my kids once and, even though it was only once some 6 or 7 years ago, the kids still remember her and the games she played with them. I last saw her about two years ago during a dinner… I just can’t believe that she was ripped out of her life in such a horrifying way. I understand her family has taken her body to Morocco so she can be buried there. Rest in peace, dear Hassana. “Inna Lillaahi Wa Inna Ilayhi Raji’oun” (“We surely belong to Allah and to Him we shall return”).
On top of all this, two evenings ago Mr Esther started getting stomach cramps. It got really bad at night, so we went to see a doctor on night duty. Mr Esther was given tests and painkillers and they think it may be gallstones. We were sent home again, with pain sort of managed and were told to make an appointment in the hospital for a scan of his stomach. The pain has not subsided and the meds are turning out to not be doing enough, so this morning I called the doctor again. We now have a low dose of morphine for him. In less than two hours we have that hospital appointment. Going by in how much pain the poor man is, I fear they may even want to keep him there in hospital… we’ll see.
Sorry for the quick brain drain here. Stuff on this blog tends to be escapist and happy-ish but sometimes real life needs to be acknowledged here too. I know that this too shall all pass but as I already said, it ain’t easy this week. In the meantime, I’m posting kittens here to cheer me up…
A friend of mine shared this video on Facebook and I love it so much, I’m sharing it here. It starts with: “If you’re still struggling with consent, just imagine that instead of initiating sex, you’re making them a cup of tea…”
Yes, yes, YES on everything in this video, such a great and simple analogy!! Now if only the message would be understood that easily as well… The video is already 3 years old and has close to 6,5 million (!!) views. It may be old news but it’s new to me and so very relevant and important, I think it bears sharing over and over again. I’m showing this to my daughter and, even more importantly so, my son.
Watching this video also triggered a fun memory: it made me think back to Stick-Figure Richard, which may be known to fans of Richard Armitage from some years ago… Stick-Figure Richard was a humourous impression of Richard Armitage; it always surprised me how much could be expressed with him in just a few pen-strokes. Natazukii used to make drawings of Stick-Figure Richard which I thought were genius and I always loved looking at the images. This was way back when, way before my interacting within the fandom days. Nat even made S-F-Richard videos and here are two of them. One about failed New Year’s resolutions which feature a few of Richard’s iconic earlier roles…
These videos still make me laugh! And of course, make me think of Richard, which naturally leads me to real-Richard (every thing is relatable to Richard, apparently!). Yesterday the Berlin Station team shared an image announcing season 3…
Season 3 of Berlin Station premieres on 12/3 at 9pm, only on @EPIXHD.
Richard is featured very prominently on this for a character I have the feeling will bite the dust pretty soon into series 3. But, that’s OK by me. I mean, doesn’t he just look fantastic here? Here’s a close up (thanks to Veloce on Twitter)…
Be still my beating heart! This one’s right up there with my fave ever Richard looks. I still love the beard, combine that with the longer hair and it hits right home. What a lovely pick-me-up. 🙂
MTA: Apparently this is my 500th blog post – yay me!
