You may remember that Freyja was struck by a stomach bug on Boxing Day and couldn't come to my Boxing Day Luncheon party. I knew it had been a particularly nasty stomach bug and was a bit surprised that no-one else came down with it. It didn't seem likely to be food poisoning. I know that vegans can get food poisoning, but I think it is more prevalent among meat eaters.
Anyway. As far as I was aware she eventually recovered. Nobody else got sick. All seemed to be well.
Except - it wasn't. She had ongoing terrible abdominal pains, violent vomiting, a complete inability to eat. Eventually Simon took her to the emergency department at St Vincent's Hospital. They ran some tests, gave her medications, checked her over and finally sent her home with instructions to visit her GP.
She came to see one of our GPs, who ran some more tests and sent her off for ultrasounds and things. She came back the following day for the results and the general consensus was that it was almost certainly gallstones, along with an inflammation of the gall bladder. Go back to the hospital and get them to sort it out.
So back to St Vincent's she went.
May I suggest, should you need an unscheduled but not desperately urgent operation, that a weekend in January is not an absolutely ideal time to go in search of one. Apparently, the weekend operating lists are filled with scheduled brain and heart surgeries, plus all the usual summer weekend emergencies and then complicated by the crowds at the Australian Open tennis getting heat stroke, or drinking too much champers and falling over, or other sporting festival mishaps. (I had absolutely no idea that weekend operating lists so prominently featured brain and heart surgery. I would have expected the surgeons to be taking the weekend off and operating Monday to Friday.)
Anyway. Freyja went in on Friday afternoon. Waited patiently all day on Saturday and all day on Sunday, fasting from midnight until they decided there was no hope of an operation that day. There was some excitement on Monday, when she was told that she would be on the list that day. But alas - there was a delay of some sort and she missed her slot. So everyone was VERY surprised when at around 8:15 on Tuesday morning they dashed in and grabbed her. Quick. Hurry. Before someone snaffles the OR. Not a moment to lose lest an over-excited tennis fan comes in and steals the spot.
And by 11:00 she was in the recovery room, minus her troublesome gall bladder.
By teatime she was back at home. All those days waiting and then only around 8 hours from going in to theatre to being back at home.
If you absolutely have to go to hospital, you could do a lot worse than St Vincent's public hospital. I had my hand done there and was very impressed. Freyja is equally impressed, despite the delays - which were not really the fault of the hospital.
Meanwhile, back at my place, I swept and weeded the patio:
It is almost as thankless a task as is sweeping the dining room or kitchen. I sweep the dining room and the cats spread cat biscuits all over the floor. I sweep the kitchen, and someone goes in and starts cooking and stuff goes all over the floor. I sweep the patio, the trees think it looks far too bare and oblige by showering it with more leaves. It does look very beautiful for about ten minutes though.
Storm clouds over Mount Helen, at around 6:30 on Wednesday morning:
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