Alien Spouse

Safe Baby!

This morning we had the baby safety class, which covered child proofing the home, infant CPR and treating choking; it was equal parts TERRIFYING and reassuring.  It was terrifying in that the nurse teaching the course kicked off with "Babies have a death wish and it's your job to keep them alive", and reassuring in that most of the stuff we covered was either common sense, something I already knew or actually seemed pretty instinctive.

I did enjoy learning that the best beat to do infant CPR to is "Staying Alive", or apparently "Another One Bites The Dust" but the CPR peeps decided that the BeeGees' lyrics were more appropriate to bear in mind at such a moment.  Also CPR works far far better on children than on adults, because the blood pressure that CPR produces is actually pretty close to a child's natural blood pressure, so you can actually keep a child's brain properly oxygenated for hours with CPR.  Good to know!

It was interesting to meet other soon-to-be parents, but I was jealous of the couple who are expecting their baby around Halloween - And they said that they don't even like Halloween, so it's wasted on them!  So unfair!  Can you just lie about when a kid is born by a couple of months?  How noticable would that really be?  Hmmmm?

After the class we rewarded ourselves with doughnuts, followed by a quick flit around Target to buy a few more baby things. Because there are always more baby things to be bought.

Please Prepare for Slightly Too Much Information.

Yesterday the manual breast pump I'd ordered arrived.

(That should have cleared the room a fair bit already, but let's just give them a moment to get their coats)

Naturally We unpacked the thing, looked at it, read the manual and then put it back in it's box... Until I got ready for bed, at which point I thought to myself that I really ought to just give it a quick test pump or two.  And then my boobs started to leak.

Which freaked me out frankly.  Doc C walked into the bedroom at this point, saw my face and asked what was wrong, so I told him and he was also a bit freaked out.

I mean obviously this is really good, because I intend to breast feed and this means that means that my body is pretty much ready to do that and yay for the miracles of the human body, etc, but still - OMG!  That was SO weird, and it;s all just going to get weirder isn't it ?

Nappy Training Day.

Today Doc C and I had an induction with a local diaper service (they deliver fresh clean nappies and take away the dirty ones to be washed - So the part of the whole cloth nappy thing that was giving me pause is just taken care of?  Perfect!), which means that the very nice woman who runs the service, Erika, came to our flat with a big stack of cloth nappies and a baby doll to practice putting nappies on.

We now know three different ways of putting a nappy on a baby, and both of us now feel a little more confident about what we're doing, I think.  The nappies are held in place with nifty rubber grippy things instead of nappy pins and then you put a water-proof cover over the top of that to really secure everything in place.  It seems fairly straight forward, but the doll isn't as wriggly as an actual baby, so that might change everything.  We shall have to see.  The only thing that Erika said that really surprised me was that breast-fed baby poo doesn't smell nasty, she said it smells like bread! Really?!?!?  Is that a true thing?   Similarly, I was reading last night that to help with breastfeeding I should consider taking fenugreek, which apparently has the weird side-effect of making sweat smell like maple syrup: again, really?!?!?!  I want to try fenugreek now just to see if that actually happens, because then, once Evalyn is born, the flat could potentially smell like french toast and how great would that be?

One of the things I am surprised to find that I like about the new flat is that, precisely because it's so small, we are forced to assign an actual place for everything to be stored - It really has to be "A place for everything and everything in it's place" because otherwise we'd be tripping over stuff and/or losing everything the minute we put it down.  So Doc C immediately cleared a shelf in the hall cupboard for the nappies and wipes, and we have stacks of both of them ready to go right now.  The nappy bin is also going to go in there, so it should be nicely out of the way and, should the bread aroma thing be a lie, we'll have an additional smell buffer.

Now all we need is a baby to actually wear the things.

36 Weeks and 4 Days.

We had an appointment for an ultrasound this afternoon, which was really exciting because it's been three months since our last look at the baby.  In May all of Eva fitted easily onto the ultrasound screen and she's grown a lot since then.  I'm a bit annoyed I forgot the CD of our other ultrasound photos, but the most exciting part of this scan was watching her practicing her breathing and it was nice to see that she has shifted into the right position. She's also apparently got some hair already!  Weird!

The ultrasound tech was also able to estimate her weight, so we think she's currently five pounds and thirteen ounces - About half the size of Nancy Wake-Cat, which is another very odd thought.

So everything is looking good, and there's nothing to worry about, we'll just let her percolate for a bit longer and put on few more pounds.

Sleeps.

On Thursday I was tired and ratty all day (pity Doc C who was stuck in the car with me for most of it, as we had a few things to sort out back at our old town), because madam had kept me awake all night with her wriggling around - which is great, because it means she's healthy and awake, but it felt like she didn't stop moving for the whole night and most of the day.  That got, quite frankly, a little wearing and I assume that this is merely Eva's way of initiating me into the sleepless nightmare that will be her first few months of life...

So it was nice to get a whole ten hours of sleep last night!  I felt so much better this morning, and I got a whole bunch of stuff done around the apartment to prove it!

It's a shame you can't stock pile sleep, isn't it?  Because then my teenage years would really have been of some serious value going into this whole parenthood lark.

In One Calendar Month.

Eva is due to be born on the 26th of August, so in one calendar month from now.  Which is most peculiar.

As the due date gets nearer, my bump gets bigger and the whole thing gets so much realer, I've been having lots of those kind of thoughts.  For example I un-packaged a new toothbrush on Tuesday night ("un-wrapped" sounds wrong in relation to a toothbrush, because they are in those weird individual pseudo-box containers), and, as I began brushing my teeth with it, the thought occured to me "I will have a baby before I get a new toothbrush".

Naturally I shared this thought with Doc C after I'd got into bed, and he was suitably awed by the concept.  Dude. Whoah.

Eva's Heart-Beat in Asheville.

Fine.  "Downton Abbey" is streaming on Netflix.  I'll watch it, otherwise I'll never be able to understand every other reference on half the blogs I read.

Still too hot here, but we got a bunch of stuff done today.  We had an appointment with my new Ob Gyn where we heard Eva's heart-beat and discussed the swelling of my feet (totes normal for this stage of the prgnancy AND the current heat etc etc).  I also completed the on-line pre-admission for the delivery in ONE MONTH'S TIME. OHMYGOD.

Breaking the Wire.

Last night I think I probably slept for about 4 hours, and it was probably less - But that's just good training for when our new commander-in-chief, Eva, is born right?  Mostly I just sort of lay there, on my side but propped at angle by my pillow fort, then I tried browsing the internet on my iPod and couldn't find any good celebrity gossip and, of course, I got up several time to go to the loo because Eva was dancing on my bladder.

This is always a good opportunity to keep an eye on the suspicious neighbours down the street, whose house I can see from the bathroom window.  At one point I was convinced they had a well-to-do meth lab set up, but now we've started watching "Breaking Bad" and I no longer think this is the case because there are never any strange gas emissions coming from over there.  I do still want to know why their lights are always on though.  They can't possibly be sleeping with the main lights on in all the rooms, so what is the deal?

Admittedly I have been the most suspicious neighbour in the world since watching "The Wire" and I suspect that "Breaking Bad" will hone some suspicions whilst disproving others.

Television.  it's very educational.

Food-less.

In an unexpected turn of events I have totally lost my appetite, it's really annoying.  According to a quick amalgamation of the many many opinions on the internet this is not that unusual during late pregnancy, because of the size of the baby, and because of the usual scapegoat of all pregnant women - hormones (when I got a bit weepy during a really sad audition story on "So You Think You Can Dance" the other night I blamed it on hormones. Doc C just laughed even harder at me.)

I hate not being hungry!  Hate it! It makes me feel listless and unwell, and I don't even get to enjoy planning what I'm going to eat for my next meal.

As you may have gathered by now I love food usually, but right now all I can really face the thought of are smoothies or soup, so I'm making a shopping list of things that can easily be made into those two things.  Doc is going to have to fend for himself or get used to a mostly liquidised diet for the foreseeable future.

Blog and Baby Update.

So!  I heard back from Typepad, and there are a couple of things I can try to resume posting properly, which would be, you know, nice.

In the meantime, a quick Eva update: She is fine and has a nice healthy heartbeat which we heard today in our monthly check-up.

In said monthly check-up I had my glucose levels tested (which I think is to check for pre-natal diabetes) and anything under 140 was fine - My blood scored 120! Yay! We had a doughnut on the way back to the office to celebrate!

We were also given information on local birthing classes, and discovered we should have signed up for them in week twenty... Nearly two months ago... Oh.  Whoops.  On the one hand I sort of feel like Doc and I didn't do our homework, but on the other hand I sort of assumed that my doctor would give me a nudge at around the normal time to sign up, I mean she has the leaflets right there after all!  Anyway, we still have plenty of time so I'm not too worried about it, and what are they really going to teach me anyway?  I just push when the doctor tells me to, right?

Pregnant Sleep Issues.

Last night, or possible very early this morning, I was woken up by poor Doc C getting out of bed. I asked where he was going and he very gently explained that he was going to have to sleep on the sofa because I was snoring so loudly, and he couldn't get to sleep himself. I always sleep on my side, and the snoring happens if I roll too far onto my front; so in, my non-pregnant state, Doc C usually just uses my shoulder to roll me more onto my back and the problem is solved (apparently, this is what he's told me because I just sleep through it).  That's not working with my new center of balance though, so I think I need one of those triangular pillows to wedge under my bump and keep me on a more even keel.

The snoring isn't the only sleep related issue though.  I am also, and this is just WRONG, drooling in my sleep.  I wake up and there is a damp patch on my pillow.  I've decided to also blame sleeping at the wrong angle for that problem too, so lets hope that the pillow wedge idea is a winner and we can kill two birds with one stone.

Snoring and drooling. That Doc C is one lucky man isn't he?

 

And Relax... (Third Ultrasound Edition)

Yesterday we went for our third ultrasound, because at the second ultrasound there was a thing that the doctor's weren't overly worried about, but, hmmm, maybe we might want to come back for a third?  This is a smidge easier said then done because it's a two hour drive to the clinic (and we hadn't had a bill for the first two, so we had no idea how much this was all costing us), but we did it, because, I dunno, when doctor's use the word's "baby", "brain" and "cyst" in the same sentence it tends to freak first time parents the hell out. I don't care if the next sentence is all "not a huge concern given your earlier scans", "usually self-righting" and "some obstetrician's suspect that all babies have this at some point during their brain development"; because, believe me, the parents will have only heard the cyst part.

I've been determinedly not fretting about this for the month in between appointments, which of course means I was TOTALLY fretting about it, and it was a huge relief when it was confirmed to have sorted itself out as predicted.

So, everything's fine, there is nothing to worry about and we've got more pictures of Eva! This time our technician did those weird 4D scans where you can see an actual face, not just a cross section of her skull, and we also got to watch her have a brief bout of the hiccups.  She's looking pretty cute, actually!

Phriday.

Friday and I'm in Philadelphia! Yay!

I started off my day with a forty minute walk uptown to get to the book fair, with a couple of detours to Lush (Fresh Farmacy soap & Imperialis moisturiser) and H&M (nothing in my current size). The books were ok, but nothing amazing. I bought an anthology of Campion murder mysteries & a trashy murder mystery set in Philly, with some nice over art.

By this point it was lunch time, so I re-traced my steps to a falafel place I spotted earlier. I had forgotten how much I like falafel. I finished my lunch,and bought three falafel balls to tide me over for the rest of the walk back to the hotel. And I stopped at a different falafel place a bit further on, because they had juices as well and I thought a nice vegetable juice would be a good counterpart to my plans to get ice cream later.

Obviously by the time I got back to the hotel there was just time to say hi to Doc C, have my after lunch nap and then go out for ice-cream. What? The baby needs calcium! Ok, she perhaps didn't need that calcium to be covered in hot fudge sauce, but that was just how it came! In an appealing rum-raisin / pistachio flavored format!

Doc still had some conferencing to do, so I came back to the hotel to wait for him, and then took him to a martini bar nearby that had good reviews for food. Those reviews were well earned.

So yes, I ate my way around town today and I'll probably do it again tomorrow!

Tiny and In Charge.

I stayed at home today at the behest of the Fetus Overlord (Overlady?), who hit me with indigestion last night and a nauseous headache this morning. For a creature who could fit in the palm of my hand, Eva's damn bossy - Clearly she wanted to show off her back-flips because she was really wiggling about today.

In other news there was another cat on our porch this afternoon, Nancy was furious and her tail puffed up to three times it's normal size. Edith was asleep and missed the whole incident.

Recent Adventures in Reading.

I am reading tons of books (both paper and kindle) at the moment, and yesterday I finished reading "The Bat".  

It's a fairly standard issue country house mystery, but it doesn't particularly distinguish itself except for having been one of the inspirations for Batman.  The Bat in this case is a infamous villian, and he leaves drawings of bats or dead bats at the scenes of his crime; he actually projects a bat's shadow onto a window at one point in the story, which is clearly a pre-cursor to the bat-signal.  So that's fun for Batman fans, but otherwise I wouldn't bother.  I'll probably still watch the film, because it stars Agnes Moorehead and Vincent Price so it's bound to be a feast of over-acting!

After that potboiler I decided I wanted something a smidge more literary, so I moved onto "Geek Love". I am quite sure I must have read a description of it at some point, but I didn't bother to re-read it before I picked it up this time.  It's good, really it is, but it centers around a family of circus freaks who were deliberately created by their parents using various cocktails of dangerous substances during pregnancy. That part is fine, a little disturbing but the parents do adore their carefully manufactured freaks so I didn't find it horrifying at all; except that I stupidly didn't think about what might have happened to the mutated babies that weren't viable... and, yeah, I've decided to read that book some other time now.  Probably after I've given birth myself and everything is fine, you know? (Actually I'm also not reading pregnancy manuals either, for pretty much the same reason - They just love to scare you and I don't need that, thanks!)

So now I'm reading "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", and I know there is bound to be a lot of substance abuse in this too, because the drug-addled misbehaviour and hallucinations are pretty notorious, but I think I can also be fairly confident that Hunter S. Thompson didn't have a pregnancy to worry about at the time. Right?  You'd tell me, wouldn't you?

Such a Girl!

On Monday we drove to Winston Salem for Genetics Counseling ("Are you related?" "No, that seems highly unlikely - Did you clock the accents?" * ) and an ultrasound. At this point they can say, with 95% degree of accuracy, what gender your baby is and our tech was pretty certain that the alien spawn is a girl!

This is especially good because we were finding it difficult to choose a name for a boy, but we both really like the name Evalyn for a girl. I had a Great-Aunt Eveline who I was very fond of, and, whilst Doc C never met her, he just really loves the name. Just like my Aunty our daughter will be Eva for short, but we are going with a different spelling to make the pronunciation clearer - If we spell it Eveline she will almost certainly be referred to as "Eve Line" or possibly "Ever Line", and we want her name to be pronounced "Eva Lin". 

We were just brain-storming names when I first threw Evalyn out as a suggestion and I didn't think much more about it, until the Doc brought it up again when we were having the same discussion on another occasion. He really liked the name and was already very keen that we call our child that if she were a girl (I don't think I was even pregnant at this point!). I do think it's a pretty name, but it's also good that Aunty Eva was actually quite amazing in her own way. Eva was a Major in the army, which was one of those details of her earlier life that blew my mind as a child; because to me she was the woman who knitted me hooded cardigans, made me elaborate soft toys, gave me books like the "Chronicle of the 20th Century" and could be relied upon for incredibly rich tea-time confections. I also think it was damn cool that she didn't marry and never seemed to regret that particularly; she was proudly independent and self-reliant, so, whilst I'm sure we would disagree on things like politics if she were still alive today, her strength of character is definitely something that I hope my daughter will be inspired by.

 

* When we lived in London and were taking the night-bus home one evening, the drunk guy sitting in front of us turned around and, having clearly been eavesdropping on our bus-ride banter, abruptly asked "Are you brother and sister?" and then said "No, because you are British and he's American, so are you a couple?". Drunk guy's girlfriend was mortified, but it was really funny!

Bebe!

Today was my monthly check-up with my ob/gyn and everything is going well. It's oddly reassuring to hear the little bugger's heartbeat, particularly because I'm only just starting to occaisionally feel some vague fluttering when the kid moves around.

On Monday we have an ultra-sound booked, when we will hopefully finding out the gender. Exciting!

Pie Day.

My legs were a little bit achey after Pilates yesterday, so naturally we decided to go for a short up-hill hike! This might not have been my best idea! My legs feel like they want to fall off now!

On the other hand, we did stop for lunch on the way home and got a slice of really delicious Coconut Pie.

Weekend in the House.

It's Spring Break - And I've taken the week off. There will be a lot of sleep.

This weekend Doc was getting over a cold, so we spent two days in the house. I had a bath, napped (a lot), watched some great television mixed with some fairly awful horror films, and I read a bunch of books.

Doc is feeling a lot better, thank heavens, so we did leave the house today.

Fetus Overlord Decrees a Sick Day.

Last week I referred on Facebook to the Fetus Overlord, because the little bugger is just bossy as hell sometimes. This morning is an excellent example actually, I was getting ready for work as usual and was at the make-up application stage of the proceedings I suddenly felt bloody awful.

The kid had the common courtesy to wait until I'd finished applying my liquid eye liner (even the unborn apparently realise that a wonky cat's eye is a bad start to the day), but shortly after that I became really light-headed and queasy. I really tried to push through it and got as far as the car before Doc C decided I looked like hell, and told me I was staying at home today. So I went back into the house, lay down on the sofa and slept for 4 hours (Over the past 72 hours I've probably slept, on and off, for about 40. This whole being pregnant thing is much like mono, but with more indigestion and annoyingly hot hands).

Fortunately I already had a doctor's appointment for today, and all of that is totally normal. We also got to hear the fetus' heartbeat, which was going like the clappers and sounded pretty healthy apparently. I just hope the little darling is pleased with itself.

A Promise Promptly Broken.

I promise I'm not going to become a "Mommy Blogger" because a) I think that's dismissive sub-division of blogging that the patriarchy invented, b) my child will not be calling me Mommy, I am British so clearly I'll be Mum, c) I am just not. Having said that, pregnancy is a very odd. Obviously I'm not the only pregnant woman ever, or even right this minute, but it is an unique experience for me and so obviously I'm thinking about it a lot!

***You can probably skip the rest of this post - It's a bit of a preggers rant. Clearly I feel the need to vent. Hello captive audience! ***

Recently I've noticed that health care professionals (although not my two main doctors who are sensible) seem to like to try and find something to tell you off about.

Allow me to explain how it works; I've never smoked, I'm currently not drinking alchohol, I am drinking plenty of water, I'm careful about what I eat and I'm trying to get more exercise (although that is in area I must try harder in). Pretty good! So then it feels like there is a search to find any small thing to make me feel guilty about, e.g. coffee. I actually checked with my doctor about coffee when I decided to come off my ani-depressants, because I felt that I needed something, you know? But now I'm being told to choose between my morning cup of coffee or my afternoon cup of tea, but without any specific reasons being given. This is just inhuman! Who makes a person choose between coffee and tea

Also, well before I got pregnant, I asked specifically to be tested for toxicplasmosis. This is something that you can catch from contact with cat feces, and, whilst it's not a problem most of the time, catching it whilst pregnant can cause birth defects. So I asked if I could be tested to see if I already had it, and no doctor I spoke to seemed to have any idea if that were possible. Besides, I was told, my current felines are indoor cats and I had outdoor cats as a child, so I more than likely already have it and that wouldn't be an issue.

Fast forward to actually being pregnant, and I am asked repeatedly if I have cats. Yes, yes I do. Cue healthcare professionals freaking out about my scooping litter, and asking if I'd been screened for toxicplasmosis before getting pregnant. Oh, for pity's sake! I asked about that! No one knew anything about testing for it then! What's happened in the last six months? Have there been enormous advances in this area of maternal care since I asked this very question? Hmmmmm?

I swear it's a conspiracy.

Cat Pose.

Edith is my personal yoga coach, and she has a very paws on approach. If you look closely, you can see where she has checked the density of the blocks by giving the corners a bit of a chew.

My First Batman T-Shirt.

 

 

We went yesterday for the tests that I was most worried about, and apparently everything is fine - So I can finally relax, a bit, and announce that Doc C and I are expecting a baby at the end of August.

We don't know if it's a boy or a girl yet, but we are quite certain that, with us as parents, it will be a nerd.

On Returning to Work After a Short Illness.

When you've been out of the office because of a short illness, it's likely you are going to go back in before you are really at full strength. So you really are hoping that the first few days will involve coasting on some simple jobs, the work equivalent of a soft-boiled egg with soldiers, or tomato soup with cheese-on-toast. The reality, however, is invariably an assualt of hard-to-digest 3 course meals of to do lists, spreadsheets and un-read e-mail.

sigh.

On top of that, there is inavariably some piece of office politics that just makes you want to beat your head against a wall (hmmm, maybe that would have helped clear my sinuses - note to self for next time).

Spicy, Delicious and Invigorating.

Today I took the day off because I'd had, oh about 3 hours of sleep last, thanks to my sinuses. I was exhausted and weepy this morning, so I would have been neither use nor ornament in the office.

Nothing seemed to be helping, until I tried covering my lunch in hot sauce. After that I could breathe again! Oh, Hot Sauce - you are a special new friend!

Doc C is cooking pasta for dinner, I hope he doesn't take offence when I cover mine in Tabasco.

House of Half Recovered.

Mum called today to check how we were because I hadn't updated the blog, sorry about that! I wasn't trying to leave you on a cliff-hanger there!

Anyway, Doc C went to hospital yesterday afternoon, after going white as a sheet and generally scaring the hell out of me. He'd already been given some tramadol, so he could still feel the pain but he just didn't really mind that much. This apparently was what stopped him from screaming, so I'm really quite grateful to the urgent care doctor he saw on Friday.

At the hospital he had a whole bunch of tests, and they eventually decided he must have already passed the stone, so he came home. Woot!

Meanwhile, I stayed at home, because my sinuses are still swollen and I'm breathing through my mouth, so it seemed like a bad idea to expose me to more germs. This meant I spent the afternoon watching a reality TV show marathon, because all the episodes blend into one after a while and it feels like you've only been on the sofa for an hour instead of four or five. Don't worry though, I kept it classy; it was about a tattoo parlor in NYC, no bickering over-privileged "housewives" for me thanks! (I'm a reality snob, but I'm very idiosyncratic in my prejudices - Jersey Shore = under no circumstances; Bethany Getting Married = hell yeah, despite her former housewife status)

Oh, by the way, I'm having ridiculously complicated nightmares (teeth falling out, exams I've forgotten to revise for, horrible murders etc etc) whilst I'm ill, whereas Doc C's painkillers are an opiate so he's been having lovely dreams. Apparently for the past two nights in a row now he's had the same dream, where he is professing his undying love to me. How sweet is he?

House of Sickness.

Oh, today SUCKS!

My head cold has moved up to my sinuses, and settled in. I went to see my doctor this morning and, whilst it's probably not strep throat (which I think translates to tonsillitis, but I'm not sure), she is having some tests run on a throat swab; on the other hand my sinuses are very inflamed, so I'm feeling pretty sorry for myself.

Doc C had been getting some twinges in his back, which really started to centralise around his kidney today. He went to see his doctor this afternoon (whilst I was at back in bed with lots of water and my loyal cat nurses), and they found blood in his urine. This means he has another damn kidney stone. He was given a long lasting pain killer injection whilst he was there, and a prescription for some more in pill form. All he can do now is drink a LOT of water, and hope it passes without being too excruciating. So basically we are just hoping he doesn't end up curled upon the floor in the fetal position in the next few days. Yay.

So last weekend we were living it up in Vegas, and this weekend we are probably going to be housebound in a make-shift cottage hospital monitoring each others' symptoms. sigh.

Stuffy.

I think I'm getting a head cold. Gah.

Hydration.

Clearly whilst on the flight back from Las Vegas I didn't drink enough water, which you would have thought would hit me yesterday but it was actually this morning I woke up with a headache and a raging thirst, so clearly I had dropped below acceptable water levels. Doc C got up to feed the cats, then he brought me a bottle of Perrier water and the iPad, so I could e-mail in to work as de-hydrated.

I stayed in bed until about ten, and got to work at eleven thirty (a mere three and a half hours late). I brought with me a large coffee (Don't tell me the coffee is a diuretic, I know that, I still needed the caffeine), a litre of water and half a litre of Gatorade which Doc made me to make sure I got my electrolytes.

With all of that, I should have been able to swim home.

Light Bruises.

This morning I had laser treatment on the scars from my mole removals this summer, the worst part about it was having to get to the dermatologist's office for 7 in the morning - The treatment itself took about five minutes and wasn't too painful. The doctor described it as being flicked with a rubber band repeatedly, and that's fairly accurate. Apparently the scars will be darker for about a week, because the laser bruises the area but then, once the bruising goes down, the scars should be less visible and less sensitive. Yay!

Afterwards Doc C asked what colour the laser was, and I said red; Doc said "Oh no!", because this must mean that my dermatologist is a Sith Lord. Once again I am reminded that I married an intelligent and articulate man who, none the less, remains totally unable to pass up an opportunity for a Star Wars reference.

Rose-Coloured Spectacles.

I have been most remiss in sharing my new specs with you - Mainly because I haven't worn any make-up in the past couple of weeks, and these do look particularly good with a nice bit of eyeliner. Today I decided to just snap a photo and then edit the hell out of it in Picnik; which is why the frames are pin-sharp and the rest of the image is super soft-focus! Pores? My skin doesn't have pores!

As you can see the new glasses are slightly cat's eye, which Doc C thinks brings out my cheekbones (love that man), and they have a tiger grey exterior with a clear pink interior. That sounds like a car, but you see what I mean right? The outside of the frame is one colour (well, it's sort of marbled really) whilst the inside is another; so there are hints of that inside colour as I move my head and the angle changes.

As you can see here:

Again with the Picnik soft-focus, which I am especially grateful for here. It took me forever to get the angle right on this one, so you could see more of the edge of the glasses and less of the bags under my eyes - I didn't sleep very well last night.

Please feel free to reassure me that these are stylishly fun, without being wacky. I'm still a touch self-conscious about them.

Glasses-A-GoGo.

I picked up my new glasses and I love them!

They are angular cat's eyes in a striped grey, with a pink interior. To me they are reminiscent of fish, in a good way, but this particular colour-way is called "grey tiger/pink". Doc C helped me to choose them, and he assures me they are interesting and fun, but not wacky. I do not want wacky. The plan now is that I can still use my older glasses (the lenses are only a little bit stronger in the new specs), so I have a choice of facial accessories depending on my mood/outfit/social obligations.

I also dropped off my favourite pair of shades to have prescription lenses fitted, so I'll actually be able to wear them again! Yay for shades!

Early Morning False Alarm.

Ugh, I've been half asleep all day! Doc C woke up in the early hours of the morning feeling sufficiently unwell enough to warrant a quick jaunt into town to reacquaint ourselves with the emergency room's waiting area. As it happened he felt better once we'd got there, so we turned round and drove the eerily empty roads home again.

I was, not surprisingly, late for work this morning, and I'm prepared to bet I was not really very bright-eyed or bushy tailed. Still, Doc seems fine today and I'm far too pleased about that to be cross with him for waking me up on a school night.

My Eyes! My Eyes!

I had my eyes tested this weekend, because I noticed that my right eye felt quite scratchy after work sometimes. It turns out that my eyes are a bit dry, so I have to put warm compresses on them and use eye-drops especially if I've been staring at a computer screen a lot (So... That's pretty much every week day then). Well, if it's optician's orders, I think I can handle lying on the sofa with a warm flannel across my eyes, sipping a martini and listening to a vintage radio drama for half an hour or so in the evening.

I also tried on some new frames, I want to keep my current frames but I'd like some variety in my face furniture. I'm thinking about a subtle cat's eye, something a bit more sixties mod that would look good with lashings of eyeliner (my new favourite make-up technique).  Basically, I asked if the assistant helping me watched "Criminal Minds" and requested Garcia glasses, and after a quick google image search she was off to the races with that idea! I tried on loads, but as it was just after I'd had the drops put in to dilate my pupils, it got increasingly difficult to actually see them. Doc C came over to help, but it's not really the same. Anyway, I have to wait until next month before I get new glasses so the shortlist was noted down and I can try them on again when I'm in full control of my ability to focus.

 

After the eyeware fashion show, my irises were fully dilated, so the optician could see into my eyeballs. Which is SO weird, but I was expecting it this time, so, the minute I sat in the chair, I asked the optician if I could have the images of the backs of my eyes, because how cool is that? They look like alien planets, don't they?

Also - I SEE YOU!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Shot of Perspective.

Today I found myself getting a little overwhelmed and tearful because of a spreadsheet.

To be specific, it wasn't actually the whole spreadsheet, it was that the person who had filled in the information had left a column blank right in the middle, and so when I used the sort function it shuffled some but not all of the data. This wouldn't be a huge deal normallyThe reason this was a problem was because I didn't know that had happened, and I've been working with flawed information for a week. I think I've fixed all of the issues, but it was very frustrating, and now I need to have my work proof read before I carry on.

Meanwhile, a student came into the office who I know by sight, but I don't know her name or anything else about her. Well, I didn't know anything about her, until she came into the office today panicking about a course she was being charged twice for. This was a problem because her husband committed suicide a few months ago, and so she's been trying to complete her degree, whilst looking after her kids and coping with the financial maelstrom a sudden death can create. She has hit the limit of things with which she can cope, and I had no idea there was a thing wrong because she is always friendly, polite and smiling. 

And so now I'm thinking that a frustrating spreadsheet issue is actually be a walk in the park. Ok, on this particular spreadsheet walk (stay with me here), I may have stepped in something nasty but it can be cleaned up and everything will be fine.

Busy Morning.

This morning was pretty much laid out for me - I simply had to make alterations to next semester's schedule; essentially tailoring a skeleton timetable to fit the requirements of the registrar whilst trying to accommodate the preferences of the faculty. This is not as much fun as it sounds.

I was about two hours into the data splurge when one of the professors ran in to my office to tell me a student had fallen on the stairs and might have broken her ankle. The tricky part then was to report the accident to campus police and then the emergency services just based on those few words.

Is the patient conscious? I think so,because she was able to say her ankle felt broken. Is there any bleeding? That wasn't mentioned at all, and I think it would have been if there were any blood, so probably not. How old is the patient? Errrr.... It's a student, so, late teens to early twenties is statistically a good bet. Is the patient male or female? The professor said she, so female. It turned out that I had been right on all of that - The patient was a woman who had her 24th birthday last week, and she was both conscious and not bleeding. I'm like Sherlock Holmes!

I was waiting outside when the paramedics arrived, and I took them to the stairwell to accident site and I stayed to help if I could. They were great, and soon had her splinted and in the back of ambulance. I went back to my office, and pulled up her records for the accident report, and I also e-mailed her so hopefully I'll hear if she's ok. Fingers crossed!

Self Motivation.

There are days when you feel like you made a real effort, damn it, and no-one seems to have noticed; so then you start to wonder why you bothered. These are the times when I seriously consider carrying a small banner saying something along the lines of:

"I forced myself to get up today, &, whilst I don't expect a medal for that, I would like to feel like it was worth it. Please be nice to me."

It needs to be a bit more succinct, but equally it's hard to get across that exact set of sentiments in less than 140 characters.

Of course sometimes you have to just accept that your sacrifice may be the more noble for being unremarked, and simply make sure you have something you really like for lunch.  I had one job which got to the point that I was buying Wagon Wheels at lunch to put in my desk drawer, and then I only allowed myself to eat it if I came into work the next morning. The weirdest part about that? I don't particularly like Wagon Wheels (they are large cardboardy discs of biscuit, sandwiched with marshmallow and then coated in cheap milk chocolate), and had never before, or indeed since, eaten Wagon Wheels, so I have no idea why that motivated me.

Also, even though my sinusy head cold thing is much better my period started today. Ha bloody ha Universe! There's nothing quite like feeling like you are on the mend from one thing, only to immediately to find something totally different is attacking your midriff. sigh.

 

Stupid Head Cold Thingy.

Today I stayed at home and drank a lot of warm drinks, mostly ginger tea but also hot water with fresh lemon and a squeeze of honey it.

I think I feel better, but then I thought that on Friday and spent my weekend paying for it! We met Randy and Laura for brunch on Sunday, and I was only slightly more chatty than you average Romero zombie; most of the time I'd mis-heard what people were saying anyway, so in the end I just focussed on eating my potatoes.

Today I lay on the sofa with Edith and read, and also watched two delightfully cheesy sci-fi movies that TiVo had randomly taped. I didn't realise that it was the first and the third of a trilogy until quite a way into the latter, but I honestly don't think it made too much difference to my enjoyment. There were random explosions and occasional witty banter, and that was good enough for me!

Now I'm making a big stew pot of lentil soup with as many vegetables as I could throw in it. It's also ot garlic and ginger in it, so I feel positive this will have me operating at full power in no time. I expect I'll go to work tomorrow, my general rule of thumb wih head colds is as soon as you can breathe with your mouth closed again, then you are passably fit for human interaction.

Trying Something New.

It should be bloody illegal to feel ill at the weekend! Stupid bloody head cold!

Today Doc C and I went for a walk, so that I didn't feel totally sedentary, then we went to the supermarket and I got Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold (lemon), Alka-Seltzer Plus Night (lemon), lemon-and-honey throat lozenges, ginger tea, a bag of lemons and a neti pot.

I'd never used a neti pot before, but it felt like a really god idea to try irrigating my nose with a mild saline solution. I won't lie it's a weird feeling to pour warm water through your nose, but it really did help me to breathe more easily for a little while at least. I'm defitely going to do it again when I get ready to go to bed this evening, having a stuffy nose makes it so difficult to sleep.

Ugh. I hate having a cold.

Plans for the Weekend.

I went to work today, because I was feeling a fair bit better and I knew that there was work to be done on next semester's schedule. I feel very noble, particularly as since I got home this evening my sore throat seems to be bent on developing into a full-on head cold.

On a more positive note Doc C also picked up a large stack of brown paper parcels from the post office; books I'd requested from Goodreads.

So this weekend will probably be spent curled up with a book, as I sit in front of the fire with a never-ending mug of tea.

Unexpected Side Effect.

I feel better this evening, my throat is not as sore as it was and my ears have stopped aching in sympathy; plus I sound far less croaky and Dalek-like. I think the key is plenty of warm drinks through out the day, and if one of those drinks happens to be an early evening Hot Toddy, that is very beneficial too.

Before I went to bed last night I took a dose of liquid Nyquil, last time I took Nyquil it was in caplet form and I didn't like it - but I'd forgotten that apparently. In the middle of night I woke up, just like last time, but this time I had a new sensation and the only way I can describe it is that it felt like my face was strobing. It was just a wave-like feeling radiating out from the tip of my nose, and it was not pleasant. So I'm not doing that again. Please remind me if I seem like I might have forgotten that again!

Wednesday.

I came early with a sore throat and now I have a hot toddy buzz. That is all.

Mmm... Garlicky...

I have finally got the hang of baked aubergine (it's a very American dish, so it's usually called "eggplant parmesan" - I just can't do it myself), thanks to Sophie Dahl's first cookbook, and Doc C even likes this version where as he could never see the point of this particular meal before.

One of the best parts of making this is that it's really delicious with home-made garlic bread, and that's a treat we've not had for a while. It isn't that we're totally eschewing carbs, but equally we aren't training for any marathons in the near future, so there's absolutely no need to carb-load on pasta AND bread.

So garlick bread is back in the meal plan! Hoorah! I use a loaf of fresh French bread baked that morning at our amazing local bakery, and that bread is delicious in itself, so it's hugely tempting to eat the whole baguette in one meal - but I've been freezing half, which is hugely restrained, don't you think?

Weekend Status Report.

The Good: I am reading Donna Tartt's "The Secret History" and loving it. It's sort of a murder mystery with academic overtones, but whodunnit is never any sort of a puzzle. It's gripping.

The Bad: The weather this weekend has been really humid and sticky, my least favourite kind of weather personally. I cannot wait for Autumn proper to kick in with some nice crisp mornings.

The Ugly: The cream that the dermatologist prescribed causes a rash to flare up on my chest, and so it suddenly feels as though every single t-shirt I own has a scoop neck to it which hits me in just exactly the wrong spot. Yesterday I discovered that wearing a scoop neck backwards creates a boatneck at the front which conceals and protects the itchy bumpiness. This will look intentional with most of my tops; the exception being henleys, so if you should happen to notice that I have a row of buttons down my back, can we just pretend it's a new fashion trend from Europe or something?

The Fabulous: Monday is Labour Day, it's like Bank Holiday Weekend, and I have finally treated myself to a copy of "Portal 2" so I intend to be spending several hours of my day off in my pajamas playing that, with occasional breaks for coffee and toast.

The Week in Review.

The Good : Doc C is having the best week ever, professionally speaking, and has got papers accepted by two of the top journals in his field. My husband is a philosophical rock star.

The Bad : Nancy Wake-Cat was named after the WWII heroine Nancy Wake, and I was very sorry to read about her death at 98 this week. The White Mouse was an incredible woman. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/08/nancy-wake-white-mouse-gestapo)

The Ugly : Following my minor surgery for further mole removal I've posted a photo of my potential scars on Flickr! Yay!

Recouperating.

Stupid stitches. I wasn't able to get much sleep last night, the problem was that if I slept on my left side it put pressure on the stitches, but sleeping on my right wasn't an awful lot better. In the end I discovered that hugging a pillow gave me some support, but I didn't realise that until about 9 o'clock this morning.

Considering I was really tired and, after reading the possible side effects of the pain killers I'd been prescribed, I decided to stay at home today. Edith kept a close eye on me, and we watched "Inception".

More Mole Removals.

So you know when is a really daft time to decide to do a month long fitness challenge? When you have minor surgery scheduled that requires you not to do anything for at least two days slap bang in the middle of that month. My instruction sheet actually says two weeks, but I checked with the doctor who performed the procedure and he said that because my surgery site is at the top of my left breast I can still Zumba as long as I wear a supportive sports bra! Yay!

Anyway, it was all fine. I took my valium, well it was actually tamazepam, with breakfast and was considerably more relaxed about the whole thing then Doc C was. He has been taking a lot of interest in my remaining moles since my last visit to the dermatologist, and asked me to get another one on my shoulder checked out too. So that one has been taken too! I'm not going to have any moles left at this rate!

Before getting out the scalpels for the main event the doctor drew me a picture to explain exactly what the procedure was, and the picture looked a bit like a knitting pattern that requires short rows. There almost definately will be some pink scarring because I am so damn pale, but the plan was to give me a curved scar line rather than a big blotch. Should I feel the scarring is too bad then they will give me some laser treatment to fade it. Or I could get another tattoo to cover it up, that's an interesting option, right?

I was a model patient (the doctor really said that!), and it was all very quick; so after we left the clinic I insisted Doc C take me out for early lunch before coming home to sleep off the tamazepam on the sofa. Right now I feel fine, if a bit itchy, but, once the local anaesthsia fully wears off, then it is going to hurt so I've got some over-the-counter pain killers and, if those don't work, then I've got some prescription meds too.

All in all I'd say it was fine, but not exactly my idea of a fun way to spend a morning and I don't really want to do that again any time soon.

I Don't Like Mondays.

It was a really hectic Monday, which I half-anticipated, but when I found myself quite glad that tomorrow I am having minor surgery and therefore will not be going into the office... Well, I think you will agree THAT is a hell of a Monday.

Half Awake.

This is, I think, the first summer when I haven't taken a week or two off, and that, combined with it being blatantly too warm, is really hitting me hard - in other words I am sodding knackered!

Yesterday I felt very tired and headachey, and I tried to just push through it, but even after a shower and breakfast I felt no better; so I called in sick (well, e-mailed) put in ear plugs, and promptly went back to sleep for 5 hours. Today I went in, and somehow dragged my carcass through the day but I am very tired now.

I am still dressed for some sort of exercise though, some pilates and at least 20 minutes of Zumba will get my blood circulating and maybe then I'll feel less sluggish. It's worth a go, right? Besides, I am determined to lose ten more pounds, and sitting around just isn't going to accomplish that goal.

More's the pity.

Four Pairs of Jeans - Breaking My Previous Personal Best!

Almost exactly two years ago, give or take a fortnight, I posted this picture:

This is a photograph of may wearing three pairs of jeans at once, because I had gone down so many sizes that it was now possible for me to layer denim over my hips and still get all of the buttons done up - Oh, and breath still!

I felt it was time to attempt a new personal best record, and can now truthfully say that I can wear four pairs of jeans at once. Should I ever be asked that.

The second pair of jeans in the more recent picture is the foundation pair of jeans glimpsed in the earlier photo. I don't remember if any of the other jeans were involved in both experiments.

There is no photo manipulation techniques employed, and I wasn't wearing any type of corset. I will admit to being very careful with my posture though, because my tummy still does have some fat on it and that fat will try to spill over the top of jeans if I slouch. The easiest fix for this is not to slouch.

And, of course, this is my new Facebook profile picture, I enjoy peer approval as much as the next girl.