Oct

Daddy Kaboom

Hi all,

What an incredibly topsy-turvy week it has been. Monday was relatively quiet; the only major thing to report on was that Mommy & Granny took me toy shopping at Sandton City – I got a stunning jack-in-the-box. It was a little rainy outdoors so I spent most of the day barging around indoors.

On Tuesday morning I accompanied Mom to Opa’s place to help prep the house to put it on the market; Dad was already there when we arrived. I loved storming around Opa’s house and the stairs are definitely my favourite. We were there most of the morning, and after lunchtime Mom and I had to hurry back home for Mom’s BabyGym class. I spent the afternoon with Granny while Mom coached and trained the littleys and their parents in Mom’s BabyGym studio. Wednesday was Be Sharp Beetles day! How awesome, as I love music. In the afternoon Mom and I visited Bronwyn for some tea. In the evening, Mom, Dad and I went to Thunder Gun for a nice and meaty meal! Yum. Even Roxy got a doggie bag of bones.

Thursday was really hectic. Opa was booked to go in for surgery that day, but as it was only scheduled for midday, so Mom, Dad and I managed to squeeze in a quick family breakfast, as is tradition on the last Thursday of the month. When we got home, Opa was already waiting for us. A short while later Granny arrived too. She would be looking after me for the day while Mom and Dad took Opa to hospital. All too soon it was time to see Mom, Dad and Opa off. I hugged Opa and wished him lots of luck with his surgery. During the day Granny and I played really hard. My highlight was finding lots of mud in the back garden from the rains the night before; that made for some really good messy play. Granny took really good care of me, she played hard, fed me and made sure I had a good snooze.

During the afternoon Mom and Dad arrived back home. Mommy took over from Granny to look after me and get me ready for bed in the evening. Dad headed back to the hospital to ensure he was there when Opa came out of theatre. Both Mom and Dad were looking tired already from the waiting and stress. Opa’s surgery took 8 hours, and by the time I had to go to bed, Opa still wasn’t out of surgery.

The next morning Dad told me that Opa’s surgery had gone well. The surgeons completed a quintuple bypass (i.e. 5x) and replaced the aortic valve in his heart and repaired his mitral valve too. As Daddy was only allowed to see Opa from 11:00 onwards, we popped in to Yeesh for some quick playtime for me. Sadly Dad didn’t have too long to play with me, as he had to leave to go see Opa, but the time we did play was good quality.

Mom and I took it easy for the remainder of the day, delighted with the news bytes we were getting from Dad at the hospital saying Opa was doing well and was stable. Mom and I shopped for birthday presents at Sandton City in the afternoon for some of my little friends.

Saturday morning we all headed off to Cameron’s 2^nd birthday party at Grannies Garden (not my Granny, it’s the name of the venue in Barkston Drive). It was a great party and I had my face painted for the first time ever in my life. Milkshake, the face-paint artist, painted my face as a lion. I roared each time I saw my reflection in a mirror. Sadly Dad had to leave early to visit Opa. To scoot around town quicker, he opted for the bike; we saw him off at the gate. Back in Grannies Garden, we found the theatre room and I immediately got up on stage and meowed like a cat. A long, deep, convincing meow! Everyone was thrilled!

At about midday we left and it was time for my snooze. Upon awaking later in the afternoon Dad had come home for a short break from the hospital. He’d updated us that Opa was occasionally lucid, and that he and Dad had chatted briefly. Dad also told us he had to take a quick lesson in hearing-aid insertion, as Opa was too weak to put his own hearing aids in. I thought it was great that Opa was recovering so nicely, albeit slowly.

During the afternoon Dad opted to start work on installing my Christmas present at home in the back garden. I suspect it’s a trampoline, but please don’t rat me out on my parents that I know this! A perfect spot was identified on the meadow. However, in order to make it 100% ideal, Dad decided that the massive jacaranda branch from the neighbour’s tree that extended over our garden had to go. Out came the 6m ladder and the saw. Mom and I withdrew to the house, for safety sake, as Dad started to lop off the offending branch. Ten minutes later we heard a massive crash, followed a few seconds later with Dad arriving in the house uttering a faint ‘I need help’. Needless to say Daddy had gone kaboom.

It turned out Dad fell from the top of the ladder, together with the branch, and the ladder. Mommy swung into action immediately and started 1^st aid on him. We settled him on the bed and examined him. Grazing was present almost everywhere, and his right inner elbow was swollen as big as a potato. In fact it looked like the joint had broken and the ulna had popped out at the elbow. Mom hurriedly packed a bag for me and Dad and off we went to casualty. We opted for Milpark, so that Dad and Opa could keep each other company!

From across the triage centre Doctor John approached and immediately said that Dad’s elbow was broken, given that he was still sporting the potato-elbow look. After a thorough examination, and much relief and astonishment, the triage doctor concluded it wasn’t broken. While at the hospital, Mom popped in to see Opa. We got Dad some meds, and by the time we got home it was dark already.

Sunday we really spent most of the time relaxing and catching up on much needed sleep from the past few topsy-turvy days. Dad visited Opa in hospital and is pleased to report that Opa is making good progress.

In closing its now worth noting that Opa, Mom, Dad and I all have foreign objective in our bodies. Opa the band around his mitral valve, me, a whole batch of platinum in my head, Mom has a reconstructed knee and ligaments, and Dad has an artificial diaphragm in his chest for his lung. So we’re really ‘keeping it in the family’ as it were!

Until next week.

Love

Jay-Bee