NaNoWriMo is over and I have ended up with about half to three quarters of a first draft of a novel which I intend to finish and at some point publish, hopefully in the New Year quickly followed by More tumbles, coming to a Kindle near you by Easter life allowing.
When I decided to take part in the novelly writing month I had no idea how stressful life was about to become. Pixie had an accident at school resulting in a broken collar bone and humerus. This meant watching her in pain and having to try and dress her and manoeuvre her without adding to her pain burden, this did quickly ease and we fell into a routine. We had several scares when she was knocked or fell over and I am sure I was guilty of over parenting! I think one of the hardest things was watching her in her school Christmas performance, her class were being stars and were dancing to one of her favourite songs Shine. She was able to take part and they covered her chair in silver foil and we decorated her sling with silver stars as well as making her a silver wand to wave about. As she joined in I did feel a lump rise, partly pride that she had coped so well with an injury I am sure would have made me moan a lot more than she did, partly just being upset as she couldn’t join in, in the way she would have liked. However the big smile on her face as she took part convinced me that she was enjoying herself. A few deep breaths later and her song was finished and she was off and part of the choir again. The thing that really undid me was the end when she was given a special bow, was happily waving her wand in the air and beaming at me. Tears flowed and for the first time in a long time I cried at school. This was not made any easier by the fact that I was surrounded by friends, colleagues and other children, so a few sobs in a corner and rubbing of the eye and a much appreciated hugs from a couple of friends and I was OK again.
Whilst all this has been going on our much loved chocolate labrador was diagnosed with cancer, I feared the worst as she is 11 and had another problem which required surgery but she came through the first one with no problems and during this tests were carried out revealing no spread of the cancer. Last week she had the second op and is due to visit the vet this Friday to hopefully be officially discharged from their care. Pixie should go back to the fracture clinic on the same day and also be discharged.
As the saying goes it comes in threes and on the same day Imp will be having an MRI scan! At around the same time as Lucy was having her accident he was observed to be limping, his teacher was concerned and so after this had persisted for a while we took him to a local minor injuries unit, they thought it was muscular so we took him home, convinced him as much as we could to rest for a week and then allowed him to resume normal activities. Within a couple of days we were back to the dragging of the leg and limping so we returned to the gp and were again advised he probably has some inflamed muscles and to use ibuprofen and to rest for a week, he did and the problem returned as soon as he began exercising, which when you are a seven year old boy is very frustrating. We returned to the gp, were referred to a consultant and saw him at the weekend. He believe the problem is in the hip and therefore the scan is to determine exactly what is going on. I am hoping that the scan come back clean which means that he has an irritable hip which will heal by itself but have to admit I am terrified it is something more sinister, either something called perthes disease, a growth or a dislocation, the dislocation is more easily fixed than the others but I am trying to tell myself not to panic before I know there is something to panic about! My first problem is to get him to lie still for long enough for them to take all the pictures during the scan!
Still hopefully we will at least have some answers soon and once we know what we’re dealing with we can work towards a goal, in the meantime Imp is fairly pleased to be told that when school is finished he doesn’t have to go and do too many chores but can watch TV, play in the x-box and do quiet activities! He isn’t so keen on my suggestion to read books and practice his handwriting but I guess I’ll have to try and convince him!
I have at least started my new job and it seems to be working out OK, I am enjoying the interacting with the children in a more relaxed setting as being a librarian gives me the opportunity to talk to them in a way that I wouldn’t be able to in class. The administrative side has been a steeper learning curve but I am getting there with that and have managed to track down most of the books that were deemed lost or missing or hiding in the library somewhere! I sometimes wonder why I keep the blog, a catalogue of times of things that have gone wrong or a basic moan, but I think to some extent it keeps me sane. I’m not looking for sympathy or pity but it is a way for me to get it all out, and in part to process in my own mind what is happening, a written way of thinking it all through if you like. Hopefully the lead up to Christmas will be more fun than fear, presents are wrapped, tree is up and the kids are eagerly counting down the day to the visit of Father Christmas, hopefully by then they’ll be ready to have a lovely time. Merry Christmas to you all and keep smiling!
