He's home

I went up to visit Kevin with the girls on Tuesday afternoon, we arrived there about 4.45 and were just walking in from the carpark when my phone rang. It was the hospital asking what time I was getting there because Kevin was waiting in the transit lounge to go home. "Why is he going home" I asked" he is still in so much pain". The lady on the other end didn't know (she was just admin staff), she assumed I had been phoned when the ward discharged him as he had been sitting waiting for me since ten in the morning. But no one had phoned, so poor old Kevin was sitting there all day waiting for us to arrive. He had no phone as I had taken it home to recharge and buy him some more credit.
Apparently they got him up first thing in the morning and told him if he could stand, he could go home because they were desperate for beds, he said he didn't feel well enough to go, but to no avail. He went to the bathroom and by the time he got back, they had changed the sheets and the next patient was just getting into his bed. They hadn't even given him time to clear his personal possessions. The journey home was very painful for him, especially as it was rush hour and it was stop/start most of the way.
They have sent him home with plenty of pills, but it is the facilities he is missing more, getting in and out of bed takes ages because he is having to support his own body, whereas in the hospital the bed rasied him up electrically. He is being very stoic about it though and not complaining but I can see the pain on his face.
We have had plenty of calls and emails from his cycling club friends wishing him well, one email in particular was very funny, although Kevin didn't appreciate it too much when I read it out because laughing and broken ribs are not a match made in heaven.
Of course the first thing he did when he got home was look at his bike and it is more damaged than first appeared to the untrained eye (i.e. mine) so he has been mentally totting up how much it is all going to cost to fix, a depressing thought!!

Well here he is, thankfully without the neck brace. It turns out that the company the hospital outsources the xray reporting to, had lost Kevin's scans and xrays and that is why we waited so long. We have a the radiographer at the hospital to thank for finally getting to the truth. She refused to be fobbed off by the company and pestered them for ages until they admitted they had lost them and made them search through until they found them and then do the report immediately. The good news - the spine, pelvis and ankle are fine, but he has 3 broken ribs (each broken in two places - he obviously doesn't believe in doing things by halves), a broken shoulder and a punctured lung, plus some nasty abrasions.

He is likely to remain in hospital for a while yet as he can hardly move without extreme pain, just as well the bed raises electrically but even that he has to do in small increments because it hurts too much. I know he must be feeling bad because he still has the cream egg I brought him yesterday untouched. If you know Kevin, you would appreciate just how bad he must be feeling to be off his chocolate!!

He was complaining of being unable to shave, I would have offered but I fear I would have just added to his list of injuries.

The bike came out of the accident relatively unscathed, apart from mangled handle bars. When we came back from the hospital today, one of Lauren's lovely friends had left us a big dish of pasta bake that she had made for our dinner. What a sweetie!

Disaster strikes

My husband Kevin had an accident on his bike during a race on Saturday, he is currently in The Royal Melbourne Hospital awaiting results from scans and xrays.

He has broken ribs, a punctured lung and broken shoulder, they are playing it safe and he is still wearing a neck brace because of possible spinal injuries although we think this unlikely as he can move his arms and legs. There is also the slight possibility of a broken pelvis and ankle, again we think this unlikely because he can move without pain.

Despite the fact he went in to hospital at 5.45pm on Saturday and had his scans and xrays about 10pm he is still as I type this at 10.30am Monday waiting for the results, which I think is appalling. I have had various reasons/excuses - too many traumas, computers not working, skeleton staff because of the weekend - for the delay, but I think it is totally unacceptable.

I will keep you posted.

More school layouts

Here are the other two Origin's layouts I promised you. To answer your question Christine, yes I did use most of it, so I went out and bought more!!
During her junior years Lauren's reports were peppered with comment like "must learn to moderate her views in light of discussion", "needs to be more appreciative of the contribution of others". Lauren always saw things in black and white and it was her way or the highway. As I said in the previous post she was always loud, she was also forthright, she did learn that others sometimes have something valueable to add but she didn't suffer fools gladly and her inability to hold back on her own views did lead to her have the unenviable title in her year book when leaving secondary school as - Person with least tact. It makes a mother proud!!!

The double layout is of my younger daughter Holly when she left her junior school in England to move here. This layout uses the PaperTrey Ink stamp set - Friends til the end. Holly was a much more easy going character who didn't make waves, which made the end of year reports a little less "interesting" to read.

School Days

Here are a few school layouts of Lauren, the papers in both are from Basic Grey's Origins line, which I absolutely love. I was round at Claire's for a stamp night and she showed us this fab paper and the layouts she had done with it and that was it, the day after next I was at the shop buying it all up, unfortunately the shop had sold out of lots of the smaller embellishments, not that that deterred me, I tracked down what I wanted elsewhere. It all just matched perfectly with the not particularly flattering school uniform colours. I have done two other school layouts for years 4 and 6 which I will put up later. Lauren is at Uni now so these are a bit of a blast from the past. Don't be fooled by the innocent looking unsure face in the year 1 layout, Lauren was brim full of confidence and so competitive, always had to be first to finish her work (even if it meant it was rushed) always first to get in line ( the teacher knew this and would often lead the line out from the rear, much toLauren's annoyance) or the first to volunteer when the teacher asked. It was a good school though where they nurtured her talents and directed her competitiveness into her work. She was full of life and for the most part loud. I had to laugh when her Head teacher was chatting to me one day he said"I never need to ask where Lauren is, I can always hear her"Only as she progressed through High School did she quieten down.