Appendectomy via Laparoscopic surgery

On Monday I was suffering from some stomach cramps/pain, Tuesday they continued with increased intensity and I came home early from work, Wednesday I went to a doctor who suspected probably a gastro bug, possibly appendicitis so I had a blood test. Thursday morning I woke at 3am in severe pain in a cold sweat and held out until around 4:30am when I woke Lani and asked her to take me to the Gold Coast hospital.

Thankfully I jumped the queue pretty quickly in Emergency and received some morphine for the pain and had a drip attached. After a few more needles and a urinary catheter inserted where no foreign object should be allowed, I went in for laparoscopic surgery at around 10:30am to have an appendectomy.

Next thing I know I am in a room with 5 other blokes and Lani and the kids came to see me. Spent the night with a couple of snorers, loud nurses and an old senile non-English speaking guy asking where did his wife go. So I had a typical bad hospital stay sleep.

This morning I was discharged. Without all the drugs I now feel a little sore from the whole ordeal. Doctor told me to rest, don’t go back to work for another week, don’t drive for 2 weeks and no physical/strenuous activity for 4-6 weeks. I am already bored just thinking about it. But I am so glad they could take care of it all through 3 keyhole cuts in my lower abdomen rather than open surgery. There appeared to be no complications, so hopefully I will now heal up OK with no infections.

When Lani contacted my parents on Thursday morning to let them know I was going to have surgery they put some stuff together and drive straight up from Sydney. So they are staying with us at the moment. It is nice to have their support.

Work...Surf...Tank...Visitors

Lani's first week “on the job” has gone quite well. The managing director who visited on Friday was happy with her approach and the work she has done so far. So far Lani thinks the job is certainly way better than working for Westpac. On Saturday afternoon we went out and bought a 4 in 1 printer/fax/copier/scanner so Lani can take care of orders etc from pharmacies via fax. Now we just have to sought out working the fax machine in with the phone and answering machine.

On Saturday morning I went to the beach early and had a surf with a mate of mine at Main Beach. The surf was a little rough with some big heavy waves rolling through, so it was quite difficult to get out. The morning sun rising in the east seemed extra bright also, making it hard to see the waves ahead. After a lot of effort I eventually did make it out the back and with some fear caught a big heavy wave. I shot down the wave then ripped across the face before pulling off as it was closing out. It was awesome, my best wave ride ever. I tried to head back out but I was in no mans land and got absolutely smashed by the next wave. Wave after wave crashed through as I floundered in deep water holding onto my wave ski until I could not hold it anymore. There was a bit of a strong rip and I felt like I was making no progress getting back to shore. I could feel I was rapidly getting tired and tried to wave down a lifesaver driving down the beach in a 4WD but he mustn't have seen me put my arm up. I was a little worried about my situation because I had drifted well away from the lifeguard patrolled area, so I eased up on my swimming and focused more on floating. Fortunately after a couple of minutes I finally could touch the bottom and got back to the beach exhausted. My mate by this time had located me and had my wave ski. It will be a while before I go out in surf like that again. At least the one wave I caught was a beauty. Lani and the kids also came down to the beach a bit later and I had a swim with Jasmine in the patrolled area while Lani and James played in the sand.

On Sunday I started preparing the area for our (hopefully) soon to be delivered water tank. I pulled up some pavers and discovered a big junk of super hard concrete underneath, right where I need to cut into the ground a little to make it level. I started to dig around it to gauge it's depth and in the process drove my crowbar through a storm water pipe. That is the third storm water pipe I have “found” and broken while doing jobs around the yard. They are like magnets which attract my crowbar. I fixed the pipe but now I need to work out some way of dealing with the concrete chunk which is at least 30cm thick with blue metal rock through it. So frustrating, with every job around the house there always seems to be some hitch that kills your momentum.

On Monday night Paw Paw, Aunt Doreen and Aunt Sue came over for dinner. They are up on the Gold Coast at the moment visiting Paw Paw's sister. It was nice to have them over and catch up with them.

Ariel???

Jasmine was searching for some mermaid pictures the other day on the Internet and found this photo. It is a combination of Ariel and some other person which strangely has quite a resemblance to someone we know.

Lani's back...work...school

It is nice to have Lani back again after her stay in Sydney for 9 days. A HUGE thankyou goes out to Kim for looking after the kids while Lani was away. She did a great job in keeping them entertained during the last week of the holidays and then getting them ready and off to school for the first few days back. Everything went so smoothly that the kids handled Lani’s absence with ease. We were a little worried that the separation was going to be difficult but they were fine. However, they did still miss their Mum and were very happy to have Lani back.

James seems reasonably happy with his new teach, Mr Schalch. His best friend Callum is not in his class this year, which is a bit of a bummer. His teacher has also organised the seating arrangements so that it is boy, girl, boy, girl, etc. So James is sitting between 2 girls, woohoo! Hopefully we can keep his allergies reasonably in check.

Jasmine has given the thumbs up for her new teacher Mrs Davis. One of her best friends Chanelle is in her class this year and she is sitting next to her, so she is pretty happy about that.

Lani has thrown herself into her new work. It is going to be a challenge initially doing the work with no experience and no local mangement support but I think one of the key factors for success will be building good relationships with the pharmacies and I think Lani's friendly nature will help facilitate that. Although physically remote from the team, Lani has been getting plenty of phone/email support from other team members and management. The managing director is also coming up this Friday to work with her for a day and next week the national sales manager is planning to visit also. Hopefully it is just the beginning of an exciting and rewarding career for Lani.

My work is still rolling along OK. Not as exciting as Lani's new job but still somewhat interesting at least. To make the train travel a little more entertaining and productive I have purchased a new ASUS A8JP notebook. I hope to spend my train travel time doing things like writing some music, editing family videos, watching DVDs and writing the occassional family blog update.