I Interrupt This Series To Bring You A Dose of Real Time Real Life

I decided this year that I would try not to moan so much in this blog. But events this month are such that I can't hold back anymore. Sorry.

I'll start with Jake and work backwards.

Jake: our lovely six-month-old border collie has been diagnosed with severe hip dysplasia. I thought he was just reserved and grown up. Nope. He was in agony with two severely dislocated hips. He is now on painkillers, starts supplements next week, and is having hydrotherapy twice a week in the hopes of building up muscle mass in his back legs. Hopefully, in a year's time he'll be able to have an operation in which the tops of his leg bones are sawn off to create false hip sockets. But he can only have this operation if he's below 30 kilos. He weighs 17.1 kilos now. The vet initially suggested hip replacements, which costs a lot of money. Darling hubby said he'd rather put him down that pay for that. I'm putting money aside in case. And no, we don't have pet insurance because Darling hubby said it wasn't worth it.

My mother: Having told her the lump in her breast was a cyst, her doctor now wants her to have a biopsy. It's on Tuesday. I'm hoping he's just being ultra cautious. My sister has been emailing me saying our mother should go to Florida to have this done. My mother said she scared her by saying a needle biopsy can spread cancer cells. I emailed my sister that I don't think it's a good idea for my mother to go to Florida because she'll miss her husband, should be in a comfortable environment, and I suspect my sister's kids would use my mother as a baby sitter. But, I also told her, what I think and what my sister thinks are secondary to what my mother wants. She makes the decision and we work around that. My sister got defensive, and I don't think she's talking to me right now.

Skiing: As you might have suspected if you read a previous post, I lost my son's, daughter's and my passports. I wasn't being careless, or thought I wasn't. We left our luggage in a room at the hotel and went walking around the village. I thought the passports would be safest in the bag I'd worn all week long that contained my money, credit cards, and phone. Nothing had been lost. After we emerged from the Mont Blanc tunnel on the way to Geneva Airport, I checked my bag. No passports. Our taxi driver who spoke no English understood those two words. After some frantic phone calls we got good news: the passports had been found and turned in to the hotel. But I'd have to pay 150 Euros for a taxi to bring them to us. We waited about an hour in a rest stop. The taxi driver appeared, I hopped out with the money, but only two passports were there. More frantic phone calls. My husband called the British and U.S. embassies. The taxi driver called his boss who explained that we'd be best off going to the airport, crossing our fingers that the Swiss border patrol didn't stop us, and sorting it out with the airline. I held my breath as we passed through the border. As we were waved through, I exhaled. The driver just shrugged, like of course they let us through. The airline, EasyJet, actually were very nice about the whole thing. My husband had spoken to someone in Immigration at the airport we'd be landing at. EasyJet got permission to allow us to land. When we went through Immigration, I got the guy who hadn't read the memo about us (yes, there was a memo). But he went and got the LS01 form and was pretty decent (and also made the point that I probably wouldn't be treated this well in the U.S., which I had to agree with though it was someone in the U.S. Embassy who was the most helpful). Oh, and I got a whiplash-type injury and damaged knee ligaments when the pink terrorist skied into me. And I didn't have a very good time with my friend who joined us from New York, but perhaps the less said about that, the better.

The car crash: My husband and daughter were in a serious car crash on Feb. 2. That they both walked away with no noticeable injuries was a miracle in itself. A few days later my daughter complained of back pain. I phoned my GP to make an appointment. After 20 minutes of trying to get through, I finally got hold of the rudest receptionist in the world. Her attitude was that I was a neglectful parent and it wasn't her problem to sort out. She told me to take my daughter to the out-of-hours clinic because she had no more appointments and she wasn't going to treat it as an emergency. At 6:30 I phoned the out-of-hours clinic and was told that all road traffic accident victims go to the emergency room. My husband took my daughter. She saw a wonderful doctor who identified a problem in her back. She's been to see a physiotherapist since who is slowly working the problem out. As for the driver who caused the crash, she is uninsured and unlicensed. She is being taken to court.

Now for a little good news. I have been given the following awards from the following people: from Kaycie, Sparx, and Jenny I received this



From Rotten Correspondent, I received this:




Thanks, guys. Now all you other bloggers out there who deserve this award, and you know who you are, just go ahead and help yourselves.