Winter

I'm horrified at how long it's been since the last blog. C'est la vie in the fast/confused lane sometimes. I'll try to catch up in one fell swoop.

Rosie did her first horn exam, Grade 2, on June 16th and was delighted with her A pass.

 

After 18 months of dodgy on-again-off-again knees and some expert advice I decided to have arthroscopies on not one but both knees. That's when they go in with keyhole surgery and do a basic cleanup of the joint, smoothing rough edges, removing debris and generally poking around. I had a few weeks off MSO already scheduled so decided to use the time out for the procedure which happened the day after Rosie's horn exam. After 5 days of being waited on hand and foot at home I walked with 2 crutches for a couple of days then was quite comfortable walking without. Now both knees feel great and I'm hoping they'll last a few more years.

School holidays started on June 28th and Jessye had been looking forward all year to a skiing trip she had arranged with a couple of school friends during the first week of the holidays. Luckily, the parents of one of the girls have a place at Mt Hotham, one of Victoria's ski resorts and kindly agreed to accomodate the extra girls. Unfortunately though, the ski season had started rather warmly and it looked as though the girls might miss out on skiing altogether after all Jessye's well-laid plans. But half way through the week the weather changed dramatically and they managed to get a good 2 or 3 days of fun in the snow.

While Jessye was away skiing and I was still off work, Rosie, Sophie and I had a fabulously lazy time at home during the holidays doing nothing, with the exception of one 24-hr period when we spent a night at the Westin reprising the treat Rosie requested after her radiotherapy 3 years ago. With just the 3 of us this time it was quite relaxing. The girls made a lot of use of the gym which was usually empty and the pool of course.

At the end of the second week of our hols Donald arrived with Gabe and Ollie who were competing in the Junior Elite National Championships in Melbourne. The kids stayed with the other Kiwis in the team and Donald stayed with us. They dived superbly showing the Aussies a thing or 2. Because they were Kiwis they weren't eligible for actual medals (otherwise they would have gone home with several of all colours) but instead got special trophies and got to stand on the podium with the Aussie medal-winners. In fact they were so successful that the organisers ran out of special trophies. After the competition was over Ollie and Gabe came to our place for an extra day and night before going home. We took them downtown to the tallest building, Eureka Tower, where we went in the glass box that emerges from the 88th floor, wandered around Southbank and eventually ended up driving over the Westgate Bridge to Williamstown for fish and chips on the wharf and another wander. The kids went to the movies to put the finishing touch to a really nice day. Will's 25th!!!!!! birthday happened during the Armstrong-Scott weekend and we celebrated at a local Vietnamese with the whole extended clan. (Sorry no pics)

On September 3rd MLC presented a concert including two of Rosie's groups, the Flockhart Band and the Orchestra. She played very well as far as I could tell but was a bit annoyed at missing a high note (not that I noticed) - the horn player's lot!

That Sunday was Fathers' Day and we had Will and Eleanor over for pancakes. It was quite a nice day so the kids (of all sizes) were out in the back yard while Peter gave Fred and Barney long-overdue haircuts. Somehow a game evolved in which Rosie and Sophie were inside in Sophie's room hanging out the window while Will, Elle and Jessye tried to hit them with plastic balls (fortunately quite soft).

Rosie has been enjoying her cooking class at school and after making a gingerbread house last term, still preserved in its cellophane cover on the kitchen bench, she decided to try another one at home. This is also still on display on the kitchen bench. If any more ensue we may need more cabinetry.

On September 11, as we commemorated the 7th anniversary of the attacks on America, we had our own rather eventful day. Sophie had made it to District athletics in two events, the 100m and the 4 x 100m relay. Since I had the day off I volunteered to be parent helper which meant going to school with Sophie, leaving the car there and going with the kids on the bus to a rather remote corner of the northern suburbs where the athletics days are held. Sophie wasn't going to be competing till about lunchtime so I settled in for a long day. At about 11 am I got a call from Rosie's school to say that Rosie was OK but had fainted and had a seizure in her science class. There was I stuck in the northern wilderness without a car but I managed to get a taxi pretty smartly back to my car and on to MLC. Rosie was fine when I arrived at the school's health centre but was sporting a nasty carpet burn on her left temple where she'd obviously connected with the floor. Apparently her science teacher heard a crash and turned around to find Rosie in a very awkward position head on the floor, legs still partly wrapped around her chair having a siezure for 15 - 20 seconds. Luckily before he was a science teacher he had been a neurosurgical nurse so he knew exactly what to do. In hindsight she thinks she may have fainted because they were discussing bruises and blood in class and Rosie is apparently very squeamish. We already knew this because after my knee surgery when the girls came to the hospital to visit, Jessye was regaling us with lurid tales ot the heart surgery she'd just been lucky enough to observe at close quarters as part of her "work experience" week at Royal Melbourne Hospital. Rosie was clearly not enjoying the conversation and suddenly she slid down the wall and fainted for a few seconds. On that occasion she was fine after the few seconds but since we were in a hospital at the time and there seemed to suddenly be 8 or 9 medics looking for something to do she was whisked off to emergency for a looksee. At MLC though, the seizure, her first, was more worrying. I called Wirginia, her neurosurgeon from way back, and she made an appointment for us to see her on Monday (3 days later) but said if I was feeling anxious we should go to emergency at Children's and have a CT scan done. Naturally, that's what we did so Rosie and I spent a rather familiar several hours in a cubicle playing cards, having cups of tea and being looked after by a nice young Scottish doctor. In the midst of all this drama, 3 days later Sophie played in her music school's annual big deal concert at Melba Hall. Back to Rosie .....The CT scan looked clear which was comforting but Wirginia ordered an MRI for last Wednesday and an EEG for Friday. Peter took Rosie to those appointments while I was rehearsing. The EEG was new to us and gave Rosie a rather fetching mad scientist look. I talked to Wirginia on Friday and the MRI was fine with no new changes so we now  wait for the results of the EEG and an appointment with the neurologist who will interpret them for us. That should be sometime this week if we're lucky. Meanwhile we're not to leave Rosie alone in case she has another seizure. It may be that the one she had was simply related to the faint and was a one-off or she may have some ongoing tendency which the EEG may clarify. In any case the experts need to determine whether she needs drugs or not (hopefully not because they have side effects and can be a bit dulling but we'll see). Watch this space. By the way, I never did get to watch Sophie run but she came a solid 3rd in her 100m heat so made the finals and her relay team came 4th.