Hubris.co.nz

The next week was spent in visits to the hospital, in which I’d cry almost every single time, so I spent more time fetching coffee from the miles-away main building and hauling it through the long tunnel to the Grace Neil building than I did actually sitting with Oma. She’d had another stroke, and possibly a heart attack, and she’d fractured her ankle and had pneumonia as a result from falling out of bed and being there all night with the window open, so she was unable to talk. Sometimes when we showed up she’d try to sit up, and sometimes she could squeeze our hands, and often she’d give signs that she recognised us – she appeared to laugh when I commented on how soft her hands felt, but the doctors talked to Mum and Diz about palliative care options. Cousin Andrea flew down from Auckland for the day to see Oma, and Cousin Jacinta came over from Sydney. It was no longer a question of if Oma would die, but rather when. Having watched Granny make herself stay alive until her sons came back from overseas to see her last year, I wondered what Oma was staying alive for. Fiesty Dutch lady that she was, every time I thought about how frustrated she would have been at her lack of ability to communicate I had to go and hide in the bathroom. Anji was wonderful, touching me and shielding me and talking to Oma when I could think of little to say.

Meanwhile at work, we’d all shifted in to the offices in the other building, so people were doubling up on computers, or “working from home”. Because of the lack of computer access, I went to see Oma in the mornings and then go to work and cry. Lots of people were stressed out about various things, and it was so hot, and I was really upset about Oma, and at the same time I was paranoid about other things (*), and that made me feel like I did when Granny was dying and I was just worried about the flights I’d booked to Auckland to go and see *IV, and fuck, it just made me feel like such a stupid bitch. I felt useless because I’d cry on the phone to Mum and feel bad about it because she was under enough stress as it was. I felt useless because I couldn’t talk the brave talk like Anji, and I felt stupid for feeling stupid. Plus, with the heat and the increased stress, I stopped going to the gym, and was eating pretty badly too, and that took effect really fast on making my moods even worse.

On Thursday 22 December, we were told that if we’d finished all our work, and if we didn’t mind being on call the next day, we could leave at lunchtime. Me and some of my workmates went to the Brewery Bar for very mediocre food, pinot gris, lots of wind and hot hot sun, where despite the liberal application of olay complete, I got burnt. I hadn’t been to see Oma that morning because Anji was going to take me at in 6pm in after work. I didn’t want to go in by myself because I’m just so bad at hospitals and Oma’d become much more unresponsive. we had a couple of bottles of wine, and then Anita guiltripped Dave into give me a ride home. They stayed for a cup of tea, and Anita and I gossiped, and then they left. I cleaned the house, hung Xmas decorations and lights, and cursed fate for thwarting various stalkerness. All that kind of stupid every day blah blah blah stuff.

Jacinta, if you wanna skip this bit, please do so.

Mum had said she was going to be at the hospital until 6. Anji and I got there around 7pm. Oma looked much worse than she had the day before. Her skin was yellow-tinged, one eye was open, and so was her mouth. After saying hello to her, Anji sent me out of the room. I composed myself, and went back in. We couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not. It really didn’t seem like it. There’s a question I never want to have to wait ten minutes at the nurses’ station to ask again “Is my grandmother still alive?” Of course, I won’t ever have to. Then the nurse got called away while I was talking to her. Finally, another nurse came along, and she went in to check for us,while Anji and I waited in the hall. Oma had passed away. Passed away? She was dead. Ever the considerate hostess, she’d waited until she was alone. Anji called Mum. Helpfully, I’d left my phone at home. Then I cried even more because all I could think was how much it felt like the Buffy episode ‘The Body’, now to the angles that focus on the medical professional’s shoulders, and how I was just in a stupid singlet, and I was all sunburnt and la la la, that’s not what is dignified at times like that, so I put my shrug back on.

The nurses had moved Oma onto her back and closed her eyes, so Anji and I sat down in her room to wait for everyone else. To me, that was the important part, because I was still a little upset that Mum and my aunt had decided that Oma was a lapsed enough Catholic that she probably wouldn’t have wanted the last rites. I’m not a religious person at all, but I guess I lean towards religion around death – like how I loved the presbyterian service at Granny’s funeral, so I had wished that she’d had it, although of course, it wasn’t my choice. But we sat with the body, and while it wasn’t for three days, I think it was wake-enough. Another one of the nurses came in to hug us and apologise for how we’d had to find her like that, which I thought was incredibly sweet. I have so much respect and gratitude to the nursing staff – they all seemed like really great people.

My aunt Diz and uncle John arrived before Mum, and when Diz started crying it set Anji off. Diz was like “Jacinta said that by hook or by crook Oma would get us all together to see us at Xmas” and that seemed entirely appropriate. Mum and Neil showed up, and then Karen, and there was much switching of seats, and fussing around, and there was hugging and joking and laughing. Oma’s death wasn’t sudden, and while she died alone, she had seen and recognised her family around her in the days leading up to her death, and I know that she felt loved. I’m incredibly relieved that she never had to move out of her house into a home, because she didn’t want that, and I’m (selfishly?) relieved that it wasn’t a long drawn out process for her death. She was greatly loved, and she’ll be greatly missed. I feel really stupid (again) because I wish that I had the words to describe her, or to memorialise her. Mum asked one of us to speak at her funeral, so I did, just like I did at Opa’s, but just like at Opa’s, I didn’t write anything down so I can’t share it with you. Instead, to really remember Oma, I think you should just go and click this link, becuase I think this is how she’d like to be remembered – always the ultimate hostess.

Oma, May 20 1920 – December 22 2005.

Dave and Jessie asked how Oma’s doing now. The short answer is: I don’t know. I went to see her on Monday and found her to be a lot more perky than she had been on Sunday, but the nurse was dressing her arm, and the wound from where she fell was the size of my fist, and suppurating (ha, I learnt a new word at work from editing transcripts of Michael Hurst talking about Macbeth and the transcriber had written “soppy raging sores” and I thought that was what it was, and my mentortype person raged/laughed at me), and her arm around it was all black and rotton and it just made me feel so bad to look at it. Oma was talking much clearer, but the battery in her hearing aid was flat, so it was like the worst conversation ever, and I fled after twenty minutes. She was supposed to go home today, with someone coming in to check on her and change her bandages and stuff, and I think Mum was going to go with her for a bit, but apparently she’s not as well as she thought she was. My cousin Jacinta’s written about how Oma is a stroppy Dutch woman (and I also found out she’s 87), but she’s so teeny tiny and from everythign I’ve ever heard, strokes aren’t something that are that easy to get over. But she IS doing better.

Did you read between the lines in the previous paragraph where I listed the people who took the time to find out more about the things that are affecting me in my life right now? Yeah. This causes a conflict in me, because yes, I turned off the comments on my last entry because I didn’t want a string of “hope she gets well soon!” nothingness, because I know that I hate having to do that publically too, but you know, I’m not exactly very hard to get ahold of. Ick, yes, I’m making this all about me, when she’s the one who’s sick.

Speaking of being all about me, and all about the people I know over the interweb, and my insecurities and everything else, I’m having my not-in-hospital Birthday & Flatwarming and Halloween Drinks on October 29th, and you should come, please. I’m calling it drinks cos I’m scared I won’t have enough friends to make it a ‘party’, so I will try to keep expectations low key so as to avoid disappointment. Please bring a friend, and you get bonus points if you come in costume, and super super bonus points if you a) dress up as me or b) come in a bear costume.

In keeping with my Wellingtonisa post about Drinking Wellington on the Cheap, Karen and I went to Chow for cocktails and then dinner tonight. Her apartment isn’t up to fire standards. The builders suuuuuuuuuuck. Then we tried to come up with metaphors to be the opposite of “I love you like meat loves salt” for how much I hate someone (I am petty. I need to let things go). She texted me after I got home to say that I hated her like ten thousand spoons when all I needed was a knife, and also that she’d forgotten to give me Gareth’s book, yet again. I think Wellington needs a large system of tubes, or flying monkeys. That’d rock.

So now that I have finished writing about Fiji, finally, I can write about my health. Because you care. Because if you weren’t reading this site, you’d be reading something else, and that something else would probably not be talking about vaginas, and who doesn’t like to read about vaginas? Exactly.

But before I begin, I’d like to give a huge big shout out to Mr. Peter Mahoney for the voicemail he left me on my birthday. I miss you, sir. Say hi to Kate for me. Kate who? Kate Morrison? Is she even still alive?

Now, I mentioned a couple of times that I had some infected mosquito bites, and obviously you got to read about how my party was canceled, etc, but here’s the long story. I got bitten by a lot of mosquitos in Fiji, mostly whilst walking through a paddock at night because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Because I do not sleep in mittens, I scratched them. Everyone scratches their mosquito bites, right? It’s what humans do. And then mosquito bites heal. Except that these ones didn’t. They got puffy, and red around them. The chemist said that I should go to a doctor, but I had to work, so I took some disinfectant cream instead, and applied it regularly and tried to keep the bites clean and not pick at them. The red around them got bigger and bigger. And I didn’t go to the doctor, because I was working, and because I don’t have a doctor down here, and because I didn’t want to go on antibiotics and get thrush. All the mosquito bites got bigger and more and more achey. But I’m a dumbass, so I didn’t go to the doctor.

But then on my birthday I had the fabulous present of realising that the lump that I’ve had on my labia for years had become swollen with pus overnight and sore. I had a good look at it (and I don’t have a hand mirror, so instead of being like a ’70s housewife doing her first self exam after reading a feminist pamphlet, I was all pornstar-like straddling a full length mirror). If that wasn’t a sight enough to behold, it turned out that my labia was about four times the size that it normally is. Pus does not belong there! Of course I had a squeeze but OUCH! It didn’t pop. I went to sleep (somehow) fantasizing about someone sinking a large needle into me and pulling out the fluid. That’s not a cool thing to fantasize about. Do you get how painful and uncomfortable it was? When I woke up in the morning it was even more so, and that’s when I knew I had to call a doctor. The local place was closed, so I cried and asked my sister to take me to the After Hours clinic in Newtown. Let me put the pain in perspective for you gentlemen – imagine that you grew a lump on your penis the size of one of your testicles, and you could feel all the pressure that growth was putting on your skin, and every time you walked, or changed position while sitting it increased the pressure. Couple that with the fact that by this stage half of my left calf was bright red and I was in a pretty bad state, and I was totally freaked out that the infection in my legs was the reason for the big pus-y (pusy? How do I avoid saying “pussy”?) lump.

Of course, I had to wait for an hour at the clinic, in a horrible waiting room full of screaming children, on an uncomfortable chair that I shifted gingerly on. I sent Anji to go do the supermarket shopping for our party, which was supposed to be that night so that she wouldn’t have to wait there too. We got to the clinic at about 11am, and I got called up by a nurse around 12pm. She took one look at my leg and said that I needed to get on antibiotics as soon as possible, took my urine and my temperature (38.1), blood sugar (apparently infected things are a diabetes issue – but I still don’t have diabetes. I’m not sure how come. You’d think I would), and sent me through to the doctor’s exam room for a little more privacy for the doctor to look at my lump. The doctor said I’d be really lucky if I could escape going to hospital to be put on an IV drip for antibiotics, but they’d try giving me some via IV to see if that would help. Then I climbed up on the bed (ouch!) for her to have a look (ouch ouch ouch!). She said it was a balkan (that’s not the word, but it was something similiar. I wa?) cyst – that there are glands there for lubrication, and sometimes they become blocked – much like how pimples are formed. Great, except that pimples aren’t THAT BIG. She also said she’d call the on-duty gyno at A&E to get them to see me as soon as I’d had some antibiotics and had my sores dressed.

First, the nurse took a big marker pen and drew all over my leg, marking where the redness had spread to. Then it was antibiotics time. The thing about getting sick is that your veins run away and hide. It took three pokes with a needle to get the “butterfly” in (butterfly? huh? Your medical speak confuzzles me. Although I suppose part of it did look a little like a butterfly), and then the nurse had to flush my vein with saline, but couldn’t, so she had to move it to another vein. There she could flush it okay, but when she got to the injecting me with antibiotics stage, it HUUUUUUUUUURT so bad that she said that it obviously wasn’t in, so she tried again without any success and had to get the doctor to come and redo it for her. Third time’s a charm. It took half an hour or so for her to sloooooooooooooowly shoot me full of antibiotics. Then I had to lie down on my stomach, bare legs and feet slowly freezing, while she cleaned up my wounds. This wasn’t a simple washing proceedure, oh no. It involved a scalpel blade, cutting off bits of scab and digging out pieces of fluff, a lot of twitching on my behalf, and a lot of apologies from her. Have I mentioned that I was crying all the way through this? Well I was. My labia hurt like mad, the injections and the butterfly left in my arm hurt, having my sores cut open hurt, I was cold, I felt lonely because I’d sent Anji home, I was sick, I was miserable and I was just feeling really sorry for myself, and then I was crying because I was so ashamed that I was acting like a big baby and crying. Fuck I’m a dork. The whole process took a couple of hours. I took a cab to A&E because there was no way in hell I could have walked there at that stage, and gave the letter from the doctor to the lady at the counter, who said that I’d have to see a registrar first, and that there was a two hour waiting period. It was 4pm at that stage and I hadn’t eaten anything since the night before, and I was just so tired, and so sore and so I cried some more while I read the paper and waited. Luckily the lady on the desk turned out to be a truly lovely woman, and she called the gyno registrar who came down to get me, and we walked a long long long way through the hospital up to the gynocology ward because there were no rooms free in A&E. The gyno was South African, as was her supervisor, and together they proded and squeezed me and ignored me as I cried out in pain, said it wasn’t a balkan cyst and declared that I needed to have surgery. They said that if they were in South Africa, they’d just lance the lump under a local anesthetic, but in New Zealand it had to be under general. I was like holy crap! They asked me when I’d last eaten, and I told them, but because I’d had a half a cup of water an hour earlier I wasn’t going to be given the surgery that day. Instead they sent in a Scottish nurse to do more obs on me, who gave me a hug cos I was crying (again) and wrote me a script for some painkillers – thank god. And then Mum showed up, thinking she would just be visiting, but it was time to take me home, after they told me not to eat anything after midnight, and to come back at 7.30am for surgery. Surgery! Holy crap!

So I cried and cried and cried on Mum’s shoulder, and she took me home and stayed around while I had a shower cos Anji went out to pick up dinner. I’d sent out texts (i have never typed the word “vagina” so often!) whilst having my wounds cleaned telling people the party was off, but Dave and Karen came around to hang out, and then Joel showed up with a crate cos he hadn’t seen the notice on my site that Heather had put up for me. They got drunk and rowdy and laughing at me while I sat in my pjs trying not to move, getting slightly dopey on painkillers and feeling sorry for myself. I went to bed before midnight, but they were still banging about at 3am. Best birthday party EVER!

So somehow in the cold dark very very thirsty painful morning I managed to get myself up and Mum picked me up at 7.15am. I didn’t take any more painkillers cos I didn’t know if I was allowed them or not. I got a bed in a ward with one other woman in it, and the nurse told me to change into the hospital gown by 8am when she’d come and do obs on me. Well, she didn’t do them until about 11am. I managed to sleep some, with my lovely mother sitting by my side reading magazines. Then a security guard came to wheel my bed away. I was a little suprised – I guess I thought that the doctor would come and talk to me in the ward. But perhaps I watch too much TV. The anesthetist came to talk to me, and he was a horrible little man, talking about how I was a risk because I was so big (which is something no one else had bothered to mention) and how someone of his size was much safer – but he had to pump my bed down so he could look me in the eye, so you know what buddy? You’re not normal either. One of the nurses was lovely though, and was really nice about taking my obs and just seemed calming in general. Then I met the surgeon – he was young, and kind of cute, and his first name was Nick, so hi everybody! I said that it seemed kind of full on having to get general anesthetic and all, and he said that we were more humane than the South Africans. But then I was wheeled into the operating room, and that was just extreme – knowing that there were at least six people standing around who were going to be dedicated to my vagina for the next 20 minutes or so. Freaky.

The operating table that I clambered on to was much smaller than the bed, and they had me half sitting up on a large stack of pillows. Then they attached arm rests out the sides of the bed and had me pinned down – inserting a drip on one side, and a blood pressure thing on the other, and then they pushed an oxygen mask down on my face, and I started freaking out, because it was like they were trying to smother me (which is dumb, of course – it’s like they were trying to starve me to death with chocolate cake), and I was whimpering so the nice nurse stroked my arm and I had Tyler Durdan saying over and over in my head “oxygen makes you high” and they told me to keep my eyes open even though they were gradually putting me to sleep through the drip, and then I opened my eyes and it was later and I was in the recovery room. I still had the damn oxygen mask on, and I tried to take it off, but the nurse told me to leave it on for a bit more. By then I hadn’t had water for over twelve hours, and I had a sore throat anyway, so I could hardly breathe because of that, so I asked for water and she gave it to me, but then kept freaking me out by telling me to take deep breaths because my oxygen stats were still too low. She put those nasal oxgen things on me instead, and that was better, although it was still hard to breathe deeply. I asked if I had to stay awake and she said no, but I was still aware of them rolling me back through miles of hospital to the ward, where Mum still was. I said I was going to sleep for a while so she left. I still had a pump thing in my hand, and a pad to soak up the blood and pus, and to make things extra jolly I started my period. But I slept amazingly well. They wouldn’t let me leave until I ate something, so I had the bread and fruit that went with my long-ago-gone-cold lunch, and Dr Nick came in and asked if “my friend” was going to take me away, the big cheese – Mum quite obviously looks like a mum. But he is forgiven because he wrote me a script for codeine because halabuton or whatever else I’d been given the night before is like a dollar a pill. He said codeine was an old fashioned drug, just like him, and asked me if I was old fashioned too. Well, when it comes to codeine, I sure am. Now I can bribe more people to wear bear suits for me! When I have my party! Which I will! And I will be drunk at it! And not in pain! Hurray!

On the clinic’s doctor’s orders, I had a week off work, during which time I took my antibiotics like a good girl mostly (it’s hard cos there’s two types, and one I am supposed to take two hours after eating and an hour before eating, and hello, I graze) and mostly avoided alcohol, and didn’t go out and all that, and had a follow up appointment with the doctor on my street who has a horrible receptionist gatekeeper, and a nurse who put bits of gauze on my legs with one piece of tape and thought that was a good enough dressing. And in exchange for that goodness? I now have the flu, and thrush. Hurray!

But I’m going to Rarotonga in two sleeps. So I guess it’s not all bad….

Tuesday June 25th

Just before midnight, that thing in my head snapped again, and the entire left side of my head started to throb and pulsate and ache ache ache. The pain was incredible, I hadn’t felt its like except for on Saturday and Sunday nights as well. I couldn’t take it anymore. I sat up in bed and cried for about fifteen minutes wondering how badly it would scare my mother if I’d rung her at that hour. My head was really freaking me out, and I needed it to stop. It’s kinda terrifying to feel like a blood vessel has burst in your brain. Bopha was fast asleep with two exams the next day, and Clay wasn’t home, so I ended up canvassing opinions via txt, until someone agreed with me that yes, maybe I should go to the hospital since I’d been in pain for three days and it wasn’t getting any better – in fact, it was getting worse (and I know I don’t say enough good things about you sometimes, so thank you, I’m so glad to know you’re always there for me when I’m having a crisis, and you know I’m always there for you too, if you need me). I woke Bops because I had no money for a taxi, and she offered to come with me, but I said she shouldn’t, because I knew we’d end up waiting hours and hours, and because I was crying and in pain to the point where I could hardly talk, and because of her exams. I managed to scrape together $5 in coins, which was just enough.

I felt so fucking stupid, telling hte guy at the counter that I had “a headache” because it sounds so goddam prissy and lame, but he was very nice and told me that three days was an extreme length of time, and he called me sweetheart in a really nice way. He took me to a room in the ER and left me there for ages, which I understand cos I know they have to prioritize. I held my head in my hands and felt nauseous, and listened to the staff calling for diazaphan for the guy in the room next to me who was having fits. That made me feel kind of like a fraud, but there is only so much pain and misery a girl can take. It was a fucking hard call to make though, having to take enough responsibility for myself to seek treatment. Meh. Eventually a nice nurse called Jayne came along and took me to another room, and gave me a wristband with my name and phone number on it, and told me to get undressed and put on one of those funny hospital gowns. I’d be expecting them to just shine a light in my eyes and tell me I was pathetic and wasting their time, so I was like “umm, you have the right piece of paper right? I’m here with a headache?” and she laughed at me. Once I’d changed, she told me to lie down on a half propped up bed, took my blood pressure and pulse, turned out the lights and said the doctor would be in to see me soon. I think it must have taken about an hour for him to get to me, in which time I just cried like the big sooky girl I am, because it hurt, and because I was lonely and because I just wanted my mum. I really wished that there was someone who I could have called to go with me, that I wouldn’t have felt bad about asking, and so I decided that I need to have kids as soon as possible cos I figure by the time they’re 15, they can drive me and also, they’ll be completely obligated to me and everything, so I won’t need to feel guilty, and they’ll be matyred to me. And yeah, I know that when my darling friends read this, they’ll all be like “you could have called me” but how do you call someone at 12am and say “hi, I have a headache, can you please get up and come to the hospital and wait a couple of hours with me?” It just doesn’t work like that. Still, Auckland Hospital is a scary horrible place to be alone in. It was miserable and I considered putting my clothes back on and running away, except that it wouldn’t have been running, it would have been a very slow, very painful crawl, and I would still be worried about what exactly was going on inside my skull.

Eventually the doctor came and examined me and asked me all the same questions that the nurse had asked me. He said that everything seemed fine, but that I had done the right thing to come in, and he told me that I didn’t have meningitis, which hadn’t even crossed my mind. He said that although I had no history of them, it might just be a particularly violent migraine, and said he would work through levels of pain relief with me, from basics, to heavier, to hooking me up to a drip and keeping me in overnight if need be. This meant sending in a nurse with panadol and voltarin and a glass of milk which she ordered me to drink to counteract the nasty stomach munchingness of voltarin, and leaving me for half an hour “to get some sleep”. Righto. I started tripping out, and could feel the pain in my head breaking free and floating loose, and then working its way into a little knot by my eye. What the fuck is it with hospitals and their fucking panadol? It’s like the time when I got hit by a car and they gave me panadol, only this time i wasn’t drunk and abusive, and I wasn’t inflicting hours of waiting torture on James and Maree. Anyways, finally my doctor came back to re-evaluate me. He said he was happy to keep me in overnight, but he thought that I’d probably sleep better at home and that was what would probably do the best for me, as long as he gave me some more pain relief before I went. Knowing that I had an exam in six and a half hours time, I agreed with him, so he dosed me up on straight codeine, wrote me out a script for some more, ordered me to see my GP as soon as possible for follow-up and gave me a piece’o paper detailing my tragic story.

Of course, I’d used up all my coins on the taxi to get to the hospital, and in my zonked state, I decided that it would be a good idea to walk home. When I left the hospital I thought the moon was half full – by the time I got over the Grafton Bridge, it was full, and I was by the graveyard and I kept seeing things and I couldn’t feel my legs anymore because of the 60mg of codeine. Things were a little odd, to say the least. The sky was really clear, and all the branches were ghostly, and I was doped off my tits, and yeah, fun times. At least my headache had subsided to a dull roar though. It was 3am by that stage, and then I woke up at 4am when the drugs wore off and my head was screaming again and my chest cavity felt like my ribs were all imploding. Odd.

So of course, there was extreme lack of sleep, and residual dopiness from the codeine, and the headache was back as soon as I got up this morning, so I had to take more nurofen plus. I would have been bouncing off the walls if I wasn’t reduced to sliding along the floor. In my exam, it took me fifteen minutes to be able to focus enough to copy down the question to the top of my page, and that really really fucked me off. I did an appalling job, and I’m really upset, because I could have done so much better. I know my LTSA topic inside out, and I’d done well on going through the other stuff too, ducking in between major migraineness, but I was so vague and blurry and doped just to try and get rid of the fucking pain. I went to fill out compassionate consideration forms straight after, but they’ll only allow me a “pass” which I think I might just get anyways, not an actual indication of the good mark that I could have got if it wasn’t for all this bullshit.

After the exam, I went to pick up my prescription – more codeine and voltarin, lovely. Everyone from my Persuasive Class was meeting at The Playhouse for lunch and drinking so I went along, spaced out and only able to drink coke. But the girl I dislike more than anyone kept screeching in my ear, and I was fading fast after the quick pickup of pills, so I went home, told Clay that I couldn’t talk because I wasn’t coherant, and slept for four hours. When I got up, there were concerned phonecalls from Maz and a bigass gorgeous lovely bunch of flowers from KateH, stark contrast to being alone and miserable in a hospital bed. They also came over really briefly, and Kate told me she’d deliberatly asked for Serene, Calming flowers. Awww. I’m looking forward to my party on Saturday, especially since I’ve had to forsake alcohol today and BradC and Clay are currently drinking Soju in honour of Korea/Germany. I’m also foresaking hte soccer as well, because I just can’t handle. I’m so fragile and fucked, and if I move my head, it hurts. Arrgh. At least I get to go home to my mum next Wednesday.

Surely there’s nothing better than sticking your hand inside a turkey first thing when you wake up, unless it’s getting to wipe all the blood and wet stuff off said turkey. Or yelling “Hold still you bitch” or “oh yeah, ram me full of that stuffing”. Kitchen sports are so much fun! I spent this morning finishing off the cooking for today’s lunch – I was up until 2am making pumpkin pies last night. The boys were terrific and did highly challenging tasks like peeling potatos and stuff. Anyways, eventually everything was in the oven and I could go have a shower and make myself stunning.

Shirley arrived while I was still getting dressed, so I was able to tell her that I wasn’t decent without running myself down too much. Helen came along too, and demanded that I take her photo:

The turkey took about three hours or more, which meant that everyone had assembled (I think we had 15 people) and were well into their assorted wines by the time it was ready. Just before I brought it out of the oven and carved, I got everyone to assemble around the dining room table and say what they were thankful for. Sure, I ripped the idea straight out of a Dawson’s episode, but the whole idea for having Thanksigiving Dinner was from Dawson’s too, so it was very appropriate. It was actually really touching. Some people went serious, some went funny. I said I was thankful for all the people assembled, because I loved them so much, and they made my life, and they were all so much more special to me than they could ever know, and it’s true. So there.

Yes anyways, sappiness aside, I’m so so stoked, cos my turkey turned out juicy and luscious and scrummy, even though I’d never cooked one before. Unfortunately, the small ‘Turkey Roast’ we bought to accompany it was icky – can we say “sausage”, boys and girls? Don’t ever buy one! But the actual bird roast was good – so well cooked that the meat slid off the bones. Yay me. I’m so so proud. I mean, Mum’s never even cooked turkey. Anyways, enough boasting.

So everyone got all sleepy after lunch, and no wonder, cos of the heat and the alcohol and all the food. We had four couches and a bed in our lounge, and there were people stretched out on all of them, entwined with whoever else was sharing their seat. It was kinda touching. After dessert, I took an eiderdown out to the lawn and lay out there with Helen and Shirley and Jeremy, eating Rum Spiders (you know – coke and icecream) and giggling my head off. “I have a grass problem”.

Eventually, Kate M drove me on a Beer and Chuppies mission. Previous days had taught us that there was no Summer Ale at either Woolworths 277 or Foodtown, so we went to the Winemasters shop. It was very cold in the Chiller with bare feet. I hadn’t brought my wallet with me, since I’d just fished $30 out of the Booty Tin (we asked everyone to pay $5 for lunch to cover some costs) so I had no ID, and Morrison didn’t have her driver’s licence on her either, just tech ID and old licence. The lady let us have the beer, but warned us that they were cracking down and we should always carry our id. That place is always strict, how rude! When we got back to the house, we found everyone playing cricket in our newly cleaned carport. How industrious!

Everyone was all dozey until around 6.30pm, just snacking and drinking some more, and then Miss World came on. Boy did we ever tear strips off all the contestants! Oh lordy, did I just say “tear strips off” ? Did I just say “Oh lordy” ? Super! Anyways, around then, Renee asked where the nearest Accident and Emergency Clinic was, as she was having an allergic reaction to something, which seemed kinda scary, so i went with her and we got Nigel to drive us to the Ascot Hospital. Dead posh! We waited for ages, and Renee just seemed to get sicker and sicker, so eventually Nige and I went to the counter and said “look, our friend is having kind of a really bad allergic reaction” and since she was streched out lying down on the seats and was bright red from sunburn anyways, they rushed her off to a doctor, and I went in with her (sure, I’ve only ever met her at parties basically when I’ve been very drunk, but Jeremy was in no state to go to the hospital with her, and I figure it’s good of me to bond with flatmates’ girlfriends. To say nothing of the fact that I was kinda scared and like to help out in an emergency). Anyways, the doctor gave her some antibiotics and sent us off back home. She felt better after some panadol and a sleep.

I missed a significant part of Miss World, plus I’d accidently found out who’d won anyways, so that ruined a bit of the night, but ahh well. Jodie and Helen both left after Miss World, as did Nige and Andy. But Maree showed up then, which was sweet as bro. We played Bluffinitions. It was very amusing. I won. All those words we’d never heard of before!

I had a headache, so I’m going to manipoo now.

“Actually I quite like Waikato Draught” – Helen

Sunday 24; January, 1999

I rang the Moonlight Lounge this morning (well, 2pm) for a chat, but someone was on the phone, so I left a message for either of my sisters to call me back. Then Simon and I went out to the Warehouse and to look at double beds (that sounds so much dodgier than it really is – the bed is for me, and not for him). When I got back there was a message for me on the answerphone from Anji. She mentioned in passing that Karen’s in hospital, but it’s nothing serious. Nothing serious? It’s always serious for Karen. Statisitically speaking, most people with Cystic Fibrosis are dead by the time they turn 21. Karen is 23. Last time I talked to her she mentioned that she was sick – but I thought it was like a cold or something. She HATES doctors and hospitals, so I can’t understand how she’d let herself be in hospital. She’s stopped taking most of her pills. I want to know what the fuck is going on, but I don’t want to call my parents. They’ll probably worry more than nessecary or something. I dunno – I don’t wanna call them, so I just wish Anji was home so I could find out what the deal is.

I’m so scared, I don’t want to lose her. I should be back in Wellington. This sucks. I don’t know what to do. It’s got to be serious if she’s in hospital. This isn’t Tonsilitus.