Doh! lose weight? count points!!

Short post today to let you know my weighin results ... 1.5kg loss. It's amazing what one can do when one ACTUALLY counts points and sticks to plan for a week!!! lol

My next short term self challenge is to get below 106kgs by next week (only another 600g to go) so that I can be lighter on the 1st October than I was on the 1st September.

Plan for today ... Bill is sick (the big sook) so I'll be working in the shop and doing my computer work in the shop too ... busy, busy!

Wahoooo!!! I lost weight finally!!!

We have a date set ...

With everything that happened over the weekend I forgot to mention I finally have a date set for my surgery for my ankle!! We started procedures on the surgery back in March and 7mths later I'm FINALLY getting it done! So on October 18th I will go into the new Grace Hospital (southern cross) in Tauranga. I get admitted around lunchtime, the surgery is done late afternoon and I'm discharged first thing the next morning. I have mixed emotions about it all. One part of me is excited and relieved to eventually get my ankle sorted and moving again and another part is nervous (to be expected I guess). My body as actually become accustomed to getting around with it the way it is. Over one year since I broke it, it is still seized. I have up and down movement but no sideways movement (as if putting the soles of your feet together). In the short term I could get away without the surgery but I've been told that if I don't get anything done about it that later on in life my hips and back will play up because of it.

Unfortunately the 18th of October is right before Labour Weekend which is one of the busiest weekends in the shop for us. So I'll be out of action for it but will be good to get it sorted before summer chaos. They are aparently going to have a good fish around in there to check it is actually the tendon stuck behind the plate and not something else. So instead of the 10cm scar I have right now I'll have a 20cm one!! Great! But I guess it's not like I'm a foot model or anything. The plate and screws will be coming out and it is supposed to be fixed immediately. Recovery should be quite quick with just waiting for the stitches to heal. So back up and running (well not quite running lol) in a couple of weeks.

Mandy (chubbymum) has mentioned she wants to catchup over Labour weekend while they are here so a visitor will be quite nice while I'm house bound!

Malachi is doing very well with his temporary caps on his teeth. But boys being boys I had to tell him to get off the roof of the shed this afternoon!!! And yes it was his second teeth! And aparently the nerve has been permantly damaged on the left front tooth, meaning probably some discolouration to it. I'll find out definately when I take him to the dentist to get the proper caps done in a couple of weeks.

I think the weekend caught up with me this afternoon because instead of doing my computer work I slept. I tried so hard to keep my eyes open, with no such luck. I slept for a couple of hours and woke up at 3pm VERY GRUMPY! Poor Bill! lol Don't do afternoon sleeps very well.

Well talking of work, I better get some done now.

Enough already

I sat down to a quiet dinner last night and went to take my shoes off realising it would be another quiet nite of duty at the beach. I have lots of jobs at Waihi but when on duty at the beach usually there's nothing. Infact in the last 10mths I've had a total of two jobs! I just finished my dinner when *beep beep beep beep* my pager went off. I rang in to get the details and realised the seriousness when COMMS told me that both Auckland Eagle helicopter (police) and Auckland Westpac helicopter (medical) had been dispatched to a guy missing off the beach. We were directed to the coastguard headquarters and for the three hours we waited. The guy had been trying to get in a long line (fishing), stepped in a hole, lost his footing and got swept out, in HUGE waves with a strong rip. After hearing the details of the guy I made the realisation that he had been in our shop that morning buying bait. Very eiree feeling.

We walked up and down the beach while 2 coastguard boats and 2 helicopters weaved their way along the 10km coastline. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. As time ticked on we realised we were now looking for a body. He was only wearing shorts so hypathermia was a certainty. After four hours they called the search off. Disappointed ... we all went home. I'd just got my uniform off and pj's on when *beep beep beep* my pager went off again!! Unheardof ... 2 waihi beach jobs ... IN ONE NIGHT??!! So throwing on my uniform again I headed out the door to be picked up by my partner.

COMMS weren't 100% sure of the address. It was at a camp ground somewhere at Waihi Beach. There are 3 camp grounds here and with being the first day of the school holidays they were full of people!! I suggested trying the top 10 one first. We got there to find complete darkness with no one looking like they needed any help. So we informed COMMS that we would be relocating to the other camp ground ten kms away at the other end of the beach. By this stage Waihi ambulance (sent to back us up) met us and we both went on our way. Arriving to find another campground in darkness ... no one seeming like they need our assistance. COMMS told us to look for a "white campervan ... ehem ... goodluck with that!!" he laughed. The campground was filled with white campervans!! We beeped our horns to see if the person on the other end of the phone with COMMS could hear us. Nope. But he did mention that he saw us going past about 10 minutes ago and hadn't seen us since. Oh nooo ... he was back at the first campground!!!! So off we trotted back 10kms to the original campground! And when we arrived this time there was the campground manager there to meet us and guide us to the right one where we found a very patient man lying in the back of his van with dislocated artificial hip. Poor guy!! Lucky he wasn't in too much pain or too seriously injured ... we found him ... eventually!

I finally sunk into bed at 12.30am ... not too bad considering the eventful night.

This morning I woke thinking to myself ... that was enough drama last night ... now for a nice quiet day. Hmmm ... don't ever say that ... cuz the ambulance I was on duty with, I ended up calling myself for my son Malachi!!!

He was riding his bike down at the school when the wheel came off and he went face first onto the driveway! Two broken front teeth! Poor little man! Given it was the weekend I really didn't know where to take him so rang it in as a job.

So this afternoon we took him down to Tauranga to have temporary caps put on. He was very brave my poor little man!

Now ... honestly ... that is ENOUGH drama for one day!!! Wonder what tonight will bring!

kids ... I brought a new toy home

It's currently 7am on Saturday morning and I've been awake since 2.30am when the pager went off for my first night shift on ambulance. I must admit I felt out of my comfort zone responding at night from home. No matter how quickly I tried to get my uniform and shoes on it seemed to take forever!!

By the time I arrived in my car to my partners house (where the ambulance was) my adrenalin levels were through the roof. I was puffing. Was a horrible feeling. But what seemed to me like 20 minutes was actually only 7 minutes.

My normal calm manner in walking into the house was jittery and flustered. It's been a very long time since I felt like that on ambo. Fortunately for me my partner was used to nights and allowed me to take a step back and become the goafa.

I had a good talk with her on the way back from hospital and was relieved to find out that's totally normal when starting out on nights. The feeling of 'no matter how fast you go feels too slow' and uncertainty. So I'll add it to my list of life experiences.

My next problem was being to hyped to go back to sleep when I got home at 5am ... hence why I'm still awake now. I have staff starting at 12pm so I'll go have my nana nap then.

Another first for me today is bringing the ambulance home. For this half of the shift I get to have the ambulance here. Very exciting for the kids and another step up for me. Learning all the radio instructions and tasks to be done when having the truck at home is confusing but so far I think I've got it right.

I've been totally on track with points the last 3 days. I almost blew it this morning with being so hyped and tired at the same time I wanted FOOD!! And a yummy hot pie seemed the perfect solution. Lucky common sense kicked in and I opted for a salad sandwich instead. Twas a good girl I was.

I passed!!!

Some very exciting news to share today ...

Remember that 60hr assignment I had to do for my next patch on ambulance?? I got it back today and I passed with flying colours!!! The comment at the bottom was "an excellent job! Well done!" Everyone I know that has done this assignment has had to redo parts of it and resubmit so I feel very chuffed that I got it right first time.

As my dad said he would have to pass me given it was grief (well not all of it, some was on NZ Law and Legislation) after what we've all just been through.

So this brings me to being a Primary Care 2 officer. Next is National Certifical in Ambulance Care which takes a whole year to do (part time) and brings me to Ambulance Officer ... then onto Paramedic. So I'm slowly getting there bit by bit.

we have connection!!

We have internet connection again ... finally!!! I think the problem was a power surge to our modem. The computer is on a surge protector but the modem wasn't. We ended up ordering a replacement modem from telecom but got a wireless one this time, so I am currently sitting in the lounge on my laptop doing my update without any cords!!!! Oh the bliss!! Our other computer has always been in the shop so after shop is closed no more internet. To be able to update at anytime anywhere will be great! And hopefully means more updates for you guys.

On a sad note I might have to say goodbye to my smileys! :(

My new laptop is an apple mac and unfortunately smileycentral doesn't work with apple macs ... boo hoo!!! Have to have a think on this one.

On the eating side ... I did well all day till after dinner and I gave in and had a magnum white ... damn those magnums!!! Maybe I should do a challenge thingee and see how many days I can go without a magnum and reward myself at the end with a BOX OF MAGNUMS!!! juuuust kidding!!

I went to my piglets playgroup for official weighin today and recorded a weight of 108kg, the same as at home yesterday ... although ... I was stark naked on the scales yesterday and today's weight was fully dressed ... so that means it musta come down a little. But I'm not going to get too pedantic about it.

I'm off to catchup on everyone's blogs and find out what I've been missing out on.

New Haircut and new job

Yes where the heck have I been? I hear you all asking ...

I'm still here but given my really bad eating I was avoiding facing my blog and letting everyone know how bad I'd been. So yes I've been eating bad stuff, not counted any points for the last 2-3wks.

So I took the plunge and stood on the scales this morning. And to be honest I was relieved. It was a gain but I thought it would be more ... 108.1kgs ... a 2kg gain. I was figuring it would be around 110kgs.

So have started again this morning ... counting points, drinking my water. Feels so good to be back in control again.

Onto other stuff ... I got totally sick of my hair yesterday morning and in a flash impulse grabbed the scissors and dived into the bathroom before my daughter got in there. Came out holding onto a wad of hair and seeing the look on Lauren's face was hilarious! I haven't cut it all off but took about 10cm of the bottom and layered it. So much lighter ... I love it.

Here it is ...



The other good news is I have a new job. I've contracted myself out to my brothers company to do some graphic design work and he's bought me a new laptop computer with all the programs on it. Which means I can just grab the laptop and do the work in the shop or at ambo or where ever. When we tried to connect it to the internet something happened to the internet and now it's buggered ... really sick of internet problems. So we're still trying to sort that one out. Lucky I still have internet at the station so getting my updates done there.

Other than all that life is plodding on as normal. I'm so glad I have my weighin over and done with ... moving on to better pastures.

Thankyou you!!

Wow thankyou all soooo much for your support through this! It's so amazing how just having someone say 'thinkin of ya' makes a huge difference!

I arrived home last night and working on getting back to a normal routine again although it's continually in the back of my mind that while I plod along with everyday things my sister is trying to deal with everything still. But I mustn't let that stop me from trying to regain normality.

Her and I have spent alot of time crying over the last ten days along with the rest of the family. There are no answers to all the why questions but it was very helpful to know that no matter what decisions were made differently it looks like the outcome would have been very similar. That in itself makes the healing process alot simpler.

The funeral was very sweet. I was fine for the first half hour after I'd arrived at the chapel, until I looked over to my sister and seeing her grief stricken face made me brake down in tears ... again. Part of me felt so guilty (and please don't tell me off for saying this, it's just an emotion that I need to express to get rid of it) but I have four beautiful children and falling pregnant for me is just so easy, too easy at times. I would have a child for her in a heartbeat!!! But it's not as easy as that. I have offered before and will offer again someday down the track. But for now she needs to get her body healed again and of course her heart.

Lynda you asked what caused this ... she had what they thought were cysts on her ovaries throughout her pregnancy but they didn't want to operate as it would put the babies at risk so they just monitered her pain.

Then one afternoon she got a sudden temperature and the rigers (uncontrolable shaking) so went up to the hospital and as she got there she became overwelmed with uncontrolable 10/10 pain. They then took her into surgery to find out why she was in such pain. As they opened her up they realised that what they thought were cysts were infact absesses and her body at that stage went into complete septic shock and started to shut down due to the poison from the puss. As to where the absesses came from? Not totally sure, they think possibly from fybroids which became inflammed from hormone treatment during IVF.

The positive in all of this is that Trish is still alive, although still in hospital but she will make a full recovery.

Now onto normality for me ... and on the eating front don't really know at all how I've gone. Haven't weighed myself, my clothes aren't any tighter but have not counted any points for the last 10 days. Next weighin will be Wednesday ... ohhh and I have my computer fixed again. So hard staying on track without you guys to keep in touch with.

So good to be back!!!

precious moments

Hi Lyn here again. Mandy has kindly let me use her computer to update while I'm here for dinner with her. Thankyou Mandz!!!

It all started with a phone call from my sister on Monday night to say she had just woke up from anesthetic after coming out of 6hrs of surgery and that Jayden was dead and Callum was on life support and that she had nearly died on the operating table.

And I never realised the reality of this until today when one of the surgeons came to speak to us and with a look of "pay attention to this!!!" she told us how they came so very very close to losing my sister on the operating table!! She lost 5litres of blood!! had 1.5litres of PUSS taken out of two 15cm burst absesses in her uterus, had every part of her intestine taken out, inspected, put back in, her uterus (with babies still inside) taken out and put back in and her blood pressure dropped to 85 systolic (anything below 100 systolic is death door material!) and her kidneys went into organ failure along with slowly bit by bit other organs in her body. By the grace of God she was saved and through a horrible 40hr journey is back on the road to recovery.

But so sadly because of this her beautiful twin baby boys have sacrificed their lives. Yes today sadly little Callum who has been on life support for the last 4 days passed away. The decision was made to turn off the life support today given the circumstances that there was no brain activity recorded and nearly continuous seizures for the last 4 days. It then was up to little Callum if he would survive or not. The hardest decision I think anybody could possibly have to make and one I am very proud of my sister and husband for having the strength to make.

When the moment came to turn off the machines the nurses brought little Callum up from Neonate Intensive Care, took all the chords, wires and moniters off and let my sister just hold him ... mummy and baby ... a beautiful sight! With lots of support around her she announced he had gone, that she felt his spirit leave and sure enough a few moments later he stopped breathing. The most precious moment I have EVER experienced!!!

The result's on little Jayden's autospy came back today which stated reason of death as organ shutdown of maternal mother. In other words as my sister went into shutdown mode (right before death) the body considered the uterus to be a non-essential for sustaining life organ and stopped all supply, hence babies suffered.

It's been a very emotional week with still more tears to come with the funeral for her little babies. But we're holding strong ... especially my one and only dear sister!!!!

Update for Lyn

Hi everyone this is Chubbymum here.

Lyn asked me to update you all on what is happening.

It has been really emotional time for them and Lyn is in Hamilton for the next few days.

On Tuesday Lyn's sister-in-law had been rushed to hospital with septicemia, she was 31 weeks pregnant with twin boys.... one son has died and the other wee man is fighting for his life in ICU, her sister is out of ICU and into a ward now.

I will find out more details on Thursday and if Lyn can't update then will update again for her.

Chubbymum