G'day, folks.
Well, it's been a busy 24 hours. When I posted last night we were at easy child & SIL1's place in Canberra with mother in law, sis-in-law and two nieces getting ready for a late roast dinner. I knew if I said anything to anyone other than immediate family, there would be major panic. mother in law has been getting increasingly anxious lately, even getting upset the other day when I went out to the garden for a few moments. We were having a lovely family evening and I decided to not spoil it. But my symptoms were alarming - a sudden increase in floaters in my right eye - brown ones; and a lightning flash in my right eye whenever I looked even slightly to the left. I knew it needed to be seen urgently, but that meant going to the ER on a Saturday evening. Not good.
So after mother in law, sis-in-law and her girls left to go back to the motel (left at 9.30 pm) we swung into action. husband & easy child already had a strategy planned. easy child drove her car to the hospital while husband & I followed. difficult child 3 stayed back at easy child's.
At the hospital there was a long wait, then we were taken into the treatment area and I was put into an eye exam room, way off to the side. Then we got forgotten for three hours. I am not impressed. When we were finally seen, the lightning flashes had stopped. I only saw a GP-level ER doctor, not an eye doctor. But it WAS Saturday night... the doctor said to comeback today at 10 am and say I was told to come back for an eye specialist review. Trouble was, the record-keeping was not up to scratch and they triaged me again. So I spat the dummy, told them I was there because I had been told to go back; I had an over-anxious elderly mother in law about to go into hysterics if she found out about it, I had to get back before she did, and I also had a very anxious autistic son who I had to get back for, and I'd had six hours of being mucked around the evening before so I'd only had three to four hours' sleep.
After that, things happened faster.
Outcome - I don't have a detaching retina. However, I think something has been happening. But nothing too nasty too fast, really bad stuff has been ruled out. I did see the eye doctor registrar and she was lovely. But I have to track down a retina expert in Sydney beginning tomorrow.
We went back to easy child's to find that mother in law had been upset, wanting to wait for us before they left. They managed to persuade her that we would be OK - three drivers in our car. OK, one is a learner, one had had no sleep (husband) and I'd grabbed an hour's kip back at easy child's by plugging into the iPod talking book and shutting out the world, while my eyes recovered from the dilating drops.
So we ate a late lunch then headed off. I drove - I wanted husband to sleep while I drove until sunset because I knew I'd have trouble with night driving (headlights, with dilated pupils). husband slept briefly, then about halfway we handed over to difficult child 3 while I supervised. husband didn't sleep after that.
difficult child 3 had his longest drive ever - over two hours, in moderate traffic, on both expressway and winding country road through roadwork, through fog and rain, in the dark.
Tomorrow I have two appointments and in there somewhere I have to organise an eye specialist. I'm hoping to get to bed early (husband needs it especially) and then get busy, hopefully refreshed.
Some good news - my irradiated skin is improving fast, I've been able to cutback on the number of dressings I have and I don't think there will be any more skin breakdown. It looks like it's recovering well.
So we had a worse weekend than we expected, did less. But the main objective of the weekend, was to get the family artifact into War Memorial custody. We achieved that.
Enjoy your Sunday.
May it be better than ours.
Marg
