deroofing a renal cyst...

So the story began in Sept 2007 and i hope it has now finished for good!

I went to a medical examination with work and they did ultrasound on my abdomen, they found a large kidney cyst (along with a couple of other things that turned out to be less problematic). So i went to NTU hospital to see a urologist (where everyone that was there was over 70 and male), the dr scanned it and said "oh its a big one!"..great how reassuring that was..not.
So he scheduled me for an operation to drain it, which has a 50% chance of coming back..not great odds but it seemed like it was worth doing as the cyst was over 5cm and “a big one”. Plus we suspect that it had been contributing to my lower back ache for a while now..i just thought that was my rubbish hypermobilty (another story for another time

So I went in for the surgery it was a local anesthesia so not too bad. They still said I couldn’t eat drink before I arrived but after that they said oh its fine go ahead, go get lunch…but they still insisted on putting a drip in my arm, protocol gone crazy. I asked the dr later and he said there was no need for that, it was just glucose ect (great I get something I don’t need, that could get infected and I have to pay for it nice).

Went into the theatre and the dr’s chatting to me about the fact that he just started to learn English 5 years ago from tv…yep TV, and just 5 years ago…how did / does he read all the medical journals I don’t know.

After that cyst was drained I went back to the room and had to stay over night. In the morning he scanned me again to see how it went…well not great. Oh there’s another one oh and its got really big. Sorry we’ll have to do it again…

So I had the same thing later that day and had to stay in hospital an extra night,…money money money!

Well a few months went by and the pain in my back was back…I had another scan done and sure enough it was back. This time just 4 cm..so we left it and waited to see if it got bigger…it did.

So I had to have it Deroofed..great it’s a full anesthesia and thus a bigger deal. They sent me for a scan before hand so they can tell its exact location and size. It was big over 7.5 cm now. So the following week (1^st Aug 2008) I went. I had to drink 2 bottles (500 ml each) of the most disgusting tasting medication, to clear me out…nice. So was up all night on the loo….yuck

Next morning they come in and a young dr tries to shove a NG tube up my nose that is so massive its hard to believe. I tell him it won’t fit but he didn’t believe me until after the 2 time trying my nose was bleeding a lot. Still 5 tries later he got it up and I was in pain before I’d had the blimming surgery! He quickly left as I yelled at him that I wasn’t happy.( They clear your bowels and stomach out as they have to push your intestines and stomach out of the way whist they do the “key hole” surgery. )

They put one large tube in you stomach by the belly button and blow in co2 to make room to work. Then they put two more hole in and work from there. I came out with three holes and a drain in one of them that was full of “stuff”.
After the surgery i'm ashamed to admit but, i was swearing at the nursing staff ALOT....i don't really remember much bar the fact the i felt like i woke up in the middle of the operation. Tom says the nursing staff were rather shocked that i was swearing so much, some of which they'd never heard of before... they gave me four shots of morphine before i shut up...that's why i don't remember much about it i guess

The dr told me, showed photos too of my insides, that I had two again and one was inside the other…strange but he did both this time so it shouldn’t come back.

Tom was there to look after me but he was with Sarah so wasn’t able to really. I remember seeing her little face look at me like mummy what’s wrong. Bless her I couldn’t hold her or anything. Maddy came and took Sarah so Tom could look after me. She also looked after me to which I am very grateful. Tom did a good job and was remarkably better than when I broke my wrist.. so I was very happy and grateful about that.

I was out by Sunday which I didn’t think I’d be as on the Saturday I’d not been able to move out of bed to pee let alone stand up. They only drugs they offered me were paracetamol! If you can believe that! so i took my own drugs, which I take every day that are way stronger. This helped a lot and thus in 24 hr I felt more able to move.

Took Monday off work and slept the whole day! I had half day on Tuesday then I felt alright. By the weekend I was fine really just a little sore at the wound site. So nothing really.

Went back to the dr last week and all is clear.

So that the op story

I have photos but lots of people tell me they are gross..thus I don’t put them here... well just one of my insides...this is taken as the cyst was being cut...nice huh

 Here a nice video of hospital entertainment filmed by maddy. Enjoy

Crib gripes

Sarah is just 18months old and it would seem that she has out grown her cot already. She is a tiny little Taiwanese girl (19 pounds tops). So how can this be? I thought that she would be in if for ages (until 2 at least!) but last week she climbed out of it...yep all the way, only from one side as it has a drop down section so there is a horizontal bar half way up, perfect for a climbing. So i thought i would stop this by just place her bed with that side facing the wall. Cool she can't get out now, I watched her and she tried but nope she couldn't my idea worked. Great!
Then last night after leaving her to "cry it out" she stopped and then 30 mins later cried again. i thought i better leave her to cry it out or i'll never get her back on target. 2 mins later she'd stopped so all was well.
I thought, then an 20mins passed then she's screaming again so i go up to her to find that, nope she's not climbed out of the bed, but her leg has some how got majorly tangled in the railings... her knee and then her foot were trapped thus she was stuck there! Nightmare, i felt so guilty I'd left her there crying I don't know how long she'd been trapped there. Goodness only knows how she managed that one. I got her free of the rails but she'd never have been able to by herself.So i am ready to give up with the cot...but what the...am i meant to do. She'll never stay in a bed! (She is active to say the least)I'm thinking of a travel cot?
Can i just ask why do they make cribs that do that, its stupid! Be warned, all of you who are planning on buying a crib..check out everything like the horizontal bar! I always thought they were badly designed as she was forever hitting her head/leg/back ect.. on the hard wooden rails, but that's nothing compared to being eaten by her cot!

I posted this on the manic mommies site and found out there is a thing called a Crib Tent...not only that but a woman on there doesn't want her's anymore and has offered it to me! how COOL is that. So she is posting it to Heather and Heather will bring it back with her to Taiwan!
Thank you Heathers! (the lady is also called Heather!)

tiny taiwanese ants

We've been invaded by tiny ant...

they aren't the smallest ants that i have seen in Taiwan but compared to British ants they are pretty small.

We've not had any problems with the before but now they can be found in most rooms in the house..if you look hard enough.

If you just look at the cat food you can see it moving...thus i have now removed the cat food (after the cats have eaten that is)

Not sure what i'll do about these ants, at the moment i put them out of the window...but i guess they just keep coming back in.

Sarah likes the ants i think as she will happily go up to a pile of ants and watch them, until i spot what she's doing and wipe them away.
(the photo is a cat hair, not a whisker but a normal hair and an ant, the other is a pencil tip..for those who don't know how thick hair is)



I'm off to hospital tomorrow morning, they tell me that my op will be on Saturday but i have to go in on Friday with out eating anything before hand. Thus i think that they may try to fit me in on the Friday if there is a spot.

Tom will look after Sarah, so that's great i am so pleased about that. She now signs his name...well the letter T when ever she see him, and yesterday on they way home she asked where's Thomas. so cute.

Photos of Sky

So here she is, and isn't see a cutie pie, little Sky
It makes Sarah look kind of huge in comparison
Louise looks pretty amazing considering she just gave birth a few hours ago!
i wish i could have a big cuddle from the pair of them.
Bless their little cotton socks!!

Sky Matilda Rose is Born!

Wow my little sister had her baby
She weighted 6.10 pounds and was born on 21st July 2008 at 9:30 am

I haven't gotten photos yet but have spoken to Louise and she tells me that she has a full head of jet black hair, and i am guessing that it's just like Louise when she was born.

I really want to go back home and see them, its made me feel really home sick. Plus it now looks like Tom will be going back to Nottingham for a couple of week in September with work. That makes it even worst.

Ho hum

Sarah's doing much better and was dancing to Prince this morning, wearing my head band and refusing to put on her T-shirt just saying Boo Yow (with is no in Chinese) and taking it off. So she cheered me up. She is so funny some days it cracks me up how now she wants and doesn't want to wear certain things! she's 1 and 1/2!!




I also went for a scan yesterday to check on my kidney cyst..which is huge so they will De roof it next week. that mean that i have to have key hole surgery next week and stay in hospital for a couple of nights. Poor little Sarah bear will have to cope with out me collecting her from the nannies..the truth is she'll be fine and i will miss her much more!

first baked beans on toast

On Saturday (19th July) both Sarah and i were sick of being sick she had a fever for 4 days,and not been sleeping well or eating well. So i reached for comfort, easy, food. So we had baked beans on toast, it was Sarah’s first time to have it, which is late in life really, as at home we grew up eating it almost every week.

However it's a different story here and i don't get to eat them much as they are hard to come by and if i can get them they are SO expensive i can't justify the cost (over a quid for a small can). Caroline (my Australian sister) was so kind to bring me a couple of cans over when she came to visit, along with other scrummy stuff that i can't get here like licorice, Vegemite, lentils. ect..strange things that you can't really buy here with out paying threw the nose for simple things..i mean we use to use lentils to make pictures with when we were kids, here it way to expensive for that!

So we had them and they were delicious…(thank you Caroline!) it has to be said that Sarah wasn't overly impressed, which is a shame...I guess I need to feed her more baked beans or she'll never learn to love them!

Onion and rice

So Sarah likes to share things with the other members of the house, like the hamsters (OOrra) and the cats. Often the cats don't want the things she offer them..like Pickles when she gave her a book to read and placed it between her paws when she was trying to sleep.

This time i walked in and she's been "feeding" Onion her left over rice...

As you can see she placed the rice on Onion...needless to say Onion wasn't that impressed and just ignored her! (for the record Onion's eye is fine, it just watery..it's always like that the poor thing, we clean it often but obviously not that day!)