things I think about when I have time to think

It's Friday night, I am at work, in doctoring mode , and urgently paged to see a little old lady who has had a fall. Hypoactive delirium is Catherine's diagnosis. Pleasantly confused , a term doctors frequently write in our case notes. She's now propped up in bed, feeling "very well, thank you" but not too pleased to see me, to be poked and prodded and to be disturbed at this hour.  But she lights up , as so many of my patients do, when I ask her about her family and she proudly tells me about her niece who is currently "representing Australia in a bowling competition in Guam", and her beautiful daughter , who she doesn't want disturbed at this time of night.  It's an easy consultation for me because she is now fully alert and the delirium is no longer evident. The confusion comes and goes, and so we will still run a full delirium screen . But she has had no loss of consciousness, her vital signs are all stable, she can recite her ad

I'm starting a new doctor-job next year and it has created in me this insanely-paced "fresh start" mentality ...which has me rushing around frantically trying to tie up the loose ends of all the old projects I have hanging around before taking on this new-ness . Now I'm not talking about recent "old projects", ...I'm referring to lurking, festering, way-way-past-their-due-date 12-year-old projects... ...like  once-long-ago-started  books-of-rememberies   for each of my 5 children, the eldest of whom is now 12, and none of whom has a book to flick through, despite ever-so-many rememberies... So last night, while sorting through one of my shelved shoe-boxes of said rememberies, I came across a letter which my husband had written, a sort-of explanation for the choice we made to have these 5 kiddies. I read it again. And again I remembered... why it is that 5 is the number and why it is that this project is now complete. You see, it

I'm going to start this post with an apology .  Doctors need to do that sometimes, ... often, maybe even more than often . You see, we do have a slighter dark humour .  It's how we survived second year anatomy, eating sandwiches over a cadaver as we casually recounted our weekend anecdotes.  Then it progressed to practical jokes . There were times when one of us would put an unsuspecting hand in a lab coat pocket post-anatomy class, to find a slippery eeeuwwy glob of skin ( yes, human skin ) that had been purposely placed in the depths of a poor someone's pocket to be found - with a squeal , of course.  But the squeals didn't last too long, I think we all got too used to it . Just recently, I completely, yet delightfully, grossed my kids out by telling them the story of the 3rd year class dare to eat an ox eye post-dissection. There were conditions - 5 whole minutes of chewing before swallowing, a token monetary award, and a cheering class. Three

I've recently slipped into the habit of occasionally calling Skyla "Sky" , ...and when I reflect on it, it epitomises her beautifully.  She is our golden-haired summer-kissed flower-child . She is sunshine and light, blue skies, big smiles, bright yellow, freely-given golden-warm-love , and lots of touchy-feely 'couch-time' moments. She has a heart that is oh-so-huge , I think it could accommodate the love-needs of a village, or maybe even a city... definitely far more than just this 7-person family .  And she feels pain for others so acutely, so intensely.  Sometimes she has overheard a not-supposed-to-be-overheard sad or tragic 'adult discussion'. We will suddenly become aware of her listening ears when she rushes up to us, eyes welling over , and the questions tumbling out...   "Why Mum? Why did that terrible thing happen? That's not right. Can we fix it? What can we do? What more can we do?" These are usua

Recently I blogged about the wisdom of cutting my sons loose from my apron strings (very much figuratively in this household!), taking a few steps back , and allowing their Dad to become a bigger presence in their lives at this time. It's a case of handing over the reins to him in those areas in which they need his "manliness" (read in baritone please), his guidance on how a man behaves, how he carries himself, how he treats those around him , how he protects others, and also the bizarre way that males seem to communicate with each other - grunts, shoves...  I truly believe that only a man can teach a boy that. During the recent school holidays, I organised a big-girl date for the girls and I.  The younger 3 kiddies asked if they could do something special with their Dad while we were out, and this became a "please-take-us-to-the-carwash" request. Unfortunately, none of us anticipated the "scare-factor" of this carwash adventure for