It’s been dark and gloomy outside since Saturday evening. Cold and damp and so foggy I can’t see anything much outside my window.

It feels like the weather is trying to be kind. Keeping everything outside under wraps for a little while. Because there is big scary stuff waiting for me out there.

There are almost finished foundation holes (full of water again)….
There is a paddling pool full of green water…
There is a veggie garden over flowing with weeds…
There are four roosters ready to meet the dinner table…
There is a car that is not allowed to be driven…

There are constant reminders of how our life has changed.

Yes he is better, and will continue to get better.
He’ll be able to do most of the things he did before.
And it could have been worse, so much worse.
He is home and we are so thankful for that.

Despite all of those positives this has changed us forever.

It is has forced us to take stock.
To step back and look at our lives.
To make lists of pros and cons.
To argue about future plans.

There are still many tests to be done and questions to be answered.
There is still scary stuff to be faced.

But for now the fog is keeping us close, and we are just enjoying being a family again.

{photo by keepwaddling1 via flickr}

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Feeling Foggy is a post from: picklebums.com

I’d always assumed that I’d have to call an ambulance at some stage.

I thought it might happen for one of the girls if they had a particularly bad asthma attack. Perhaps for a snake bite? Or more likely if my husband had an argument with a power tool.

I never, not even with my over worrying brain, ever thought I’d have to call an ambulance and utter these words… “I think my husband is having a heart attack.”

A heart attack was not on my list of ‘things I’ll probably call the ambulance for one day’…. except that’s exactly what I said into the phone last Wednesday afternoon.

I arrived home from school pick up to find my fit, healthy, non-drinking, non-smoking, ride a bike up the mountain no problems, 37 year old husband on the floor, ashen faced, gasping for breath and complaining of chest pain.
I waited what felt like an eternity for the ambulance to arrive.
I watched as the ambulance drive down our driveway with my husband in the back, while I threw kids in the car and made a phone call that no mother ever wants to receive.
I waited forever in the ER department and then waited some more and couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
I took my four children into a very scary resus room to reassure them that their father was going to be ok, despite the fact that I had no idea if I was lying or telling the truth.

Sitting here, looking back it all seems to surreal… yet it is real.

My husband is in hospital with an as yet undiagnosed heart condition that caused his heart to beat way way too fast. It seems he has not had a heart attack as they first thought (which is good), and he is much much better than he was, but they don’t know why his heart is not working correctly. They are doing tests and looking for reasons even more scary than a heart attack.

I refuse to even contemplate life without him, so instead I am busy juggling normal life and hospital visits, talking to much, making jokes at inappropriate moments, playing plants vs zombies and spoiling my children. Anything to distract myself from what could have been, and especially what might be.

So forgive me if I don’t answer your email or if I tweet overly inane and boring things or update my facebook profile with more comments about baby vomit… I’m working on a new normal and hopefully we’ll get there soon.

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Never Ever. is a post from: picklebums.com

You are supposed to get tin, lead or aluminium on your tenth wedding anniversary.

Are you serious?
I’ve been married ten years… ten long years, and all I get is a bit of worthless metal?? That can’t be right. Surely Not!

Ten years putting up with each other. Ten years of listening to each other talk, whinge, snore! Ten years of fighting over the doona, and negotiating who has rights over the remote control.

Ten years is a long time, and all you get is tin?

Somehow it doesn’t seem right!

Lucky for me in the last ten years I’ve gotten just a little more than that.

We’ve bought houses, and cars and furniture together. We’ve talked and argued and shared. We’ve been through super crappy sad things, really tough difficult things, and totally amazing wonderful things. We’ve travelled and made a home. We’ve had three (almost four) children. We’ve done so many things… so much more than any bit of tin, aluminium or lead could ever represent.

So I was pleased to get a bunch of roses (ten red ones for each year we’ve been married and four white ones for our children) and take out chinese for dinner on my tenth anniversary. Very pleased indeed.

I may refuse to friend him on facebook but I really do love him.

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Ten Years. is a post from: picklebums.com

It’s definitely Man Flu.
With the added complication of whinge-itis and ‘trumpet-nose-in-the-middle-of-the-night’. Add to that a healthy dose of My-wife-doesn’t-give-a-damn.
The prognosis is not good.
Death is imminent.

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Man Flu is a post from: picklebums.com

It’s ‘Movember’ the month of the year when guys try to grow a moustache to raise money and awareness for men’s health.

I know it’s a good cause and all, but please, please, someone make the Baldy Boy shave it off already!!!!!

It started out with him just not shaving for a while, growing a straggly beard and a mo. I didn’t like it. Today he shaved off everything except the mo and I REALLY don’t like it. It looks like some nasty prickly caterpillar has crawled out of his nose to die on his upper lip. It is creepy, and tacky and totally grosses me out. I don’t even want to look at him let alone kiss him… euuuuuuuuuuwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

I’m sorry, really I am…. it’s one heck of a good cause, it’s awesome that it’s got most of the guys at the Baldy Boy’s work growing facial hair, getting sponsorship and talking about men’s health issues, but I just can’t have it in my house…. in my bed.. on MY HUSBAND!

I’ll donate $50 if he will just shave the bloody thing off… now!

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Movember is a post from: picklebums.com

It is my darling husband’s birthday today.

We celebrated on Tuesday – his pretend birthday, because he had to work today and then, as he does almost every Friday night, he’s gone out to play cards with ‘the boys’ so we won’t see him at all today (we were all asleep when he left and will be asleep when he gets home!). So Tuesday morning we gave him presents and then took him out to dinner – Japanese, his favourite.

Despite the fact that he is referred to as ‘Baldy Boy’ on this blog… I really do love him, we just have an odd choice of pet names. At home he is most often referred to as ‘Poo’ or Poopey’ and I mean that in the nicest possible way. Besides, Baldy Boy is a very appropriate nick name, since he has very little hair. He didn’t have much hair when we met way back in… um… er…..

Well let’s see… we got married in March 2000 so that makes it eight, almost nine years we’ve been married now. Before that we lived together for a while and before that we dated on and off for a bit.. so I guess I must have been 23 when we met, so that was um… 12 years ago! So yep, he was pretty much bald then, unless you count the horrible long pony tail of hair he wore down his back, and he is still bald now… and that is how we like him.

He is a good and responsible man, so much so that it drives me insane sometimes! He is the sort of guy who you can always call on for help. He’ll always be there to help you move house, fix a leaky tap, drive you to a funeral, whatever you need, if he can possibly find a way to help, he will.

He works damn hard for our family. I know he says that working the odd hours he does (two 12 hour day shifts followed directly by two 12 hour night shifts then four days off) suits him, which it does – he can fall asleep at the drop of a hat, anywhere, any time and snore like a foghorn even if only for 1 minute! – I know he says that it suits him, but I also know that it is hard both physically and mentally, but to keep us afloat and to allow us the luxury of me staying home with our children he does it without a second thought.

Not only does he work hard at work, he also works hard when he is home. There is always something to be done around this place and he is constantly tinkering with something. Mind you, this I really do believe he enjoys. Last year I got him a t-shirt for his birthday that says ‘I love my tractor more than my wife’… and I think some days that is pretty true. He has two tractors – because you know, our ten acres of weeds really needs two tractors to work it… His first tractor is what we lovingly call his ‘geriatric tractor’ an old Massey Ferguson that he did up and bought back to life not long after we moved here. Then, more recently he went all modern with a little kubota to pull the slasher and run the rotary hoe and there is nothing he likes better than firing up the tractor for a bit of a mow.

If it is not tractoring it is planting trees or working on the garden or fixing this or building that. When (please let it be when, not if… ) renovate next year it with the Baldy Boy who does the majority of the work himself. He is very cluey with building stuff… he just knows a lot of stuff… or fakes it until it looks right.

Of course he is also a good Dad. I am not sure he quite knew what he was getting into when the girls were born… heck I have a degree in early childhood ed and I didn’t know what we were getting into when we suddenly found ourselves parents to these two tiny sick babies… but he has definitely risen to the challenge. The girls think the sun shines out of his backside (much to my annoyance at times I must admit) and love nothing more than spending an afternoon in the shed with their Dad watching terrible DVDs and eating crap that I won’t let them have. Muski is fast learning the joys of ‘shedness’ too and it just makes me grin with delight when I watch the four of them trudge off through the grass into the shed for an afternoon of Dadness.

So yeah, he’s responsible, hard-working, handy, a good dad…. but all that aside he is also my life.

He annoys the hell out of me often and shits me to tears some days. He has chronic domestic deafness and is the worst shit stirrer I’ve ever met. He can’t walk past me without trying to grope me and he snores in three tones loud enough to rattle the windows… yet despite all of that I love him, which in my book says a lot.

So if you happen to be secretly reading this Poo (he says he doesn’t but I am not sure if I believe him or not)… please stop grabbing at my boobs and damn well listen when I talk to you, and I love you, Happy Birthday.

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Happy Birthday Baldy Boy. is a post from: picklebums.com

Seems like things are not going well for my father-in-law…..

They can’t seem to find what is causing symptoms of an infection and no matter what they do they can’t seem to fight it. His new heart is still not doing well enough to support him off bypass but they can’t continue to leave him on the machines while this mystery infection rages. They have one last drug to try, though it mucks up the test results so they can’t test for rejection while he is on it, and will give him five more days on bypass for things to improve before they have to take him off.

The odds of surviving this have gone from 70-80 to 20-30%.

Oh please let it all work out. The Baldy Boy’s heart is breaking even though on the outside he is being as strong as ever. But how do you find the strength to loose your father?

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slim chances…. is a post from: picklebums.com