A breather at last.

[Amy Gallow]

We all have them, periods when our lives spiral out of control and all we can do is survive them. I'm only hoping that the light I see at the end of the tunnel is not a train coming full speed towards me.
For reasons that offer no proof of my sanity, I agreed to update my teaching qualifications in a nineteen week course to meet new legislative requirements, then a brother-in-law finished up in hospital with a leaking mitral valve and a very good friend fell off a shipping container and smashed his hip so badly they had to replace the whole joint, add illness that meant we were baby-sitting grandchildren five days a week and you have the picture.
This morning was the first time I'd opened up a manuscript for almost a month and for someone who normally works daily, that's significant.
Still, I've survived, so has my brother-in-law and I brought my friend a book that contained the legend of Icarus as a warning against attempting unaided flight without careful preparation and forward planning. Our baby-sitting demands have returned to normal and the Christmas break in the course is approaching, so I remain hopeful...or is that a vibration I feel in the railway tracks?

[nancy777ca]

Oh my goodness! :pinch: Here's hoping the new year is much less stressfull! :hug:

[Amy Gallow]

The vibration I felt in the railway tracks turned out to be one of my two sisters fainting due to an infection and hitting her head when she fell. This caused bleeding in the brain and we were called into the hospital at 1.00 am to advise the medical staff on what level of resuscitation they might apply if she stopped breathing. It was a long night while she hovered unconscious in the twilight zone, the medical indicators wavering between life and death, but they started to climb around dawn and she is now recovering. It will be a long slow process though.
We were just settling down from that and enjoying Xmas Day when my nephew rang from interstate to say my other sister was in the emergency room of the local hospital with a suspected bleeding stomach ulcer and accompanying heart attack.
Another anxious period, exacerbated by distance this time, but the New Year has dawned with them both on the road to recovery and I'm optimistic about 2011.
As Oscar Wilde said: "The good thing about lying in the gutter is that there's no place to go, but up."

[Amy Gallow]

I opened up my WIP file this morning and spent an hour reading it, making the odd minor correction, but generally sliding back into the world it represents. My own world has changed a lot in the past three months and it felt strange to return to this imaginary one.
Still, life is change and we adapt. One sister is recovering and the other is in a high care nursing home while we wait to see whether she can improve. She has periods of alertness when she still recognizes all of us, but her attention span is so short and she has to be fed. It is very sad.