Then there was this.

July death Nigel 2011

And I wonder what they know that I don’t.

Really didn’t need that.

Every time I get a headache now I think this is it.

More later.

Somehow in the process of doing this I shared the link with him. False advertising at it’s worse. Don’t bother clicking on it.

I will one day rant about social networking  and Facebook being the spawn of the Devil but I gotta go to bed.  Despite being their all day. And last night. And yesterday.  I’m weary.

To all my US readers

Hope your fourth of July is a fantastic one full of fireworks and BBQs and waterholes and corn on the cob and all the other things I imagine proper July 4th’s should have. Wish I was there.

The above pin was taken from the closest I got to an American independence day.  We arrived in America in September 1976, the year of the bicentennial, and the evidence of the July 4th celebrations were everywhere. Including the awesome kitsch monstrosity that is the Mickey Mouse bicentennial pin seen above.  That image was everywhere. And to my 11-year-old brain, was the best image ever.

So, given that if I were there I’d be wearing a stars and stripes suit specially for the occasion, I wish I was there to share your day and hope your enjoy your rare public holiday. And I’d look fabulous in that suit. On so many levels, my not being there, its your loss.

So in a respite from another blog about rubbish things that happen to Nigel, some pics from an email that made me go awww.

Baby animals always seemed to cheer everyone up and there seems to have been a sub genre going on in the blog devoted to baby animal cuteness. Today’s entry then into the new genre.

Presenting baby porcupine, prepare to go awwww….

So I was referred to an Eye and Skin Specialist for a deciding vote, essentially. This is, in of itself, not necessarily a bad thing. However to see the specialist took 4 and a half months to get into see him. In the mean time, my face could have been consumed by the face eating cancer located in my eyelid. No one seemed to care about this, nor the fact I pay for private insurance so I don’t have to wait for assessments. Too bad, So sad. Get in Line.

So I went off and had the holiday from hell, all the while expecting to return to Australia to have my face removed. It was just that good a holiday.

So eventually I have my eyelid examined and the Dr, who looks as though he has escaped from primary school and is playing dress up, decides that a biopsy is required as visual diagnosis is inconclusive. And so I lie back to have my eyelid sliced open and he warns me that the worst part will be when he puts the local into my eye. He lied in this but not by much.

He does indeed put the local into my eyelid and it is INCREDIBLY painful. I had planned to try to keep my eye open at this point so as not have the needle pierce my eyeball but the pain is so intense my instinct is to squeeze my eyes tight. He does this twice, both times like sticking hot needles into your eyes.

He assures me that the next bit wont hurt and proceeds to snip off the growth on my eyelids with scissors. And I could feel all of it. Each and every snip. And I am squirming and he’s saying “can you feel this?” and I’m trying not to scream and swear and admit I can through gritted teeth. He goes in for another round of snipping and this time the local has been given time to work and I don’t feel it as much. By this time though, I feel as though someone has repeatedly clobbered me with a baseball bat.

Then the bleeding doesn’t stop from my eyelid (which makes my hypochondriacal brain assume I have haemophilia) and the primary student uses a  hyfrecator on me to stop the blood flow. This is a delightful device I have been assured is being used in the Bring Popcorn Week event however I must confess I was appalled. I had to hold a rod to stop myself from being electrocuted while primary lad prodded my eyelid and filled the room with the smell of my burnt flesh.

Delightful.

Anyway this is me an hour after the procedure.

It got worse and I started to look like the Phantom of the Opera before I got better. There is a slight indentation where the bump was not completely removed and I have been told I can return and have that shaved off, however given my experience I may pass and learn to live with it.  

So I waited for the biopsy results in that awkward twilight state of wondering if you do have cancer or not. Who would be right, Master it’s a cancer Thompson or Master it’s a cyst GP.

Neither as it turns out.

It was a nevus mole. Common as muck. Dr Thompson is getting SUCH a whack for scaring the bejesus out of me.

I have absolutely no idea why this number, out of all of them, was so utterly soul-destroying but, nevertheless, I had a mid-life crisis of confidence of epic proportions, which I shan’t bother you with nor with the fall out.

Let’s just say I wish it was easy to solve by buying a Porsche.

The problem was though, on top of all this which was crushing anyway, my birthday was just crap. Had it been any other day, it would have been crap. As it was my birthday, it was mega crap.

All my family (bar one) are overseas; all of my friends bailed on me with our plans for the day; I got two birthday cards, one of which was from my mortgage broker.

When my plans for seeing people all fell through, I spent the day trying to find a laundrette that specialises in cleaning dunas.  I’m sure I didn’t dream that there was a special washing/ dryer machine in the laundrettes especially for the cleaning and fluffing of dunas.

The nice thing was going to my brother’s for birthday dinner and getting my most awesome birthday cake, as decorated by my three-year old buzzing-on-sugar niece. In case you want to repeat it, it’s a mandarin cake with orange icing as you can never have too much citrus. The sprinkles are lovingly thrown on in a seemingly random, yet abstract art like, manner. You can never have enough sprinkles, either.

She has skills.

It could have been worse. Could have been a Jehovah’s Witness. Not even birthday cake then….

I have to say not writing blog posts was a welcome relief. Daily blog posting is a hard slog, particularly if your life is dull and boring when you aren’t actually on holiday. What wasn’t a relief was the number of people who expressed concern at the absence of blog and made note how their lives were that much the poorer for lack of thoughts of Nigel on a daily basis. Of course you wouldn’t know this from the comments made on the blog itself. Two people replied! Two!!!

Lame.

Fortunately more people wrote to me at the email (including, God love them, the C word (not that C word) fans, expressing sadness at this blog moving on (and the loss of C Week – Bring Popcorn). And I sorta missed it. And I would go through life thinking that would have made a nice blog post.

So back. I did think of starting a new blog which I even went and registered. I may still do that. But I got bad feedback about the name of the blog and I am nothing if not easily influenced.

And building bridges.

So welcome back.

For a variety of reasons I am curtailing this blog. I’m back from holidays and my life is really boring to report about daily. That’s one of the reasons. Guess the others.

Thanks for reading and for commenting. You were appreciated more than you will know. Truly.

Good night. God bless. Goodbye for now.

I walk hand in hand with my niece who tells me that she went to my house yesterday and they pushed a button and water came out everywhere and it went everywhere and there was water all over the floor and house and everywhere was wet. She gesticulates wildly as she says this and her eyes are big as saucers.

My holiday was one big disaster after another. I am expecting my house to be destroyed before I returned. I ask my brother how destroyed the house is.

He tells me Rebecca has an imagination and the house is fine.  When we get to the house my niece shows me where the water that flooded the house came from. My water dispenser on my fridge.

Children and their imaginations. Sheesh. I had stains.