Tue 2-Jun-09 (medical matters, shopping, shopping and more shopping)

We seem to have been flat-out every day but not necessarily achieving what we expected.

I took the kids to school and a dear friend offered us a car that we could borrow while settling in. This was a huge blessing. From there I went to the hospital to try and re-organise Maria's MRI (due this Friday, but Neuro-oncologist wants to put it off by another 2-3 weeks). Discovered that for outpatients they are fully booked for all of June and the only way to have her fitted in will involve conversations between our doctor and the MRI doctor, putting up a case on our behalf. If this is unsuccessful we'll need to look at having it done privately, which is not ideal. To add to matters our appointment with the Neurosurgeon was moved to this Friday as well, clashing with the currently booked MRI.

Today Maria and I spent quite a bit of time out, doing some important shopping, with a blood test (for Maria) thrown in. Again, bumped into someone we know while waiting to be seen! Fortunately the pathology rooms are opposite the shopping centre/mall. This other dear friend said she (like us) would pray for the event to be quick and painless. Maria finally went in and came out a short time later. When I asked her how it was, she said she didn't get it and would explain in the lifts. It turns out the lady was in training and her experienced off-sider was at lunch. When discovering the lady was a trainee, Maria told her she was "chicken". The trainee followed suit when she discovered Maria wanted the blood taken from a vein in her hand (something she hasn't practised yet). As it needed to be done, we went back a while later and saw the experienced one. It was quick and relatively pain-free (put it this way, I didn't hear any screaming).

It was the second consecutive long day out for Maria and I can see it taking its toll. To rub salt into the wound, I made her come with me for the school pick-up as we had to visit the school shop to buy them their full school uniform items (the ones in the photos from yesterday are borrowed emergency clothes).

The kids seem to be settling into the school routine. They are exhausted by bedtime, which today was the generally usual 7-7:30pm. They have been up a little later in recent times, but they are now hitting a wall being physically and mentally active again.