What an interesting day. There is a lot to write, but I feel a little drained to devote the time needed. I will do my best to get out as much as possible in 30mins of typing.
The day started off with an early arrival so I could see the kids' work to date in their respective classrooms (called "learning journeys"). As they have only recently started there was not much to see, but it's about ensuring they don't feel neglected. It was nice to see what they had actually done in the three or so weeks since returning to Australia.
I was planning to head to the hospital, but as I was walking to the car park, I bumped into a friend who we happened to see at the hospital on 5-Jun when we were about to hop into the lift to see the Neurosurgeon, completely oblivious to the fact we were then about to receive the dreaded news about Maria's tumour regrowth. During our discussion I learned that the day she was at the hospital she was visiting her mother, who lives in a town about 1+ hrs from Canberra and that Maria's sister Effie was her mother's referring doctor! The world seems to shrink more and more.
As I was driving from the car park, a dear friend called and asked me to join her and her husband for a coffee nearby. Another mum happened to be walking by and joined us. That was an additional blessing as unexpectedly led to a conversation that affirmed God having us meet at that time.
Just when you thought the encounters were about to finish...When I got to the hospital, Maria and I decided to go to the Cafe before they hooked up the next antibiotic drip. Enroute to the lift we came across another dear friend and her daughter emerging from the bathrooms. We were able to go and hang out for a coffee.
We were just finishing up when I received a call from the nurse to say the Infectious Diseases team had arrived. We made our way back up, but not before bumping into another dear friend we hadn't seen since before we left for Israel in 2007.
They finally were able to narrow down the bugs. The slow growing (and therefore slow to identify) is in fact a Propionibacterium acne (p acne) bacteria, which we all have on our skin. In this case it developed inside Maria's brain. We had to absorb quite a bit of information about the plan and management of her treatment. The key thing for everyone out to know is that she will hopefully be home tomorrow after undergoing a procedure to have a PIC line inserted (under sedation). Maria also continues to defy statistics, on this occasion being in the 1-2% range of people developing infection in this case. I told her that she should buy a lottery ticket as most of the statistical categories she has fallen into have ranged from 1-2/100 down to as little as 5/100,000.
On the way out to collect the kids and return for a visit I bumped into the Neurosurgeon. We had our first one-on-one since the surgery. It was a helpful 10mins and in some ways a little shocking. All I can say is that Maria is firstly MEGA-BLESSED to have had the surgery that day, and secondly MEGA-MEGA-BLESSED to have come through it as she has. I was appreciative that he was willing to take measured risks. In addition to our case, I was also able to share some independent feedback along the same lines after speaking with the parent of someone who he had just operated on. In this case, he performed an extremely complex (yet successful) spinal surgery that at least one other neurosurgeon had avoided.
Gabi was again very disappointed, but was less emotional today. The kids and I came back for an "afternoon at the Cafe" visit. The kids were excited to report that the Prime Minister (PM) had visited the school (we actually already had inside knowledge of this from a "source"). Gabi was disappointed as the PM spent a lot of time in the other Year 1 classroom, but none in theirs. He dropped by Ben's classroom briefly. Ben says he remembered Mr Rudd's face from when I had spoken with him at Sydney Airport before we left for Israel (we were on the same flight from Canberra to Sydney and I had worked closely with one of his key advisers). At that stage he was the Leader of the Opposition. I joked to the kids that perhaps his popularity rose after he was seen speaking with me (for the record that couldn't be further from the truth).
We had the mum of Maria's neighbour take a shot of us before we headed home.
We had a quiet night at home, trying to catch any glimpses of the kids on the evening news, but without success.
