Lego Mona Lisa

Look what I got for my birthday!  Hubby gave me this: it's a picture of the Mona Lisa - made out of Lego!!!

Oprah Fever

I was pretty ambivalent about the whole Oprah visiting Australia.  I thought it would be cool for publicity for Australia, but with the whole QANTAS F-ups lately and the dollar being so sky high that nothing could really boost it for Australia.

But it's hard not to get caught up the excitement of it all.  Oprah had her show filmed on the steps of the Sydney Opera House and there were things on the news, like Hugh Jackman flying in on a flying fox and then getting stuck and injuring himself, and how Oprah generously gave 250k to a couple with cancer so they could have the year off to enjoy themselves, she gave everybody who attended her show a necklace with pearl or diamond, and a whole bevy of stars were on stage.

Nurse C, one of the girls at work actually went!  She was telling me about it, and she said that she was 7 rows from the front and that she was quite close to all the american guests that Oprah brought with her.  She saw Bon Jovi, Bono, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban.  She saw the whole thing with Hugh Jackman and she said he had a tiny little cut on his face, and his kids were crying, and his wife Deborah-Lee was there saying "I told him not to do that! I said he shouldn't do that!" and they had to cut filming twice - once so that he could get patched up, and a paramedic hugged him and apparently Hugh said he'd never been hugged by a paramedic before, and at that time St Johns Ambulance and a whole bunch of other first aid people came on... she said it was overkill!  And then they had to stop filming again so Hugh could sit with his kids and stop them from crying to let them know he was alright.

I asked her what was the best thing about the event, and she said the atmosphere, seeing Bono and she couldn't think of a third thing.  She was just excited about it all, said it was such a beautiful day and that everyone was super excited to be there.

Nobody was allowed to take photos and security walked around quite frequently to make sure people didn't film or take pictures.

I got credit on my electricity bill!

Wow this is the first time I got a decent credit on my electricity bill!  There is $260 credit on my bill so hopefully enough money to last through the summer with no extra payments on it!  I think that's rather cool.  I wonder if I'll be able to get enough in the summer and autumn months to be able to have a cost free electricity.

Julian at 14 months, Erika at 2 and 3/4

Erika has lately started sleeping with the blanket around her.  It's cute, now she likes to have a pillow and her blanket and she does it all on her own.  Another great thing is that she has stopped weeing at night!  I started giving her milk at night, sometimes even quite late and she's still not weeing.  So she has gone almost a week now with no nappy at night.  What a clever girl!

Julian has been quite cheeky, for the last month he has been pulling out one of the drawers on the coffee table and using that to step up onto the coffee table.  He likes standing and dancing on  my glass table.  The other day he also did a clapping hands motion, which could be the signal for toilet poopoo-weewee so I took him to the toilet and he urinated in the potty.  Hubby was so impressed, but I don't think he was really understanding or communicating.  Though he does understand when I tell him not to touch the Christmas tree, though he can't help himself, he keeps wanting to pull the decorations and balls off the tree.

Happy Birthday to me!

I officially am closer to 40 than I am 30 today.

I normally love my birthday.  Birthdays to me are a special day that belongs to just me (well technically it's not just ME because there are millions of people out there who have the same birthday), and I often feel like it's my prerogative, my right, to do anything I want to make myself happy for that one day.  My family has always celebrated birthdays and I intend to do the same for my children.

I was thinking back early this morning (at midnight when it was officially my birthday), about previous birthdays.  I had a friend who used to message me on the dot at midnight when it was my birthday, and then message me the whole day with random happy birthdays and it always made me smile, and feel special and remembered!  Silly but cute.  This year I looked at my phone at midnight and there were no messages and though it was silly, tears welled up in my eyes as I felt forgotten, and unremembered.  I didn't feel special anymore!  Such a self centred silly thing really.  Even now thinking about it I have tears in my eyes again.

I'm determined not to let it ruin my day.  I already have a long day ahead of me.  One bonus I have to admit is that my morning list was cancelled so I can have a bit of relaxing time with no kids and no work (though I ended up doing work by doing some difficult registrar discussions).  I should have gone shopping instead.  I do after all have a free boost drink to pick up as a special treat for my birthday.

So, happy birthday to me.

My favourite vampire romances

Now I'm not (fully) ashamed to admit that I am a romance novel fan.  I was a historical romance reader for a long while and then I discovered paranormal romances.  Sherilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series and Weres was a favourite for ages, I ended up buying Acheron when it came out and I really did like that book - though the ending was a bit too easy I thought.  The pain and suffering in that book.... was like woah, over the top romance tragedy drama that I had not read before.

Then I decided to try the Christine Feehan series, and I read the first few and I was hooked.  Admittedly the first book wasn't THAT good, but some of the scenes were rather hot.  And then as the books went on they got better.  The later stories were my favourites, even though lots of people panned them.  I totally LOVED Dark Slayer, another tragedy of a love story where love is the cure for all hurts.  And the suffering the two of them had... I think I've read it about 20 times already.  Lucky I have it on my phone - great for long cases at work.  Dark Celebration (which was a Christmas one) was not too tacky, it had lots of characters in it and had some working of the main story line in it.  The whole everyone cooking for Christmas was the tackiest part of it though.  Dark Possession was one I really liked, the heroine in it turned out to be a werewolf but didn't know it, and both the hero and heroine were changed by the blood exchange.  And the heroine was black!

Last night I finally got around to reading Breaking Dawn, I had been cruising along reading it rather slowly and then suddenly Bella was pregnant... and I was like WOAH.  And then the next bit was written from Jake's perspective and he imprinted on Bella's baby and I was like... omg I can't stop reading now!  The Volturi are coming!

First time at the pool

Nanny M took the kids to the pool yesterday, their first time to the pool!  I had bought a swimsuit for Erika and hats for both of them, but Nanny M got some swim nappies for Julian (which I think would just be nappies that hold everything inside).  And they had a great time!  Here is a picture of my babies at the pool!

Trying to help critters

I dropped the kids off at Nanny M's and the cat had a little bird in its mouth.  Nanny M and I were trying to grab the cat to get the bird out but he kept running away.  I think the bird was alive to start but after the cat put it down a few times and picked it up it was looking floppy and lifeless.  I managed to corner the cat next to the garage and grab it by the scruff of its neck and Nanny M pried the baby bird out of its mouth, but the bird was dead, so we put it in the trash.  Poor hatchling.  I'm just glad it wasn't an endangered bird.

Then I was at hospital and I was walking along the corridor near the inner courtyard and I saw a lizard scampering around near the edges - it must have wandered inside and gotten trapped.  It was about 15cm long and I tried to encourage him to run towards the door but he kept hiding behind a pole.  I knelt down to try to catch him so I could take him outside, but he ran away again and then I stood up and banged my head on the railing - ow!  After that I lost interest in trying to rescue the poor trapped lizard!

Pudging up

I think I have to cut back on those fast food dinners and lunches.  I'm getting a real pot belly with muffin top now happening and I might have to do some *gasp* exercise, or even worse!  Cut back on some of those junkie foods.

I guess that means no more donuts for breakfast, KFC for lunch and pizza for dinner...

Ok so my diet of moderation starts today, and I will start doing some casual walking around the area where I live with the kids in tow, and hopefully that will get some incidental exercise happening.  I know it's not much but I have to start slowly somewhere.

With Christmas coming I think it best if I start now...

Flimsy gates = bobsled down the stairs!

On Monday I was going upstairs taking the kids for a shower and I was carrying the laundry too.  Erika got up the stairs first and was playing with the gate, then I got up and walked to my room door to put the laundry down and go back and get Julian.  When I turned around, Erika was standing and playing on the gate and the next thing you know the gate came off the wall and fell down the stairs.  Poor Erika was terrified!  And I was scared thinking Julian was about to wiped out by the gate as it fell down the stairs!  Erika ended up with just a bump and a bruise on her head and arm and I cuddled her for a while why she had a big cry.

The on Tuesday Julian fell down the stairs, landing on his shoulder then his head and ended up with a bleeding nose.

I just hope DOCS don't find out haha!

Should I take the plunge and start night training?

I am wondering if I should start the night time training again for wees for Erika.  She wakes up with a wet nappy so I'm wondering if I should just take her to the toilet at midnight before I go to bed.  I did try that for a little while but I then she started waking up at night - I'm wondering now thinking about it whether that was her wanting to go to the toilet because I'd started alerting her to needing to go.

Well it's so hot now that I think I'll start it again.  With any luck we'll not need night nappies anymore.  I wish we could go back to the days where Erika had a dry nappy at night.  It's been ages since she could do that.

I think that being dark in her room really does affect her going to the toilet.  I bet that she is scared to go out of her room because it's dark.

How reading women's magazines at work can bring you down....

I picked up the November 2010 issue of Marie Claire to read at work today and instead of perusing the latest styles of swimsuits (which unfortunately with my post-2-children figure consisting of pot belly and saggy boobs won't suit me!) I end up reading all these sad and dreadful stories - not unlike picking up the newspaper.

The first depressing story is about a Brazilian soccer player who had a lover brutally murdered because she refused to abort a pregnancy after a one night stand with him.  She was chopped into pieces and fed to some dogs after days of beatings and torture.  The poor baby boy, growing up knowing that his biological father did that to his mother.... ugh.

The second depressing story was about life for people after the China earthquake in Sichuan province where whole families were lost.  It was the story of 2 survivors, both of which lost their families in the quake.  The man lost his wife and 7 year old son, the woman her fiance.  There were lots of stories about how the school collapsed and all the children died... in a country where 1 child policy stands and your only child was killed, how can one read that as a parent and shudder to think if that had been yourself and your children?  Anyway, the story was that these 2 people deciding to form a family together, and that lots of widows and widowers from the Sichuan earthquake did the same thing.

The third story was about Generation Z.  About how children these days have little attention in classrooms, have tantrums and are generally indulgent and very me me me.  And this is all the fault of the parents.  Because we cocoon our children and shield them from sadness and failure (eg by no longer giving Fs, or ensuring that every child gets a ribbon in a race, not just for the 1st 2nd 3rd) they cannot deal with failure and expect everything.  After reading that article I'm trying to think how I can prevent my children from being like that.  The last thing I need is 2 indulgent teenagers who want me to subject to their every whim.  Hopefully with continued discipline and instilling in the kids the ability to save for things they want and give praise where praise is due then I can hopefully get some well adjusted kids out of the toddlers I have now.

Christmas presents for the kids

Hubby has said no toys for the kids this year, he thinks they have too many toys.  A lot of the toys aren't given by me, so I think that's a bit unfair!

So here's a list of things

Bilibo
Zoobies
Peepo (book by the Each peach pear plum people)

Planning for the big trip next year April/May

I've got the big trip planned for next April/May.  On May 7 my sister is getting married in Las Vegas, and on May 14-17 is the ANZCA ASM in Hong Kong.  So, there is a big trip planned.  Since I thought it would be good for the kids to go to Taiwan whilst I'm in Hong Kong, I thought that we would all fly together from Australia to Taiwan, stay there a few days, then fly from Taiwan to Las Vegas, stay there for 10 days or so, then fly back to Taiwan, where I will leave the family and I will stay in Hong Kong for my conference.

So... the debate is whether to leave Julian in Taiwan whilst we go to Vegas.  I initially suggested it because hubby was very distressed about the thought of taking the kids to Vegas.  I think it's just too hard for him.  However, having kids doesn't mean that it's going to be easy and after some thought I decided that it would be better for us to take Julian with us.  His mother isn't in the best of health and she's there looking after her own mother (hubby's grandmother) who is unwell.  So having Julian there who can be awake all night and crying and being difficult could be stressful for her.  Though hubby says that she wants to do it, I am not convinced because she has not shown particular interest in helping with the children when we needed someone to help, nor has she come back from Taiwan to see the children, even for Julian's first birthday.  She does however see them on Skype which is a plus, but the time that I needed her to come back (December/January) she didn't want to come and help.

So trying to get some travel ideas for the kids.

A friend GT suggested the CARES which is a travel harness that you can take on the plane for kids safety.  It costs about $100 and is a 5 point safety harness approved by many airlines.  Here's a link to the website:

CARES

Then I saw these Zoobies things, they are so cute!  They're a toy, a pillow and a blanket all in one!  I think I might get Erika one for Christmas

Changes to the NSW Feed-in Tariff (Solar Scheme)

From October 28, there will be changes to the gross feed-in tariff such that it will be 20c per kW generated, as opposed to our 60c.  This will be effective for all those systems installed after 27 October 2010.  Fortunately the changes don't affect us, but I wonder what this will do for the solar industry in NSW.  Perhaps it will continue but at a slow pace?  Or maybe it will grind to a halt?  Well whatever happens, I'm just glad that we got our system.  However, perhaps if I had waited a bit longer I could have gotten a cheaper system.

Travelling with Children

The time is coming up soon for working out what exactly to do as a trip for my sister's wedding.  Because I have a conference in Hong Kong afterwards, we've been trying to figure out what to do for travel because of the kids, not wanting them to have an overly long trip.

So far the plan is to fly to Taiwan, then fly to Vegas, then fly back to Taiwan then I go to Hong Kong and then back to Taiwan and then we all go home together from Taiwan.

Hubby thinks it's too hard to take the kids out, so I suggested we leave Julian in Taiwan with his mother.  He thought that was a great idea.  However, he mentioned in passing that his mother was worried about looking after Julian.  I mentioned that to my mother and she thought perhaps subconsciously she doesn't want to look after Julian, and is only doing it because that is what we wanted her to do and she feels like a bad grandparent if she doesn't do it.  I mean if you asked, really would she say no?  And not to mention hubby's grandmother is quite unwell, how would having Julian around affect that?  And if she couldn't cope would she be calling us in Vegas to come back and look after him?

One of the things that was also pointed out was that if hubby's mother really wanted to spend time with the grandchildren, she would have come back to Australia.  Even to visit, for a short while.  But she hasn't and she has missed the kids birthdays and they won't be small again, so maybe she doesn't want to look after them.  She also has her own health issues too, she has a chronic pain problem which flares up every now and then, so would that also impair her ability to care for Julian?  Of course I can't bring up these issues with hubby, he would be offended that I think his mother couldn't care for Julian as well as my mother, but it does seem to highlight the fact that she doesn't spend much time coming to see them, though she does see them on Skype every day.  Which is the opposite to my mother, she doesn't get to see them on Skype every day.

Twisted ankle

Yesterday I tripped over the driveway at Nanny M's house and rolled my ankle - now I have a twisted ankle and boy is it sore!  Yesterday morning it was ok but by the afternoon it was so sore!  I RICE'd it yesterday when I got home.

I'm scared to carry Julian and Erika on the stairs now because of my buggy ankle.  I don't want to fall!

New video card

My video card has been playing up lately.  I went out on Sunday and bought a GTX480 but I haven't installed it yet.  I should have done it - the longer I wait the price might go down!  I wanted to get a Gigabyte one but they only had an Asus one left.  I've noticed more crashes lately with the video card... I hope I can last tonight.  Maybe I should install it tonight after the kids go to bed.  But I don't want to miss raiding tonight.

Julian's walking

Julian has really taken off with his walking!  He's been walking everywhere, and doesn't need much assistance at all.  Unfortunately Erika likes to push him over when he's walking and we have to tell her off big time!

He fell a few times on Monday and ended up with blood coming out of his mouth - 3 times!  Poor thing, he looks like he bit his lip.

He's also down to 1 poo a day, and last night he was awesome - he slept till 545am!  And he went to bed quite early too (715pm).  He's been pooing around lunchtime.  So I guess having no upset tummy has kept him asleep!

More medical behaviour I don't agree with!

Geez this blog has turned from being green and kiddy related stuff to work whinge!

I was doing the acute pain round yesterday and there was a man with a supraclavicular block/catheter for his hand - he had a reimplantation of a few fingertips which was a work related injury.

The patient actually wanted the fingers terminalised but the plastic surgeon decided to try to reimplant the fingers.  And why do you think that is?  Because the patient is workers comp - which means $$$.

So the patient was complaining about his numb arm and I had to tell him that we leave the infusion for about 3 days to help perfusion to those fingertips, and the patient was grouchy because he just wanted to go home.  He was also having leech therapy to keep the blood thin in those fingers as well.

I was talking to one of my registrars yesterday who told me that he received a call from the anaesthetic consultant on call in the afternoon saying that he was coming in for a reimplantation of fingers.  The registrar was surprised because it wasn't on the Emergency list, and so went to the Duty anaesthetist who also didn't know about the patient.  A few minutes later there was a call from the plastics registrar who booked the case.

So the consultant anaesthetist was in, and told the registrar to put an art line in but he didn't care who put it in... and then I suppose he would have sent off some gases as well so you could claim serial ABGs.  I asked if they put BIS on and of course they did, and it would be paid because it was a trauma (therefore high risk - though in reality totally NOT high risk because it's not really a trauma).

So is it ethical to put in extra things that you don't need because you will get extra (a lot!) money for it?  Like SERIOUSLY.  If this was just a non work related injury the patient would not have had all these extra interventions.  It annoys me that people put extra things into workers compensation because of the extra money, and it seems like a total rort to me.  Would I do those things?  I don't think I would put in an arterial line or do gases.

This is such a small whinge, people will wonder why I whinge about it when there is extra money.  But to me this is unethical behaviour.  For monetary gain.  There was a young 15 year old boy who died earlier in the year, who had his arm ripped off in some machinery accident - 2 specialists said terminalise the limb but the plastic surgeon decided to try to reimplant it.  The boy died because of a transfusion related lung injury, an idiosyncratic thing which would not have happened because he wouldn't have needed so much blood products if they had just terminalised his limb.

Julian's first birthday

Had a dinner birthday party for Julian for his first birthday.  I even made my simple and boring carrot cake with a bit of icing on top and cut the words out of soft carrot... looks so bodgy!  But definitely homemade!

We also had a variety of other foods including oysters, lobster, chicken, roast pork, a mushroom vegetarian dish, and sashimi salmon.  I got Julian to sample the lobster, chicken, roast pork and sashimi, and Erika ate them all as well.  At least my kids know good food when they eat it.

We did presents afterwards and he got a Wooly Rhinoceros toy from me and Ivan, he got pants from HK and he got a toy piano/xylophone from Nanny M.

He did lots of walking and seems to be a lot more confident in his walking, walking fair distances now and even sometimes walking unconsciously from the table to the window or the chair.

Total spinal and a missing Laerdel bag...

I was on call last night and I got a call at about 10pm from MC who was the registrar overnight telling me he had an issue that I need to know about.

He did an epidural on Labour ward, and he had given her a test dose of 3mL of 2% Lignocaine with Adrenaline, and he waited what he thought was a reasonable period of time and then gave her 5mL of Ropivacaine 0.2%.  After he finished injecting the 5mL she stated that her legs were heavy and numb, which rapidly progressed to not feeling well, then unable to move her arms and then difficulty breathing.  He had laid her down when he injected the 5mL of Ropivacaine, and when she felt unwell he did a BP which was 80 systolic.  He then gave some aramine from the drawer and when the patient complained of difficulty breathing he asked the nurses for a Laerdel bag, and the nurses pushed the Emergency button as well.  They came back with the arrest trolley but were unable to procure a Laerdel bag, by which stage the patient was really unable to breathe and oxygen saturations were dropping.  MC stated that he explained to the patient that he would have to breathe for her and had to perform mouth to mouth whilst waiting for a Laerdel bag.  The MET team arrived and he asked them for a Laerdel bag and they didn't have one on them, the trolley was coming in the lift.

O+G registrars turned up and he informed them that they would need theatres urgently and the anaesthetic nurse arrived from theatres with a Laerdel bag and intubation equipment and then the patient was anaesthetised and paralysed and intubated.  They proceeded to LSCS and the baby was born fit and well, and they transferred the mother up to intensive care, by which stage she was spontaneously breathing and awake and obeying commands and extubated.

MC said he had to perform mouth to mouth for about 5 minutes!!!  And the husband was present when he first started to do mouth to mouth and was freaked out.  MC went to ICU to see the patient afterwards, and the baby was brought up to her, and the patient and the husband thanked Matthew for everything, and seemed to be very happy with the outcome despite the complication that occurred.

I could not sleep after MC told me the events that happened and I asked him if he needed me to come in, he said he didn't, but I decided to go in anyway, as it was a pretty major traumatic event in terms of anaesthetic complications, and give him a bit of consultant support, reassure him that he did the right thing and managed the situation well.  I think he was surprised to see me at the early hours of morning and we talked for more than an hour about the situation, and just general conversation as well afterwards.  I think I left him feeling supported and reassured, though of course he would still feel like an idiot (though I told him that he did all the correct things and managed things well).  Poor MC.... I am glad everything turned out but geez, we are going to get on top of the fact that there was no resuscitation equipment in Labour ward quick smart!!!

17/10 update:

I was wondering if I was being a bit over the top by going in.  I know when I had my bad incident at work in ICU, when the consultant came in to chat I felt so supported that I wanted to make sure I did that for my own registrars.  When I turned up I was wondering to myself if MC thought I was being an idiot or just wished I went away.  But I got an email later that morning from him:

Hi J,

Thanks again for coming in, it has made me feel much better.
I know you don't believe in subdural block but the more I read up this seems that it could have been a "subdural" catheter. No CSF via tuohy needle and no CSF able to be aspirated via catheter. Onset wasn't very rapid, but sort of intermediate. Very extensive block. progressive respiratory incoordination rather than just sudden apnoea, relatively little cardiovascular instability. All of which fits with the literatures description of a subdural block. Or maybe I'm just trying to convince myself because for some reason it just seems a little less worse to me... more bad luck then just my incompetence.

I saw her this morning. She has no residual block and was happily breast feeding her son. She has minimal pain and no headache (yet).

Anyway, have a good day. Hope you have a good party tomoorow for Julian.

Thanks again.M

20/10 Update:

God I felt bad!  I told 2 colleagues, AC and PC, and when I got to work on Tuesday apparently EVERYBODY knew about what happened to MC.  I felt terrible!  AC  said he waited about half an hour before he started to SMS everyone...  Poor MC!  He said he told JL, who was a good friend of his at Liverpool who was on night shift and JL asked him if he slipped the tongue in!  The funny thing is, that because I'm quite close to the incident (I was on call after all), that all these things didn't even enter my mind.  But after the incident, I can see why everyone is laughing about it (in a good natured way, ie they look at MC as doing a fantastic job, heroic almost!  And that they can tease him because there was a good outcome).  Others have asked if he had taken a mint beforehand, was the patient good looking, etc.  I did his ITA online form with him yesterday and we had a bit of a talk about the whole thing, and he seems ok now, though he wishes they weren't teasing him about it.  He said that he was teaching a medical student in his theatre about bag mask ventilation and the medical student mentioned that there was a registrar who did mouth to mouth on a patient... and MC was said that he had to tell that student it was true, and it was him.  Looking back at it now, I think people will think of MC as a legend which is quite amusing!  I am still very proud of him, I have defended him tooth and nail when people ask about it in any kind of disparaging way.  Sometimes I think of him as a prized student or something!  I only hope that I can be the kind of consultant that he looks up to as well.

In remembrance of E2B

My BIL and SIL are going back to Taiwan after they see the specialist on Thursday.  They are going to abort the baby there.

I just want to have a small memorium thing here for E2B (emily2be).  Though I didn't know her, I would have loved her and helped to take care of her and she would have been my special little niece.  Because her life would have been short, I would have tried to make it as happy as possible with cuddles, kisses and carries.

I hope she can forgive us all for taking away her life, and if she understands that it was so she wouldn't suffer and have a miserable life.  I hope that the spark of life that she had will be born again in this world as something beautiful.  I am sure she would have been proud, and hated to be a burden to anyone.  And that though it seems like nobody loves her because we could so easily throw her away, that we are saddened by her loss.

I hope you don't have to suffer little E2B.  I love you.

Sad news

Yesterday hubby rang me to say that my sister-in-law went for a scan of the baby and that they found an abnormality.  He said there were some cysts in the liver and it was enlarged.  He wanted me to go and ask the advice of my colleagues about what it was... but without the report or anything I didn't think I could offer any advice, and that they should go see a specialist.

When the formal report came, it was actually that BOTH kidneys were abnormal.  One had cysts in it and was enlarged, the other was hypoechoic with a dilated renal pelvis.  The AFI was normal which was reassuring (ie kidney function was probably normal) but the other bit is pretty bad.  From my limited medical knowledge, it seems to be juvenile polycystic kidney disease which is autosomal recessive disorder, and has a poor prognosis.  If it is diagnosed at 24 weeks then the prognosis is worse.  It is characterised by hyperechoic kidneys, cysts develop later in infancy.  I suppose the presence of cysts already could indicate really bad disease.

Severe cases have hyponatremia and other metabolic disorders and recurrent urinary tract infections, and are not expected to live more than one month.  If the child lives to 18 months then they can be considered for renal transplant.

That's just talking about PCKD AD.  I don't really know what they have.  I am not sure there is any genetic testing they could do.  My poor SIL is so upset, she wants to have the pregnancy terminated.  Unfortunately she will have to deliver the baby vaginally if that is the case which is all the more traumatic.  Currently the foetus is still viable and at 30 weeks has a good chance of survival (without the kidney troubles).  I have to say if the situation was reversed and it was me facing this dilemma I am not sure what I would do.  I know I would not want the poor child to suffer, but I suspect that I would have the baby and let the baby pass away on her own.  It is a terrible thing to have to do, or even have to contemplate, but I think my poor SIL is too shocked and upset to be thinking about anything other than to get the abnormality/mutant out...

Then today I walked into birthing unit and the educator was wrapping up a dead baby.  A little boy.  The mother had an abruption and was transferred from another hospital to here, and the baby died en route whilst the mother bled to a haemoglobin of 60 and required a blood transfusion.  The mother is of Arabic origin, and she has 6 daughters at home, and the baby that died was a little boy.  She was very sad, and worried that the husband would blame her for losing the son (boys are very important in arabic culture as they seem to be in almost every culture!) because she had had a fall and that caused the abruption.  So sad to see all these little lives lost, who never got to know their future.

I think that about my niece-to-be.  What could she have been like?  Would she have done great things, made some great changes to someone's life, influenced the world somehow in that small butterfly effect way?  The way things are going, I don't think I'll ever get to meet her, and she will never get to do anything in her short life.  And though babies should bring joy to people's lives, her being born will only bring sadness, and what is even more sad is that maybe nobody wants her because she's got an abnormality.  If she gets born, I doubt that she will be born here, they will probably go back to Taiwan (in fact I recommended that they go back to Taiwan so my SIL can have the support of her family there).

I just have to be thankful that I have 2 children who are happy and healthy so far.  Who knows what tragedy may befall  them further down the track.  I should enjoy them now and every minute I can spend with them.

Litterbug :(

Ugh I had a terrible moment today, I drove off in my car and the drink I had left on top of my car fell off as I turned a corner....

I should have stopped and picked it up and thrown it away, but I didn't.  That would be the first time I had deliberately littered in like... since High School.

If I see it there the next time I go back I'll go pick it up.

Bumps in the night

There was a resounding thump last night, which was Erika falling out of bed.  I ran upstairs expecting to hear the 2 second pause of silence while Erika filled her lungs up with air for the next resounding yowl, but when I got there all I heard was a bit of whimpering.  I opened her door, it was quite dark, and I felt my way along the floor looking for my daughter and I found her, she was making some soft whimpering sounds and I just scooped her up and put her back in bed, where she went back to sleep.  Now that was surprising, the last time I heard her make a thump like that was when she fell out of her cot when she was about 7-8 months old.

Now of course, Julian is another story.  There is lots of thump noises that he makes like when he falls out of my bed, or when he falls out of Erika's bed, or when he falls off the chair...

Nappy addiction waning

I can tell that my nappy addiction is fading away - last month was the Great Down Under Nappy Hunt competition and for the first time in 2.5 years I wasn't doing the nappy hunt!  I did it from when Erika was born and I did the last one in March this year (and I won a prize too!  But I didn't do much hunting).

Now if only I can convince other people on the use of cloth nappies then I'll be set!

I heard one of the girls at work is using or is thinking of using cloth nappies.  Maybe I could start with her by giving her a little something as a gift...

NBN is a greener alternative!

According to http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/362617/aiia_nbn_crucial_making_australia_greener/ the nbn will make a significant environmental impact!

Apparently there are some aging data centres around which take up prime realestate as well as drawing power from the energy grid.  These centres would likely be consolidated into newer more energy efficient centres.

Not to mention you could have much better teleconferencing, saving on travel... reduce paper wastage by sending large documents electronically...

I wonder if in 10 years time we'll look back and think who were the idiots opposing the NBN?

Julian's new timetable

Well it was nice having people around, but now I'm on my lonesome again.  I am worried about putting the kids to bed tomorrow, Julian will likely sleep in the car and then I'll never be able to get him to sleep.  He has had a bit of diarrhoea today, with 3 poopie nappies and 2 poos in the toilet.

By the time hubby gets home, the kids will have settled into their new routines and new rooms, so it should be good.

Here's Julian's new timetable

0500-0530 - wake up
0600 - breakfast
0900 - milk 240mL
0915 - poo
1000 - lunch
1030 - nap
1230-1300 - wake up
1300 - milk
1500 - shower/bath
1600 - dinner
1700 - milk
1715 - poo
1830 - bedtime

As opposed to Erika's timetable

0600 - wake up
0630- breakfast
0800 - juice
1030 - lunch
1200-1300 - nap (optional)
1300 - milo
1400-1430 - fruit
1500 - shower/bath
1700 - dinner
1830 - dvd/tv
1930 - bedtime
1600 -

Composting and why I haven't done it yet

For all my enthusiasm for ecosustainability and reduction of rubbish, my major failing continues to be composting.  Composting always seems like such hard work with all that turning and digging and I honestly just can't bring myself to be digging around in smelly waste.  Hubby was against it too because he says it attracts rodents and roaches.

Looking at one of the many types of compost bins on the market, I thought that the Earthmaker looked like a good choice.  It looks like I don't have to spin the damn thing and then dig compost out, basically I just add stuff to the top and then shake it through after a while and it comes out the bottom!  And if I get do it right and get the kids used to it then maybe I can teach them how to use the composter too.

So you add stuff in the top, then shake it a bit and it goes to the middle and then stir it some more and it goes to the bottom.  One thing I'm not sure about is how worms and other stuff gets in there.

Exciting case at work which turned out not!

Having recently become the Director of Obstetric Anaesthesia at my hospital there was an interesting case on which had a lot of workup and preparation in the event of a disaster which fortunately turned out not to be a disaster!

We had a primiparous woman who had fertility issues having successfully conceived her first child with IVF, had an anterior Grade IV placenta praevia, who also happened to be a Jehovah's Witness.  ARGH!

(Translation: Woman who had difficulty falling pregnant but finally got conceived with IVF, turned out to have the placenta covering the cervix so the baby can't be born without bleeding to death, as well as being at the front of the uterus making it difficult to get to the baby out via caesarean because there is the risk of cutting the placenta as you go in to get the baby... complicated by the fact that she was a Jehovah's Witness who by their religion refuse blood transfusions or they go to hell)

So there was a lot of discussion about this lady and teams involved.  The patient agreed to cryoprecipitate, as well as the cell saver, and the Interventional Radiologists were involved and they put balloon catheters in place in her common iliac arteries so that in the event she did bleed, we could inflate them and stop the blood flow to the uterus so we wouldn't lose that much blood.  Everything was set up, teams were ready, and we were all prepared for an emergency.  Fortunately though she didn't end up bleeding much and we didn't need all our special fancy equipment but you can bet your bottom dollar that if we didn't have all that stuff set up she would have bled like buggery and probably died.

It's a bit strange I think, my colleague's attitudes to Jehovah's Witnesses.  Anaesthetists say that in the event that the patient was going to die that they would give a blood transfusion even though the patient specifically requested not to.  They say because they want to "Do no harm".  However, I am not sure that I would do the same, I don't see why they find it so difficult to accept that despite their best efforts the patient died because of blood loss.  I guess they feel that it was because it was a preventable death, that they could have done something to save the patient.  But if you give blood to these patients, they become unclean, and they basically think they'll not go to heaven.  Is it really up to us to disrupt someone's religious beliefs and life because we don't want to feel the guilt of someone dying under our care?  I know if someone died because of bleeding when I'd done their anaesthetic I'd feel terrible about it, but I at least take comfort in the fact that I didn't do anything to their religious beliefs or faith.  I wonder if that makes me a worse doctor?  I don't think so, I think that if I had some special wish that I would like people to respect it.  It bothers me when people say "oh these stupid people and their religions, wrecking our lives making us stressed because of their stupid beliefs".  I just keep quiet but inside I'm thinking "How would you like it if someone told you that you had to do something against your beliefs because they thought it was stupid?"

RIP my poor borrowed HTC Touch Pro 2

My phone played up big time yesterday so I decided to use that new LG Optimus phone I got for free and you know what?  This android platform is not bad at all!  In fact this phone is really easy to use!

I managed to sync my outlook calendar with gmail, I just need to sync my contacts now.  I even found that you can do ewallet on android so that's really cool!  Well just to view anyway.

However I would still like an HTC.  Having huge problems trying to download the sync suite, because at the moment the laptop won't recognise that the phone is a USB storage device so it won't let me sync my ewallets.  At this stage I can still view my ewallets so that's good.

Kids who will not go to bed - Nightmare parenting moments #1

Last night I was by myself at home and hubby was out for a work dinner and I was bringing the kids back from Nanny M's and thought well, once I get the kids to bed I can do whatever I like!  Maybe play some WoW!

Little did I know...

I put Julian to bed after his milk at about 7pm and then tried to put Erika to bed at 730pm but Julian started crying (probably hit his head on the rail as he turned over) and then it was ping-ponging between the two, but as soon as I left one child the other would start crying... so I couldn't get either of them down.  Julian cried so much when I was struggling to put Erika to bed that he vomitted... twice.  All over me.  And himself, and his sleeping bag.  Fortunately not onto the floor or his bed so didn't have to clean that up.  I tried to clean his head and face but he still smelled of vomit, even after I changed his shirt.  I sms'd hubby at about 915pm to tell him that everything at home was terrible, and I sat downstairs with both of them watching Ratatouille and they seemed quite content for a while, Julian was very active and Erika was sitting quietly mostly.  By about 10pm I figured it was enough and took them upstairs, where they both started wailing.  I sat in Erika's room holding the two crying babies, and just sighed with resignation.

Erika was wailing at me to put Julian away, so I got up a few times and everytime I left she would cry loudly.  So I finally said to her that I can't put Julian away because Erika keeps crying!  So I left the room and she whimpered quietly while I tried to put Jul down.  He fell asleep when I held him horizontally but as soon as I put him in the cot he would cry.  I was on the final pickup and I heard Erika coming down the corridor saying "Mama?  Mama?" and I managed to put Julian on the floor, asleep.  She was peering around the door of Julian's room by that stage and I told her I'd finished putting Julian away, and I walked back to her room with her.  And we lay down, and I heard the garage door opening and told her that Baba was home and she'd better be good before Baba comes!  And before hubby came into the room, she was ok for me to leave her lying there on the bed by herself.

The one good thing was that they didn't wake up all night after that.  But 1030pm bedtime is just pure idiocy.

Both of them got up this morning in reasonably good spirits.  My only explanation was that perhaps they're coming down with a slight cold or something, making them clingy, because normally my kids aren't so awful!

Problem with car already! Lucky it's fixed now though...

I drove my car away on Tuesday and found that the damn clock keeps resetting to midday!  And so does the trip meter.  Sounded like some kind of battery/connection problem but today I took the car back and it was fixed up quick smart.  Fuse problem they said, which was easily rectified.

Erika loves the moonroof, she asks for it to be open all the time.  And she knows that mama's new car is black (she says it with a south african accent, so it sounds like she's saying Bleck).

At least the after sales service is good.  I will mention it when I do my customer satisfaction survey.

Oh, one thing I did notice was that servicing the car is NOT cheap.  And I thought VW service was bad, this is just as bad, maybe a tiny bit cheaper.

Oh today when I went back to the dealership the salesperson I dealt with was just handing over the keys to another Dualis +2!  A red one!  I went outside to tell the couple that they had made a nice choice, and the man asked me if I liked my car and I said I loved it.  Except for the clock of course.  Now a moot point :)

New car is here!!!!

I got a call today from Nissan saying that my car was ready for pickup!  Now that was a nice surprise, and especially on a Tuesday where I actually can have time to pick up the car if I try!  So I went to the bank after my Acute Pain Round, got my bank cheque and off I went to the car dealers.

After signing all my paperwork and stuff and having the car "tour" I finally got my car!  But there was one bad thing - the clock keeps resetting every time I turn the car off.  In fact, all the trip stuff seems to reset after I turn the car off.  I notified the dealers and they told me to let the service guys look at the car when I bring it around on Thursday.

Here's what it looks like on the inside (pictures from web, not my actual car)

Driving an automatic makes me feel lazy.  Taking off from the lights feels sluggish compared to driving a manual - is that due to it being automatic or is that just my engine being underpowered?  Tried it with the "manual" gear switch and it wasn't much different.

The display is distracting.  Probably because it's a new car, and I keep looking at the km on it and the fuel consumption.  I think i'll have to turn it off and not look at it.

The Bluetooth is actually really good.  I called people from my phone and they said it was good quality sound.  Simple to connect too.  I have to program some numbers into the car now to make it more useful.

Sound suppression is impressive, it was raining moderately to heavily and I could still talk on the phone.  I haven't driven the M5 to Campbelltown yet but I will tomorrow so I will get to see what it's like in terms of noise in the cabin.

I put the baby seats in, and they slip around a lot on the moulded leather seats, which is irritating.  So I put some padding under them to see if that helped, but I can sit between the seats, which is kind of cool!  There is a little more leg room in the back than my old car.

I haven't quite got my head around the car positioning, and how close I am to things.  I think I'm erring on the side of caution, and I'm worried I'll run over stuff at the back but when I put the car in the garage I was WAAAAY too far from the wall.  Will need to put it a bit closer when I park it again tomorrow coming home.

I like my glass roof.  I had it open most of the way home.  I bet Erika and Julian will like it too.

Keyless entry is cool!  It also has a key option for flat keyless battery thing which is awesome.  Not sure how that works if I can't actually OPEN the car... there must be a slot somewhere for it in the door.  I'll look for it later.

All in all I love my new car.  Oh but you know what was really cool when I first saw the car?  It was the number plates!  BSL97W... perfect for someone married to an endocrinologist!!!  Won't be forgetting that in a hurry.

I banish twit! Totally awesome.

DIY Phone repairs...

Hubby, HK and I took my phone apart yesterday and when we put it back together I found the LCD was busted!  So after that, HK took it apart again and put the replacement LCD in and it was working.  And after all that I forgot to mention, it was the touch screen which was broken initially, NOT the LCD!!!!

I should have realised that.  if the LCD was broken I'd have a rainbow swirly screen.  /smacks head

Anyway, there were some good instructional videos on the HTC website which showed us how to take the phone apart.  It was very useful.  I'll link them here in case I ever have to do them again.

Disassembly


Reassembly

iPhones taking over the world....

I have been very resistant to having an iphone... perhaps because it's an iphone!  Apple likes everyone to use their product with no crossover... effectively squeezing out the competition.  I suppose that's how you make money but you have to be sure your product is good - and the Apple product is good, or so the millions of people using iphones will tell you anyway!

And I did think that the iPad was a silly thing, people were saying it's a computer replacement and I was poopooing that idea... but after playing with one... it does do the one thing that I thought was good and that was read things, like books, the newspaper etc, at least it's big enough to read compared to reading it on my phone like I normally do.  But then one of my mates showed me his comics on it, and wow they look great!  I have digital comics too and they look cool on the computer but I'm sure they would look just as awesome on the iPad - much that I hate to admit it!

So do I give in and get one?  Obviously I only want one because... well because it's cool!  I don't really NEED one (really what do we really NEED other than water, food, clothes on our backs... internet, WoW, mobile phones, the latest fancy digital SLR... hahahaha!)... maybe I can just wait till version 2 comes out.  I wonder if I'll be able to read my books on it, since they're all saved on funny formats.

Comments that make you roll your eyes...

Operating today with my orthopaedic surgeon, and his assistant (another orthopod) was trashing the NBN, saying that it will cost lots of money and it's a waste of money.  And that the speeds of sites downloading is dependent on the US servers and not Australian internal networks...

... I immediately said that it's about connecting rural Australia to high speed internet.  And that rural Australia needs the connections for internal things - such as video conferencing, virtual classrooms - geez it's not all about ebay, amazon, apple i-store and youtube!

So he said as well, well don't live in rural Australia, why would anyone want to live there?  I said someone has to grow food for the populace.  He said buy it from overseas, it's cheaper...

No wonder people think doctors are idiots.  I wonder if there anybody out there thinks like me, that food produced in Australia will support our local economy, and that with a strong local economy that DOESN'T rely heavily on mining, logging and whatever unrenewable resources there are around as primary industry will build a stronger country for us all.  I think patriotism is something that people don't believe in these days.  I have taught Erika the Australian national anthem and I will make sure my daughter understands the importance of showing support for your country, local business and jobs.  Geez even now I think orthopods are idiots (though you really shouldn't be biting the hand that feeds you if you know what I mean).

Also when I was at Liverpool I have people going on and on at me about voting Greens/Labor.  "They'll take all your money", "They want to support all the dole bludgers", "We'll have an emissions trading scheme coming in and that's bad!"

Why shouldn't we have some environmental conscience?  Why shouldn't you pay more tax if you earn more money?  Perhaps it's unfair for the lower income people to be slugged with the high energy bills, but perhaps if you invest more money in green and renewable energy or subsidise it then perhaps we can have better electricity for everybody.  I am still struggling to come up with a concept that would make electricity more affordable to lower income populations, sometimes I think I'd like to put solar panels on my investment properties so that the electricity bills there would be smaller and have a smaller carbon footprint.  But I don't know, I can't go around saving the world, I'm just one person, with grand ideas and no possible way to carry them out!

NBN rollout

I've taken a fascination with the NBN since it was a clear winner for the government.  Reading a lot about it on whirlpool forums and in the paper, and since Internode support it's obviously the real-deal good thing and not some funny fancy promise that they used to win votes...

So I decided to look at the rollout maps

There was an inciteful headline in the paper stating that city dwellers will have to bear the costs of the NBN for rural communities - basically saying they will start the infrastructure rollout in the regional areas first.  Which of course I think is the right thing to do - why should they start it in the cities when we already have high speed internet?  And the poor country folk have dialup and crappy ADSL?  I think it will be great for communication as well as education for kids in the country areas - information will be available at fingertips for homes far from access from the services we take for granted - libraries, bookstores, community services.  Most of the comments after the article said the same thing - they don't mind if they do the regional areas first.  After all, we already have nice broadband here in the city.  What would people want with more speed?

And Labor is in by a nose!

I sat down today at 3pm to watch the press conference that the 2 independents Windsor and Oakeshott held, which after listening to them talking for about half an hour finally let us know they had chosen to side with Labor, and a Gillard government.

Lots of people have lots of things to say I bet.  Here are my interpretations of it.

One thing that I did notice was that Oakeshott made it clear that though he was not mandating either party and that he could swing either way.  He also took a long time justifying his decision and he mentioned that he had to go home and discuss something with his family which to me suggested that he was offered a cabinet position or something.  And he did come out with that at the press conference, and made no effort to hide it.

Windsor was (relatively) quick to say he would support a Gillard government.  I was happy that he said that NBN was the major factor in it, and I think that he made the right choice - now only to hope that the fibre starts getting laid in the next few years.

Oakeshott was ... dramatic to say the least.  Though as soon as Windsor said he would support Gillard I knew that Oakeshott would support Labor also, as they said stability was important.

Interestingly they think that Liberals would want to go to the polls relatively soon.  I can't remember why I felt like they thought that, but somehow that seemed to filter through.  I wonder if the Libs went to the polls quickly they would focus on those seats to take them away from the independents.

I am sure that many in Australia are bemoaning the fact we have Labor/Greens working together, and whinging about climate change, mining taxes and NBN.  To be honest I couldn't give a poop about boat people coming in ... selfish perhaps but those boat people can't take my jobs or my houses.  Though they may take my tax money... a price on carbon is something I think Australia should look at for our responsible future and I wish that there was more money invested in renewable energy, and I hope the Greens can give that kind of future that I want for my children.

Dualis it is!

Today took the plunge and bought the Dualis+2.  Getting it in black.  There were no Ti models there for hubby to look at, but he got a look at the ST model +2 as well as the non +2 model.

Trading in my car got me 10k off the RRP.  I'm excited now, can't wait till I get my new car!

Interestingly I keep asking Erika what colour car to get and she has consistently said Red.  I have tried wording it differently or giving her different options and yet she still says red.  I hate to disappoint her, but I've never had a black car before!

Here's a picture of my new baby... which will probably be here around mid October.

What do I think of the election and the eventual outcome?

Politicians these days are not inspiring.  The election held a couple of weekends ago just goes to show how uninspiring the whole thing can be.

I will make no secret of the fact that I voted Greens this last election.  Now with the Greens receiving a 3.7% national swing during the last election as well as winning a Lower House seat, and picking up extra senate seats giving them the balance of power in the Senate (they will have a senator in each state), they are getting a lot of attention (The Coalition only got a 1.9% national swing).

The media story stating that people voted Greens as a protest against voting Labor or Liberal is true in my respect.  I am one of the tertiary educated, high-income earners who should be voting Liberal, but usually votes Labor, but now sick of them both is now voting Greens.

But did you look at their policies?  People ask me.  Yes I did.  I went to their website, and looked at the things that they believe and want to introduce.  Now being a party not in power, those policies would probably be picked to pieces, but they have been glossed over mostly.  However there are a lot of Labor type similarities.  Things which interest me mostly are health, education and climate.

There is a very socialist approach to their health policies.  Abolish the private health insurance rebate, boost up the public health system.  Salaried GPs, more incentives for specialists and GPs to bulk bill so all Australians have access to healthcare.

Climate and the environment - obviously being the Greens they are for carbon tax, stopping coal mining and our dependency on non renewable energy sources, ecosustainable fishing blah blah.  Perhaps a bit unfair on my part, but I am pro-Carbon tax.  After all, I can afford it, and I did put in solar panels to try to reduce my bills a bit as well as my carbon footprint.  I wish that all Australians could have solar panels or afford them. And they support feed-in tariffs - I hope it's gross tariffs for everyone!  If that was the case I'd love to buy property and put solar panels on them everywhere.

Education - more public schools funding, HECS free Tertiary education... it all sounds very socialist doesn't it?  So where does all this money come from?

At heart, maybe I am a socialist.  I don't try to minimize my tax excessively, I think if I can afford it I should pay for it.  Is that such a bad thing?  My colleagues all think so.  They say why do you want all your hard earned money to go to tax?  But was my money that hard to earn?  Do I have back breaking labour?  I think I have quite a good life, I love my job and all prospects of it, and I don't work that hard really.  I do most of my work in the public system, and my private fees are not excessive (though I don't no gap and I really should if I was as socialist as they say).

A friend of mine donkey voted, saying that it was his protest against the 2 governments, because he thinks they're all idiots.  And that's his right, he has a right NOT to vote (since it is compulsory to vote but he just doesn't want to).  Another friend of mine voted Nationals.  People who don't make a vote in my opinion should not complain about who leads the country because they had their opportunity to say something but they chose not to.  Look at me, I exercise my vote and look what happened - my safe Labor seat has now turned marginal.  And for someone like me it doesn't really matter who gets into power, it won't affect me that much.  I will still send my kids to school, I will still work and get paid and pay my tax, and I will still take out private health care even though it costs me heaps.

"Baby brought back to life by mother's touch"

I read this in the paper yesterday

Baby brought back to life by mother's touch

And the Today Tonight video here. Scroll down to Miracle Survival story.

And I thought wow that's so cool.  Lucky for her that it went well and they didn't just pass him off as dead!

So I go to work today and I'm doing my Caesarean list and the midwife there asks me if I saw that thing on Today Tonight about the baby brought back to life, and I said yeah I read that in the paper, and she said "That was me, I delivered them and then I filmed them".  I mean talk about a small world!  That happened in my own hospital, with a midwife that I know!

Apparently she said on Today Tonight they told the story nicely but she said when the mum went onto Sunrise they were bagging out the midwife and Mrs Ogg didn't defend the midwife at all, just smiling and nodding.  So Midwife A was grumbling about that, but she said she didn't care really, it was just disappointing that she was bagged out on national TV and she felt that the mum was a bit ungrateful.

Midwife A said that she even offered to film the baby's last minutes with a camera they had on them so they had some record of the baby, and that's why there was even video to show about the baby and stuff!  I just watched the video and it showed the Neonatologist Dr G on it too... not sure if that's a good thing...

What car should I buy? Part 2

Ok I've narrowed my choice down to 2 cars:

Volkswagen Golf Wagon 118TSI comfortline
Nissan Dualis+2 Ti

Two different cars.  So hard to choose!

What do I like about the Golf?
1) Fuel economy. 6.7L/100km is hard to beat!
2) Zippy little 1.4L engine
3) It's a Golf!
4) Roomy station wagon
5) Safe

What do I like about the Dualis+2?
1) Sized between a hatchback and an SUV
2) +2 seats in an emergency up the back!  Not comfy though!
3) Tones of extra features included in the price for the top of the line model such as moonroof (glass roof!), bluetooth, seat warmers, leather seats, keyless entry
4) value for money price
5) Safe

OK so what don't I like about them?

Golf:
1) takes premium unleaded 98 only.  Geez, that will add heaps to my petrol bill.  No wonder the darn thing is so fuel efficient.
2) Adding all the extras makes the price go up
3) ugly... it's a station wagon!

Dualis+2:
1) Fuel economy not as good - 8.2L/100km
2) Not as roomy as Golf
3) Doesn't have back seat vents for air con/fan

There are quite a few reviews out there:
Dualis
Carshowroom.com.au
carsales.com.au
goauto

Golf
carpoint.com.au
motorreport


Interestingly to insure either of these cars comprehensively, the Golf is $300 more expensive to insure.

I think I may end up getting a Dualis anyway.  I will still get the +2 seats because the boot is bigger with the +2 seats folded down than the normal.  Will cost me an extra 2.5k though.  Should I get AWD?  I dunno, will I ever use it?  I doubt it.  I can always take the Lexus if I really need to do 4WD stuff.

I am such a klutz

My friend EC gave me his HTC Touch Pro 2 to try and within 2 days of using it I dropped it and smashed the screen!  So I feel like the biggest idiot.  It's taken me a while to get it how I like it and now it's broken.. still works properly though as if there is nothing wrong.  It's quite good for taking videos of the kids.

The touch screen is not as good as an iphone but it's better than my old one.  The screen resolution is so much nicer too.

I told EC that I'll take him and his wife out for a nice dinner somewhere, when we can get babysitting!  I wonder where I should take them and when.  They say they don't know much about fine dining but I'll make sure it's something really nice.

Julian can ride a little trike!

I went to a birthday party on Sunday and the parents of the birthday child had a small trike that was the right size for Julian to sit on.  So I put him on it and he seemed to be really good at pushing himself along!  It must be because he is in a walker at Nanny M's house and he's good at that.

So I went out on Monday and bought one from Toys R Us for $10 and couldn't wait to show hubby.  He was so impressed he immediately put it on for his mum to see and she was very excited.  I took a video of it this morning.

Spinal chlorhexidine rumour is true - with Chinese whispers variations

Read the SMH story here.

Such an unfortunate story! And scary for all anaesthetists because I can see exactly how the mistake happened.  The story I heard though was a mother of 2 kids having a 3rd elective caesarean and spinal morphine in one pot and chlorhexidine in the other pot.  And then accidentally drew up chlorhexidine instead of spinal morphine.  And that the patient was paraplegic now.

The actual story is about a woman having a first baby having an epidural in labour, and chlorhexidine instead of saline was injected in the epidural space.  And she has patchy paraesthesias rather than full blown paraplegia.  Which is still bad but different from the story.

Lots of people ask me if that mistake can happen.  And I tell them the truth, it can happen and I can see how it happened.  Thank god it didn't happen to me, I feel sorry for the anaesthetist as well as the patient, I'm sure they're totally mortified by what happened.

What new car should I buy?

After these car dramas I've been thinking that I should get a new car.  I've been looking at the Volkswagen Golf Wagon, but it is a tiny car with not much power... though it is very green (but says I have to use premium unleaded in it!).  The VW Passat wagon might have a bit more kick.

Someone told me to look at the Camry Hybrid, which has rather nice fuel economy but hubby and my mum are not keen for me to get a Hybrid they think there's something buggy about the technology.

Hubby wants me to get an Audi A4 wagon.  But that's starting to push the price boundaries a bit for me!

Hope to go test drive a few models tomorrow

Update with Julian's lactose intolerance and Erika sick again!

Well Julian seems to be tolerating his lactose free diet well.  Nanny M has got the lactose free formula and he has taken to it rather well.  He's down to one poo a day now (well maybe 1.5-2) and he's doing it straight after his morning milk.

Today he woke up around 4am and was talking to himself.  I just let him be and went back to sleep.  The next time I woke up it was 615am and I couldn't hear Julian at all and when I walked in there he was asleep.  And YAY no poo in his nappy!  He was such a good baby, one scoop of normal milk with 3 of soy and straight after he sat on the toilet and did a poo.  Yesterday however he woke up at 350am and talked non stop that I went and got him at 430 because I couldn't stand the noise anymore.  So you can imagine how tired he was.  I'm not sure why he was good last night, but now Erika is sick he might get sick too and have bad nights (see below).
Erika woke up this morning covered in snot and having a blocked nose.  Nanny M said that she spewed out her panadol even though she feels terrible.  My poor little girl.  She probably got it from her cousin, he has a cold at the moment and is quite miserable.  I hope she's only sick for a day or so.

Erika is quite cute at night.  I take her to bed and she tells me what story she wants recited/read to her and then we cuddle and I ask her to say goodnight but she won't unless I say if you don't mummy is going to go away and then she says night night mama.  And she gives me a kiss too and asks me to kiss her as well, and then sometimes she asks me to hug or cuddle her, and put my arm around her.  These are such cute days, if I don't remember them now they'll never come back.

Sydney Aquarium

Took the kids to Sydney aquarium yesterday.  Erika had a great time!  She went to almost every tank saying "what's that" and we saw fish, sharks, dugongs (eating lettuce), jellyfish...

When hubby got home I asked Erika to tell him what we did today.  She said "riding car".  I said what did we do afterwards, Erika?  What did we see?  There was a long pause and she said "fish".  And I said what else did you see.  She said "big fish".  I asked her what do sharks eat.  She said "Erika".

Cute as!

Ooh a nice looking Japanese restaurant I'd like to try!

I'm sitting here on a Thursday and since I did a favour for my ENT surgeon friend whose anaesthetist had to pike the afternoon, I ended up biting off more than I could chew and am stuck here for way longer than I expected!

In the meantime one of the other ENT surgeons PY turns up and recommends Busshara as a restaurant. Looked at a review and it looks great!  Can't wait to try it.  Check out these yummy pics!

Gone sewing crazy!

Ever since I started making my hats I feel like making more things!  I saw a gorgeous bag pattern that I wish I could make but I bet it's too complicated for me but the fabric is sooo cute!

I was thinking of making library bags for Erika and Julian.  Hubby brought back some nice fabric from Taiwan which is high quality cotton which would be good for bags for the kids.  Just trying to find a nice pattern is all.  The Heather Bailey pattern is rather pricey and looks way to complicated for me!  Here are some more patterns I like:

First day at work for HK

I am guilty of pestering HK to get a job.  He has been sitting around at home playing games and "studying" but he needs to get out there!  So for months (maybe it was only weeks or a few months) I was applying for jobs on his behalf.

Now I'm not very good with CVs so none of the applications were replied or even made it to interview or phonecall - basically culled straight off the bat.  So after that I asked Sev to give me a hand - I sent the CV to Sev and got him to make it look better.

Not long after we did that, he got a phonecall from some companies who obviously were impressed enough by CV but wanted more information.  And then he got an interview!  The worst thing was - I noticed on his CV I had put MY mobile phone number as a contact and not his phone number!  So the job interview came to my phone when I was at work and I felt like the biggest idiot and then HK got an interview and he was so nervous by it he made himself physically sick.  On the day of the interview the first SMS were along the lines of "I don't feel well" and "I have a stomach upset".  As the interview time drew closer the SMS's were like "I have a migraine" and "I have chest pain going into my neck and arm", which finally culminated to "I've got all over body pain" which persisted long after the interview!

Even though he had awful interview technique (literally looked like he was petrified every time he was asked  a question and the answer was always I don't know or no I can't do that) he must have impressed them enough because they kept calling him back and even though he didn't get the job that they advertised for they gave him a casual job!  Now I don't know how much work that is but at least it was a job!

So he came back this week after going home to help his parents and rang them to see when he could go in and get some "work experience" type stuff, and they told him that they were going to pay him $35/hr + super and start work on Thursday!  So today he's at work, and I'm hoping it all goes well.

I'm a bit sad because it means I can't apply for anymore jobs.  It was fun applying for jobs.

In the meantime I wanted to give him a hand doing a set up your own business thing for helping friends with computer problems/networking.  So far only 2 people interested but it would be a work at home type thing for which he needs a car I reckon if he's going to do call out stuff.

MORE car drama!

Today I was driving to work and while I was on the freeway there was a funny noise - like a flapping noise (like you hear if you have a flag on your car flapping in the wind).  Then it stopped and I was like phew!  Then the battery light came on... then the oil light came on.  Mum and the kids were in the car with me and I was freaking out (it was on the freeway bit where it's 80km/hr) and I was ringing hubby and HK and then the temperature gauge stopped working and then the ABS light came on.... and when I turned onto Narellan road I realised the power steering wasn't working!!!  I managed to get mum to the train station and then drove to hospital and parked the car (by that time the lights on the radio had gone as well, and the airbag lights had come on) and called NRMA.  Michelle came to pick up the kids and then NRMA got there looked at my car a fan belt and a ?pulley had broken which is attached to the alternater and battery and that's why the battery wasn't getting charged when the car was running which made all the electrics die.

So my car got towed away eventually and hopefully it will be fixed today.  If not I'll have to go get the car seats out so I can put them in some other car!!!

1800: OMG more drama.  At about 11am I got a call from the mechanic who had fixed my car and was coming over to the hospital to come pick me up.  So I started looking for my wallet.. couldn't find it.  So I was super stressed and my nice colleague RR lent me his keycard and some cash and told me his PIN so I could pay for my car!!!  So lovely of him.  Anyway the cash was enough to cover and I came back and I still couldn't find my wallet.  STRESS!  So then I suddenly got a call from Admissions downstairs - they had found my wallet!  So I was running down and they said I'd left it lying on the chair downstairs - where I had been sitting waiting for the tow truck.  AND all the money was still in it!

Could it be lactose intolerance?

Mum was up here while hubby went to visit relatives in Taiwan, and she suggested that Julian might be lactose intolerant.  So we decided to do a little experiment and we put him on Soy formula for 2 days.  At first he drank 100mL and then cried so I had to put a little bit of sugar in it and then he polished it off quick smart.  And we found that his poos decreased!  The next day he woke up at 530 and only did a little firm poo in the morning and then didn't poo all day.  And today he woke up at 5 and had a tiny poo on his bottom (very solid) and so I gave him his normal milk and about 30 minutes later he did a nice big poo with some solid and soft bits in it (whoever is reading this blog will think GOD all she does is talk about poo!).  So today we'll see how he goes with being back on normal milk after having 2 days of soy and see if he's better.  But I really do think that he's been better and happier after having the soy for 2 days, he seems cheerful and happy and he's sleeping well!  I was a bit worried about his poos but I guess we'll worry about that later... see how these two days go.  He'll be at Michelle's for 2 days on normal formula so we'll see how his poos are - maybe his bout of diarrhoea ages ago threw his bowel flora out of whack and he just needed a rest.  Wonder if his bowel flora came back though....

I think I might do another experiment and start giving alternating lactose free milk and lactose milk during the day.  All I want to do is have him sleep well overnight!  And not have poo in his nappy waking him up.

A blue moon! This has never happened before!

Yesterday Julian woke up at 530am and he had NO POO in his nappy!  And he didn't poo until after he had some breakfast!  I have no idea what made that happen but I wish it would happen again!  The only thing I can think of is that the night before that I gave him only bread to eat (but it was only a small amount).  Maybe bread doesn't make so much poo...

... because last night I gave him rice and bread and we're back to 445am poos again.

Mum also thinks that Julian may be have an intolerance to the milk.  I changed to Nurture to see if it made any difference but really I should change to a lactose free formula.  And see if that makes a difference.  Geez, lactose free formulas are expensive!  I'll have to go get some today.

Medical fees - how my colleagues embarrass me

Medical fees must be one of the most unregulated, outrageous things ever.  For some reason shopping around with medical fees is not like shopping around for a car or your groceries - people seem to think that once you have one that's it.  But it amazes me sometimes how much people charge and what they can get away with.

It started with my parents a few years ago when they had a colonoscopy.  Mum told me that the colonoscopy cost $2000 and the anaesthetic was $800!  I nearly fell of my chair.  That means that they were WAYYY out of pocket.  I gapcover all my scopes, because they're such quick procedures, you'll make good money already.  But $800! For a 20 minute anaesthetic?  Maybe 30 minutes?  I mean really does anyone think they're worth $1600-$2400 an hour???  And what makes them better than me?

On Tuesday we were discussing fees and what people charge (amongst my anaesthetic colleagues).  At the San (Private hospital in Northern Sydney) a relative of one of my colleagues was $700 out of pocket for a knee scope!  And they're with Medibank Private!  Which means that the knee scope probably cost close to $1000 for the anaesthetic alone!  My fee is less than half of that!  So do people REALLY think (patients that is) that they're getting a better anaesthetic for that ridiculous price?  I do post op follow ups, I am considerate and caring and I give plenty of advice about what to do for pain relief after the operation and what to expect.  I bet you half of these slack dogs don't even do that.  And nobody does a thing about it.  And some anaesthetists charge $1000 for an epidural IN HOURS! For labour pain.  And that is more than double my fee EASILY.  The things people get away with.  It's truly astonishing. 

Sometimes I feel like I should write an anonymous letter to the paper or Today Tonight or something looking at the price of medical bills.

Sometimes I am temped

Starcraft 2 is out!

Well finally Starcraft 2 is released!  I haven't had much time to play, having gone out and had meetings and so on but I have to tell you I'm pretty bad at playing Zerg - I keep getting wiped out!  I think I need to make a defensive team with offensive backup to start.  I was annoyed because I had so many network dropouts!  And I was winning one game too.

Julian unwell again... is he ever healthy?

Julian came down with some febrile illness last weekend, and was rather miserable. It turned into diarrhoea by Tuesday and Wednesday and on Thursday was really lethargic and off his food. Even my nanny was worried, she called me about him, just to let me know but didn't think he needed to go to hospital or anything. Anyway yesterday he was looking a bit better, more chirpy but still miserable and he came out in an all over body rash spotty thing. Measles looking but I don't think it's that, I'm not exactly sure what it is. But I haven't been able to catch any poos, they're all going in the nappies. And I feel bad because I've been throwing nappies into the bin with poo in them, when I should at least spray them off. And the amount of disposables we're using... geez my environmental conscience is yelling at me! Though it is a lot easier to get rid of diarrhoea poo that way...

Oh and I have diagnosed it! He has Roseola infantum. Also known as 6th disease. Starts off with fever and when fever breaks they get a rash all over their trunk and spreads to arms, legs and face. Says the fever can last 3-7 days and the rash a few hours to a few days. It came on pretty quick the rash. Hopefully it will fade just as fast.

Poor Julian has such a red bottom from his frequent poos. Looks so sore!

My laugh of the day - Orthopaedics vs Anaesthesia

First electricity bill after solar rebate

Oh I forgot to mention I got my first electricity bill after having the solar panels installed and the meter in place.  My electricity bill was $18.57!  Now the interesting thing was that it was all from late fees... because I forgot to pay my last electricity bill on time.  Solar rebate got me back $409.67 (602kWh @ 68c).  And we used 2091kWh.  So that was really good!

Mobile monster-baby

Geez Julian is climbing everywhere!  He is climbing the stairs, getting up the bookshelf (!!) and pulling books out - yesterday he was standing on a bucket pulling things off the bookshelf.  He does like to stand at the printer and the windowsill and also at the table.

Converted the trike back into a walker for him though unfortunately Erika seems to like "helping" which is basically pushing the walker along for him which of course is too fast and he falls flat on his face!

It was only last week that I put him in that space around the staircase - I have the gate around it so I thought well he can't go up, and he's contained by the fence so he can't go anywhere.  I went to the toilet and then I heard Ivan yelling my name, so I came out and saw that Julian had made it up to the third step!  On the weekend Ivan decided to see how far he could go and he managed to go up the whole flight of stairs!  He got stuck on the top step because he couldn't get over the safety gate edge.

Now Julian is constantly standing in his cot.  I wonder how long it will be before I have to lower the cot.  If he climbs this much he probably could get over the cot edge before long.