This morning we leave for our holiday. DH got up early so he could go in to the hospital and do a ward round and maybe a bit of the emergency clinic before we head off, because he is a nice chap and they are a doctor short at the moment as one of the team has some health issues (DH dreamt last night that he had died- luckily he is not one of those people whose dreams always seem to come true). Plus the third doctor (of four) is still on holiday until Monday – so today there is one guy doing the work of four. [Which is also why Dh offered to stay on call Tuesday, Wednesday and last night as well].
I heard the coffee machine go on at 6.30. At 7 am I heard the ambulance go past on the highway. I got up and DH was just sitting down to his eggs and mushrooms on toast. I said “I’m glad you’re having breakfast now, I just heard the ambulance go past” and then the phone rang as the words left my mouth. [When you are the Dr on call overnight, and there is an emergency before 9 am the next day, you are still in the driver’s seat].
He scoffed down the rest of his breakfast rapidly and left without remembering to turn off the coffee machine. Someone has shot themselves, and is still alive. God, how horrible. I told him what an awful thing this is for him to have to go and see, and deal with, right now. I don’t know how he does it, I really don’t. And what is more strange is that he was very disturbed by our watching of the first series of Dexter this week. Very disturbed. I found I wasn’t bothered at all by that blood and gore and the fact of people being ruthlessly killed (I think also because of my childhood trauma – which was by no means as severe as Dexter’s, and thus I am not quite as emotionally retarded!- that the feeling part of my brain is quite dampened and although I feel for myself, it is harder for me to feel for others, and almost impossible for me to feel for fictional characters).
So I said, “it’s weird how you are so bothered by serial killers on TV but you can go off to a real scene where a real person has shot off the back of their real head (or whatever, we don’t know the details at this stage), and be the one to clean up that real blood and gore and deal with the real fallout.” He said “Yeah, I can do that. But I don’t like serial killers”. (Bless him). Whereas, I think that real scene would be the thing that jolted my emotional centres, and would haunt and disturb me for a long time to come. How can you witness that, be in charge of trying to save a person’s life, and sew them back up, and not be affected? I could watch Wire in The Blood until the cows came home, but resuscitate a baby who has almost drowned in the bath? No way.
I guess there is some element of having power in such situations, sometimes, anyway. The power of saving a life, of being in control, the rush you must feel when you bring someone back from the brink and they get to live longer. But not always. Sometimes they still die. I couldn’t handle that. In the way that I feel powerless to control my babies dying. It would eat me up. If I even got that far. I think I would more likely just freeze and panic and have an anxiety attack if I was confronted with an emergency situation. I hope I never am. I’ll stick to the serial killers and DH can keep his day job.
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Well that was cheerful wasn’t it? How about some light relief now?
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So, speaking of freezing, I have been searching for a large upright freezer for a long time. Maybe two years. Thinking, researching, saving the money. On Monday I finally bought one, and it was delivered on Wednesday with much debacle. Their truck broke down, then they had to get a replacement truck and reload it with all the other customer’s products, and hence they were very late in arriving and I waited in the whole day (of course), and missed out on my weekly walking group (which meets at 4pm). THEN they couldn’t find my house, taking about 40 mins from when they first phoned to confirm the directions, to when they turned up. THEN their truck was SO HUGE it wouldn’t fit down my driveway and I had to drive our ute up to the main track, where we reloaded the freezer into the back of my vehicle and drove it down to the house that way. Meanwhile, as one of the nice chaps was helping me fit it into the laundry (temporary home while the harvest shed gets constructed) the grumpy driver was busy getting his massive truck stuck between a tree and bogging his front wheels, trying to do a 3,5,7? point turn at the top of the track.
I phoned DH at work at 5pm and warned him there could be a problem with him getting home, and he might want to go around the back way. He arrived about half an hour later saying he’d witnessed the gargantuan truck reversing up the track towards the main road, the wheels slipping uselessly on the loose gravel as it attempted to breach the last lip of the hill. One of our neighbours must have been driving by just in the nick of time, because he had his ute chained to the back of the truck and was kind of hoisting it the rest of the way. DH said it looked hilarious. I bet the chaps weren’t laughing. My job took them well over an hour and it wasn’t the last delivery of the day. Sigh. That’s what you get, living in the back roads of the country…
But anyway, I GOT ME A FREEZER!! Can’t play with it yet, as I’m about to go on holiday, but it is installed, and I have been into the laundry several times expressly just to admire it. Once I have it stocked with the lamb my parents are offering us; half a baby goat; the ice cream machine and associated products, gallons of chicken stock, snap frozen broad beans/broccoli/peas etc; slow roasted tomatoes; freezer packs, LOTS of ice for summer cocktails and Lordy knows what else I can squeeze in – I’ll post a pic. Might not be until the end of summer, when I have lots of summer veg to store, and you’ll have forgotten all about my wondrous freezer, but I’ll post it. And then you will see. How it has revolutionised my world. Oh yes. Our fridge freezer can breathe again. We can stop having to rearrange every item each time we want to put one container of leftovers in it, or I make a new batch of stock, or DH buys a new bag of coffee before the last one has finished. Happy days.
Um, did I mention I am about to go on HOLIDAY??? I am sure you can imagine just how badly I am in need of this getaway relaxing break. And isn’t it nice that no-one has mentioned, this time, how if I go on holiday I might find myself pregnant when I get back? Thank God. Or I would have had to punch them in the nose. But still. It’s nice to have a tiny bit of stupid-comment-free-time, even if you do have to lose a child to get it.
I have already booked us a 2.5hr massage for the second day, and we intend many more of that kind of thing. But the warmth. Oh the warmth in my bones. That is what I am aching for [have I ever mentioned my (at least 2 yrs old now) dream of the infra red sauna? We don’t have one because they cost about 6 grand. But I dream, baby, I dream] – oh to release the coldness from my bones. Darwin for the next three days? Sunny, warm, 33 celsius. Mmm mmmmm. Here? Overnight temps of between 1 and 5, daytime tops of between 12 and 17. Yeah. You KNOW what I’m talking about.
Bring. It. On.
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