English A&E

You know how in the US we call the Emergency Room the ER? Well, in England the official name is the Accident and Emergency centre, and everyone calls it the A&E. We had our first A&E experience here on Sunday night...

I guess it actually started Saturday morning, when I woke up with a weird cramp in the back of my right knee. It was painful enough throughout the day that I was limping during our stroll in the country, and I felt quite nauseated from the pain. I tried stretching and rubbing it and moving different directions and finally keeping still. It didn't subside or change, no matter what I did. I took some aspirin before bed and woke up with the same pain Sunday morning. Weird. All through church and all afternoon it continued to ache and throb without subsiding much.

By evening, Brian and I were both quite concerned. Our main worry was that it might be a blood clot. We read online about clot symptoms and were further concerned. Then, I happened to talk to my brother, Blaine, who actually HAD a blood clot on Friday night and was treated in his local ER! He described his symptoms and that was enough to convince us we better get mine checked out. So, at 10.45pm we woke up Sammie and headed off to our local A&E. What an experience!

As you probably know, health care in the UK is free -- even the A&E, thanks to heavy taxes that fund the national health system (NHS). I can't draw a direct correlation, but I am personally biased toward the belief that the "free" system encourages some less favorable people and circumstances to attend the A&E on a Sunday night, at least that was our case. We were surrounded by stench and filth. The whole room felt more like a crowded bus terminal than a hospital. Hard metal chairs, dirty floors, and unfriendly staff were a few of the less pleasant items. There was a crowd of four or five middle-aged men waiting to be treated who were obviously fully inebriated; one had a very disgusting carpenter's crack, two others were tattooed and shirtless, all were muttering unintelligible comments about their various needs and the lack of service. Poor Sammie who was awake waaay past her bed time, kept squirming in her car seat, struggling to get out and crawl around on a less-than-clean floor; we didn't let her, so she got even more frustrated.

After waiting for about 45 minutes, a male nurse brought me into a back room, where he took my temperature, pulse and blood pressure. He then told me a doctor would eventually have a look at my leg and if they thought it was blood clot, they'd probably arranged to run a scan in the morning. In the MORNING?? Then what in the WORLD were we doing there at midnight??! We waited a further forty minutes, being entertained by the drunk crew and a little girl who had succeeded in crawling around in the filth despite her mother's and fellow onlookers' comments about how dirty it was. Still no doctor. I finally got fed up and told Brian to take us home.

Instead we drove to another hospital with a different A&E, where a much more attentive nurse gave me an initial examination -- including feeling my leg and asking me questions about my pain and my general health-- and assured me she didn't think it was blood clot. She said I could wait to be seen by a doctor there, but it would be a couple of hours, as they were very busy that night. Since it was already 2 a.m., I opted to go home and let Brian and Sammie (and me) get a few hours of sleep. First thing Monday morning, I went to the doctor's office and got an official diagnosis from the doctor on call. No, it's not a blood clot. It looks as though I've strained the ligaments on the back of knee. One of the doctor's first questions to me was, "Have you recently walked up and down a lot of stairs, carrying Samantha?" Ahhh... the stairs, once again.

Anyway, that whole A&E experience was something interesting, and something I don't wish to repeat!

Sharing Time

Our second counselor in the Primary, Sister Shah, is from the Philipines. She has one little boy in nursery whom she would like to be with, rather than in Primary, most of the time. It's a bit of a struggle for her to work with the kids because it's sometimes hard for them to understand her accent. Also, she has a hard time getting on their level sometimes.

I asked her to do the sharing time this Sunday, and thought it best to give her some explicit instructions what to do. She was very appreciative and agreed that I should send her an email with some "ideas." So... I looked online for some ideas, then gave her three very good suggestions that would go well together. One idea was a treasure hunt for some scriptures that were wrapped to look like a treasure, then we'd talk about why the scriptures are a treasure for us. The instructions mentioned preparing a large word strip with the word "treasure" to help us think about the things we treasure.

Well, the kids enjoyed the treasure hunt alright, and found the scriptures nicely wrapped with a big ribbon in the back of the room. As one of the children picked up the package, Sister Shah got quite enthusiastic and encouraged, "Now, STRIP the treasure!" I was a bit puzzled by her wording, as were most of the children. Strip?? The girl holding the package hesitated, so Sister Shah further prompted her, "strip off the paper, unwrap it." The girl unwrapped it and (ah ha!) it was the scriptures. It was about that time that I noticed Sister Shah's poster up on the board -- a bright yellow sign with the word "STRIP" written in bright yellow letters. Ooops. I guess I just assumed she'd know what a word strip was, but instead, she thought I meant to write the word "STRIP" on a poster. Ahh... the nuances of language. Oh well, the kids just ignored it, and we had a good laugh about it later.

Happy Anniversary

Yesterday was our two year wedding anniversary! Hard to believe it's passed so quickly, and also hard to believe we've only been married for two years. We celebrated last night with flowers, cards and dinner at a little Italian restaurant close to home. We feel very blessed in our marriage. Or maybe I should just speak for myself and say that I feel very blessed to have such a wonderful, tender, loving husband as Brian always is. He brings such peace and excitement to my life.

Anyway, we decided to take advantage of Saturday to have a pre-celebration time. I told Brian I wanted to surprise him with a day outing to someplace special. For months now, I've been wanting to go South, to a place call Camber Sands beach and resort. I found it on a map last summer and have been keeping it a secret as a fun surprise for us sometime. As I started making plans for us to go there, I saw on the map there's also a castle nearby called Camber Castle! How cool is that?! I think it's in ruins, but I thought it would still be so much fun to see it.

Well, before you get all excited for us, let me just tell you now that we didn't end up going. Sad, sad. Because of a tricky schedule during the week, I ended up having to move my visiting teaching to Saturday morning. Brian and I went together to visit this sister in our ward and her three kids. After an hour or so visiting and playing with the kids, we were off -- still trying to go for my surprise, even though we were getting quite a late start. We got on the highway headed out of town, and traffic was bumper to bumper. It took us 20 minutes or so just to go a couple of miles. We were just about to the exit to get to the motorway (ie. freeway) when I reached in the back seat to get a bottle out of Samantha's bag for her, only to discover we'd accidentally left her bag at home!! We turned around (it was already near 1 p.m.) and headed for home, with bumper traffic all the way back.

By the time we got home, I had shed some tears in the sweltering hot car, and Brian was wondering why I was so disappointed. I had to ruin the surprise and tell him about Camber Castle, and why it was such a big deal to me, since I'd been planning it for sooo long, waiting for just the right moment. Well, I pouted while we ate the picnic lunch we had packed on our living room couch and fed Sammie some lunch. Then I resolved to not let it ruin any more of our day, and we made a good Plan B, which turned out to be a very fun afternoon!

We first went to Costco, where we got 100+ pictures developed and I got a new shirt and Brian got two new jackets. Then we drove out in the country to go on a walk. Brian bought us a fabulous little book called "Country walks near London," which we were able to use for the first time. We parked in a little village called Berkensted and set off to see the ruins of a castle, and a huge manor house. In the book the walk encompassed a six mile loop. It sounded like fun.

The castle was easy to find -- we parked very close to it. It seems like they kind of built the town around it, actually. After taking a picture, we set off through some fields to find the mansion house. One fascinating thing about England is that they have public footpaths that cross the countryside everywhere. The one we were on crossed right through people's fields, pastures and farms. It also wound us through woods and meadows -- very lovely.

Brian put Samantha in a little backpack that he wore on his chest. She googled at all the ferns and fields for quite awhile before getting sleepy and taking a little snooze. We were amazed at how happy and good-natured she was the entire trip. She never even realized how LOST we got... According to our little map, our route wound through some lovely woods for quite awhile and then met up with a road for a bit before turning left toward the mansion house. Well, we walked and walked and walked through the woods and finally came to the road. Which way to turn? On the map it looked like we should go left, so we did. I kept telling Brian it felt like we should be heading a different way, to the point where he finally said, "I think maybe your compass is a little off today, Kam." More walking, walking, walking (like 2 or 3 miles more) and we finally ended up at a golf course. I examined our map only to discover the golf course was PAST the manor, in a weird opposite direction. How in the world?!? Well, we walked through the golf course and then walked some more and finally came to a spot that I recognized! We'd done a complete circle, without ever seeing the mansion. Oh well... so we turned around and walked back out of the woods. We never did find the manor, until we got back to our car and drove to it. We're both still puzzled about what route we'd taken! Might have to try that walk again another day.

Some more Sammie picts

Every morning when we go to get Samantha out of her crib, we open her door and see these two little eyes peeking up over the top of her crib. She just sits there waiting for us to come get her. Even if she's not awake when we first open her door, she stretches, rolls to her tummy, and peeks up at us. cutie.

We've rigged up Samantha's little booster chair so it's attached to a folding chair that we keep in our kitchen. She's such a big girl now, and loves eating from her "high chair." The first time I put her in the chair with the tray in front of her, she couldn't stop pounding the tray for five minutes! She now eats lots of vegetables and some fruits, as well as rice, oatmeal, and wheat porridge. Her new favorite is a little dry, sugarless cookie called a rusk. It looks a bit like a snickerdoodle, but tastes more like cardboard. She also enjoys a little teething "stick" called a bickiepeg. It is made from wheat flour and is about as hard as one of those fake dog bones. She can chew on it for hours. Today she tried a bit of spaghetti for the first time. She didn't really enjoy it -- preferred to suck off the sauce and spit the bits of noodle on her bib and on the floor and on me.

Past my bedtime -- a catchup journal entry

Well, it's almost 1 a.m. but I'm still awake (barely) so I thought I'd write a little bit. I like the way this kind of feels like I'm keeping a journal, but then Alicia can comment whenever she logs on! Cool! (Sidenote: that's just like high school, when Kerri and Amber really DID read my journal whenever they could find it.)

Okay, so my highlights for the last few days/weeks:
* My birthday was such a fun day for me! Brian was so sweet to surprise me with a very fun evening and day. First thing in the morning, he made me a chocolate cake, which we iced and ate later that night. He asked me to get a sitter for Sam, then he met me at the Tube station after work and took me to dinner at our favourite Japanese restaurant, where he gave me a perfect birthday card that made me cry. Then he took me to a show, but he wouldn't tell me what it was until we got there. He knows I really like Frank Sinatra music, so we went to the Frank Sinatra show, which was awesome! It had all this swingy music and fun dancing and a band. Goooood times! Mainly it was just so nice to enjoy a relaxing, fun evening with Brian. (oh, and the air conditioning REALLY added to the ambiance.) A great surprise and a lovely memory for my 31st.

* I think Sam must be teething, but I really have no idea how I'm supposed to tell. Wouldn't it be nice if she could just say, "Excuse me, Mommy, but my mouth is really sore so I'm a bit uneasy today." That's what's been happening to Samantha this week. She's been a doll at times, and then a frustrated little chica at other times. It might just be the heat, I guess? But there were a couple of days this week where I just got so frustrated because she seemed so irritable and inconsolable. I keep feeling in her mouth (which she just loves... sarcastically) but no news of the little chompers yet. She's gone from being a supergood eater last week to being a "I refuse rice and fruit" eater. The girl would rather just live on vegetables and the occasional biscuit/cookie this week. Oh, and yogurt, we started yogurt this week, which she likes. I'm hoping this is just a phase and that she'll be craving her rice and porridge like usual come next week!

* My very good friend, Joyce, just had a baby girl last week -- right on my birthday. And, guess what they named her? Samantha! (I'm sure it was a birthday gift to me, eh?) How cool is that? And how confusing when I went to visit her yesterday and we were both sharing Baby Sam stories about our two girls! Her Baby Sam has loads of dark brown wavey hair that sticks up everywhere. It was fun to hold that tiny baby yesterday all afternoon and just remember that this overgrown seven-month-old of ours used to be that itty bitty too! Amazing!

* We finally have more guests visiting us... it's been several months since our last company! Brian's Aunt Suzanne and her two daughters stayed with us last night. They're taking a two week tour of England, Scotland and Wales, and start and end the tour at our place. Kinda fun. Today we spent the afternoon shopping, which was so much fun for me. I think they were worn out completely, but I really enjoyed it all! Samantha was an angel baby and just sat in her stroller enjoying the crowds and shops. One not-so-pleasant thing... on the bus on the way home, the lady standing next to Sam's stroller started talking to her and playing with her. After a few minutes, the lady put out a finger, which Samantha happily took. As all good seven-month-olds like to do, before long she pulled the finger up to her mouth to have a good suck! Kay, so, when Sam starts to suck my finger, I gently pull it away and tell her it's best to suck on something a bit cleaner, right? Well, this total stranger did NOT do that! She just let our little Sam start slobbering away at first one, then two, then three of her fingers. Ummm... what do we do?? Well, both Brian and I looked at each other with slightly disturbed faces, then just kind of let it be. How weird. Oh well.

Okay, I need to sleep now. But I feel like I've given a good little update. Now I'll add a couple more pictures, even though they have nothing to do with my write-up. One is of Sam poking her head up over her crib -- her usual greeting to us in the morning whenever we open her door to see if she's awake. The other is of her first meal in the highchair booster seat. She's an old pro by now, but last week it was exciting enough that she banged on the tray for a good five minutes while I got her lunch ready! hmmm... maybe not on the picts. I can't seem to get them to load this time. Oh well. I'll try again later.

g'night.

Some pictures

Okay, I'm going to try to add some pictures to this blog. One is of Sam and Brie together at my parents' house while we were home. Then one of Sam sitting up by herself at Randi's house in Seattle. Then one of Randi in her mother's silky moomoo, getting the mail. Then one of Sam eating an orange that she peeled all by herself! I'll see if those work then maybe I'll try some more in a while.

Hot Hot and HOTTER!

London has been MELTING these past couple of weeks. Or scorching, or burning, or whatever you want to imagine when I say HOTTTTTT! Last Wednesday the temp was 96 degrees, with about 98 percent humidity -- a record that hadn't been beat since 1926. That may not sound really horrible to those of you with dry heat, but imagine having the feeling of a hot steamy, sticky shower on TOP of the ovenlike temps. Oh why do we not believe in air conditioner in this country??

I spent a couple of days last week investigating different cool-down possibilities. First I thought maybe Sam and I could just spend all day at the library near by. Nope. No AC in there, so it's almost as hot as our oven we call home. So then I thought maybe shopping? Well, we went to the HomeBase store (like Home Depot). No AC. A restaurant. No AC. A grocery store. Yes, there was AC in the grocery store, but there's only so much you can do in a grocery store before your little girl gives you the "c'mon, let's get out of here" signals (ie. boystrous whimpering and growling).

We tried to buy a fan. They were sold out at HomeBase. Also sold out at Tesco. According to a friend, it's possible to order online, but we'd have to wait 21 days till they're back in stock!! So, we've got our little 12 inch oscillating fans -- one for our room and one for Sammie's room. Our's is perched at the end of our bed and has been on for the last 100+ hours without a break. Sammie's is crooning over her crib, but I'm afraid the bumper stops it from being really effective with her. She sleeps in just a onesie, and sometimes just her diaper. I've started sleeping with a wet washcloth on my head. I don't think it really helps, but it has a nice placebo effect, I guess?

On the news they've been saying London is officially in a drought WORSE than Sudan! There's a hosepipe ban, which means anyone caught using their garden/lawn hoses to water flowers or grass will be fined something atrocious. I guess that's one reason to be greatful we're on the top floor flat, with no greenery to our charge. One lady in our ward says she's trying to keep her flowers alive using a water can from the house. It takes her an hour every evening just to water everything!

Anyway, such is life in Londontown. Like the rest of the city, I'm praying for rain. Now, please.

Jet Lag

My friend Alicia once teased me about having jet lag for months after a brief trip to Europe. Here I am, five days home from the States, and I feel like a slug. Yesterday I took a nap from 10 till 1 pm. Then last night I was awake from 2 am to 6 am. I almost told Brian to bring home a pregnancy test because I felt so lousy yesterday. Sammie has it too -- couldn't fall asleep for ages last night. When I finally checked on her (during my 2 to 6 spell) she had completely turned upside-down in her crib, with her feet where her head normally is. Poor thing. Anyway, today we're helping a friend pack -- her movers are coming tomorrow and she needs help keeping the twins out of the way.

Sunny Sunday, July 9

I'm sitting in our bedroom watching the sun reflect on the wind-blown leaves on our trees outside the window. I keep getting up to wipe Sam's runny nose, since she and I both seem to have developed a cold coming home from the States this past week. Brian is downstairs preparing our FHE lesson. Welcome home, all of London seems to say to me. It was nice to be visiting family for the whole month of June, and nice to come home to Brian. I'll give some trip highlights and photos later, if this works out alright.