First week back at work is finished. It went rather ok, although it was sometimes a bit uncomfortable. Still not completely recovered since the nurse still has to come by daily. The outside of the wound isn’t healing properly so she thinks when I go to the hospital for a checkup next week they’ll have to stitch it shut … brrr I hate needles ! But in general things are ok, I guess that’s the main thing
Katrien however isn’t. She’s been having problems with one of her wrists lately. When I was just operated she had to pull me up from the bed because I couldn’t by myself. That was the last straw the wrist needed to go into completely decline. She’s had some doctors look at it and has to stay home for at least 3 weeks. Next week they are going to inject some liquid in it to see just how bad it is. So it’s possible she has to stay home even longer.

On to good news, weather here in Belgium is really sunny and we have a long weekend ahead of us. Tonight I’m going to Arwen’s and the next 2 days I’m going to spend with Katrien. No real plans yet though, we’ll see what pops into our minds.

Talking about the weather, a few days ago the weather here wasn’t so great. Giant storm with hail bigger than chicken eggs. Our cars are a mess, full of dents on the hood, roof and trunk. Luckily we both have full coverage. It’ll be a hassle to get it fixed though as the waiting lists are loooooooooooong. A friend of mine’s roof is full of holes, not so pleasant :s I guess we did find out our roof is decent quality, good test.

Oh yeah I had evaluation at work this week and it went fine. Guess the bosses are still happy to have me. Must be my charming personality They did sort of insist again to get Microsoft certified though, so I’m going to be working on that in the future.

Time to head off to Arwen’s, laters !

The road to recovery has been a bit longer than we (the docs and I) first thought. Last week I went to the hospital for a checkup and apparently I was healing slower than expected and had to stay home for another week. However things are looking up now, I just talked to the nurse and today should be the last day where they have to put stuff in me (I won’t elaborate). I’ll finally be able to walk like a normal human being again instead of a penguin, good times ahead ! Will be good to be out of the house a bit more, it’s slowly driving me crazy(er).

Not much else to tell really, except I got a new toy to keep myself entertained from the couch: an MSI Wind. It’s a netbook (like there are a dozen these days) but it’s the best buy I could find spec and price wise. Perfect for surfing a bit from the couch, my new kingdom for the past 2 weeks

Well I went to the surgeon on Wednesday and as I feared he choose the last option: operate with long recovery. And apparently it had become urgent since he wanted to operate the next day.

So on Thursday morning I went to the hospital and by noon they sedated me for the surgery. Whoever doses the anaesthetic there knows what he’s doing, I’ve never had such a well timed one. I woke up only 2 hours after the operation and didn’t feel groggy at all. In fact I felt rather good.

So in the evening I walked around, sat down, laid down, all without a problem. I was looking at my recovery without much worry. Then in the middle of the night the anaesthetic wore off entirely.

I could elaborate on how crappy I felt during the night and the following morning but I’ll just say that it was really bad. I couldn’t sit, lay down or stand up without almost crying. Painkillers weren’t doing anything. I didn’t sleep at all. In the morning the nurse came to refresh my bandage and disinfect the wound. I screamed like a girl, it hurt so much (she sprayed the disinfectant right inside me). So much for easy recovery.

To end on a positive note, I do feel better now. Half an hour after the wound was cleaned the pain started to ease. The nurse came today and the treatment didn’t hurt as much either. I guess the first time is always the worst, so things can only get better. And now to hope I didn’t jinx it

The time for slowness and not much to talk about seems to have passed, whether or not this is a good thing I’ll leave in the middle.

I’ll start by giving a house update, the garden more specificly. Just like our neighbors at the back we hung up some straw / reed mats at the fence with them, so now it’s covered from both sides. We still need to do the same with the neighbors next door but the store was out of mats, so it’ll be something for in the near future. Also our grass has been sowed, you can see the first blades sticking out of the ground. Soon epic greenness !

I’m also going to shock everyone by announcing I’m going to a concert (and no, it’s not Celine Dion). Greenday is coming to Belgium in October and Katrien wanted to go. I’m not a super fan or anything but I like them more than enough to be interested. It’ll be a fun thing Katrien and I can go to together Not to mention they still charge normal prices (34 Euro) unlike some other bands.

There was also a bunch of board game / poker fun this week. On Tuesday I had Kristof, Geert, Dimi, Paul, Tom9 and Sven over for the monthly poker evening. And they sure did their best to not be on their best behavior They constantly turned up the volume of the radio to maximum (at 11pm), my neighbours will have been happy (no comments yet though) :p They also finished off my liquor supply and left the corks under the closet. Katrien was not amused, but oh well, it’s only 2 times a year
On Sunday I went to the guys for some Descent. We bought a whole lot of expansions (as you know since you vigorously read my blog) and we tried one out. Yes, only one, since it was Arwen’s first time as Evil Overlord and we didn’t want to swamp the poor guy with a zillion of new rules

Now for the bad news, remember how I was saying I had to keep switching antibiotics ? Well we’ve come to the point where the only thing it does is getting worse. The doctor (which was a cute female one this time) referred me to a surgeon. She first wanted to point me to the one I had last time (also known as ‘The Torturer’) but I kindly told her no thanks. Anyways I have an appointment with his colleague on Wednesday. He’s then going to decide on 1 of 3 possible course of actions (according to my doctor, so subject to change). In short they are:
- new antibiotics work splendidly, we do nothing (yeah right)
- we’re going to cut it open but it’s not really that infected anymore, so it shouldn’t bug you for more than 1 or 2 days
- we’re going to cut it open and it’s going to be a living hell for you for the next week or longer and you’re going to have to get health care at home (guess which is the most likely)

Did I mention I’m so looking forward to this … yeah I can’t remember saying that either :p

This is also the worst possible timing for this to happen, we have a major deadline at work in 3 weeks, so that really sucks. But I guess these things never come at a good time.

So well, more news soon, wish me luck …