I said it was going to be a busy week, but really....

Well, as it turned out, I was very busy this week; it was just very little of the above got done. I will apologise for the length now, because it's going to be a big one.

Monday; The day was at work, the night was shifting furniture, packing boxes and sorting half the house out for the painter.

Tuesday; was a normal day. Except I also had kinder duty. So, school, groceries, swimming, kinder, lunches, dinner etc. Night was moving furniture around, getting organised for my course the next day.

Wednesday; I did it. I got to the course, got the kids to school and everything was rosy. The course itself is really interesting and perfect for what I need. It also helped considerably that the teacher was very nice to look at.

Let me pretext what comes next by saying that Connor had grandparents day at school on Wednesday; and that mum and dad were going up there.

At about 2pm Mr nice looking told us to go have a break. I checked my phone and saw that one of the guys from work rang. So, I go downstairs and call him back.

'Hows your Dad?' he asks.
I ask him WTF he's talking about; he was meant to be at Connors Grandparents thing, so he might not have ended up coming in at all.
'Where are you' he asks.
'In the city on that course' I reply.
He then gets into a complete dither, apologising because he thought I was with him etc etc. My sense of urgency grows and I nearly spit at him "what the bloody hell is going on?"

I call mum who says 'he's not right'. He has tried to plug his disposable razor into a power point, can't get his shirt on and is trying to call work with the TV remote. He's slurring, dizzy and he's not right. She tells me not to bother coming home (yeah sure).

I tell nice looking man I have to go, as my father is sick. He's totally fine with it and I shoot home. Walk into mums and near on die myself. He looks completely vacant and can talk, but very VERY slowly.

It takes him forever to tell me that 'he's fine' and that he'd 'spin out' if I took him to hospital. So, I call 000 and explain the scene to them. By this point, we are nearly positive he's had a mild stroke. Ambos come (lovely people they are) and whisk him off to hospital with mum in tow. Connor, who was at mums, announces to no one in particular that 'poppy has gone to die now'. I nearly agreed with him. G picks up Connor and I head up there too.

Midnight. After 5 hours of triage, shambles and tests, we finally get a general diagnosis. encephalopathy. So, not a stroke. Mum and I leave at 1am at least relieved to know he's not had a stroke and that this attack of the crazies is probably not permanent. They ask him todays date a hundred times; each time it changes. March 1990, June 2000 etc. As the hours progress and the thiamin? is dripped through him, he becomes more and more coherent.

The next day at the public hospital, we walk in to find a group of interns grading his alcohol withdrawal. Not a big thing for a great number, I give you that, but I nearly burst into tears at the fact that we were back at the fucking start with this place. I crack the sads and call his specialist. Until this point, we had no idea exactly what it was. Now we know it's his liver, we'll call him. So we did, and Scott moved him out of the public, into our local private hospital. Even that took 5 hours; and I was already driving him there.

Where are we now? Well, he's much better. He's had more tests done, another ultrasound and a CTG to measure any brain damage, which has come back OK. The ultrasound/Xray was only done yesterday evening, so we don't quite know if it's all gotten worse or not yet. But, he's coherent, looking much better and Scott thinks that it was all caused by a combination of lack of B12, constipation and (due to the constipation) a build up of ammonia, which likes to get rid of B12. And no B12 can make people go crazy; especially liver patients who have no B12 in reserve.

Where am I now? Sitting in a brothel of a house. The kids just barely made it a normal week, although no homework got done (for the first time this year). In addition to all of the above, Riley got 'buddy bear' to take home this week. I think 'Buddy bear' will be going to Auskick and the hospital and that's about it.

My sister called the place where I had my course and they are more than happy for me to start the course again; which was a nice little relief. Not that it mattered, but I'd have liked to have finished it. Now I get that chance.

The painter has been fantastic. Left him a key, he's painted and it has all come up well. At least that's one good thing that happened this week.