New images have been uploaded under Isabelle!

So anywho, it’s been an interesting few days.

Things look like they are progressing for the Amnesty soc’s mental health campaign in April. We’ve been talking to the Drama soc about maybe doing a mental health themed play when we’re doing the campaign, so the bigger we can amke this the better and funner it’s going to be. It’ll be a bit odd doing the campaign again for me personally since it was the campaign that got me into Amnesty back in Secondary school, even though it wasn’t a camapaign for schools. We’re trying to get SU onboard with us and we want to have eye-catching professional looking posters made up, so that’s going to be alot of fun. 🙂 Still looking into a play for the drama soc. Someone I know recommended ‘4.48 Pyschosis’ by Sarah Kane, but now I have to find a copy of it. Ah well. Can’t wait to see the Drama Soc’s Masquerade next month, and Sky One have dramatised The Colour of Magic for Easter. Yahoo, Terry Pratchett month!

The competition in Cork has been and gone and I’ve made some new friends in some of the other clubs and I’ve been alerted to more flaws in how I fence. Fortunately I’ve gotten some good constructive criticisms so when I can train again I’ll know what to work on. Why I’ve said “when I can train again” is because It would appear that these flaws have hurt my back. Or me just being a dipshit as usual has hurt it.

When I got home on Sunday night my back was a bit sore, though no worse than my legs or my arms or my hips. So I had my customary post-competition bath in the hopes that it would help ease my limbs. Oddly enough it’s worked before but it did little to help my back. Anywho I didn’t give it much more thought and went to bed. I spent most of teh nigth asleep on my stomach and everytime I rolled over I woke up in pain. Now this wouldve been a good time to start thinking there was something odd wrong with me. but nope, dense as a plank I didn’t give it more thought until Monday, when I spent most of the day trying to subdue the worsening pain in my back with Anadin and hotwater bottles. Neither the heat nor the painkillers helped and trying to stretch out my back brought me close to tears. So by 8 yesterday I was in so much pain that my mother persuaded me to take some of her arthritis meds to kill the pain. I took one and it brought a lovely fuzzy feeling, but still left a pinching feeling in the left side of my lower back. She also persuaded me to go to the doctor today, and it turns out I’ve pinched a nerve so I’m on prescription painkillers for the next two weeks, I can’t train and I can’t spend too long sitting down (which is clearly where I went wrong yesterday).
I’m going to an 18th birthday thing on Friday, and I wasn’t going to have more than two or three drinks, but now with the painkillers I won’t be able to drink at all. I guess my good behavior during the weekend of one drink on the first night and one drink with the meal on the second night should help.

Not much else to write about really. I managed to fuck up yesterday in regards to notifying everyone that training was off. Those who I could tell got notified at the last minute and some people didn’t even get told, so I feel prettty bad about that, but all I can do is make sure it doesn’t happen again. So I’m going to make sure I have contact numbers and email addresses for everyone, so next time training is cancelled I can send them a text and an email and I’ll be making sure they get more notice. Here’s hoping that not too many people are pissed at me. I know there’s at least one who’ll probably kick up a fuss tomorrow, but what else can I do but apologise and work to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I’m not even sure it’s my responsibility to notify people of training cancellation. Isn’t it the secretary’s job since they do correspondence? And she’s have the lists of everyone’s names and contact info, but then I didn’t tell her that training was off and that I needed her to do that. So either way it’s still my mistake. Ah well. Learn and move on I guess.

Yesterday there was a plan. I go and work with Steve, help him with his laptop and come home. DW (darling wife) and I were going to make the kids dinner and dispatch them to the basement with a movie then. At this point DW and I would take over the kitchen and do our best to have a date, without leaving the house. I have been feeling somewhat disconnected and the time with DW would help to give us time together.

Well as I get home last night little G has damaged his ankle and I am now off to the ER. I can’t describe how annoyed I was last night over this. I had not eaten well and if I had eaten anything in a hurry I would have felt worse than I already did. So we took in him expecting to be told he had broken his ankle, foot, leg or something.

So after a little waiting and some x-rays we find they can’t see a break, and that if there is damage to the growth plate then we have to wait and see. So G has a boot on from the ER and we have to wait and see where we go with this.

So last night was a bust. I got some sleep last night and feel better but am still irritated. I hope he learns to be more careful as I don’t have the ability to keep up with how often we do this. 3 weeks ago I was in the same hospital for the dramatic birth of my daughter. — No more hospitals please folks!

–> You need to laugh so here is one of the better Matrix parodies. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfLJsCkScks

My sister I love her and here is a song for her http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=859idkaOK0k&feature=related 

For St. Patricks Day http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCbuRA_D3KU 

Pulp Fiction http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSvJwUFI_es

Star Wars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl4Hggd8QJo

Banana Sharpener: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ayQelkb1uk&feature=related

So okay here is a fun story for you. I had a friend ask me to perform a wedding ceremony for him and his future wife. So what a great honour to be asked! So muggins has done some research and the culmination of my research is I am now Reverend. Yes you hear it I can use the title Rev on my stuff from now on!

You know that is worthy of note! So okay folks life truly has some fun turns! So remember if you need someone to match you, dispatch you or your loved ones, call McLovin!.

Okay my eldest son is 9! Not sure where the other few years went, but he is 9. Scary fact here folks. So here we are one new addition to the family at the start of the week and him and his birthday at the end of the week. How else would be better to end the week.

There are always two sides to each story, and then again perhaps more. For the birth of our daughter there are two sides. My wife who gave birth and provided her own OBGYN service and there is my version, the one of the husband. To hear my wife recount the story it sounds quite amazing, there is a high speed car chase, there is drama, suspense, hallmark moments and a miracle. Effectively an Oxygen made for TV movie. For me and my version, well, we may need to air that home movie on the Playboy channel.

Monday morning at around 5AM MST my wife woke me to tell me she was having contractions. I am told the key to a healthy marriage is good communication. However what I don’t remember was the piece on when to communicate this and if there were any rules to good times to do so. So I woke up and started to prep myself for the event ahead. I took care of something for work, charged my cell and started to gather what I would need to survive the next 24 – 48 hours.

My wife had packed her bag weeks, potentially decades ago and now was my turn to do same. It was simple, laptop, ipod, power cables, phone charger, cash and the all important wireless card for the laptop. Ready to face anything I was shortly confronted with anything en-mass. My wife called her family and asked for them to come over. The request and everything else did not seem to hold a sense of urgency at all. It was more like a general invitation to afternoon tea, something, whenever. Around the 6 AM mark the sense became urgent, we called and they were en route. En route was not good enough, so I called a neighbor and asked them to come and sit the kids.

The cavalry arrived and I could take Juls to the hospital. We can insert the dramatic high speed car chase here. I followed any car at a brisk speed with words of encouragement from my wife and a dire need to be there. So I decided to slip stream a FEDEX truck heading in the direction of the hospital, who was in turn attempting to slip stream a truck of people who were heading to the construction site of the hospital. So here we are all participating in a bizarre convoy to the hospital.

After turning into the drive it turned into driving miss daisy and slower than snot uphill. The FEDEX truck moved as I lay on my car horn. This left me with the construction people who then parked on the road into the hospital lobby. I called the hospital and told them my wife was crowning and was moments away from the door. However between me and the door was the construction truck which had stopped doors opened and out come the clowns who blocked entry. Once again I lay on the horn. They looked at me like I was being a jerk. To me they were the jerks blocking the drive. So I had to cross country around them and get my wife to door.

So we pull in under the canopy and I jump out of the van to open the door to realized my wife has already taken her pants off in the anticipation she will deliver in the van. So as I hold the door and the blanket she struggles to get some clothes on and get out of the van. Within moments Juls mom and sister pull up behind us.

As we walk in through the door Juls continues to contract. The nursing staff rush towards us with a wheel chair in the hope of getting her settled and bring her upstairs. A nurse tells her to not push, might as well have told her to imagine she is not pregnant. Not going to happen there folks. She stops to prop herself on the fountain and they ask if she wants to deliver here. My wife replied with where am I supposed to go, and the nurse calls to her aide to get the elevator and she runs off with the wheel chair and then comes back and runs back to grab the elevator. Was rather a panicked few seconds. We manged to get my wife to the elevator and the ride up one floor took an age. The nurse started to joke that we should call the child Elly if she was born in the elevator. My wife was not pleased and wanted the ride to be over, she gripped my arm to let me know this.

As we left the elevator the contractions came on strong, she stopped beside the elevator doors. Suddenly we were surrounded by medical staff. Juls started to remove her pants again and I turned to the Dr and tried to relay to him as much of the birth plan as was logical at this time. Dr Barney and I had agreed that I could catch the baby. No sooner am I saying this to the Dr (not Barney) who is putting gloves on he looks at me and looks at Juls. A simple statement of ‘too late’ was uttered. As I turned around my wife was holding our daughter in her arms She had delivered and caught her own child and with no pain meds folks. This was child number two she had delivered with no meds.

Once again my memory leaped into action, we talked about the cord and not cutting it until it had stopped pulsing. As I said this I looked at my daughter and she was not a good colour, there was an urgency to clamp and cut the cord. I was given the scissors and allowed to cut it. There was more noise in the background, a need and sense of urgency once again hit us, the stunned silence had passed. My daughter was not doing well and needed to be rushed away for medical attention. As with our birth plan it was agreed that I follow our child and my wife will be tended by medical staff.

The nurse who carried my daughter away tried to clean her off and get her breathing. Life suddenly became a little less real, not that the last few minutes were not somewhat unreal, but the urgency changed again. My daughter was carried to the infant care unit and a lot of information was exchanged, some form of language which essentially meant everyone come here we have work to do. I stood back helpless as my daughter was placed on a table and people raced to stabilize her, to get her pink and breathing.

I stood back where I could see my daughter as she started to fight the medical staff and scream at them, I stood there helpless and watching. I had no idea what was happening to my wife at this time, I had no idea what she was going through or how she was doing. All I knew was I was having an intense conversation with God about my daughter as I watched powerless to help.

My memory once again stirred and I was able to share with them the desire to have no vaccines etc as we had declined them and signed whatever waivers needed to be done and our physician already knew. There was a brief comment made and then the attention went back to my daughter. They poked her, took blood, hooked her up for sound and light. Trying to find a vein for an IV and meds in someone as small as my daughter was not an easy task. She was x-rayed and whatever else needed to be done.

The term that had been used a lot was she was not pinking up. Essentially she retained that delightful shade of gray best suited to the borg! Blanche the nurse tending her would not give up and even though a life flight had been ordered for my daughter to a critical care facility, she continued to work to keep my daughter at the hospital.

Slowly but surely my daughter started to pink up, her breathing started to even out and hit the numbers the nurses required.

— I attempted to complete more of this story tonight, however due to other things going on around it was difficult to do so.