Overdue Kangaroos….and Please Don’t Worry Family, I’m Quite Alright!
Friday, July 13th, 2007If you don’t like listening to your grandmother tell you about all her aches and pains and brushes with death, please skip over this first section right now. It’ll save you the boredom. I’ll put several asterisks where you’ll want to actually start reading:
Well, things have settled down a bit now, just in time for the weekend. I don’t know where I left off in the saga, but in recent days Cam had his surgery bumped up, after a rush into the emergency room when he developed severe pains. They gave him prescriptions for any future pain and/or nausea. We’ll just skim over the part where the peppermint tea that I gave him for the nausea made him break out in huge hives.
Then my Father-in-Law and I developed the tonsillitis that Ebony had the week before. We were particularly worried about Dad since he hadn’t eaten for four days, and already deals with emphysema. We bought him medical-type electrolyte drinks to help him replace his potassium, salt, glucose, etc. Heard yesterday that he’s feeling much better and ate three regular meals. Huge relief.
I fell sick on Wednesday, and planned to go to the doctor if I didn’t feel better by Monday. By Sunday night I was out of cold & flu meds, and so I took a couple of Panadeine Forte (aka Tylenol w/ codeine) to help me sleep. Or so I thought. Ha ha ha. I’d had it before, with no ill effects, and much sweet sleepiness. But twenty minutes after taking it, I told Cam that there was a slight heaviness in my chest.. not sharp..but a definite heart area pain. I propped myself up on pillows and felt better, then was able to sleep. A couple of hours later I got up, feeling quite hungry since I hadn’t eaten much the last few days. Standing in front of the open fridge, trying to figure out a quick snack, I started to get cramps, then chest pains which sent me running back into the bedroom. Cam was sleeping, but in a few minutes I was in so much pain that I was moaning out loud and rolling around in the bed. Then it got worse. REALLY REALLY REALLY worse.
I can honestly say that it was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my entire life. I was literally screaming and rolling off the bed to lay on the brick floor to cool off. (The floor, when in the winter -which it is here- is the same temperature as a bag of frozen peas.) I yelled for Cam to call the ambulance and he stood in a stupor trying to figure out what was going on, but he sensed that it was a definite emergency. I was trying my hardest not to panic and to take deep breaths, but when you feel like you might literally die at any moment, well, that’s not the easiest thing in the world.
To cut to the chase, after the paramedics came and checked me out, and my pain had gone, it was very anticlimactic. They couldn’t find anything wrong, and they figured it was most likely the codeine on an empty stomach which did it. It was so weird.
They were very helpful, but I felt like “Hey! I didn’t imagine how bad that was! WORST. PAIN. EVER.”
Good thing: No pain or symptoms since, saw the doc on Monday, and no more sore throat either since I’ve been on antibiotics for several days now.
After all that, Wendy took me out for karaoke on Thursday, and I totally KILLED “Man on the Moon”. Not in the good way. It was incredibly evil.
I told her it’s a date for next week too, and I’ll pick a more forgiving song! Any suggestions?
Now…
On the road in front of our house we actually have a sign that looks like this:
I know. It rocks.
On walks with Gus, I’ve sometimes spotted kangaroos. And it is pretty amazing. The kind we see around here is called “Eastern Grey” and they are smaller than the Red ones with which most people are more familiar. Because of new development in the area, we see them less frequently now, but there is still a lot of undeveloped land here, with this property totaling 38 acres, and even more acreage of natural bush at Sue and Murray’s orchard across the road. (We’re situated on the edge of National park land, five minutes from the Yarra River.)
On my first visit here in 2001, Cameron and I, and some other family members accidentally came across a kangaroo in a grove of trees, at a park. We were two feet away from her, wondering why she was huddled close to the ground without moving, when we saw that she had a joey in her pouch. It was so funny because he was upside down at first, with his feet sticking out, and had to turn himself around before she bounded away. Quite thrilling!
This isn’t them, but it’s the same “Eastern Grey” species:
I was organizing photos today, when I saw something which totally surprised me. A couple of years ago, I was amazed to look up from my desk in the early morning to see a mob of kangaroos grazing just behind the wire fence in our backyard. I grabbed the camera and got a couple of hasty shots before they saw me. All this time, I thought both pictures were too grainy and blurry to make out much of anything.
Turns out that my efforts were better than I thought!
I bring you our friendly neighborhood ‘Roos!:
Now, Kathy, Dan, anyone who knows Kristan, print these pictures out and give them to her! I promised her pictures of a kangaroo about 5 years ago, just never knew I’d take them from MY OWN HOUSE!
