{ Reid Hodson }

Final medical update

(wishful thinking perhaps).

Nikki arrived home Thursday night, delayed by an hour because of the Beijing snow. Queasy and nauseous, she headed straight to bed but sadly spent the night puking – the results, she thinks, of a naughty prawn in the Hong Kong business lounge. A trip to the doctor on Friday confirmed she hadn’t ruptured anything while dry-retching at 4am and she is now not allowed to eat until lunchtime Saturday.

So. She’s sore, hungry, full of tea but on the mend. And happy to be home.

And in the other medical drama this week, Zara’s school (I may have mentioned) sent a note to all parents alerting them to the case of Influenza A detected at the school on Thursday. The result was a 50% attendance on Friday. Lucky they didn’t give the name of the kid – I suspect everyone would be off to her house immediately with lit torches and pitchforks.

Further medical adventures – Thursday

Nikki has checked out of hospital and been ferried to the airport in an enormous Mercedes. Because of her condition she has been bumped up to Business Class, and her flight back here has just taken off – an hour late because of the snow in Beijing, which has been drifting down all day. She’s pretty uncomfortable but enjoying the wheelchair.

At this end I have a pass to meet her at the gate – I’ll set off in an hour or so.

But! More news…. an hour ago Zara’s best friend at school was confirmed with Influenza A, which apparently gives her a 98% chance of having H1N1. Her family have been quarantined (at home, happily) for 7 days.

The school has already sent out an alert and we’ve all been warned to keep an eye on each other. Both kids have had miscellaneous snuffles for weeks so…. And apparently Tamiflu is not always recommended for kids of 3 years (it disrupts their sleeping for a start! Ha!), so even if they get it, we’re likely to be just be quarantined as well.

Steady as she goes then.

Reid update – Wednesday

Hi all… thanks for all your messages from the last post.

Nikki has spent the night without pain-killers (after some pills on Tuesday that almost knocked her socks off) and managed a shower this morning – but is still in a fair bit of pain. She’s had blurry vision since the operation, which is apparently normal (!) so hasn’t been txting or emailing much, but this is improving. Last I heard she was about to start an expedition down the corridor, to get some walking practice in.

Current plan has her flying back up here tomorrow afternoon – I will pick her up at the airport, and should be able to get a pass that gets me past security so I can help her with her bags. Unfortunately it is scheduled to snow again tonight – the last dump closed the airport for a while, and also closed the airport expressway. So. Lets just hope that doesn’t happen again.

Send her an email at nikki [at] eightwire [dot] com if you’ve got a moment.

(And because you asked – that’s how you post email addresses on blogs that can be seen by the general public. This is because there are nasty spambots out there that roam around the internet collecting things that look like email addresses, so they can forward you invitations to purchase performance enhancing drugs and physical enlargement techniques. Fnar fnar).

Medical Monday

Zac has got the sniffles, a fungal rash on his leg and a bloodshot right eye. Zara has got split feet from the dry Beijing air and the snuffles as well. I’m getting a cold (which will quickly develop into a crippling case of man-flu, no doubt). But the big news is Reid.

She’s been slightly under the radar on this one – yesterday morning (that’s Sunday) she flew down to Hong Kong and today checked into hospital to have a post-caesarean incisional hernia removed (at least thats what I’m guessing it was called). She’ll probably be in hospital all week.

The hernia was a thank-you present from Zac who left it behind on his way out in February. Reid’s specialist in Wellington spotted it during the warrant of fitness check before we came back here, and recommended she get it fixed up when she finished breast feeding. The MFAT medical advisors said she had to get it done in Hong Kong, and at 3pm today, she had a general and the surgeon got busy.

A couple of hours ago I got a text – “alive” – so it appears things went okay. I’ve had a fair garbled one after that so suspect the pain killers are all good fun. I’ll post again tomorrow after I’ve talked to her.