Josie's Faux 6th Birthday & Mega Update

I know, I know! Its been ages!

Everyone and their mother has complained.

I'm updating, I'm updating!

So whats been happening.. lets work backwards..

I started my Xmas leave today so Josie & Becca and I went and saw Madagascar 2 this morning. The movie was awesome! Then I had to do some shopping so I dragged Josie around the shopping centre. She drove me absolutely crazy with the "I want that.." and "Can I have that??" and "I wanna push the trolley!!" and "Don't touch the trolley!!". ARGH!

The rest of the day was spent playing Wii, and Rummikub and watching cartoons ;-)

Yesterday was a very relaxing day for me. Josie went off to a birthday party in the morning, and then Tony took her to Granny's so that he could put up the new trampoline there. He didn't finish, but I had a great day sending thank you emails and editing photos and catching up on the Tivo.

Josie had her 6th birthday party on Saturday. We had a 'Magical Jester' who was a great hit with both child and adult alike. The kids ran riot, played on the park equipment, and were generally rowdy.


The cake was great, much better than last years!

After the party we went to Vika's for present opening and a sumptuous crab & octopus dinner. It was absolutely awesome! The present opening was lots of fun and Josie got a bunch of excellent presents.

Friday was an interesting day.

To adequately explain Friday, we must go back a week. Tony went to a regular eye check up last Saturday. As part of the routine tests, they discovered some discolouration on the back of one eyeball. After some furtive looks by the optometrists, and a strong suggestion he go see a retinal specialist, and soon, Tony was reduced to a freaked-out puddle of stress. Especially since it was on the same side of the face as the skin cancer that was removed several months ago.

That was Saturday.

Appointment was made for Friday with a top of the line, mega special retinal specialist on Macquarie St. (Ooooer Macquarie St apparently!)

Meanwhile.. Tony decided the internet was the place to alleviate his worries..

By Tuesday Mr Freaked-Out was near catatonic, so we went and saw Dr George the family doctor hoping for a prescription for Valium. Dr George delivered Tony. Dr George knows the family inside and out. Dr George refused to prescribe Valium and insisted Tony should take some Zyrtec. Uh huh.

While there we showed Dr George the retinal scans and Dr George scoffed at the C word and said it was definitely a vascular kind of thing. This made us feel heaps better! Well me anyway, Tony wasn't gonna feel any better till he saw Dr Macquarie St.

The week passed in a sludge of worry and sleepless nights.

Friday morning was a relief when it rolled around. The appt was at 7:40am. Yes, that's in the morning, folks. We had to wake up at 6am. That in itself was stressful enough.

So after finding parking right next to the Retinal Centre on Macquarie St in a parking station that charged $28 for the first hour, assuring ourselves we would only be about an hour and then choking a bit over the price.. we headed inside.

After getting more and more stressed over the waiting time, and watching the parking fees roll by, we finally went in to do the initial eye tests and have the drops to dilate the pupil. The lady doing the tests asked some questions about why we were there (couldn't she read the referral note??) and Tony told her about Dr George's thoughts about the shadow being vascular. She wrote it all down.

Then he got the drops and we went back out to the waiting room to wait for the pupils to dilate.

By this time, I was resigned to the amount of money we would be spending on parking that day. You can't put a price on health.. You can't put a price on health..

After what seemed like an eternity (and meanwhile noticing that Tony's right pupil dilated kind of funny.. sort of droopy in shape) we finally went into the room with the big machinery.

They took photos of his eyes, and scans, and then put dye in, and took more photos and more scans.. and at certain points Dr Macquarie St graced us with his presence, chewed out the assistants for not taking the right kind of shots, the shots being off centre or fuzzy etc, and then withdrew again.

Finally he came in and had a good look at the pictures, and asked about the referral (to which the assistant replied that he had only read the other lady's report and not the referral, which he got chewed out about as well).

Dr Macquarie St picked up the report and scoffed "What's this vasculitis stuff?? Pff! What you have is a small tumor on the eye".

Huh?! What did he say?!

I must have looked like I was going to pass out because he came over to me to see if I was ok.. Meanwhile Tony looked like he was about to pass out himself.

Doctors seem to always insist on using words that are very likely to scare their patients half to death.

After making sure that I was ok, he went on to say that the tumor was very small and at this stage we don't know if it was benign or.. not. We needed to do more tests and then we will be able to tell whats what.. in about 10 minutes.

So we waited around, and got the very good news that the discolouration is just a freckle and we would just need to monitor it in 6 months for any growth.

So after paying for our $660 freckle, retrieving our $65 parked car, we finally made it to work around lunch time, a lot less stressed (surprisingly) than we were on Thursday.

So that was Friday..

Nothing much happened through the week (mostly due to the stress), but on Monday was Josie's Kindy graduation presentation where she performed in the choir and received her graduation certificate. It was very cute, and also very sad.

We have told her that she will be going to a new school next year, and while she took it a lot better than we had anticipated, we're not there yet. That first month is still looking a bit scary.

But we have her uniform, and she has been going to the After School Care at the new school, so she knows her surroundings now, but it is still very sad to be leaving her current school, where she has been through 2 years of pre-school and a year of Kindy.

We have also started Josie on Violin lessons with her cousin Jacqui who started Violin herself when she was Josie's age. We bought her a 1/4 violin and she just loves her lessons.

That brings us back to last Sunday when we spent most of the day at Grandma Trudy's doing some massive gardening in her backyard. Well Tony & David did most of the work, with help from Carol, Philip, Jacqui and myself.

We managed to clear out a mountain of green, and unearth one very large Mummy Redback Spider & her flock.

Surprisingly, Tony didn't freak out! He just sent Carol for the spider spray ;-) Mrs Redback didn't stand a chance.

And that brings us back to Saturday again. Saturday night Vika, Becca, Tony & I went to see Twilight at Greater Union Gold Class. It. Was. So. Good.

So good.

Not as good as the books. Obviously. But good enough! And now they are making the 2nd book into a movie (New Moon) !! A.W.E.S.O.M.E !

And thats about it. I'm not gonna go further than a week cause.. well.. this is long enough ;-) I'd be surprised if you're still reading at this point.

So I think the next update will now be next year.

Have a great Xmas/Channukah/New Year !