I had the night "off" tonight, and went to PCR with Dad to watch some Sprintcar racing. It's been ages since I've been with Dad just to watch and not go in the pits and work on Denis' car...The pic to the left is of Madsen's new car...not sure I like the orange paint..I still like his old Bikebiz blue and yellow...

Anyway, Schatz won - surprise, surprise. Kinser second, Pitman third. Madsen made it into the main despite not finishing his heat.

Took the camera along, still have a long way to go, but not too disappointed with some of the pics considering most of them were at race pace!

Skip Jackson got upside down, Brazier crashed, Sartori and Brady crashed too...Sammy Walsh started off pole after winning the dash...not too sure where he finished though.

Enjoy this pic of a man in his t-shirt...I took this photo for Ian, and surprisingly he loves the shirt!

Season's Greetings...

Christmas was weird this year, I can't quite put my finger on why, but it there was just something missing I guess...maybe it was because it was the first year that we didn't go to Nan's house...

Anyway, we had a nice lunch with Ian's side of the family, then had my sister, Dad and Ian's friend Pato over for dinner afterwards. We sat around and laughed, drank and watched Summer Heights High all night long!

Isla received so many presents, her favourites were her toy camera, Dora tea set and her Dora backpack (this was the big winner). I had a fall coming down the in-laws driveway and must have hurt Isla's foot at the same time (I was holding her) because she complained that she couldn't walk on Xmas day, and could barely put any weight on it on Boxing day but seemed okay today when she went back to daycare, although walked a little gingerly on it.

Boxing Night we went to Mum's new apartment for dinner as we didn't really get the chance to catch up with her on Xmas day, although we did see her briefly when we went to visit my Nan at the nursing home. Mum bought Isla a microphone, and Isla treated us to "We wish you a Merry Christmas" at least 20 times!

Ian's on holidays until the 2nd...I bet we're sick of each other well before then :P

We saw Michael for the first time in almost 6 months yesterday. He's very pleased with Isla's progress. She can now stand up on her own (without holding on to anything) and is walking well and not falling over as much.

Michael agreed with Ian and I, in that Isla walks with more control when she doesn't have her orthotics on, but it's coming at a price. The bottom of her feet are collapsing on the side, and Dr L is concerned that when she's older the bones may fuse together and she'll require surgery. I'll have to take a photo of her feet to better explain...

They're concerned about her legs, she's always had higher tone in her right leg (and it is marginally shorter than the left) but, and here's the curveball, she leads with her right which means it's her dominant leg...she should be leading with her left as it's the less effected leg, but it's weaker.

The plan is this, 1st of May, Isla is on the list to go to the Sydney Children's Hospital for the Botox injections. In the meantime, they're going to lock the hinge on the AFO's so that she can't lean forward as much with them on. She has a tendency to crouch when she walks (only slightly, I'd not really noticed until it was pointed out to me yesterday by Michael) so locking the hinge will make her stand up straighter. We need to do some strengthening exercises for her hamstrings, as the concern is that she won't be able to walk after having the botox (it will weaken her muscles initially) so we need to have her ready for that.

They give them laughing gas, but the mask needs to be held on the entire time and both Michael and I aren't too sure she'd cope very well with that. Dr L suggested pethadine as it's injected and can also knock little ones out, so there's another possibility, but it's a bit much to have to think of right now, and I honestly don't know how she'll react to it all.

When she walks with the AFO's on there's a lot of swivelling in her trunk, which is essentially because her left hand side isn't really working as well as it should, and she has to twist her trunk to swing her left side around. Again, she shouldn't be doing this as the left side is meant to be the stronger side.

We're going to increase physio appointments to every 2ish weeks to try and fix these issues. Poor little mite.

We finally managed a photograph with the man in red! Isla was so wonderful, genuinely excited! Although, she was waiting on his knee for a little while smiling away because the photographer was talking to me about Ataxia, so it's the tail-end of her smile, but it's a Santa photo nonetheless!


She's so grown up now, I can barely remember what it was like when she was so little. *sigh*
She's decided that Santa will bring her a pink bicycle, so I found one in an online catalogue and was showing Ian while she was outside playing, but forgot to close the webpage and Isla came in and saw it and said, "Oh, a Christmas bicycle!" LOL She's determined to have a pink bicycle one way or another, look at what she did to her old trike...(you may have to enlarge it to see the full effect!)

Had a busy day today. Went to the shopping centre to finalise Xmas presents, bought two then had to come home to go Fridge shopping with my Mum.

We went to 2 places and ended up getting a really good deal at the 2nd place we went to, and they're going to store it there at the shop until we pick it up the morning that Mum moves into her new home. Isla would have been with us, but she was asleep when Mum arrived at our place and Ian told us to leave her there instead of waking her up to go in the car.

After we'd finished fridge shopping we intended on going home and picking up Isla and choofing off to Ikea, but again Ian said to leave her at home because she was quite happy playing with him. So we did. We headed off for a 'quick' trip and ended up staying for hours! Mum picked up the chair and a tv stand that she was after and I bought a few Xmas presents along the way. Once we'd finished we went to grab something to eat because we'd shopped through lunch. I went up to the car to load all the crap in it that we'd bought while Mum went back down to the shop because they hadn't given her the right meal.

So, I'm loading the car, very hungry for my lunch (it was almost 6pm at this stage) when all this blood started pouring down my throat! I was freaking out! So much blood, mouthful after mouthful, just constant dribble down my throat! Mum was cool as a cucumber and after several failed attempts we made it to the Emergency department of nearby Concord Hospital. Mum was very brave - she's hideously afraid of hospitals, so the fact that she came in and sat in the triage area of the ED was pretty amazing! I thought she'd stay in the car for sure!

Fortunately for me, I fear I am not much braver than my Mum, the place was empty. I only saw 1 person in a bed and another one on a trolley, so I was seen to after not even 5 minutes of waiting after being triaged. The Dr I saw confirmed that it was a blood clot from my tonsillectomy that had dislodged and was now sitting in my throat waiting to be swallowed - yuck! He said the bleeding was normal when they come away and that there was another one in my throat waiting to do the same thing! Should it happen again I need to put Ice on my throat as it constricts the ventricles of the blood vessels and to go to the hospital if the bleeding lasts more than 20 minutes.

Such a freak out! So glad that Mum was with me, and that Isla was at home, I don't know that I would have coped if it happened to me on my own!