The Heart of It

 On Wed, 15th March Pete went in for heart surgery.  It turned out to be bigger than had been expected with a quadruple bypass, mitral valve repair and a ligation to try stopping the AF he had very recently been diagnosed with.  The operation lasted between 6-7 hrs and he was in ICU from the Wed straight after until the Friday afternoon when he was transferred to the Cardiac Ward.  The Royal Melbourne Hospital was very good (apart from the food for the patients and the extremely limited car parking available).

We had to be in Melbourne on the Monday as he had preadmission appointments at the hospital the day before surgery - We stayed with our daughter Stacey and SIL John and of course Lucy came with us because of 

her only being 4 mths of age and we felt she was just too young to leave in a kennel.  So we enjoyed the Monday afternoon with Stacey and John taking us out and down to the Dog Beach at Altona where Lucy got to experience her first time at a beach .............. 

I think we all enjoyed it just as much watching all the dogs and talking with so many friendly people down with their dogs all playing.

Jaron flew in on the Thursday morning
which was great to have him there as well.  Jaron could see that Stace and I needed a bit of down time with all that was going on and talked us into going to the Richmond Footy match after we had been to see Pete in the hospital.  

I am sooooo glad he did that - at the time I had my doubts, but wow - it was such a relief to get those couple of hours break as we had a long day in ICU visiting and doing shift changes as only 2 could visit at a time. 

 The match and just having time with Stace and Jaron was great! John was more than happy to stay home (he's not an AFL follower),  and look after Lucy (who was not at all coping with the changes and being left!!)  Gotta say it was a heck of a game and a heck of an experience trying to make our way to the trains afterwards!!  Over 88,000 people were at the match which was held at the very famous MCG.

Buttercup is Stacey's rabbit - Lucy wanted so badly to be able to just play with her - they ended up sitting touching noses through the barricade - Lucy had to go into a crate when nobody was at home to keep and eye - as you might imagine!  Since our visit Buttercup has learnt how to escape from her pen  

Melbourne City - some days it took an hour or more to get to the Hospital (in the middle of the city) due to traffic and up to 2hrs to find a car park one day!!  

So a couple of times we took the train and tram to get in and out 
On the Monday the next week Pete was discharged from hospital - I'm sure he would have been kept longer if he hadn't pushed so hard to let out lol.
Lucy has been keeping a close eye on him - although she was a bit thrown the first couple of days not being able to just jump up and such.  Currently Pete is not allowed to lift more than 2kgs in weight for the first few weeks.  His leg and arms and chest cuts are healing well, and finally the wounds from where the tubes came out of his lungs are healing up - they seemed to take a bit longer. The 4th vein was taken from behind the chest wall to use as the fourth bypass.

It was So nice to wake up Tuesday morning back at home - although it's been pretty much full time nursing care for Pete the first week, in between checking on Dad and seeing to Lucy!  Things are beginning to calm down a little now - Day 11 home from hospital and having got on top of the start of an infection!

Lucy is back to having her daily walks in a place where we both feel a little more safe, and she has been meeting up with some of her doggie friends she sees on our walks - This is Bella, a Groodle and a week younger than Lucy - half the time they are jumping over the top of each other lol

Lucy - now 5 months old 

Since I'm currently not working - I'm trying to keep the cost of living down and hence got back to making my own Laundry Liquid using the ingredients in the photo below.  If you want the recipe you will find it here on my blog - go to the page Laundry and you will find it.  And with that - I'll say goodbye for now.  A big thankyou to those of you who contacted me over the past few weeks :)