DAY 186 - 22/08/2010 - Geraldton, WA

No plans were made for today.

I spent all morning updating our blog and Waz and the girls surf YouTube.

We had to get out and do something so we thought we would take the girls to the museum.

The museum was only small but very interesting. There was a section dedicated to ship wrecks. This areas history is filled with stories of ships that wrecked along the reef coast in particular the Batavia ship wreck. Lilly in particular liked the dressed skeleton on display at the front entrance and the huge stuffed red kanagaroo in one of the displays.

This brings new meaning to the phrase 'skeleton staff'.

The girls watched a sci-fi film on the 'Honey Bee' but left before the end as it got boring.

Quiet night of footy, nachos and scotch.

Really cold tonight. Around 2 - 3 degrees.

DAY 185 - 21/08/2010 - Geraldton, WA

Another long walk into town to relieve some pent up energy and cabin fever.

No hospital today or tomorrow which is a relief.

Quiet night of movies for the kids and today I snagged the second series of Californication from the dvd store for Waz and I to watch. We manage to get thru almost half of it tonight. What a funny show.

Lots of laughs + wine = a great night indoors.

DAY 184 - 20/08/2010 - Geraldton, WA

Not much went on today other than the usually daily hospital visit.

Off to the hospital

Then to the park for some morning tea and a quick play.

Lilly is extremely protective of her donut.

Bummed around watching movies for a big chunk of the day and the girls have fun playing on the jumping pillow in the afternoon.

A couple of wines and a quiet night.

DAY 183 - 19/08/2010 - Geraldton, WA

Longing for some exercise we decide to take the girls and walk into town to return some dvds to VideoEzy and go to Woolys. Its a 3 hour round trip and we feel good for it.

We are all still taking our meds and its going well.

After dinner we watch our movies. I had one too many wines and get the noddy's before the end of the movie.

Its cold tonight but our heater does its job.

DAY 182 - 18/08/2010 - Geraldton, WA

We had to get up early on this cold morning. No sleep ins for this family we had a doctor to visit to get to. We get our nasal meds today and the treatment starts.

Waz joined the local video store. It looks like we will be here for a little while yet and we need new movies to watch and the cold weather calls for it also.

Lilly is doing great lately and her wounds are redressed today. Shes back to her usual crazy funny and often annoying self and we love it.

DAY 181 - 17/08/2010 - Geraldton, WA

Waz and I were woken up by Alicia in the very early hours of the morning. She was rumaging through her cupboard and mumbling something under her breath. We suspected she was sleep walking. I asked her what she was doing and she told me she was looking for "something". I asked her what and she said "um I don't know just something". That confirmed it, she was sleepwalking. She came to while still rumaging through her cupboard and she didn't know what she was doing. Very funny.

I am very pleased to report Lilly is still happily taking her new medicine.

It rains on and off all day today. It is definately stay at home weather but unfortunately Waz had to go out and drop the car off at the dealership for its service but organised a lift back.

The girls enjoy craft activities. They put together cardboard puppets based on characters from the new Toystory 3 movie. Its a tedious exercise but they enjoy doing it and Lilly enjoys receiving the final product. Toystory is her new thing at the moment. We got her the dvds and she watches them over and over again.

Waz is still in talks with BHP regarding a possibility of employment. They are now talking about fly in fly outs but nothing is definate at this stage. Trying not to think about it too much in case nothing comes of it.

Our swab results are in and there is a possibility Alicia and I could also get the infection because we tested positive to being carriers. The doctor is going to put all of us on a nasal antibiotic which should well and truely eradicate this infection stopping any future occurances. We need to go and see him tomorrow morning. Waz's toe is back to normal and Lilly is on the mend.

DAY 180 - 16/08/2010 - Geraldton, WA

Todays post is dedicated to venting my frustrations on some members of the medical staff at Geraldton Regional Hospital, in particular a nurse called Shona.

It all began at 7.30am, yes am. I received a wake up phone call from Shona, whom I have never dealt with before and today she is in charge of the Hospital at Home section and felt she needed to call me and inform me on hospital protocol. 'Hospital at Home' are the people who have been doing Lilly's daily dressings and so forth. Yesterday the nurses had purposly organised todays appointment for 2pm so Lilly could get to see the doctor as he was going to be here seeing another patient around that time. I had to discuss the culture results and changing Lilly's antibiotics to a more sesitive one. Apparently the one she's been on the past 2 weeks is resistant. Only a doctor can do this. Shona decided that this was not going to happen. Rather than see the doctor this way at 2pm I was to take Lilly to Emergency and line up and wait to see a doctor there instead. Which meant I could be there for hours just to get a script. She advised for me to get there asap to miss the morning rush. Well that wasn't going to happen. I was still in my pj's and Lilly was sound asleep. I explained that the same appointment was organised by the nurses the last time we needed the doctor to look at her wound and it wasn't a problem then. Well apparently that is not protocol and I was just lucky that time and was misinformed by other nurses. She was in charge today and was making sure protocol was adhered to.

Ok then. Off we go to spend the day in the hospitals emergency department. The waiting room is packed and I expect to be here for most of the day. When I explained the reason for my visit to the Triage nurse, she too thought that this was a nuisance and why couldn't the doctor see Lilly upstairs during his usual rounds. I want to say so much more here but this is a family blog and is rated G. Luckily the Triage nurse was nice and on the same page as me and fast tracked Lilly through to see the doctor in emergency.

The doctor was nice to see us so quickly but would not listen to me when I told him that the antibiotics he wanted to put her on did not agree with Lilly the first time round and she would vomit these up. These were the first meds they tried to put her on straight after the operation which had to be changed. He said that she would be fine and would take it no worries as he changed the concentration dose. The culture test they had done recently found 2 antibiotics that were sensitive to her infection and I wanted him to put her on the other one but he insisted on the later. I trusted his judgement and leave for the chemist. I am on foot at this stage because earlier I had sent Waz home to be with the girls as I thought I would be here all day. Its a nice sunny day out, Lilly is in her stroller and a walk into town will do me good.

During our walk I stop by at a playground and let Lilly have a play on the equipment.

Lilly and I also visited the huge Cathedral and light a few candles for Waz's mum and for us. Kerry wasn't religious but I am sure she would have loved this gesture. The Cathedral is pretty inside as cathedrals usually are.

St Francis Xavier Cathedral, Geraldton

We then wander over to Woolys to get some supplies and the Chemist for Lilly's medicine.

Late this afternoon we give Lilly a taste of her new antibiotics and as expected she hates it and regurgitates it back up. We tried to mask it with ice-cream, sugar and full strengh coke but all fail to hide the hideous taste. Waz even tried it himself and understands why she won't take it. I even considered masking it with wine but I didn't go thru with that. I was desperate and didn't know what else to do.

At 6pm I take Lilly back to the hospital to get another script for a different antibiotic. The one I had previously asked for. Lucky for us the same doctor was on shift and he saw me straight away and rewrote another script. He was a little peeved but who cares, Lilly is my priority.

Off to the chemist to get these new meds and unfortunatly these meds are the same colour, pink, as the one she hates but the packaging is different. I am thinking she will not even give this one a go so we perform a little ritual at the front of the chemist and I get her to throw the other ones in the bin.

Before the dumping of the bottle

The dump

and the jig

Back home by 7.30pm, we ate dinner and Lilly takes her new meds without complaint then jumps into her sisters bed for some light reading before bedtime. AND THATS MY VENT.

Hurray for the ending but what a day. Phew, glad thats over with.

DAY 179 - 15/08/2010 - Geraldton, WA

After the hospital visit we took the girls down to the waterfront for some hot chip sangers and a play in the park. Lilly was so excited just to be out and about for a change.

All Aboard or as Lilly says "All Baboard"

The view from the playground

We also visited the HMAS Sydney II memorial site here in the heart of Geraldton high up on the hill overlooking the town.

Lest We Forget

645 people perished when the HMAS Sydney II ship sunk off the coast of WA on 19th November 1941. The ship was found on the 16th March 2008 and there are many places around Geraldton and Carnarvon which commemorate its existence and demise, including this memorial.

HMAS Sydney II

We spent the rest of the afternoon driving in and around the outskirts of Geraldton to see parts that I havn't seen before.

Tonight we enjoyed Lilly's early night of slumber and some games of Rummikub. Alicia and Taylah are getting better at this game and are hard to beat.

DAY 178 - 14/08/2010 - Geraldton, WA

Another lazy day at home and a hospital visit for Lilly in the morning.

The girls got school work done and Waz and I bummed around all afternoon watching movies. While resting and watching our movie a bird made a surprise visit. It flew into our van and couldn't get out. The girls freaked, I freaked and the bird freaked and flapped around everywhere. I don't know what scared the bird more, our squeals or the fact it couldn't find the exit.

It didn't take long for our hero to catch the bird and after a quick pat, set it free.

We spent the rest of the evening watching movies and playing boardgames.

DAY 177- 13/08/2010 - Geraldton, Wa

Cleaning day today. Everything will be wiped, washed and disinfected. The rain held off long enough for everything to dry and the wind has also helped the process. My hands are sore and dry.

Alicia and Taylah spent all day playing Club Penguin on the internet and Lilly watched. She is doing a lot better today and not complaining about her leg being sore. She had a rest from the hospital today which I am sure she was very pleased about.

Tonight Lilly helped me cook dinner. She stirred all the ingredients for me and she took her task at hand very seriously and quite surprisingly with little mess.

DAY 176 - 12/08/2010 - Geraldton, WA

We went to see Lilly's surgeon today at the private hospital. What a waste of time that was. I really don't want to waste my blog on that idiot of a man but I must report the good with the bad.

He ripped off Lilly's dressing with enough force to take some skin with it. Breifly looked at it from a distance and he said he was happy with it. Then he stuck the smallest dressing, sticky side right on the wound itself. We were not happy with this and told him so. Waz took his dressing off and we replaced it with a better one that I had brought with me. He was totally pissed that we took over in his surgery while he looked on telling us to hurry up because he had other patients to see. Oooooow you don't say that to 2 pissed off, sometimes hotheaded parents. Well I am happy to report we kept our cool, told him Lilly was important to us and that we didn't care about his other patients and continued on doing what we were doing. The westie in us was about to erupt but we stood our ground and came out the better person. There are things I would like to say here but this blog is G rated.

We ended up taking Lilly to the hospital to get her dressing done properly and do the job the surgeon was supposed to do. The nurses are aware of his poor manners and are used to his behaviour. All I can say is he's lucky that he didn't have to perform surgery on himself extracting teeth from the back of his throat.

Waz's toe is getting worse and we finally found a good doctor to look at it and gave him antibiotics to treat the infection. He also swabbed all of us to see who else was carrying this dreadful infection and eradicate it once and for all.

Back to the van for a quick and easy dinner then over to Chris and Rod's to play cards and have a few drinks.

DAY 175 - 11/08/2010 - Geraldton, WA

Warren's BHP interview over the phone went well. They will be in touch. They need to sort out some accommodation issues before we can continue on this subject.

The girls did some school work and Lilly and I went into town for the surgeon's appointment. What do you know. I wrote the appointment in my diary on the wrong day. Its on tomorrow.

Waz's toe has started to hurt and it looks a lot like Lilly's infection. Need to keep an eye on that.

Quiet night.

DAY 174 - 10/08/2010 - Geraldton, WA

On day 174 of our adventure, I celebrated my 36th birthday. It was a lunchtime celebration at The Camel Bar with my beautiful family and Carnie friends.

The Camel Bar, Geraldton WA

Lilly escapes the highchair. We knew it wouldn't take long.

We enjoyed some wood fired pizzas and beers of the world. The pizzas were so good and the beers were also.

The kids table ............

and the responsible adults table.

We tasted quite a few different beers. Beers from Italy, Japan, America, French, Germany, Bali, Irish and the Netherlands. The Dutch beer, Amstel, was my favourite, smooth and clean. We could of kept going but we had a hospital visit after lunch and I was already feeling light headed and may I add very bloated from eating too much.

Funny picture on the wall

My gorgeous girls gifted me with a Julie Goodwin Cookbook in the hope I will cook them lots of yummy things from this book. Thankyou girls.

Lilly is in charge of gift opening.

After our hospital visit our friends met us back at our place for more drinks, a cake that Alicia and Taylah cooked for me and then later on some dinner.

Thanks to everyone for a top day and night.

DAY 173 - 09/08/2010 - Geraldton, WA

Today after Lilly's hospital visit we drove to Coronation Beach with a packed lunch. It was a nice drive in. There's not much there other than a campsite right on the water. This beach is a popular surf and camp spot for surfers in the late spring and summer months when the winds pick up and the waves are big.

Campground by the water at Coronation Beach WA

Views of Coronation Beach from the lookout

We noticed a narrow 4wd track to the right of us so we thought we would see where it would take us. This track runs adjacent to the beach and we follow it for a while. The girls enjoy the bumpy ride. We stopped to have lunch on the beach and then we continued along the track some more.

Coronation Beach WA

It didn't seem to be going anywhere so we decided to turn around. It was just nice to get out of the van and do something other than go to the hospital, chemist or Woolys which are the only things we've been doing lately.

DAY 172 - 08/08/2010 - Geraldton, WA

We all enjoy a sleep in and wake at 9am.

Off to the hospital for Lilly's appointment. Its going to be a slow healing process. Her wounds look much better today. They're not as puffy as yesterday. The nurse is pleased.

Chris and Rod and the boys came over for a bbq this afternoon. Drinks and cards were on the agenda for us and the kids played. It was a fun night. Needed the laugh.

Its a cold cold night here in Geraldton. A taste of whats to come, no doubt, when we travel further south.

DAY 171 - 07/08/2010 - Geraldton, WA

Today Lilly's drain was removed. It all went well and she handled it like a trooper. She's a tough little girl. Her wounds look terrible. They are puffy and huge. She is experiencing sharp random pains that I can only imagine to be very painful. Just writing this makes me cringe at this memory.

We return back home after the hospital visit and intend on spending the rest of the day and night there just bumming around not doing much at all.

The girls do some school work and Waz and I take Lilly for a walk in her pram. She is experiencing some cabin fever. But when the cat is away the mice will play. Not a lot of school work got done in our absence.

The painkillers give Lilly a high. We hate giving it to her but we want to ease the pain. The problem is she gets really active on her leg. We turned away and minutes later looked back at her. She was on all fours and putting one leg into the air, her bad one, saying "look at me". This is her form of handstand, so the kids tell me. (I think we just might stick to Nurofen in the future)

Its a cold night. The wind is blowing a gale. The painkillers are finally doing what we want them to do and she seems to be sleeping well tonight.

DAY 170 - 06/08/2010 - Geraldton, WA

Off to the hospital this morning to have Lilly's dressing changed and wound and drain looked at.

This is the first time we see her cuts and they look gruesome. We were blown away at how big they were and we weren't prepared for this. We question the size of the holes and no one really says anything but you can tell by the nurses expression when she uncovers the bandage that she too is shocked but no one bags each others work and we just have to cop it on the chin and hope they heal well and reduce in size.

We go for a walk down at the waterfront and then we treat the girls to Hungry Jacks for lunch and we meet up with Rod, Chris and the boys here. The kids enjoy a play together but our trip here ends quickly because Lilly's bandage has dropped and one of her holes are exposed. Chris gets a glimpse of the wound and I think she is a little shocked. Off to the hospital to have it recleaned and redressed.

Tonight is a quiet night for all.

Tomorrow Lilly's drain will be removed and we are all anxious about that.

DAY 169 - 05/08/2010 - Geraldton, WA

The doctor came in this morning to check on Lilly. Its confirmed, the drain will be in for 3 days.

Meanwhile Waz is back at the van park trying to organise more accommodation because we were only able to get one night at this van park and they were booked out. Rod and Chris are staying close by and they've said they are staying as long as possible to give us support. They are the best.

Lilly is doing well. Early hours of the morning she had really high temps but they have finally come down to normal. The doctor and nurses are happy for us to leave today but we have to have dressing changes daily. They gave us an antibiotic and pain killers script and sent us on our merry way.

Waz had sorted out our accommodation woes. He explained our situation and we are staying in the same van park but they are putting us in the long term resident area and we can stay as long as we need.

Lilly was in a lot of pain tonight and she fought hard to not take her antibiotics and would regurgitate it back up. Carmen, the nurse organises another script for us and Waz goes to pick that up.

Lilly is happy with the new meds and we also give her morphine for the pain which knock her for 6 and is crashed within 5 minutes. My poor baby. I would swap with her in a heart beat.

DAY 168 - 04/08/2010 - Kalbarri, WA & Geraldton, WA

Lilly's leg is looking worse this morning. We tried to relieve some more pressure to it by squeezing it but it didn't look right and she was in a lot of pain. The town doctor is out of the area today at a remote surgery 2 1/2 hours away so we made the joint decision to drive straight to Geraldton and go to the hospital there. A second opinion won't hurt.

On our way to Geraldton we drive thru Point Gregory, home of Pink Lake.

Pink Lake, Point Gregory WA

Lilly and I were dropped off at the Geraldton Regional Hospital at 2pm while Waz and the girls checked into a caravan park and dropped off the van. We were seen to immediately. The doctor was really concerned about Lilly's leg, so concerned that they said she would need to be operated on asap as it had developed into cellulites and it was spreading quickly. The absys was covering her whole front thigh and the redness around it was around her whole thigh and creeping up into her abdomen area and right bum cheek.

Lilly was booked into theatre for 6pm. They had to wait for her to digest whatever she ate or drank prior to our arrival. The doctors had difficulty getting a canular in and after numerous attempts it was decided that they would do it when she was in theatre and asleep because she found this procedure extremely distressing.

The theatre nurses were unreal and the surgeon, we found, was not really a people person but the nurses say he is good at what he does. That'll do us.

We were so nervous having never gone thru one of the girls been given a general aneasthesia or more importantly any kind of operation. They said it was an easy procedure and it would only take max 20 min. Another weird bit of information is that absys's are common in these parts of the country and they actually have absys season. You can get this infection from insect bites which is what we think infected her.

Its the longest 20 min ever. We pass the time having a coffee and chatting with the nurse in paediatrics, Carmen. Funny girl, so nice and she swears a little bit.

The operation went well. The absys was quite large and it required 2 large incisions or more accurately holes and a drain. The drain was to be left in for 3 days. She was quite shitty in recovery and made sure everyone knew it also. Lilly doesn't do anything in halves. The nurses gave Lilly an abundance of stickers, wished us well and hugged me which I found weird but conforting also. Once she calmed down we took her down to her room where she settled in for the night, met some teddies from the playroom and watched a dvd.

Always smiling.

She was so hungry she smashed up a large box of Hungry Jacks chips.

We had our own room, tv and a sofa bed for me. Waz went and got Hungry Jacks for us, which I had been craving since Bungle Bungles. He stayed with us till really late but had to get back to Alicia and Taylah who was staying with Chris and Rod. Throughout the night the nurses kept coming in checking Lilly's vitals and giving her pain killers or antibiotics. It would of been easier to give them to her thru the IV but it had a block in it and wasn't being used. All the nurses bar one have been fantastic and caring. There always has to be one old tough hard bitch.

At one stage throughout the night Lilly, 3 teddies, 10 matchbox cars and myself shared one bed. She would wake up randomly in a panic because she couldn't see me so I hopped into her bed. By this stage the nurses were not coming in as often so we managed to get a couple of hours of unbroken sleep.

DAY 167 - 03/08/2010 - Kalbarri, WA

Today we drove into the National Park to see Natures Window. Firstly we stop at the lookout and enjoy the view from high above. Here you can see the Murchinson River.

The walk down to Natures Window from the carpark is only 1km return and relatively easy.

Natures Window is a large rock formation with an opening in the centre, creating a window like effect.

Natures Window

Here we photograph our visit and then we return back to the car.

It has warmed up quite a bit and we are all hot and puffed by the time we get to the top of the stairs leading to the carpark. Havn't done a walk in a while and we are feeling so unfit lately.

There isn't anything else that interests us here in the National Park itself so we head back into town. Its such a nice day that we decide to go down to the jetty for some hotchip sandwiches. After lunch we agree to return back to camp for an afternoon movie, early dinner and early night but this never eventuated because the pimple that Lilly had on her leg yesterday had turned into a large absys and requires medical attention.

We go to the local health precinct and we see a doctor who confirms an infection and prescribes her antibiotics.

During the night Lilly's infected area looked worse and we started to worry some more. We weren't sure when the medicine was going to take affect. She was in so much pain and nothing we did eased that.