Health matters.

Tom saw the surgeon yesterday, who's given us dates for the hospital stay. He'll go in on the 13th November and come out on the 19th. So it's still quite a way off, though he's got a preliminary visit next week.

I'll end up fitting it around work, and have minched off and offloaded onto poor overworked Rosie largely unnecessarily, but will do so no more. Sod's Law being what it is, if I hadn't taken the time off everything would have collided and clashed, as I did, then it didn't. I should have known no health service anywhere could really have moved that fast. That saintly woman will receive Brownie points in heaven chocolate and chestnut pudding on earth, and my gratitude and fealty for ever and ever. My students will probably be utterly disgusted to have me back after half-term after enjoying her company for a couple of weeks. In the meantime I have offset my guilt and inaction by doing as many sewing, cooking, floor-cleaning, grass-cutting, wall-pointing, leaf-sweeping jobs as I could, and shall continue to do so. My neighbour has just approached me to give her granddaughter some English coaching over half-term, so that'll keep me somewhat usefully employed too.

Tom's fine, digging and mulching and suchlike and only a bit fractious with the situation.

Molly had a vet's check-up today. Her open ear is quite clean and healthy, even though I haven't done much to keep it that way lately, and the one which was operated where she had the abscess shows no sign of swelling or discomfort, so fingers crossed she's OK for the moment and the new diet has worked. She's quickly lost the extra weight she put on when adjusting to it, and was pronounced to be in generally good form. We concluded the horrendously expensive eye ointment wasn't worthwhile, and she no has 'artificial tears' at a quarter of the price which are simply soothing and just as good. Emy the vet was generally pleased with her, though in general she's not a fan of cocker spaniels. She also told us a story about a cat that's allergic to everything in its food except pure fish and soya. One day it went out and licked the barbecue, and had a bad allergic reaction. Now it's owner is terrified it will catch a mouse and be allergic to that. Emy reassured her that was fairly unlikely, as animals mostly develop allergies to things contained in commercial petfood, and as far as she knew the manufacturers didn't include mousemeat. It has to be the next thing though doesn't it? Whiskas with vole and mouse...

So, tentatively, things seem quite manageable, especially now we have dates and a reasonable level of clarity. It behoves us to remember that we'd be waiting a great deal longer and with more uncertainty for a hospital bed elsewhere in the world. Thanks to all here for kind and loving words, about this and all else.

(Note: I tried to post this yesterday evening, Thursday, but Blogger was mucking about and lost a big chunk of text for me. So today/yesterday etc refer to that...)