Something of a shock (by alaric)

During my weeks in London, I stay in a side-room in an office.

Tonight, I went to bed at around half past midnight. I said goodnight to the two people who were still in the office, shut my door, and settled down to sleep.

Then suddenly woke up at 2am, jolted awake by the recognition of the distant sound of the burglar alarm being armed. Something in my sleeping mind recognised the sound, and realised it was a bad sound. I'm quite impressed.

I remained very, very, still, then slowly cracked my eyelids open and peered up at the motion sensor in the corner above me...

Did I imagine it? Or was I now in a building with an armed burglar alarm, complete with loud siren at 2am and a link to a remote control centre?

I considered the distance to the alarm control panel, and the fact that I was totally naked. When you unlock the door, the alarm starts beeping down a countdown before which you have to key the number in. Could I leap out of bed, grab my dressing gown, rush out, and disarm the alarm before it went off?

I carefully rotated my head to see the sensor better. It was in the corner right above the bed, looking out towards the large window. I was probably not within its field of view, but where did the field of view extend to?

I extended my left arm, the one directly beneath it, and carefully shifted my books off of the bed, then gingerly, heart pounding, slid myself out from under the duvet until I was directly beneath the sensor. I could now lift my head, and start trying to look around the room to try and find out where I'd left my dressing gown.

The alarm went off. No beeping warning that I had ten seconds to enter the code: it just went off, screaming. I lept from the bed, dived onto my dressing gown, shoved it (balled up) into my groin, and burst out of the door, along the main hall of the office, and typed the deactivation code faster than I've ever typed before.

Silence fell. Apart from the slamming of my heart pumping on overdrive, my system flooded with adrenaline.

I walked back to my room, trembling and sweating, fumbling to put the dressing gown on properly.

At which point, for some reason, the printer suddenly burst into life and printed another test page. I picked it up from the out tray and dumped it into the pile of test pages next to it, leaving smears of finger sweat on it, then went and curled up on the bed until I felt up to writing this bizarre experience up.

Now I'm going to go and make a sign to attach to the alarm control panel: "DO NOT ARM IF ALARIC IS ASLEEP".

Then try to get back to sleep, which I suspect will take me a while.

The alarm panel is showing a series of numbers on its display, rather than the usual blankness. I'm still wondering if the police are going to turn up or something, since I'm pretty sure it's linked to some remote location.

Mum update, Hydrogen update (by sarah)

Mum had to go to A&E last night as her wound is now just bleeding all the time and is refusing to heal up. It has now been weeks and weeks since her operation and becuase of the infection in the sight her radiotherapy has been post poned. They have also decided not to give her chemo as it would probably kill her due to complications and stuff.

Instead they are putting her on some tablets that will cause hair thinning but not like chemo.

Hydrogen went to the vets yesturday and they decided not to take the drain out yet as she's still oozing puss and stuff, I'm still ramming antibiotics into her protesting jaw (which as she is a cat is full of needle sharpe teeth). They've shown me how to clean her wound and I bough another collar so that I can wash one and put a clean freash one on her after cleaning the wound. I take her back to the vets tomorrow.

Over 20 quids worth of Ouch :( (by sarah)

Not kittens this time but me. I have just had to shell out over £20 for a prescription, my back is still killing me from well over a week ago now right where it curves in the most. It is probably soft tissue damage with the possibility of trapped nerve which needs to be looked at becuase of siatica (I have no idea how to spell this word). My Core muscles are probably unstable leading to problems around my lower back - I think these are the same muscles I was working at streangthening becuase of the seperated pelvis but am not sure.

So its back to physio for me and back on the pain killers, this time its a cocktail of three:

Solpadol, Diclofenac, and Omeprazole

One of these is to protect my stomache from the pain killers as I have a nasty tendency to bleed from both ends if on pain killers for any length of time and start losing weight as food just wont stay down. The dr said this means I have uclers and stuff and asked if I'd had endoscopies about it. I said I had and lo! My notes say I have IBS this is something at least, no one has ever said anything to me before other than the biopsys came back inconclusive. I had given up on getting a diagnosis for the stomache stuff if I am honest. So I am assuming now that I have ulcers and IBS and am wondering how else to deal with them - I already tend to stay clear of rich foods, I'm on the goats milk and cheese and said by by to red meat a long time ago.

I have to wait 4 weeks or so for the physio at which point the doc says the back will probably be better but that I need physio to try and stop recurring injuries and stuff. The down side is that some of these tablets make you sleepy so I'm quiet sure how thats going to work with a Jeany-bow to look after.

I was quiet taken aback at the cost of my prescription though - ouch, ouch ouch. Oh well if it wasnt subsadised they'd probably cost more but still how many people who dont qualify for free prescriptions can afford hits of 20 every few weeks?? This is only ok for us finacially at the moment becuase things are on an upswing at the moment if this had been pre-flood I wouldnt have had the cash to get it with - sigh.

Mystry Cat is off the hook but man it hit the wallet hard (by sarah)

Here is a picture of Hydrogen just before she went off to the vet this morning - some of the blood and puss is just visible.

It turned out not to be a bit or scratch - instead she had a piece of twig lodged in the side of her neck that must have been there for ages and took some removing, in hind sight Albert (Barbaras gardener was commenting on the fact that she didnt like the side of her head chuckeled and she had kept mewing at us but we had thought she was just looking to be stroked.). Saddly if she'd been any of the other cats we would have noticed before it got to that state becuase they all sit on laps but Hydrogen is too energetic and kittenish still for that. We thought she was being sad because she hasnt really grown up and her sisters stops playing with her.

She is also apt at climbing trees especially the black thorn looking for birds - poor thing it must have been really apinful 🙁

Due to our normal comedy of errors we fialed to get the cat box that I had organised and so had a hug cardborard box in which to try and bring her home in - this didnt work and I ended up hugging her many as she was endanger of hurting herself. She's wearing one of those funny collars and has what appears to be a drinking straw stuck into her (for fluid drainage) but the poor thing couldnt eat with it on as its longer than her head so Al had to initially hold her plate of food up for her (the same went for the water and boy was she hungry when we got her home).

This obviously wasn't a very practical solution as Al couldnt stay there all night with her so we jury rigged something out of our spice rack thing and a couple of F-clamps, it has worked suprisingly well!

Tomorrow the antibiotics start which means we have to somehow feed her pills - hmmm I can see that being loads of fun :/

Poor Hydro-puss (by sarah)

Well we took her to the vets this morning and it is an absess that has burst probably from a bit or scratch that became infected from fighting. The vet thinks it is unlickely to be one of our own cats (which due to terratory stuff includes tim and betsy) so that only leaves mystry cat 🙁 I thought he was getting on well with the other cats - him and tim just mew at each other all the time, but then hydrogen is the stupid friendly one out of the cats and has no concept of personal space or boundaries and is always being batted by the other cats for being in their face.

Poor little thing. I had organised a cat box to take her in but then we couldn't fine the house this morning so she had to just be wrapped in a towl and taken in on my lap. Fortunatly (and unfortunatly) the trip Al was supposed to be on was canceled so that ment Jean still got to nursery as dad was here aswell. Hydrogen meowed pitteiously all the way there but stayed very still nestled in my arms rather than really making any attempt to escape.

We thought they'd just clean her up and maybe do some stitches and give an injection but instead she's got to go under and have ther area shaved and cleaned and then drained. She was also running a temperature from the infection. So we have left her there and the vet will phone us later.