Update, February 2024

Where to begin... Those of you who follow me on social media may have seen that we have been on a bit of a rollercoaster this month. My husband Mike is in hospital. As he likes to say, he only went in for a cup of tea!

Well actually, it wasn't quite that simple. He went for an angiogram to check his hardened arteries, with the expectation of one or two stents and being able to come home the next day. It turned out that he needed 5 main arteries sorted out, and after a scary episode, which the medical staff politely called a 'pause', it was also determined that he should have a pacemaker.

Mike has received fantastic care at both Heartlands and Good Hope Hospitals. We can't fault either of them. Highlights for me have been the banter, which has been fabulous and has helped to keep our spirits up (especially the Sister whose calm control in a crisis was awesome), meeting the Sister who helped save Mike's life, and hearing her side of the story, (I hope to meet the other nurse before too long), and meeting the cardiologist who performed the last two ops, and who took the time to show us Mike's x-rays, and chat to us about pacemaker technology, recuperation strategies, and my interest in English language testing for health care staff.

Ten days later, with four heart ops completed, we think we might have actually got on top of it at last! The pacemaker is finally settled in and pacing nicely, and the last x-ray was spot on, so we're hoping there'll be no more blips and it looks like he'll be coming home today to recuperate.

As you might expect, all this has seriously messed with our life plans. We're going to be entering a period of readjustment, and we'll both need to concentrate on developing a workable strategy for income generation which reflects our new circumstances. Naturally, Mike will be taking a short break from work (the staff reckon 2 to 4 weeks), and I've decided to take a leave of absence from this website and mailing list (which may well be permanent) to focus on my lovely husband and our revised life! I will doubtless stay in touch with many of you via Instagram.

Thanks so much for all your support over the years!