One month ago - 18 December 2017

My Dad passed away a month today.  Monday, December 18, 2017 at 2am, my Mum who spent the night at the hospital was woken up by a nurse to let her know that he had passed. He was still warm so he would have passed no more than 15 minutes before that.

We were prepared for this.  The Thursday beforehand, our family had a meeting with my Dad's medical team. By this time, my Dad had already been in hospital for almost 10 weeks. 10 weeks! The first trimester of a pregnancy almost completed; a whole Term at school . A long time.

The whole journey started over 2 years ago. While trying to search for this blog, I saw that I wrote a half finished entry talking about the beginning of Dad's journey. It was a journey that started with his long term gout issues that ended up with chronic kidney failure. Sigh.

Over 2 years ago,  my Dad started his daily dialysis. He opted for peritoneal as this was a gentler approach, and it allowed him to do his dialysis at home. To begin with, he was doing multiple sessions during the day. Eventually, he was able to have his dialysis overnight, while sleeping.  In that 2 years, he also managed to have a triple bypass heart surgery, as well as cataract eye surgery. While his dialysis and surgeries knocked him back, he always got himself up.

Dad has his heart surgery in May 2017. He was the first to admit that the surgery made him feel better. A lot of family and friends who attended his once-in-a-lifetime 70th birthday celebration last August commented how well he looked. We said that our goal for 2018 was for him and Mum to go through the kidney transplant. They were both working hard towards this. Around September, he started picking up his golf clubs again, swinging inside the house, putting in the garden - a fantastic sign for our family!

It was the first week of Term 4 2017, j ust after the October long weekend.  My brother had his 40th birthday the week before where Dad joined them for lunch at Three Blue Ducks. The photos depicted smiles.

My brother's 40th the week before hospitalisation

Noah and Eliza started at their new school that week. It was a Wednesday morning when my brother rang me to tell me that Dad had phoned him that morning, asking him to take him to Royal North Shore. Dad hadn't been feeling well since the weekend. I made my way to the hospital after dropping the children at school. We spent most of the day at Emergency with the doctors trying their hardest to figure out why Dad's heart rate were completely erratic.

Eventually peritonitis was diagnosed.

Since my Dad's heart rate was completely erratic, they ordered that he be taken to ICU for observation. Most likely a week or so in hospital. We left Dad there, reminding him to be nice to the doctors and nurses!

Around 6am the following morning, my brother receives a phone call from the hospital. Dad is not doing well, get the hospital as fast as you can. Dad has become septic, where the infection has moved into his bloodstream. The doctors intubated him. They informed us that the next 24 hours would be critical. If he didn't respond in that time, we would lose him.

It was at that time when my tears started to roll. While I tried to remain hopeful, the realist in me knew that it could be his time.

We spent 3 weeks in ICU.  Dad gradually battled the peritonitis. He was a fighter.

However, in that time, Dad developed fluid in his lungs.

We are not sure if it was the water that he was taking or the food that we were feeding him, but only a couple of days after coming out of his sedation, they found that food and liquid were going down the wrong tube. Instead of the esophagus, it was going down to his lungs.

Dad was still in ICU when he was put on thickened fluids, no food. He was in pain. Dad loved to eat. Eating is in our genes. It was the start of his hell.

The doctors ordered drains to remove the fluid from his lungs. While it helped, it never really cleared.

My Dad was eventually deemed strong enough to be moved to the renal ward.  We saw this as a positive sign.

However, he continued to cough and nurse a constant itchy throat.

Dad was given exercises to try and help him strengthen his muscles. The nurses and his physiotherapist asked him to sit upright for hours, to walk to the toilet, to take as many steps as he can, or try eating on his own. It seemed easy enough, but to my Dad it had become his next hell.

It was so difficult to watch my Dad fail these exercises when he had been such an athlete for all of his life. My Dad was never one to stop challenging himself. However he could not understand why he felt so weak, tired and just had nothing to give.

It was the week we were in Uluru when my Dad's frustration had started to depress him.  This was week 4-5.

My Dad started saying his farewell to my brother.

When I visited my Dad after returning from Uluru, he too, continued to be emotional with me.  He felt that he was dying. He was in tears. When I left him, he said I love you to me. Words that he was very sparse with. I rang my brother to let him know of what had happened. I told my brother that we if didn't get a turn for the better that week, Dad was just going to keep slipping down.

I went back to work in tears.

We got that turn that week. My own Dad claimed it a miracle, that he started to feel so much better.

Week 6 to week 9 was a rollercoaster.  There were days when his markers were going well, there were days when it was getting worse. There were days when Dad felt strong enough to do everything his physio asked and there were plenty of days where he just slept. At this time, his cough was not getting better and he was still on a soft foods diet. 

We heard stories of people going home after 3 months so hope never left our family. At one stage, our Dad's nephrologist aimed to have my Dad come home for Christmas.

Dad finally got to go out and see sunshine in the 10 weeks he was in hospital

One of his very good days

It was around week 7-8 when the respiratory team informed us that CT scans and Xrays continued to show the fluids around Dad's lungs. We discussed surgery but the surgeons were not confident given Dad's poor health. A less riskier approach was suggested.

So once again the doctors ordered for Dad to have drains. He was given a specific medication to try and help break down the pockets of fluid that has built up. Tim told me that the medication is usually given to those with cystic fibrosis to try and break down the fibers in the lungs.

Wednesday, December 13, 2017, we were told that the fluid continue to spread and that the specific medication has in fact started to make Dad bleed, which has caused him pain in his back.

It was Thursday, December 14, 2017, when our family met with my Dad's team of doctors. His nephrologist, the renal registrar, respiratory specialist, speech pathologist all met with us to discuss Dad's situation.

We discussed how our last course of action caused him pain rather than helping him.

If Dad continued his dialysis, with his lung infection, he would most likely have another 2-3 months to live but would be in pain.

The doctors then shared with us what we already knew - that Dad was tired and that he has had enough. He wanted all his medical interventions to stop, and for his last few days to be free of pain.

My tears didn't stop rolling.

We were given 4-7 days. My Dad was moved to his own room so that we can have some privacy.

One by one his interventions were removed. He was eventually given morphine but before the morphine kicked in, he complained of being in a lot of pain. He was in his hell.

We made the most of that weekend. Long lost friends came over to pay him a visit. We celebrated my nephew Isaac's birthday with a cake. We continued to tell stories. We continued to pray. He even managed to skype his siblings on the Sunday, continuing to provide them with his words of wisdom.

No words were left unsaid

Celebrating Isaac's birthday with Lolo

My Dad was happy.  Peace embedded him as he finally regained control. He knew that he was dying. We knew he was dying. We were gifted with the sense of closure.

Closure is an amazing gift

Monday was day 4. Mum decided to stay by Dad's side that night. I decided to have my phone next to me, with the ringer on.

So when Dad passed in his sleep early that morning, we were prepared for it.

Australian Open 2017

Centre Court

I was almost 12 when we moved to Australia. Not long after arriving, my Mum took me to the local girls high school where they were coaching children to play tennis. I was adamant that I wanted to learn. My ever supportive Mum took me to the local K-mart and bought my very first tennis racquet. I started tennis lessons the following week.

At that age, we lived in a flat right across Hornsby shopping centre. The shops did not trade on Sundays so I would take myself to the empty indoor parking lot with my tennis racquet and balls and start hitting the wall. My Dad, who is an amazing sportsman always said that you will only get better if you practiced. So I did. I rallied against the wall.

Throughout high school, I loved watching and playing tennis. I started playing weekend competitions and would always look forward to the grand slams on tv. Navratrilova was still big then, Ivan Lendl was the cool cat, Stefi Graf was full of grace, Andre Agassi had very long hair, and Monica Seles grunted very loudly. I was absolutely in love with Stefan Edberg too. Tennis became an outlet as it allowed me to meet people from our area (I did not attend a local school). It also allowed me to play in some of the most beautiful houses around the district.

My brother started playing tennis too. For those who knew us when we were young, you would know how good a tennis player my brother was. Like my Dad, he is genetically gifted in sport. He had so much potential that my Dad took him to a tennis camp in Florida where Pete Sampras, then an up and coming player trained.

I stopped following tennis just as Federer/Nadal and the Williams sisters were starting to become great. Occasionally I would watch it on tv but I could no longer tell you who were the top players.

So you can imagine how excited I was when our client invited us to the 2017 Australian Open about a week and a half ago.

Just so that I can remember this, I will also include that I was not my CEO's first choice to attend the tennis with her. However, when she spoke with our client, they insisted that the 2nd ticket go to me, as I had been managing our partnership. You can imagine the excitement I felt as not only did my client insist that I go to Melbourne (they were paying for flights and accommodation too), I finally get to go to a Semi Finals match of a Grand Slam!

My CEO and I flew to Melbourne on Australia Day 2017. Our client had organised for a transfer from the airport to our hotel (did I tell you that we were staying at the Westin too?!), then to attend a 7 course degustation paired with wines at a Spanish restaurant for lunch prior to watching the tennis in the evening.

One indulgent lunch

 
We had about an hour between lunch and the tennis to "freshen up". I think for most of us, it was to take a nana-nap after that indulgent lunch. I took the opportunity to 'freshen up", ring Tim and the kids to hear about their day and to show them my digs for the night.

 

The obligatory selfie

 

So walking into the Australian Open was pretty much like the lunch we had earlier. It was indulgent! Sensory overload. The excitement, the pride, the once in a lifetime opportunity.

I was excited to finally be attending the Australian Open. I was so excited to be watching the Mens Semi Final. I was beside myself knowing that I will get to watch, and cheer for Stan Wawrinka, one of the players that I have a not so secret crush on (last one was Stefan Edberg!)

How big is my smile?

 

Well needless to say it was a terrific match. Stan lost to Roger Federer but it was a well earned win for Roger. The match was well over 3 hrs but it went pretty quick. All my tennis lingo came back to me! The love that I previously had for the sport came back!

It was an epic 5 set!

 

This weekend I have rekindled my love for tennis through the finals, watching the Williams' sisters play for the Women's title and watching Rafa and Roger battle it out once again for the Mens. Seriously, if it wasn't for Rafa losing his hair, and for my need to go to bed way before the end of the 2nd set, I would think I was back to where I was 20 years ago!

PS - I need to look for some photos from my tennis years as a teen.

Noah and Eliza - fast forward 3 big years

Noah was not even 4 years old the last time I blogged. Eliza less than 2.
We had just moved to Frenchs Forest and I had just started another full time job.
The children moved preschools/long daycare and we didn't realise how much work a house with a garden took!

No wonder I stopped blogging! I think I was barely staying afloat.

Lets talk about Frenchs Forest first. What a beautiful neighbourhood. We are so lucky to have been able to have moved here when we did. Had we left it another 6 months,  I doubt us being here.  We are so lucky that our neighbours are beautiful. We live on a battleaxe, sharing a driveway with a lovely lady and her beautiful sausage dog Jake. How the kids have become fond of Jake. Every opportunity to pat and play with him, they do. The kids have not had the opportunity to be surrounded by dogs so having Jake enables to build their confidence around these lovely animals.  Another next door neightbour has a pool - and oh do we have pool envy over the summer! Just as well the kids have their paddling pool which keeps them happy, but sadly not really made for adults, or is it?

Wonder if the neighbours have pool envy too?!

Over the last 2 years our street has hosted two Christmas in July street parties. These parties have allowed us to meet our neighbours and somewhat get to know them. The last party, a neigbour opened their home and spoiled us, including providing sparklers and loot bags for the children. How lucky are we to live in such a wonderful community.

Some of the older street kids 2015

Some of the younger street kids 2016

I am interested to see what is ahead for Frenchs Forest but that is another story to tell.

Work! I work for Landcare Australia, which is a not-for-profit land and water focused organisation. I am with their partnerships team, responsible for bringing corporate revenue in. NOT THE EASIEST ROLE!

There are many things I love about my job, but sometimes I wonder how I ended up there. I still laugh remembering when I first told my brother that I was working for an environmental organisation. He distinctly said "You, environment, are you serious". Ha!

Getting my hands dirty!

Well Landcare has definitely taught me so much more than I ever expected. Today, I know what biodiversity means. I know what corridor links mean. I know what citizen science is. I know why it is important for each of us to support our local farmers. I know why it is important for our children to learn about where our food comes from. I know why our kids need to get their hands dirty. I know the value of volunteering your time and your energy, and of community education and engagement.

Noah and Eliza learning about soil health from Costa G.

Yes, me and the environment! Who would have thought?!

In the 3 years that have passed, Noah attended an amazing preschool for a year and has been at OLGC, our local Catholic primary school for 2. I am so grateful that we found Little Bloomers, the preschool that Noah attended. I came across them through asking a Mums facebook forum. Thank goodness one of the mums told me to Go fot it, as we did and haven't looked back. Eliza ended up attending Little Bloomers herself for almost 2 years! Thank you Caroline xo

Noah and Eliza at the Little Bloomers disco

OLGC, I will dedicate a separate post to!

I have to mention the first long daycare Eliza attended after our move. Since you needed to be 3 years old to attend Little Bloomers, we had to find another place for Eliza. We found a lovely place in Frenchs Forest bordering Allambie. While the place was lovely and caring, it was the worse year EVER. I would say that the place is no more than 3 kms from our home. 3km, on weekends, take no more than 5 minutes. On weekdays, it takes up to 45 minutes one way! 45 very painful minutes especially when I know that I still needed to park the car and get the bus to work. The day Eliza moved to Little Bloomers, the weight of being stuck in traffic was lifted off my shoulder. I seriously have not experienced wasting my time sitting in the car, on a daily basis, until we needed to do that routine. No wonder I kept away from blogging. I would have just been a miserable dried prune.

Homeownership and homekeeping! Oh my goodness.


So we bidded for our house the first time we saw it. We had been looking for a house for about 4 months, taking the children with us every Saturday to open houses. Tim and I fell in love with our house immediately. While we had to compromise on some aspects, we knew that we had found our home, possibly our forever home. Little did we realise that owning our own home equated to a whole new level of responsibility. While Tim and I have both owned our own homes, we have owned units - where we were only responsible for our 4 walls. This time, we were not only responsible for our 4 walls, but we were also responsible for the garden, the trees, the fences, the roof, the gutters, the drains....EVERYTHING!

I remember distinctly that within the first 6 months of home ownership, Tim and I decided to have our trees trimmed. We live in Frenchs Forest, and we literally have a forest in our garden. That initial work cost us almost $2K, and I remember asking the tree lopper how often we would need to get the trees trimmed. Every 18-24months at least he said! Who would have thought we needed to budget for that?!

Early last year, we decided to have 1 of our 4 big trees cut. A $4K exercise! Sigh!

1 out of our 4 big trees

Just as well Tim (and his helpers) enjoy gardening so there is no need to engage a gardener to help us keep on top of our garden.

Thank goodness that even princesses help in the garden

 We are giving our local plumber plenty of business though!

Let's try again!

This morning I woke up and had a wild thought.
Maybe I can blog again.

Maybe I can start capturing, once again, memories that are being created around me. I know that one day and I have said this before, I am going to need something and someone to remind me of my journey - the things that have made me laugh and the things that have made me cry. The things that have bothered me and the things I wonder about. I also want my children to be reminded of the experiences they have had, their family and friends, the people around them, their DNA, each ingredient that little by little contribute to who they will become. Noah and Eliza's own journey!

Thank goodness for email as it was the only way I could find my own blog. Ha! I told you that one day I am going to need all the help remembering things!

So here I am, three years on from the very last blog I wrote.

Funny that my last blog was also written in January. Maybe it has something to do with starting the year fresh. Maybe it is my own psychological new years resolution. Maybe every January I say to myself, I am going to do a better job of diarising our memories. I will do a better job of keeping in touch with the my own family and friends, and the people who have been part of me - the people who have been part of my own journey.

I will finish this post here. Let me now gather my thoughts and think about the last three years.
How I wish I have already captured the memories!!!

Welcoming 2017 from the top of our road.

The end of an era

Today was my last day working at the AGSM.
Today was also moving day for my team. Tomorrow,  my colleagues will no longer be based in the city but instead Kensington.
Today was a big day.

Yesterday was Noah's last day at the Roundhouse kindy.
Yesterday his little friends sang him a goodbye Noah song and gave him a beautiful card with lots of spiderman stickers on it.
Yesterday was the last day we needed to do the drive to Manly from our house to get to kindy.
Yesterday was a big day.

This week marks the end of an era.

Next week, Noah will start at his new kindy.
Next week, I will start a new job.
Next week, our family will find a new routine.
Next week is the beginning of another journey.

Life is never without change.

2013: The year that was!

It is only an hour and a half away from 2014. A new year! Fresh! The beginning of a new page in the beautiful life of Jo.

As I close the chapter on 2013, I reflect on the craziness of the year that was - 2013.

I would most likely describe my year to be crazy! I started full time work this year  meaning that Eliza also started attending daycare at the tender age of 9months old. Both kids attended daycare 4x a week with having Thursdays off to be minded my either my Mum or Dad.

When Noah started going to daycare, he did get sick so we were expecting Eliza to also have her sick days. Little did we expect that Eliza would be sick almost every 2 weeks from January to July. Apart from the regular cough and colds, Eliza also acquired pneumonia, hand foot and mouth disease, bronchiolitis, asthma and nits. I became very familiar with the Triage procedure at the Emergency Room at Manly and the Royal North Shore hospitals.

Apart from Eliza being sick, I too fell very ill at the beginning of the year. I was asleep for almost 4 straight days, suffering over 40C temperatures and could not keep anything down. Tim took me to the hospital but was not admitted. Based on my symptoms, Tim unofficially diagnosed me to have onset of mild meningitis - possibly getting it from Eliza's hand foot and mouth disease. We later learned that there were other cases in our area at the same time.

Thank God for Tim's work allowing him for a bit of flexibility as without that, I am not sure I would still be employed. This year I managed to use up ALL of my 15 days of sick leave. Never in my entire career history have I taken so much sick leave from work. Let's hope that 2014 is not as bad!

2013 is also the year when Tim and I travelled to the UK with both children, Being in the UK, attending 2 beautiful weddings of 2 very special couples, spending time with our families and watching the children create brilliant memories in the 10 days that we were there was amazing but oh my goodness, Tim and I never expected the travel to be as painful. Doing long haul with 2 young children completely wrecked us, especially as we were only there for such a short time.

2013 is also the year when I had my 2 minutes worth of fame on paper and tv. Despite having more than enough on my plate, I agreed to being the champion to fight against increases in our day care fees from our Council run centre. Nothing came to fruition but we fought for our beliefs and cannot wait to show Noah and Eliza the newspaper print photo and the video again when they are older.

This year, we finally bit the bullet and joined the Sydney property market. We knew that we had outgrown our 2 bedroom Fairlight rental but was not prepared to move until after our UK trip. House hunting was fun to begin but that did not last long. After 3 months of spending almost every Saturday afternoon driving around, Noah was over it and told us that he did not want to see another house again. Tim and I felt the same, watching 30-50 groups of people go through open houses with us and learning of places selling at least 20% over their asking price! It was ridiculous! Thank God that we did find our house when we did as we could not do another open house and get our offer rejected again.

In as much as for most of the year, Tim and I felt like we were riding the roller coaster of life, trying to manage and balance the kids and work (and constantly feeling that we are shortchanging one), I think this year has brought Tim and I closer through the challenges we have faced and the decisions we have made.

This year we also saw our kids grow so much closer. They truly have started to become friends and have each others back. We have heard Noah refer to Eliza as his best friend or no longer his best friend when  she chooses to not listen to him.

Tomorrow, I will be waking up and it will be a fresh year. A year that Tim and I are looking forward to. We are hoping for a more settled year especially in our new home - a year where we will continue to grow as a couple but hopefully also manage to pursue our own individual interest (which Tim and I have had to forego this year). We can only hope!

So my dear family and friends, I wish you a wonderful 2014.

Cheers to what is ahead. May God continue to reveal His great plan for each of us and may we always be happy, healthy and completed blessed in His presence.

With lots of love.

Our first Christmas at Chez Stentiford

I would like to officially introduce our new home to you.

Today, we spent our very first Christmas here.
Sadly, we were not blessed with the beautiful sunny weather that is depicted in the above photo. However, having more than enough space in our new home has provided us  with a pleasant, comfortable and "happy to stay indoors" type of day! Happy to stay indoors to eat, open presents, eat, open presents, eat and open presents!

Surprisingly it was already quite late when the children woke up. I have been waking up pretty early the past few days despite not necessarily having to. I think it stemmed from the week when Tim went away. That week, I made the effort to be awake at least 15-20 minutes before I expected the children to wake up, meaning needing to be up 5.30AM! Ugh!

Anyway, the first thing I heard from Noah this morning was "Did Santa come?"

I let Tim guide Noah through the loot the Santa brought and let him explain what Santa and the reindeers ate out of the feast he left for them. I wanted Noah to come up, to wake me and Eliza up, to excitedly tell us that Santa did arrive!

 

Once the mess had been made in our bedroom upstairs, it was time to move downstairs.

After breakfast, it was inevitable that the kids wanted to open more presents so Tim and I agreed to let them open their presents from us.

I can seriously say "Thank God we now have the space to accommodate this craziness, which included having a water table with an umbrella in our lounge room and a race track in the rumpus !!!".

As Tim was scheduled to be on patrol at North Curl Curl beach this afternoon, we hosted my parents over for Christmas rather than going to theirs today. Of course, despite the rain, I was adamant that we (he) would still be bbq-ing!

Luckily it was not too wet when Tim got started so he was still agreeable!

Lunch was a lovely feast. We missed Chad, Bambi, Ate and Isaac as they are away but we will be doing Christmas round 2 on Saturday with them. I think Tim and I agreed that we needed to get a bigger dining table soon!

Tim had to leave for his patrol for a couple of hours leaving us behind to digest our meal, and open more presents.

Of course when he got back, we opened more presents (and made more mess!) and ate more chocolate!

The kids are now in bed fast asleep, probably relishing the wonder of today, despite having to be indoors all day.

They did not even miss their new trampoline which is still a work in progress. Rain dampened plans of completely building it today.

To all our family and friends, wishing you a wonderful Christmas day, just like the one we had. May we all continue to be blessed and guided by God's loving spirit. Thank you too for all the wonderful greetings, cards and presents that you have showered our family with. We are indeed very blessed!

Merry Christmas!