by On Sunday morning my parents rang with some grim news. My uncle G, Mum’s younger brother, was in intensive care. G is less than two years younger than Mum; he came to my brother’s wedding last year in his first trip to this side of the world. Earlier this year he’d been diagnosed with early-stage bowel cancer. He’d responded well to chemo and his prognosis was good. At the end of last week he had an operation to remove the cancer, but it went horribly wrong. My parents tried to explain what had happened. They fitted a stoma bag which came undone and leaked, causing toxic shock and even a heart attack. He was given antibiotics but didn’t respond. Mum thought about making a trip to Palmerston North to see him but he wouldn’t have recognised her. I got an email from Dad this morning with better news – he is now lucid – and I obviously hope he’ll pull through without damage to his heart or kidneys.
Last week, just before this all happened, Mum was telling me about G’s son – my cousin – who had just booked a trip to Madrid to see the Champions League final between his beloved Liverpool and Tottenham. He was planning to go for just four days. Bloody ridiculous, I thought, to go all the way from Wellington to Spain (you literally can’t go any further without leaving the planet) just a game of football between a load of foreigners. He’s since told my mum, “that’s nothing now”.
My own dad is having treatment tomorrow. After a check-up on his colon they found a polyp which in all probability is benign, but he’s having surgery to remove it. That has put their trip to the UK next month in some doubt. I’m about to give him a call to wish him all the best.
Yesterday I got (and deciphered) the results of my CT scan, that were of course all in Romanian. There are certainly issues with my maxillary sinuses not draining properly, but there was no indication of what I should do next. I guess I need to see the ENT specialist again; it’ll be good to have a piece of paper to present him with.
We’re in the midst of a spell of ugly weather, probably the longest in my 2½-plus years here. It’s making getting to lessons – for both me and my students – that bit more awkward.
The weather is good for Scrabble. I got in twelve games over the weekend, losing just two. Unusually for me, I won some very close games, three of them by six points or fewer. One of my losses was also by just six points; my opponent was somebody who liked to fish off (or even exchange) a single tile, taking a big points sacrifice, in the hope of drawing a bingo. It’s something I rarely do. In my other defeat I felt I made a big tactical blunder. I had a small lead, but my opponent then played POSTING as a bingo, stopping one square short of the triple word, and setting up a big hotspot for an S, which I didn’t have. On my next turn I set up a second high-scoring spot, thinking I would be able to take one of the two available. But that was extremely risky, because there was no guarantee I’d be able to use either of them. My opponent instead took both (aided by a blank), scored heavily again with his next play, and I was suddenly a long way behind. This is still all a learning process. The good news is I’ve finally got my threes pretty much down pat. That took a while.
