Tag: stress

I need a vacation from my vacation

Posted on By admin

I’ve been on leave since last Wednesday and I can’t really say that I’m rested and relaxed. I spent Wednesday cooking tons of food. We went to the seaside on Thursday with Katy’s parents. That was a nice day, but ended in a less than pleasing note when the beastie – exhausted and probably having had a bit too much sun – melted down after being put to bed. It’s always a bone-searingly scary experience when he wakes up wailing after being fast asleep. He just never does it and I always worry about the worst happening… Friday was my birthday and I spent a large part of it in my kimono. That was good, and Katy went nuts with prezzies and wrapping paper.

Katy’s parents left on Saturday and we had a quiet day. We went to the market to pick up some veg and do a quick shop at Waitrose for some food for a fondue we planned for dinner. The evening was nice, but the night was very short because the beastie had another episode of at 4:30 am. He’s been really grumpy since Thursday, and has been drooling a lot and running a bit warmer than usual. We thought it was just teething pains. This morning though, he was roasting! We called the docs and they said to keep an eye on him and call back if we’re still worried. The rational part of me things it’s probably just a cold. He’s been snuffly and snotty in the past 2 days. The irrational part of me just wants to go to the corner shop and buy a pack of fags and chain smoke and worry. The problem is that the irrational part of me has a louder voice these days.

uncategorized

F*CK. Also, ouch!

Posted on By admin

In a show of great skill and talent, I have managed to lose the ability to walk in a straight line and have spectacularly wiped out on a walkway at work and have twisted my ankle in the process. I’m currently sitting with my foot elevated and wrapped in ice. Taking advantage of the fact that I’m a walking pharmacy, I’m felling a lot better after taking ibuprofen, paracetamol and codeine. Still, god damn it, I do not need this shit right now.

uncategorized

Tiredness, and stress. And more tiredness.

Posted on By admin

I have repainted the whole of the upstairs of the Hinxton house. All the floors have been vacuumed to within inches of their lives (Katy has the blisters to prove it). We’ve done all that we’ve humanly could to make the house clean and tidy. The house is in a *much* better state than we’ve left it in. And still, it would seem that the powers that be aren’t happy. I fear for our deposit. We need that money, and it’s not an inconsiderable sum. If it’s less than 1K, I’ll have to look at our legal recourses. I am not happy. I don’t need this shit right now.

In other news, we gave in and let the cats go out this morning. For the past two weeks, they’ve been cooped up in the house and have turned into unbridled bundles of energy. Even Tolstoy was poinging everywhere and playing with random shit. We’d planned on letting them out this weekend but had to relent because they were spending their nights chasing each other all over and house and up and down the stairs for hours on end. It sounded like a herd of rampaging elephants. This is not conductive for a good night’s sleep. It also doesn’t help that BenBen has decided that 5am is a good time to wake up. As such, I am currently exhausted.

And stressed.

I do not like this situation.

uncategorized

It might be a loooooong few days

Posted on By admin 1 Comment on It might be a loooooong few days

BenBen’s sleeping patterns have been fractious these past few days. He seems to wake up coughing every night. It used to be only once a night, but these past few, it’s been two or three times. The good news is that he’s still able to settle himself back down to sleep, but it has started to take its toll. He’s not sleeping as well, so he’s not getting as much rest and he’s getting grumpy in the day. On a brighter side, he has regained his appetite back so we are happy about that. The bad news though is that his irregular nighttime sleeping patterns has started to affect his daytime naps. He used to go down for hour- or two-hour long naps during the day. These past few, he’s been restless and doesn’t go down as quickly or as deeply. He cries a lot, and we haven’t heard that in a while. It harkens back to the bad old days.

We had to go to the house this afternoon to wait for BT man. The situation was promising. BenBen had just been fed and it was time for his nap. He did not feel the same way. He cried, no make that hollered, the whole time we were there. Considering that we’re going to be there all weekend and most of next week painting, DIYing and cleaning, this fills me with anxious dread. I don’t like hearing him cry. He’s generally such a good baby that when he is being difficult or inconsolable, it seems that much more difficult.

They say that buying a house and having a baby are the two most stressful things you can do in your life. We’re doing both in a very short timespan. Hopefully things will settle down soon and we can start enjoying life and stop worrying about everything. The cynical voice in my head tells me that there’ll always be something to worry about. Still, we just want a little bit of us time. Of family time. Of time where we don’t have to worry about a dozen things at once.

Health-wise, the BenBen is fine. We go to the doctors enough to ensure that :) His chest is clear. His weight is stable. When he’s in a good mood, he’s bright eyed and bushy-tailed. I’m sure that we’re anxious about things that we don’t need to be worried about. It’s just easier said than done to not worry about all the work that needs doing in short order and having a crying baby thrown in for good measure does not help.

We can only hope it goes ok.

uncategorized

Duckies!

Posted on By admin

Campus is full of ducks again. This makes me happy, in a very Tony Soprano-esque sort of way. Natwest seems to delight in jerking us around regarding our loan application – which so far has taken close to two weeks now. They say they are being “responsible lenders”. I say they don’t want to lend out money while the interest rates are so low and they’re stalling as much as they can. If they say no, I’m taking my business elsewhere. As in, closing all my accounts and giving them the big two-finger salute. Most UK banks are sitting on a cubic butt-load of government money which, in theory, they are supposed to give out to try and re-stimulate the economy. They’re like greedy three year-olds. MINE! MINE! MINE!

I hate banks.

So, in the meantime, I feed the ducks and try not to stress too much.

uncategorized

It seems that it wan’t meant to be.

Posted on By admin

I had my stupid Life in the UK exam scheduled for this afternoon. I’ve been stressing about it for the last week and was very much looking forward to getting it done and over with. I’d taken the whole day off so that I could go over my notes in the morning and then take the test.

So, after finally finding out where I had to go and getting there, I am informed that people in the session just before mine are running late. We’re also told that we have incentive to pass the test today because the testing center will not be administering those tests anymore because, to put it bluntly, the money isn’t worth the effort and aggro. They’re the only testing center in Cambridge, and the nearest one after that is either Norwich or Peterborough. They only do one weekly session – Friday afternoons – and they’re booked solid for the last session.

So, we wait. And we wait. 20 minutes later, they finally start registering us for the tests. Just as we’re about to start the test, the power goes bye-bye and all the computers shut down. Turns out that the whole block has suddenly gone dark – they blame the road works. To make a very long and frustrating story short, we waited in a dark office from 2:45 to 3:45 and then they canceled the session. They held off as much as they could, but in the end they had to throw in the towel. The testing system is linked to a central Home Office server and the system locks everybody out at 5pm. We were given 2 choices: get a refund for the test or come back next Friday morning when they’re going to hold a session for those of us who can come back.

So, joy. I’m going to keep going over this shit for another week. This does not make me happy.

uncategorized

Life in the UK

Posted on By admin

I’ve been studying the material for my life in the UK exam, which is this coming Friday. The stuff I need to know is, to put it mildly, brain numbing. I’m almost done with the first-pass of the chapters I need to study and have most of them condensed in hand-written notes (a carry-over from my university days). I’ll have all of tomorrow and most of Friday to review it. I’m a bit anxious, to be honest. I’ve heard that 1/3 people fail the test. I can take it as many times as I need to, but I don’t want to have to spend more time thinking about it and I have to pay £35 a pop to take the test. I also need to wait a week before a re-test and I don’t want to deal with that shit any longer than I need to. I guess that part of my anxiety is just remnants of my university exam panic attack moments surfacing from the deep. I just want it done and over with.

uncategorized

We are not amused

Posted on By admin

The muppets at Cheltenham & Gloucester have refused our mortgage, on the basis that I do not have permanent leave to remain in the UK. This comes after leaving us hanging for two weeks while there was an inch of show on the ground and people were too pussy to go to work. This is, even, after they said that they would offer us a mortgage. They knew about my vsa status from the get go. Our mortgage broker had told them from the start and they said that it wouldn’t be an issue.

Until it became one.

After we’d put an offer on a house that we loved.

This is bureaucracy at its best. Red-tape, cover-your-ass mentality.

I’m gutted and furious and distraught and emotionally drained. I didn’t sleep at all last night.

We were told it wouldn’t be a problem, so we got emotionally attached to the house. We were measuring curtans and picking out colour schemes. Now, we’ll need to cancel our offer if our broker can’t find us another lender by the end of the week. Its not fair to the lady who’s selling the house to leave her hanging for longer than that.

Fuck you C&G, I hope you go bankrupt.

uncategorized

All this faffing around is driving me mental

Posted on By admin

Lots of important things are in the works, but it seems that we’re in a hurry-up-and-wait phase for all of them.

We’re still waiting for confirmation that the mortgage under-writers will lend us the money but, seeing that nobody can deal with 6 inches of snow, there is no staff at their head office so our application in festering in somebody’s in tray. We should, fingers crossed, have news tomorrow or Wednesday. We don’t want to let loose the solicitors until we know for certain that we’ll get the money – it’s not worth throwing money out the window if we can’t get the loan.

I’m in the process of filling out my Application for naturalisation as a British citizen forms, but I need to get two references to say that I’m who I say I am and not some crazed lunatic. One of them is away today and I’ll need to get my GP for the other – which will cost me 30 pounds and take two weeks (if he doesn’t lose the forms this time). I also need to study the most mind-numbingly boring facts about the UK so I can take the Life in the UK test, but I can’t do that until Friday next week.

So, we wait.

But I’m tearing out what little hair I have left and all my nails are a bloody mess.

uncategorized

When it rains, it pours

Posted on By admin

It’s been a long, long week and there is no sign it’s going to get better.

First off, the good-ish news. Tolstoy is back home and is on the mend, even though things are still rough around the edges with him. His jaw is only broken in the one, usual place and has been wired together without the need for reconstructive surgery. His pelvis is fractured but should only require cage rest to heal properly. His lungs are bruised but that should clear up by itself. His feeding tube was removed when they found that it was pushing against the back of his throat and was making him gag and cough. He seems to be able to eat soft food – he just doesn’t do it often enough for our taste. We went to see him twice over the weekend and he seemed to be ok. He spend the whole time we were there on Saturday curled up to Katy’s bump, though he was much livelier on sunday and was making good progress at standing on his hind legs and walking around. He’s been passing urine and feces, so there are no problems on those ends either (which had been a concern, given the location of the fracture). So, all in all, the boy is going to be ok, or rather, his chances of doing so are good.

We bought a large dog crate and kitted him up well, so he’s living in the sitting room at the moment. We just hope he doesn’t get too depressed about not being able to wander for the next two months. He’s still lethargic and off his food at the moment, so we need to keep an eye on him.

Stephane kindly drove him and I up to the vets in Milton again last night, in shit weather I might add, because we were worried that we might have injured him while trying to give him some antibiotics that morning. He does not like them and, in attempting to break free of Katy’s hold (I didn’t feel confident to do it), he fell backwards in his litter tray. Katy phoned me at work later on that day and said that every time he tried to use his litter tray, he’d cry out in pain :( Hence, the trip to the vets that night. They said he didn’t have a fever and that poking and prodding him didn’t seem to cause him pain so they gave him a shot of long-acting antibiotics and sent him back home. We’re still playing around with his food to find something that he’ll be interested in eating.

Reenie, in the meantime, really isn’t too sure what to make of the whole situation. She’s hissed in the general direction of the cage a few times, but we’re hoping that it’s just because Tolstoy doesn’t smell like his normal feline self after a trip to the vet and an operation.

I’ll say it again as well, thank god for insurance. His vet bill so far? Around £1275 or (about 2500$ CAD). We’ve only had to pay the first £65 and the cost of the dog crate. Makes a rather large difference.

So now the bad news. Katy’s been admitted to Addenbrookes again. We had the usual afternoon delight of 5 clinic appointments yesterday afternoon. Her sugar levels are still high, so they’ve played around with her insulin levels and have put her on tablets that will make her more sensitive to insulin (so hopefully she’ll respond better to what she’s taking). Her blood pressure was higher than usual though, and they didn’t like that. We’ve both been stressed about the whole Tolstoy situation, but it seems that that’s not good enough an explanation. A medical student prescribed her beta-blockers (until I caused a bit of fuss and bother when I told them that there were multiple notes in her file indicating that she shouldn’t take them because they send her body temperature completely out of whack. The last time they tried that, she was complaining about freezing all the time when physically, she was so warm to the touch that it was uncomfortable to sleep next to her). So yeah. No BBs. That caused a bit of a stir, so finally they decided that they were going to try and up the dosage of the meds she’s currently taking. Her options were to either be admitted that night or to come back in the following morning for observation. They were concerned about the possibility of her blood pressure going too low.

They shouldn’t have been worried, as it turns out, because her BP is still too high for their liking this morning so they’ve admitted her. If they can stabilize her BP in the next few days, she’ll be allowed to come back home. If not, there is the distinct possibility that she’s going to be in the hospital until her induction date. That was supposed to be at 38 weeks, but I’m thinking that this might be moved forwards to 37 weeks.

Things were going so well until last Tuesday. Now? stress!

It’s really frustrating right now. The only bus that goes from Hinxton to the hospital is a joke. It only runs once every hour and is notoriously unreliable. It also stops service at 6:30 pm so if I want to go see Katy after work, I can get to Cambs using the work shuttle but I need to take a cab to get home – and that’s £20 a ride. Stephane can give me lifts back home once in a while, but there are still limits on how much I can abuse his generosity. I’m not worried about groceries and shit like that, because I can have most everything I need delivered. The whole situation is just very stressful and all this shit seems to all have decided to rain down all at once. The timing of it sucks as well, because we only managed to get one ante-natal class in and this week’s session – which we’re going to miss – dealt about the various pain relief methods available during birth and the how the whole induction process works. Right now, this information seems very important indeed. Next week’s session – which I have no idea if we’ll get to or not – deals with what to do with a baby once you have it. Which, ya know, also kind of important when you have no idea what you’re doing. So yeah.

Worry, worry, worry! Fret, fret, fret!

One part of my brain, the small part that is still a bit rational, tells me that things are actually ok. Tolstoy is stable. Katy is being looked after. They’re not just going to chuck us home with a baby without telling us the basics of how to care for it and we can pick the rest up as we go along. Somehow, in the middle of all this, I take a bit of comfort in knowing that most of our Christmas shopping is done. Somehow, this seems very important to me right now. I think I’m rather insane, but there you go.

More randomness. Our next-door-but-one neighbour is in the same ante-natal classes as we are, so that means they’re due soon-ish as well. We were hoping to get introduced to them on Thursday so that Katy would have somebody to have tea with in the village and talk baby-shop-talk.

Yet more randomness. We went to mothercare last weekend and bought the last of the bedding that Katy insisted we get. Her nesting instincts were yelling that we didn’t have enough sheets and covers, so we bought bumpers for the cotbed, as well as sheets and cellular blankets galore. The nursery is pretty much ready to greet Ben, so that’s one less worry – which is always good. I’ve taken pictures of the nursery and I’ll be putting them online some time today.

So much for work today. Katy being admitted threw me for a loop. My productivity in the last 3 months (pretty much since all of Katy’s health gremlins started making their presence felt) has been, for lack of a better word, shit. I’m having great difficulty focusing on work right now. I seem to have a lot on my mind.

uncategorized