Catching my breath
- Sophie
- Aug 1
- 4 min read
This has been quite a week! It was already going to be busy before we added in two multi-hour medical appointments to diagnose and treat a broken arm! By yesterday I was exhausted, felt slightly sick, and had nothing left in the tank. I am grateful that its now the weekend. Here's a few updates from the week:
I took O to a private fracture clinic yesterday morning to get his cast changed into what I hoped would be a waterproof cast. These waterproof casts are only available from a couple of clinics in Australia, and they are very cool.
Unfortunately the new waterproof casts are only available in Australia as forearm casts (in the US you can now get the above elbow casts but they aren't yet approved here). So we had to get a regular cast, luckily its winter so at least O won't miss out on swimming. Just bathing will be a challenge. The doctor was great though, so I'm really glad I went and didn't worry about the public clinic. O has to wear his new cast for four weeks, and then he can go into a forearm cast for two.
In the midst of all this, I had a night out in Brisbane on Wednesday night! My mum and I had bought tickets to an event called Pub Choir a few months ago, its a really fun evening where everyone who attends is taught to sing a classic song as a choir (with harmonies etc), led by a talented and very funny woman Astrid who conceptualised these events 10 years ago and now they sell out each event in a day. She even does overseas tours. There were 1500 of us in the room of all musical talents (she told us to aim not for greatness, but just for the bare minimum haha), and it was so fun! I drove Mum and I down to Brisbane on Wednesday late afternoon, and we checked into our accommodation (neither of us was keen to drive home from Brisbane later in the evening, so we chose to stay the night and drive back in the morning). Then we walked to close to the venue and found a fun Mexican restaurant to get a bite to eat before the show. It was yum (especially the corn ribs - if anyones has had those, they are buttery, flavorful, cheesy goodness). Then it was on to the Tivoli, a classic music venue in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley, which is a fun part of Brisbane with a lot of nightlife. We drank wine, we sang (the 80s A-Ha classic Take On Me), we laughed, and it all came together beautifully at the end. There is something magical about singing harmonies with strangers, this was my second time and I would definitely go every year or two when I can. Then Mum and I walked back to our accommodation for a cup of tea and to bed by 10, which is pretty much my limit of what I consider a night out these days! I’ve been humming Take On Me ever since.
After driving Mum and I back on Thursday morning, I headed into the office for a full work day. It worked out well because I arrived late morning but then knew I would be there until after 7.30pm, as I taught two online classes on Thursday night. I was glad to spend some solid hours in the office on Thursday after a disrupted Wednesday at the injury clinic and then driving to Brisbane, but by late afternoon I had a headache and it kind of lingered on and off all evening and Friday too. It felt a little like a migraine with slight nausea and light sensitivity, which I had last month too, and I'm REALLY hoping they aren't going to be a regular feature for me going forward, because I used to get migraines in my 20s and early 30s from birth control, and I've been so happy to have never had them again since I went off that medication. So I'm keeping track in my planner to see if these new headaches could be hormone related, and if so I'll go to the women's clinic about them.
Things I didn't get to do this week in amongst the parenting, work, and mid-week night away juggle - read my book (I'm reading a crime novel called Bye Bye Baby which is really good so I missed this), write my novel (not since Monday), blog (missed Friday only), walk (I walked Thursday but not Wednesday or Friday), doing any real planning other than my emergency mode type planning. Looking forward to catching up on all these things on the weekend, and next week hopefully we will go back to relative normal.
How was everyone else's week? Anyone tried anything like Pub Choir before?
Pub choir sounds so cool! What a lovely communal experience. I love that! And I concur with Lisa, your mom looks so young!!
What a bummer that O couldn't get a waterproof cast. So interesting that they aren't yet approved in Australia!
The plastic bag works well. We used a big garbage bag to cover my daughter's leg and never had any issues.
I have not tried anything like a pub choir before; I've always been a bit wary of singing in public because of a music teacher who singled me out at school for my low voice. In the last year, I've had to sing a bit more when we are rehearsing at church because when I lead on piano, I sometimes need to help the singers out with their timing.
That is a bummer he couldn’t get a waterproof cast! I am glad it’s not summer but what a hassle. I had a cast after my hand surgery and it was not waterproof. I would put it in a bread bag and then use syran wrap to sort of seal it off? It worked well enough so I could shower daily. I was only in the cast for 10 days, though.
Pub choir sounds amazing!! That is my kind of activity!! I love that you learned a modern song, too! Well, fairly modern! When I think choir I think old music, especially religious hymns.
Your mom looks so dang young!!!
That cast looks very secure! I wonder if O will think of it like a bit of a badge of honour? I think my son did (at first... then it got annoying). Bathing is a nuisance, but we would cover it with a plastic bag and we muddled through. Both times he has been in a cast, he took a lot fewer baths! Unfortunately, both times were in summer for us. The first time (his wrist was fractured when a friend kicked a soccer ball toward him and he stopped it with his hands), it happened the evening after his first swimming lesson for the season. That was the end of swimming.
The Pub Choir sounds so fun! What a…