Catching my breath

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:

1. 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.

These are what the casts look like

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.

The new blue cast

2. 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.

Mum and I at Pub Choir

3. 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.

4. 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?