I have, on occasion, been accused of 'spinning' and I don't mean as in wool and lovely creaky old machinery.
I have, on occasion, gotten to the end of my story and someone, usually a sister, will say: yes OK, now give me the non-spin version please.
When you're a bit of a story teller, it comes naturally to tell the good bits and leave out the not so good bits. To highlight the highlights and shift-control-delete the boogers. So to speak.
And Now Onto Today's Story!
Guess who I met today?
Julie Goodwin! The lady who won MasterChef! She came into work to record a spot for Food Safety Week and was also interviewed for a new weekly radio show we're producing with Paul Clitheroe and Deborah Hutton.
She was so lovely. In fact, I had a long if slightly breathless chat with her, as she'd parked quite a way from the office and I went with her when she'd finished to retrieve any potential parking ticket. She talked about her book (coming out on Mother's Day) and how excited she was to see a dummy of it and how strange it felt to not be able to test anything any further (the recipes sound pretty meticulously tested).
I told her about Nigella's erratum that I heard about from Estelle and she told me about Nigella's 'Eggless Cake' that the tester read incorrectly and apparently has eggs in it. In the recipe.
Anyway, there was no parking ticket, and she gave me the number at The Women's Weekly photo shoot she was supposed to be at so I could call and say it was entirely my company's fault she was running very late, which I did.
So that was fun!
And now. The real story. (Although the above is perfectly true, too.)
Everything I've done for the past week has been in a bit of a daze as we wait wait wait for confirmation about whether Henry is going into hospital on Friday for major oral surgery, i.e. cleft palate reconstruction and a pretty serious additional procedure called a pharyngioplasty.
There's been a bit of a bureaucratic hold up between the Cleft Palate Clinic at Westmead Children's and the surgeon. We should have confirmation tomorrow. But it's been hard to prepare Henry generally for the whole idea let alone ourselves if we're not sure it's going ahead.
And if it does he's likely to be in hospital (me too) for 4-5 days and then home and completely out of action for 2 weeks. I think.
I'm filled with dread, to be honest.
It's not a procedure you want any kid to go through let alone your own.
How do you explain to a 5 year old with no abstract conceptualization that he will wake up with a tube down his throat? Or not be able to swallow for days? Or talk properly?
So there you have it. The non-spin version.
The good news tomorrow will be confirmation in the affirmative, which might sound strange, but the sooner we do this the sooner other kids will (hopefully) understand him when he talks. He starts school next year. So the sooner the better. And I tell you, this hanging on really sucks.
xxx
