FRIDAY NIGHT DOG BLOG: GOING BACK

The dogs over the past days have missed out going out on their walks.

As they might say in the comics, or more usually ask in job interviews, I  had to prioritize. Susan, there other human companion, went into hospital on Monday to have a major operation. At the same time I have been warping up a course I have undertaken for which you will doubtless be pleased to know I have now a certificate of attainment – if I can remember where I put it. The real achievement was mixing successfully with other people to develop an effective group facilitated by the structured, teacher directed and task orientated environment. Developing the same level of team effectiveness in a political group, in my limited experience, is far more difficult.

Susan went from the Operating Theatre, and it was a long operation of about four hours, to the Surgery Ward. Her left arm was immobilized, but she was gaining increased use of her hand. Today, I was advised, back home from my meeting, I was advised that Susan had taken a turn for the worst. When I went to the hospital and her ward, I was advised there she had been taken to the High Dependency Unit. I found out later she was not in the HDU, but in the Intensive Care Unit – the difference between a critical and serious condition.

Earlier in the day I borrowed Beligca’s camera and took a few photos without too much deliberation, but it was sufficient to create a sense of loss. So this week again I will go back to return to the dogs that were living then as they are now, but unrecorded by photography:

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The song from the Chilean group, Illapu is called Vuelvo Para Vivir (direct translation: Back to Live). Belgica says it is her favorite song and sometimes causes her to cry. It is a song about the return to their native land of political exiles :

Susan has unfortunately gone back to Intensive Care, where she admitted Christmas Day last year. I am advised tonight it was necessary to put her under sedation, so it is more appropriate, as last year, to play Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven”:

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This week we will again seek to board Friday Ark at Modulator.
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The photos stored and uploaded through Picasa.

Postscript:

Hospitals, as it has been said, are dangerous places, and if possible good places to stay clear of. Susan has acquired pneumonia, perhaps initially during the operation due to partial collapse of the lungs, but I would think almost certainly exacerbated by the failure to provide sufficient care during her time in the post operative Surgery Ward. I did not know what pneumonia was. Nor did I make sense of the information that her blood pressure had critically fallen and her heart rate increased after three days in the ward.