Family visit May/June 2012

Well what can I say, the past few weeks have been quite eventful. Where do I even begin with this blog entry. On the 11th of May Cameron's parents arrived from South Africa. They were so eager to meet thier grandson and were looking forward to an amazing holiday with all of us together again, for the first time in 4 years. We had so much planned, it was Cameron's mums 60th so we were planning an amazing family dinner and celebration, it was Bradley's 29th Birthday so we were looking forward to going out and having a night on the town, considering we had babysitters. Plus we had planned Darian's dedication considering all the family was in one place and I had planned a photoshoot with Ella to celebrate our family reunion and document the three generations of Pillay men as well as the grandparents and their first grandchild. The first week of them being here was uneventful, Cameron was still at work so we didn't do much. Mum drove them to the mall and stuff like that just to get them out and about, so they didn't get too bored. My father in law and I even went to the Chiropractors for acupuncture, he for some pain in his shoulders and hands and feet and me for backache. On the 20th (Sunday) we noticed my dad-in-laws foot was becoming increasingly swollen, at first we assumed it was due to the flight but by that Sunday knew that there was something more serious because it kept getting more and more swollen. He was also in alot of pain but kept telling us it was ok and although he wanted pain tablets all the time we didn't think the pain was as worse as we found out it was. Cameron finally convinced him to go to the hospital after he saw how big his toe had become. When the doctors at Waitakere hospital had seen him they quickly sent him for x-rays and found that the bone in his toe was being eaten away so without hesitation they transferred him to North Shore hospital as they have a better Orthopedic department. Once there they admitted him and put him onto a drip and morphine. He was in excruciating pain but never let on just how bad it was. So what we thought would be a quick fix turned out to be a full 18 day stay in hospital. When they took him into theatre the Monday morning they found out that there was a Strep infection which was eating away at the bone, they had thought they would amputate but once in they managed to clean out the infection and clear away the eaten bone in an effort to save the toe. Which was a relief to us all. The infection had gotten into his blood so they put him on antibiotics and couldn't say how long he would be admitted as they needed to keep him for observation. They were not happy with the toe so they took him back into theatre a few days later and amputated. By then Bradley & Shamini had arrived from Australia. Needless to say it was a very sombre 60th birthday for my mother in law, we merely just made a nice dinner for her and once her, Brad & Sham and Cameron got back from the hospital we had dinner together. There were no gifts, no big celebration but just a plain and simple dinner at home. During this week we also remembered Kale on what would have been his 33rd birthday, May 26th. My darling big brother who was always there and always full of hope and happiness, I miss him dearly. We got a huge fright with my father in law the day after he got out of surgery, he was in alot of pain and we heard that during the surgery his heart rate dropped dangerously low. When we saw him in hospital he was very sombre and looked grey with pain. It was very scary. However the doctors were happy and gave us a very good report. By the next day he was full of life and energy and was his normal self. It was another few days until he was discharged but during this time he made wonderful friends in his ward, including the nurses, his sons also left a lasting impression with these very nurses I hear as well... LOL!!! Here are a few pics from the day he was discharged. Mr & Mrs Martin were a wonderful couple we met, as Mr Martin shared the room with Dad. They were a loving, sweet couple. Mr Martin has Parkinson's and is paralysed fromt he waist down. He has been in & out of hospitals for 15 years and found out during this visit that he would never go home, he is to go to a home where they can look after him 24\7, dear Mrs Martin was very upset and told us how grateful we should be because at least Dad has his health and can still be the man he always was. It just goes to prove that we should always give thanks because there's always someone out there who is worse off than us. Dad was discharged last week. And is at home now, we just received the ok from his doctors today for his travel back home. Only yesterday was the VAC machine (this machine sucks out all the blood from his wound) removed and the line that is connected to his antibiotics will be removed tomorrow. So they are looking at leaving NZ late next week. The doctors are extremely happy with his condition, his foot is healing well and although they wanted to do the skin graft here in NZ they've decided to go home and do it back in SA, which the doctors have approved. Let's see, what else has happened, oh yes, we celebrated Bradley's birthday with a little lunch. It was an extremely cold day and we took baby out all bundled up. We had a nice family lunch, minus Dad as he was still in hospital. Here are a few pics from before we left for lunch: Bradley and Shamini had to extend their holiday by a week due to dad's illness so only left on Saturday (9th). It was the longest they've stayed in NZ but it seems as though we hardly spent any time with them. Luckily they got to spend some quality time with Darian and so served the purpose of their holiday in the first place. We thank God for the time we have had to spend with our family, even though it came at a cost to dad's health we are grateful that he was here in NZ with is so we could take care of him and wasn't in SA where we would have been stressed out. God is so good, and we thank him for dad's health.