Around the world in one post

As usual my blogging intentions go awry and I find myself recapping a week. Major event this week has been my father in law having an operation to remove part of a lung, due to the onset of lung cancer. He's 70 and has been in poor health for a while, but hopefully this will give him a new, if slightly restricted lease of life. I'm hoping that the coming new grandchild will give him a sense of purpose to focus on in difficult times. He had two thirds of a lung removed last Thursday, which was less than they originally thought, that being the removal of a whole lung. I'm not sure how much extra benefit that third of a lung will give, but I guess it's got to be a bonus. They were threatening on Friday that he would be able to come home today, however things took a turn for the worse over the weekend, he appears to have picked up a mild infection and is still stuck in the high dependency unit. Last night around 10pm we got a phone call from the hospital to say that he had freaked out and had ripped all his tubes, wires and monitors out, and was threatening to get himself home. My brother-in-law was unreachable and we were the next contacts (his wife is profoundly deaf). Cue a frantic search for baby sitters, which proved fruitless. I ended up driving round to my mother-in-law's house to pick her up and try to calm him down (my wife can't drive, and frankly wasn't in a fit state to do so anyway). When I arrived at her house she was nowhere to be found, luckily at that point my wife called my mobile to say the hospital had rung to say he had calmed down and was now accepting treatment. What I would of done without that mobile call will remain a mystery forever. On a happier note, Friday's ultrasound scan revealed we are having...... a boy! I'm happy, Heir no.1 is happy (he threatened to leave the new baby in the hospital bin if it was a girl!), Heir no.2 is too young to have an opinion, but my wife was wishing for another girl. I guess there was always going to be a loser somewhere there. Workwise - the disciplinary that was to be held last week got downgraded to an informal meeting. Incredibly no one has ever been disciplined for being shit at their job and there are no formal procedures in place to deal with it! So to placate the unions I have to hold this person's hand while they prove to me that they are not capable of doing the job before we can get the work reassigned. Working in the public sector has it's benefits (I'm sure they're around here somewhere) but is frustrating in terms of getting things done quickly. My deadlines are piling up but there is a good chance I can get on top of them. Heir no.1 is back to school this week, and he will have a culture shock coming his way - this year: less play more work. At least he's still at that age where they look forward to going back to school. That can't last forever!