Lots of badminton and a visit to hospital

*Warning, this post contains some rather graphic photos, so if you are squeamish, you might prefer not to read it!* 

 

I arrived back in Wellington from Brazil on the morning of the 27th July. At around 1pm I started to feel pretty rotten, and not long after that I succumbed to full-on vomiting, (closely followed by the other end running rampant as well) which didn't let up until about 10pm that night. The only thing I could trace it back to was the seafood from the buffet on my last day in Rio... Now this wouldn't have been a problem except the next day I had a Masters badminton match for my Wellington team. We only had 4 ladies (so no reserve) so I definitely had to play. Luckily it was a home match, and being the host team, we were playing the first and third rounds. This meant I was able to get a couple of hours sleep in between ties at a teammate's house who lives nearby. Despite running on empty, I managed to win all my games, and we won both our ties. 

Near the end of August it was time for more badminton, this time the Masters Nationals being held in Tauranga. We drove up and had awesome views of the mountain on the way.

There were 6 of us staying at the Mount, at a house belonging to a friend of one of our teammates.

As usual, mum and dad came and cheered me on. I really am lucky to have such supportive parents.

Here's an action pic of Stephen and I. Overall, I won some and lost some, and it was a great well-run tournament, as it usually is.

 

 

Throughout the tournament I noticed a small hard lump on my thigh that was a bit red and tender around it, and it seemed to be getting worse by the day. I went to the doctor once I was back in Wellington and was told it was an infection and prescribed some oral antibiotics.

I took the antibiotics all week, but it was still getting worse. That weekend we had our final match of the year for Wellington, being played in Gisborne. Our flight was 3:30pm, but when we arrived, we were told that it was delayed. An hour or two later, that turned into it being cancelled due to an engineering problem with the plane. Unfortunately there were no later flights that could get us to Gisborne that night. We even investigated flying somewhere a bit closer (Rotorua, Napier) and hiring a car from there, but that couldn't be done either. To cut a long story short, at around 7pm we headed off on the 7 or so hour road-trip from Wellington to Gisborne, 5 of us in Jason's SUV (a few of our team had flown earlier, and one chose to risk flying up the Saturday morning of the match). My leg was pretty nasty by then, oozing and rather painful, so it wasn't the most pleasant trip I've ever had!

Luckily, we had the two weakest teams in the division left to play, so the badminton wasn't overly tough. A good thing since I was practically on one leg and we had no reserves! We duly won both the ties, meaning our team won the whole division and gained promotion to Division 2 the following year.

 

I forgot about the pain in my leg as we enjoyed a good night celebrating our success. However, at around 2am I woke up with intense pain in my chest. Richard, my captain drove me to Gisborne Hospital where I was seen straight away. They made me comfortable with morphine straight away, and after a full examination, including ECG, diagnosed the chest pain as a side effect from my day's worth of anti-inflammatories I had been taking to enable me to play on my leg. They weren't concerned about my chest pain, but they were VERY concerned about my leg infection... In the photo above you can see how far the infection had spread. They told me then and there that I would be requiring surgery as soon as possible in the morning. Sure enough, at around 8am in the morning I was prepped for surgery.

I came round, to find I was now missing a fairly substantial chunk of my thigh! It was a carbunkle, which is a cluster of abscesses connected under the skin. It all had to be chopped out!

The wound wasn't stitched, as the tissue has to regenerate from the bottom up. If the top closed over, I would be left with a big hollow in my thigh, and it would be susceptible to further infection. To keep the wound open, it was packed with a biodegradable alginate dressing which is made from seaweed. The dressing changes were the worst part of the whole process as all the nerve endings around the raw edge of the wound were exposed, and it was incredibly painful. To begin with, they had to be done every day, and then eventually, as the wound started to heal, every 2-3 days. 

 

My teammates came to visit me in hospital before catching their flights/hitting the road back to Wellington. Early that morning, after hearing that I would be needing surgery, mum and dad drove from Hamilton to Gisborne to help support me. I stayed in hospital Sunday night as well, meaning I could take advantage of the 6-hourly IV antibiotics. At around lunchtime on Monday I was discharged. Mum and dad took me back to their motel and wanted me to stay the night with them, but after a couple of hours (having vomited several times from the aftermath of the anaesthetic) I was actually feeling OK. I rang Air NZ and they re-booked me onto a flight back to Wellington leaving late afternoon.

 

I am lucky in that I am a very good healer. The photos above show progress at 11, 27 and 54 days respectively. It really is amazing how the human body can just regrow all that new tissue.

In non-infection news... Near the end of September we went for a long walk around the Botanic Gardens to check out the tulips. They are always spectacular.

It is always worth a walk up to the top to take the classic Wellington pic with the cable car, especially on a picture-perfect spring day.

Our own tulips were pretty impressive this year as well

As was the cherry tree, wisteria and stellar magnolia.

As usual, I grew all my seedlings for my summer garden from seed, and as usual, I ended up doing far too many! I always end up giving away lots of plants to friends and colleagues.

I'm not very good at growing carrots, but these rainbow ones were some of the more successful ones I've produced, and they were super tasty!

Will and I continue to try and maintain a semi-regular date night, and the degustation menu with wine-match at Dockside is a particular favourite (especially since it  regularly comes up for half-price on the voucher sites!). It's a beautiful setting, and we always have a good night there.

At the end of October another date night involved watching Greg Johnson at Meow, a bar and live music venue in Wellington. We love Greg, and try to see him live every time he is touring, which seems to be most years... This was another brilliant show, and he also explained the stories behind a lot of his songs.

So, there we go, a good catching up post... It's not bad going from the end of July to the end of October in one go!