CHRISTMAS IS NOT CANCELLED .......

.... which to be honest with you is a huge relief as for a while it seriously looked like Matthew, our 15 year old, was going to spend the big day in his bedroom with no presents. It all started in the last school holidays when we got a letter from school saying that due to the large amount of minus points Matthew had incurred over the previous half term they were going to have to monitor him with a view to him going on report. To say I hit the roof was an understatement. However I am pleased to say that none of the minus points were as a result of him being nasty and rude they were for things like throwing a pencil, forgetting his PE kit, not concentrating, late homework and general tardiness. So like I said I hit the roof - rather hard.

So you can imagine the size of the bump on my head when we walked in from a weekend at Center Parcs and I opened his interim report, I am surprised you didn't all hear me yell. It is predicted by the teachers that Matthew will get mostly A and A* when he does his GCSE's next year but this report had C's and D's on it - not good. Don't get me wrong I don't mind what marks my children get as long as they are putting in the effort and trying to get the best grades that they are capable of. These C's and D's were for behaviour, effort and quality - not good at all. On one of the occasions I hit the roof (there were many) he was told that if he didn't buck his ideas up he wasn't going to have Christmas this year, instead he would get IOU's which could be cashed in when his attitude improved - basically his Christmas would be cancelled. Hard? Damn right it is and I meant every word of it he only gets one chance at this and I am not going to let him throw it away and he has lived with me for long enough to know that I don't bluff. He learnt that the hard way when he was in a slamming door faze he was warned that he would loose the door, and low and behold he did - for a week. We don't have a door slamming problem in this house anymore.

Anyway I digress. The school was closed on the Monday after the report was sent out for the parents to go in to meet the form tutors with their children. So off I went with my boys to see what was going to be said about them. I can't praise Matt's form tutor high enough, bless her, she was brilliant. I told her what I had said to Matt about Christmas and SHE suggested that she would ask for another report from all his teachers before the end of term so I could make a decision about his presents. So on Friday there was a message on my answering machine reporting that his work and attitude has improved greatly and in a maths test he had come top of the class. Miss Hall-Jones has even said she will do the same again at the end of January so that we can keep on top of him which I am very impressed with. So well done that boy he has saved Christmas!

Another little catch up for HSMSHS.

I personally prefer Quality Street, love the green triangles, but everyone else prefers Roses so Roses it is.

Pete is improving day by day. He goes for a blood test next Tuesday so we will find out how his blood count is then but for the time being he is back at work and seems fine.

On the up at last

I have nearly posted a number of times in the last couple of weeks but stopped myself as I wanted to be positive when I next posted. We now seem to be coming out of the other side of it and Pete is returning to work tomorrow. Since I last wrote he started with a cold which turned out to be worse than a normal run of the mill cold - which is really not suprising as we are talking about Pete here. On one of the 3 occassions that he was in hospital last week he passed out, I thought it was due to his wussyness with needles but apparantly it was due to a rather bad chest infection. He is close to finishing his course of antibiotics so the infection has now nearly cleared but not before he cracked his 2 weak ribs in a coughing fit. This is actually an added bonus, in one way, as he now has to lie stock still in bed all night or be in pain - great for me. His anemia now seems to be under control but we will know more when he has a blood test next week but so far he seems to be on top of it.

Not much else has been going on around here for the last month apart from a few wonderful visits with Mima and a great one with Sue. Most of Christmas has been sorted out over the internet this year as I have not really been able to go out shopping much. Just the worst bit to do now - food shopping. Really not looking forward to that.

Now for a HUGE catch up with HSMSHS.

Starting with todays. I really don't do tinsel in the traditional sense as I'm not that keen on it. However, I do have some black tinsel on my windowsill in the new room and some rather spiffing brown stuff that could sort of pass as tinsel on the tree in my front room.

Done and dusted the jobs a gud 'un.

Having a Whinge!

I'm in a moaning mood tonight and like Sue I think it is a good idea that I start making a record of what is happening health wise so that I can look back on it when I need to. Pete has been to the hospital today to get the results of his blood test from last week and to check on how his new drugs are going. The drugs (immunosuppressants (not sure this is how you spell it)) are going OK and he has to stay on the same dosage for the next few weeks and as they are not effecting his Liver at the moment the blood tests are now every 2 weeks instead of every week. They want him to start lowering the dosage of steroids down but he has told them that with the way he is feeling at the moment that there isn't a chance of that happening and it will just have to wait. The blood test taken last Tuesday says that his blood level is about 74 (should be 160) and the iron level is 3 (10 is very low). We know that it is now a LOT lower than that as he has was really ill on Thursday and Friday which will have effected his blood count with out a doubt. He was booked in for an iron infusion tomorrow BUT the hospital phoned late this afternoon to tell us that they could not get the iron until Monday !!! So now we have to wait and Pete has to suffer until then. He is going to see the Doc tomorrow to get a sick note for the rest of this week and next as there is no way he should be going in to work like he is.

Sorry that this post is a little depressing and boring but as I said this is more for me than anyone else. I will try and make the next post a little more up beat!