Scattered thoughts

I put mum's facebook account into memorial mode a few weeks ago and then tried to ignore the problem of mum's online presence, but it's something that I've been thinking about increasingly over the last couple of days.

One of mum's friends thinks we should delete anything we can't lock down (ala her facebook account), but I'm not sure I can bring myself to do that. It feels a little bit like erasing her life. Which sounds ridiculous. But there's where my head and my heart been going on this question.

Any thoughts from you, my lovely friendslist? I'm not sure I can be objective on this.

Toddled off to Mayday earlier to get the MRI done. I drove as carefully as I could, possibly my best and smoothest driving for ever as mum was feeling extremely nauseous and I really didn't want her being sick on the way (though we have an emesis basin in the car permanently atm just in case) as that would have been distressing for us both and we didn't need that. I (and she) made it \o/ Trying to drive smoothly makes it clear how awful the roads are at the moment though :(

Anyway, the MRI suite at Mayday smelled of paint and white spirit and was incredibly disorganised, with no signs telling us where it was. It turns out that the reason why is because they're still decorating, having moved in (from a portacabin on the hospital site somewhere) either Tuesday or today (Wednesday). After signing in and doing paperwork we waited for 50 mins, then I asked a member of staff who was passing how much longer it was likely to be. I was very polite and not mean or anything. Mostly I was just worried about whether or not I'd have to put more money on the car parking. Anyway, after asking someone mum was taken back for the MRI almost straight away. From them taking her back to her returning to me took about 55 mins. Got back to the car the minute the ticket expired. Not bad timing really. The MRI people said that they would have to write a report and would then ask mum to come back for more imaging (which I guess means another MRI or CT or something?) or she'd be called in to see her consultant. Now I guess we have to wait to see what the MRI shows. After the first CT scan mum was called back within 2 working days when it showed up a tumour, so hopefully the turnaround on the MRI will be as quick and we will find out where the primary tumour is hiding. If they can't pinpoint it using the MRI, they'll be biopsying the tumour on and behind her cheekbone. Ah, now I'm repeating myself. My apologies. The MRI today was of her head and neck.

Meanwhile, as well as the nausea and vomiting problems that I talked about last post, and the loss of appetite, the tumour appears to be causing various other distressing problems. One of the main ones is making mum vulnerable to infections - she's being treated for her second UTI in four weeks at the moment, which makes me nervous when I get a sore throat or anything. If it's a cold and I pass it along to her, I have no idea what the consequences would be. Another is nosebleeds. I guess it's the way the tumour is pressing on stuff, though I don't really know. She's had a few enormous nose bleeds that have lasted for ages (though [thankfully?] I've yet to be around for one), and on friday night she asked Phil to call an ambulance for her because the loss of blood was so sudden and dramatic (she thought it had stopped and it suddenly started again with a vengeance). Thankfully they were able to treat her at home, but it's another of those things that makes me realise how vulnerable the tumour(s) are making her, and not just in the obvious "she has cancer" sort of ways.

( Cut, a ramble in which I moan about trying to get a prescription filled at half past six on a weekday in Greater London )

Since the first UTI she's been drinking a glass of cranberry juice a day. Is there anything else we can do to ward off the dreaded cystitis or is that about it? Also, is reduced sugar cranberry juice less effective or the same effective as regular when it comes to warding infections off? Does cranberry juice even work? Obviously for the comfort of everyone concerned we'd like to keep them to a minimum, hence the cranberry juice. It doesn't seem to have worked that well though :/

After my last LJ entry, red_pill sweetly said he'd deal with vomit as he has no particular problem with it, which is very sweet of him. I think we've decided that if he is around, he will deal with it, and if I'm the only one around then I'll grit my teeth and deal with it as best I can. Hopefully I will continue to be successful in keeping my own tummy contents in.

I should go to bed. It's very late as I've been writing this (and spent two hours bitching on twitter about the inadequacies of our legislative process with regards to the Digital Economy Bill) and bethanthepurple is visiting tomorrow (at least, as long as the hospital don't call us in on short notice), so I'd like to at least be a little alert for that ;)

ETA: 12/07/11 No longer filtered

Huzzah! Stretching has been adequately carried out (I rekkon I may have got an extra size out of it). I melded suggestions from here, Ben and the ever lovely CBBers and came up with a solution which appears to have worked (boobs no longer squashed, tummy lumps less obvious and the feeling of being put in a straightjacket lessened!)

For those of you who find that you need to do a similar thing in future, here is how the great achievement was won ;)

Basically the tshirt was well soaked in the bath and then wrung out so it was damp. Then we used a coathanger for trousers a bit like this one (except the cheap crappy asda equivilent which meant the edge of the tshirt had to be turned over a couple of times to get it to grip properly) on one of the side edges and hung it from the bathroom door.

On the other side edge (now at the bottom) we put another of those coat hangers and from the bottom of this (the part that usually hooks over the clothes rail) we hung a carrier bag from with a litre carton of OJ in it.

We left it to dry and then repeated it in the morning so in all it had about 24 hours on the rack.

In the end the TV Crews and photographers from the local rags came in and did their thing (there will be more tomorrow when clearing is actually open including possibly some of the national papers) and I was interviewed by BBC Radio Kent. No idea when/if I'll be on, but if you're in the area and you hear a clearing opererator named "Elizabeth" talking then that's me! All this in the name of corporate publicity for the university (who decreed the tshirts had to be visible all around *sigh* so the people under the aircon froze and people who didn't fit into the tshirts properly and hadn't stretched them looked uncomfortable)!

I'm so relieved it's over and thankful to all of you who commented on my last post I cannot even express it :D

This post is sponsored by a poke from greenfurrymoose who poked me on facebook to find out what had happened with this :)

I have a question for computer&Linux geeks.

Basically, after my last dist-upgrade, gnome (or debian?) refuses to adopt UK keyboard mapping and every time I try I get the following error message:

"Error activating XKB configuration.
It can happen under various circumstances:
- a bug in libxklavier library
- a bug in X server (xkbcomp, xmodmap utilities)
- X server with incompatible libxkbfile

X server version data:
The XFree86 Project, Inc
40300001
You are using XFree 4.3.0.
There are known problems with complex XKB configurations.
Try using a soimpler configuration or taking a more fresh version of XFree software."

So...any ideas how to fix? This is the newest version and my config hasn't been changed in years.

Do you think I should switch from XFree86 to Xorg?

Am I talking shit?

Help would be appreciated :)

--------

[Edit] All fixed! I purged XFree86 and moved to Xorg and when I broke it all horribly ben fixed it.

Winnar :D

Ta to skel and evad too - you may claim free chocolate when you next see me :P ;)

In response to an incident this morning I am curious.

If you could choose to take 5 items into the toilet with you what would you take?