alexist

Remember how I posted about a woman I know who was told she couldn't have an epidural?

She gave birth recently. 48 hour labour with nothing but gas and air--at that point she was still only 5cm dilated so they gave her a C-section.

But most women "get through it", right? Shyeah.

She's stopped crying, but she's very lethargic--not eating or drinking and not moving much. Neil's taking her to the vet at 9 :/

Zoe's basically paralysed in her front left leg; they're not sure what's causing it. She's going to do an X-ray to rule out trauma; another possibility is a partial blood clot. She does have some circulation so it's not a full one. The other minute possibility is a weird reaction to the rabies shot she had Saturday. In other words, the vet is clueless at the moment!

She's comfortable and on a drip because she's dehydrated (no surprise there; she wasn't drinking).

My poor baby cat :( I'm glad we took her in though.

Stupid 48 hour targets :/ My old practice was pretty good; they kept a decent number of appointments for advance booking. (It was easier for them as it was a big practice and they did training; always plenty of staff) This one seems tighter. Next available appointment: 1 March. I'll run out of meds before that, and since this practice has never prescribed for me, I need to see the doctor. They actually told me to just ring at 8:30 for a next day appointment! So I'll do that, even though I feel guilty about wasting an emergency slot.

X-ray was clear, but the vet thinks it's a clot--her nerves are affected and her leg is colder. The clot could be caused either by her heart or a mass in her leg; she didn't think it was her heart but can't rule it out yet. They can do the same thing hospitals do to humans to dissolve the clot. :) But they have to know what's causing it, so they can fix that.

Zoe's been sent (by kitty ambulance) to the main practice in Belsize Park, where they have a hospital and ultrasound machines. I don't know if the cardiologist is in, but I know they do have one there too, at least part time. So she's getting good care. She won't be home tonight, though :-(

(And yes... we have insurance!)

ETA: (to save a billion entries...) Hampstead practice rang; said they're doing a biopsy on her leg, and she's happy and comfortable which is good. She didn't mention her heart, seemed to think it was confined to her leg. I have to ring them in the morning.

Aliza is one month old! Hard to believe.... She's looking (and acting) less newborn now :-) Today she worked out how to grab my face. She's been making reaching movements for a week or so but today she managed to get hold of my cheek. Cute!

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2237707.ece

100 'high profile' Jews--basically the anti-Zionist left (Harold Pinter?!). The BoD isn't taken super-seriously amongst Anglo-Jewry, but this "independent voices" idea won't fly either. Most British Jews ARE pro-Israel in the broad sense. It doesn't mean we support every policy of Israel's, and many criticisms of the Jewish community (both in the UK and US) completely miss this.

And do I spot a bit of bias here?
"At the height of the bombardments of Lebanon and Gaza last year, the Board of Deputies organised a rally to support Israel."

Never mind that Hizbullah was shooting missiles at Israel. And the rally?! It was at JFS in Kenton--hardly a match for the pro-Lebanon rally in central London, featuring support for Hizbullah.

I've put on a programme on 4. These parents (both blind) are 'too independent' to accept help from social services, but they expect their 2 oldest girls (12 and 9) to help take care of their 4 younger siblings! (And the woman's pregnant with her 7th.)

Your pride shouldn't come at your children's expense. :(

Oh dear--programme description says the younger girl tried to kill herself at 8 because of the stress :(

OMG.. they even said one of the reasons they had a big family was to take care of them!!

ETA: It got worse--the parents won't change the babies' nappies while the girls are at school, everything was filthy, they were standing there drinking and smoking whilst the 2 girls were feeding and changing the kids!

There's a bunch of threads on the C4 forums demanding that child protection be called. And what's so awful about it is that blind people CAN do many of these things--colleges for the blind teach people to be independent. And of course, most child carers aren't living in such desperate conditions--their childhoods are taken away from them, but they don't have parents as idiotic as this.

I just found out (thanks to a comment in Neil's LJ) that the Lib Dem MP for Torbay keeps a blog on MySpace.

(Although Neil's home village, along with the rest of Brixham, is part of the Totnes constituency, not Torbay.)

I love his thing with "Dr" Gillian McKeith. It's like shooting fish in a barrel, but fun nonetheless:
http://www.badscience.net/?p=359