meaningless insights

No no no.... I am too selfish to be discussing North Korea, Iraq or the Middle East for that matter.

You see, my mum has left for China for a few weeks. I am in charge of my deaf and blind grandmother. She is a dear sweet woman but holy fuck.... she also tries my patience. (I know I will be condemned for saying that)

Anyway.. I was going up to stay with her and I said I would be there at 4pm. I rang her at 2pm just to check in on her (yeah, she is deaf and practically blind and she is about 94)

She informs me that she tried to open a window but it fell down and hit her fingers. I asked her if she was ok and she said it hurt for a while and that she was feeling better.

My 'highly attuned' alarm bells rang when she said that her fingers were still bleeding.

"oh shit," I thought to myself. "It has been six hours since she did this. If they are still bleeding there must be something very wrong."

So I race up to see her.

'Nanny' show me your fingers.

'Oh, they are okay' she said as she peeled of the layers of bloody tissues.

I look down and to my horror and absolute dismay and panic... I see two severed fingers.

I said..."Oh my God, Nanny, we have to get you to hospital NOW"

As she is blind and cannot see the gaping wound, blood, flesh and bone... she said.."no no, it is okay now.. I don't need a fuss."

After about a minutes worth of arguing I had to just yell at her to get in the car. I was only getting really panic stricken because she was not willing to believe what I told her.

SO I said....'Nanny, I can see your bones... you need the hospital to put you back together again."

(Actually, I think I said 'shit' a few times amongst that) My swearing would have horrified her.. but OMG... I was really upset.

SO she finally gets in the car and I race her to hospital. The wounds were too old to stitch. She had to spend about 50 minutes being carefully taped togther. All in all we spent about 5 hours in hospital... it took that long for them to wet it, get Xrays, soak it in some anti germ stuff, and place all the skin back together.

Amazingly she has the consitition of Atila the Hun. She is of that tough old stoic generation who does not complain.

So now she is safe.... bandaged up.....well fed (on her mushy vegetables) and in bed.

I have a bloody awful headache. Whiskey has not helped...surprisingly.

I admire this woman so much. She has overcome so much adversity in life. What a survivor!