Day 3 (Thursday) - Doing the side-step shuffle

I guess it had to happen that I would feel down eventually. Not depressed, as such. But I know this is just playing with language. Just that at the moment, I live every moment. I am aware of the passage of every minute. Usually, when I stuff things into my life, time simply whizzes by. At the moment, I am rushing somewhere all the time. I have to write it down each morning, to ensure I meet the times and the commitments I make. But still time drags. It's okay. By the morning I will have kicked byself up the arse, and given myself a lecture that this is not about me. I want her better. I want it fixed. But to achieve this, what she requires is TIME. Give her time. See, the arse-kicking is underway already.


Today, I spent time with Kirsten immediately AFTER they had moved her to the chair. And she had no energy left. She communicated very little, and mostly her eyes were shut. Her heart rate hovered around the 70 mark, which is Darren's ball park for nearly asleep. I guess this is the best scenario for healing. She knows we are there, and yet she is also 'sleeping'. I showed her the book, and asked her if she would like me to read it to her. I think I said I did not mind if she slept. Which I didn't. When I showed her the book, I got some body language that meant, to me, 'get on with it'. So I did.

I read her the first chapter of "Pastures of the Blue Crane' where Ryl meets her grandfather, Dusty, and learn they have inherited the old Masterton place up at Bundoora. Tomorrow (Friday) I will visit from 3pm for maybe 60 - 90 minutes. If she is up to it, I will try to read Chapters 2 and 3. This is a story Kirsten knows backwards.


Today Kirsten's face was the worst I have seen it. But (kick, kick) I knew the swelling and the bruising would come out with time. I knew that. I knew that her left eye would shut. That her left socket would appear to sink back, but only in comparison with the swollen tissue around it. I did not realise that the skin on her forehead would swell.

Her lips are swollen and dry and require pawpaw ointment. But her hands and fingers look good. They are good colour (she is fair-skinned). They are not bloated. They are not parched. When I see her tomorrow, some of the tubing should be gone. Maybe the three drains in the neck. Maybe the drain in the leg.

I will go for a long walk early tomorrow morning, and gee myself up. Promise.

Where did I get up to with WBY? Ahha, my favourite - Verse 3:

May she be granted beauty and yet not Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught, Or hers before a looking-glass, for such, Being made beautiful overmuch, Consider beauty a sufficient end, Lose natural kindness and maybe The heart-revealing intimacy That chooses right, and never find a friend.