BYO blood

I was back in the clinic on Monday for yet another visit. But older and wiser this time: I nabbed a seat close to the doctor's door so that when he came out and whispered my name I had a better chance of not missing it and I clung to that seat for 4 hours...a huge improvement on the previous week's 7! I managed to knit the best part of a jacket for Baby Turnip whilst sat in that seat, Stanley once again entertained us (walking round and round the room ranting about British passports, I concentrated on my knitting remembering that you never, ever make eye contact with the nutter in the room), although SPICE were elsewhere.

I finally got in to see the doctor (Dr Naira from Nigeria) who was kind and as interested as a doctor can be with so many patients to see. He confirmed that I was booked in for the 3rd of December, reminded me that I needed to identify a blood donor and order yet another thyroid test for me. And after yet another ultrasound (what a treat, compared to the 1 you get on the NHS in Portsmouth) which confirmed that Baby Turnip was probably nearer 7lb rather than the 6lb of the previous estimate, I walked home.

The weather has changed dramatically: the evening air is cool (think the evening air of an English summer after a crackingly hot day), the days are sunny and the sun still hot, but the cooler air keeps it all under 30 which is fabulous.

The following morning I went for the blood test and Nicky came to to see if he could be a donor. Not, is the answer. Osh is A, Nicky is A, Nicky's dad who is currently staying with us is O but at 86 I'm not sure how long he'd recover from having nearly an armful taken out of him. All the other people I've contacted are either A, too skinny or currently anaemic.

So why, you might be asking yourself, do I have to get a donor? Although there is a blood bank here, it is very very small. The hospital carries a list of donor which are contacted in the case of an accident (all the more frequent), so they try and get those coming in for elective surgery to organise their own donor which a) takes the pressure of the blood bank and b) means they can get in more blood for the bank (assuming the happy event that the donated blood is not used). So I'm still on the look out for a donor - I thought O was the most common group, but apparently not. And I thought I could give a pint of my own blood, but turns out it is too close to surgery.

All attempts to get an infant car seat have proved fruitless - although we do have a rather fine infant hammock sleep thing which is rather fun. The only infant seats on the island are $240 (sell for $50 in Florida), so in the end I've ordered one from Miami and am having it delivered to our Miami postbox - enormously expensive but still $100 cheaper than buying the same thing here.

So here I am on the look-out for a donor, the bag for hospital is packed and I'm trying to tidy up loose ends so that Nicky doesn't have too much to do whilst I'm away. I'll be admitted on the Tuesday, surgery on Wednesday (no idea what time, although I might find out when I got to the clinic yet again on Monday...yawn). I'll probably be in hospital until the weekend, but will endeavour to post an update as soon as I am out.