When I look back at these photos, it seems a fair bit has been achieved in some fairly narrow windows. We've managed to celebrate anniversaries and birthdays, go to concerts and various sporting events, as well as what is becoming our annual visit to see Ross and Ains in New Zealand.
The picture roll does tend to give a filtered view of reality, however! After my initial cautious enthusiasm for the results of the DBS operation, my condition has been "mixed", let's say! After deteriorating conditions in my neck and arm, along with an inability to sustain any activity beyond an absolute maximum of two hours without experiencing debilitating symptoms, it's been quite tricky to orchestrate daily activities, let alone mild excursions into "the world".
Tweaking of the settings on my neurotransmitter to try and alleviate the neck and arm symptoms led to a compromised voice. When I say "compromised", imagine hoarse whispering at best for the majority of the day. We'd had some cross-communication with the neurologist and didn't realise the tweaking was the cause of the voice loss. I even got a referral for a speech pathologist. When, months later, we saw the neurologist, he couldn't believe we hadn't complained in the first few days of it happening: we naively didn't realise the transmitter had caused it!
Suffice to say, we're now quicker to let him know if things aren't working! I'm sure this is very boring to read, so I'll finish the medical report by saying we've tried numerous different settings and parameters searching for the "magic formula". I even spent another tedious week in hospital so the doc had me as a "captive audience" for experimentation. None has worked! Next step is a new abductive setting of the transmitter which the doc will activate on me on our next trip to Sydney in the week after next. Fingers crossed!
After one such appointment, in January we stayed at The Darling for a couple of nights for our wedding anniversary, dining at the two-hatted LuMi the first night and reprising our honeymoon cricket adventure by going to our first Twenty-20 cricket match the following evening. The food was sublime and lived up to it's lofty reviews while the cricket was fun, Smithy going nuts with the bat and Starc back bowling for the Sixers. We loved getting nearly everywhere by light rail.
Continuing the theme of fine dining we visited the one-hatted restaurant, Flotilla, for Sue's birthday and then the similarly single hatted Humbug for Cassy's birthday. Both were superb but the mix of "Feed Me" courses at Humbug were particularly delicious. Cass and I have sneaked out for a few lazy lunches at Emilio's (one with Wayne and Josie, one with Valerie and one with just us!) and also at Surfhouse across the road. We had some casual meals at Susuru and Custom's House too.
We delighted in Musica Viva and ACO concerts at City Hall as well as cheering the Knights on at their home games (which have all been scheduled at some very friendly time-spots of early weekend afternoons). The other bonus at the Knights is our use of the motor scooter to get there as well as sneakily parking right at the front gate!
We flew into Queenstown again to be greeted by Ross and Ainsley. It's always so fantastic to see them: they always really spoil us and they're so understanding of my condition and inability to do various things. They always cook up a storm as well as organising special activities, this time including clay target shooting (!), and a "hot lap" in a souped-up Porsche Cayenne! Let's put it this way: we're glad we wore our brown corduroy trousers rather than our red velvet jackets! We had a wonderful time, as always, catching up, having fun and eating like royalty!
Cass and I have both read numerous books but we decided to delve back into "Cold Blood" by Truman Capote after reading Harper Lee's compendium of essays and short stories, "The Land of Sweet Forever". There is definitely a similarity in writing style, but who influenced the other more?!