November 2015

Andrea T Edwards

What Happened? What Did You Get Done?

I was driving along with Steve the other day and said there are people I just don’t know well enough asking me what operation I had. I mean if it was something to do with my girly bits, what do I say? Or perhaps I had a colonoscopy – do I tell them ‘I had a camera shoved up my arse?’   The problem is, I know I do it myself. You can’t help but ask. I don’t believe it’s essentially a nosy thing, I think we’re all just looking to understand the seriousness of what has happened to someone so we can offer the appropriate level of reassurance to their situation. Or maybe I’m over-complicating things? Maybe we are nosy? Maybe nothing is sacred anymore?   When people tell me they’ve had an operation, I often find the words spilling out of my mouth “what happened? What did you get done?” But I always, always stop and say: “I am so sorry! Of course you don’t need to answer that question. You might have gone through something incredibly private or you just don’t want to tell me. I’m sorry for asking.”   When that happens, people have an opportunity to respond to the initial question if they want to, or they can say thanks for giving me a get out clause.   It’s not dissimilar to the question: “when’s the baby due?” Always a question you regret asking, especially when the person says: “I’m not pregnant, I’m just fat.” Doh! Don’t ask that question ever, ever again, unless you’re 100 percent sure the person IS pregnant OK? That is my rule.   I often find it interesting that there are just a few, small, situations, where a perfectly normal person – who typically engages their mind and heart before they open their mouth – finds that whatever mechanism is in place to stop them asking the inappropriate questions, seems to get bypassed. What operation have you had is one of those questions.   But getting back to my conversation with Steve. He came up with a perfect response:    “It’s simple, you tell them you had your left labia sculpted into the shape of a rose” and then you leave them with that.   Perfect no?     Can anyone top Steve’s response?   Go on, give me a laugh. It’s been a tough couple of weeks.   Yours, without the bollocks Andrea   BTW I’m on Twitter here, Google+ here, Instagram here, and Facebook too, if you’re interested in the other stuff I share. Feel free to share my blog if you think anyone you know will be interested or entertained. I sure do appreciate it when you do xxxxx

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Andrea T Edwards

Emotional Outbursts and Agony Post Op, All Just Weird

Friday night (early Saturday morning) excruciating agony kicks in. The same thing happened five days before, and six months before that, but nowhere near as bad. It was time to take it seriously, and based on the genetic history of my family, stones were a likely candidate. I was right, it was stones. Shit that stuff hurts!!   Unlike the last incidents (when I decided to get through the pain, because sometimes that’s less scary than facing hospital) I knew I had to act, so I asked Steve to take me to the hospital at 2am. Sorry love. But he knew it as well – no more messing around. He felt like I was a ticking time bomb now.   My mini loves were anxious for their mumma. I was just happy when they let me wash my hair! Four days later and I finally get out of the hospital. There was talk of me staying in another night, even though the surgeon said I could go home, but the specialist had “concerns.” There was a risk something else could happen – a stone travelling into my liver, which wouldn’t be a good thing. She let me go in the end. You never want to stay in hospital a minute longer than you have to right? Besides, of course nothingelse would happen. I’m lucky. Fingers crossed it won’t.   But during this little soiree, two extremely weird things happened. The first when Steve was saying goodbye as I was being rolled off to surgery. I knew he wouldn’t be there when I got out, because I insisted he went home to be there for the boys when they woke up. I didn’t want them spun out hearing their mum was in hospital. Thankfully he listened. But it got me all emotional.   He bid me adieu through his own tears, but I couldn’t stop crying. I’m on the chopping block and they’re trying to calm me down – I’m trying to calm me down – but I just kept getting more and more hysterical… Let’s just say I’m not a fan of crying in front of strangers – definitely not my thing. Thankfully the drugs kicked in and I was gone.   Next thing I was viciously woken up and took two gulping breaths with no air coming in. Not being able to breath certainly wakes you up quickly right! But then I was hit by a wall of pain. Excruciating. I had people all around me, but all with their backs to me, and they were ignoring me. I was moaning, crying out in pain, pleading “please can you help me?” Occasionally a voice would come close to my ear, just a minute, we’ll give you more pain medicine when we get you back to your room.   But I don’t want it when I get back to my room. I want it now. It hurts so much. Help. Help. Please can someone help me. No one helped. At least I don’t think they did. It was awful. Back in my room, the pain continued. The pain started at 12am and finished at 1.30am. I knew the time better than anything else in that moment, because hospitals have clocks everywhere. I was in the usual befuddled state one gets into when coming out of anesthetics, but I knew the bloody time.   My view for four days I also knew something wasn’t right. I’ve woken up from operations before and pain is the last thing you feel. Did someone miss something? Why am I hurting? Help. Please help. I’m in my room, people were there sometimes. Mostly I was alone. I got an injection in the arm. An hour and a half later it stopped hurting, the room was empty. They left the lights on. The nurse call button wasn’t anywhere I could reach. I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything. The light was hurting my eyes.   I was befuddled, confused, and eventually, not in pain, but shit, what was that all about? I kept asking the doctors and nurses the next day, but no one wanted to talk about it. I get that, but I wish someone said there was a mistake, or you didn’t take to the pain killer we gave you, or, or, or, but of course, that would never happen would it? I might sue the fucking hospital.   I’ve never sued anyone in my life and I’m not about to start now. An explanation would have been nice though.   It’s done now, but Steve and I have certainly agreed that if there are future operations, the other will be there afterwards. It was definitely nice when Steve was in the hospital making things happen for me. Although I have to say, I’m glad he didn’t see me going through that. It would’ve been awful for him to watch!   I survived, one less organ in my body which I’m bummed about, but I’m doing a whole lot better than most people in this life. I’m just happy to be home – tender, tired and with a bloody HEADACHE (coffee withdrawal? Too many drugs whirling through my system?) – but home with my loves. The only thing that matters.   Anyone else wake up from an operation in agony?   Yours, without the bollocks Andrea   BTW I’m on Twitter here, Google+ here, Instagram here, and Facebook too, if you’re interested in the other stuff I share. Feel free to share my blog if you think anyone you know will be interested or entertained. I sure do appreciate it when you do xxxxx

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UNCOMMON COURAGE

Our Combined Apathy is the World’s Greatest Enemy

In 2013, when the haze went well over 700 PSI in Singapore, the region was in uproar and we moaned a lot. It was awful. We had a right to moan. But I educated myself too. I looked into what caused the haze and made some significant changes in our home, understanding that I was contributing to the haze. I had personal responsibility.   The haze is AWFUL!! I bloggedabout it too, trying to do my part to raise awareness. I knew those not immediately impacted didn’t have the reasons to care as much as those of us living in SE Asia, but I also knew I had to spread the word, because this was a global issue. We had to act. Two years later, we’re still not acting.   After it was over – done and dusted within two weeks – everyone did a clean aired sigh of relief and went back to their lives. I couldn’t do that. Every chance I got, I asked people what have you changed? What don’t you buy anymore? The best I got were blank looks. People didn’t care. They didn’t know. I got depressed.   Apathy is the worst quality I know. It is what allows bad shit to happen. It is what will destroy the world.   Then recently my friend Avi wrote this blog on LinkedIn titled “Thank You Haze, Please Stay” and I thought, you know what, he’s right. We needed this long, hideous haze. We needed the outrage that comes with it. We needed a massive kick in the arse to wake up and take on board the environmental carnage that is taking place. Now we need to change. Really change.   Another article I came across this week – The guilty secrets of palm oil: Are you unwittingly contributing to the devastation of the rain forests? – was featured in the Independent. While focused on palm oil in the UK, this is an awesome piece of writing and well worth a read. He nails it! Thankyou Martin Hickman. Your voice is bigger than mine.   But just in case it’s too long to read, I’m highlighting the key points/stats from this article: If the rainforests go, 90 per cent of the wildlife goes too – which includes orangutans, tigers, sun bears, bearded pigs and other endangered species. The indigenous tribes also have no place to go Palm oil plantations are dead zones for wild life It is confirmed or suspected that 43 of Britain’s 100 bestselling grocery brands (£6bn of the UKs £16bn annual shopping bill) contain palm oil. Take out drinks, pet food and household goods, it’s 32 out of 62 Palm oil is in bread, Flora and Clover, Special K, Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, Mr Kipling Cakes, McVitie’s Digestives and Goodfella’s pizza. It’s in KitKat, Galaxy, Dairy Milk and Wrigley’s chewing gum. It’s in Persil washing powder, Comfort fabric softener and Dove soap. It’s also in Milkybar, Jordan’s Country Crisp and Utterly Butterly. Naturally, it’s a cheaper oil, so it’s also in the supermarket own brands too. Apparently none of the manufacturers listed here can prove their supply is “sustainable” I loved this paragraph: “What, then, is “unsustainable” palm oil? Step one: log a forest and remove the most valuable species for furniture. Step two: chainsaw or burn the remaining wood releasing huge quantities of greenhouse gas. Step three: plant a palm-oil plantation. Step four: make oil from the fruit and kernels. Step five: add it to biscuits, chocolate, margarine, soaps, moisturisers and washing powder. At breakfast, when millions of us are munching toast, we’re eating a small slice of the rainforest.” Here’s how palm oil is listed. Put it in your wallet and cross check when you’re shopping please Continuing with the facts from this article Satellite pics show logging has now encroached on 90 per cent of Borneo’s national parks According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP): “New estimates suggest 98 per cent of [Indonesia’s] forest may be destroyed by 2022, the lowland forest much sooner.” Since 1990, the amount of land used for palm-oil production has increased by 43 per cent Major food manufacturers using palm oil include Kellogg’s, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Cadbury, Mars, Kraft, Unilever, Premier Foods, Northern Foods and Associated British Foods (ABF) No multinational can vouch that its supply is sustainable Junaida Payne, WWF Malaysia says palm oil plantations are “biological deserts” – they should know, Malaysia is full of them Only 4 per cent of global supply of palm oil (1.5m tonnes) is currently certified as sustainable Most companies – including Cadbury, Kellogg’s, Nestlé, Mars and Heinz, have given no commitment to switch to an RSPO-certified supply Greenpeace calculated that the burning of South-east Asia’s peat forests – largely for palm-oil plantations – spewed 1.8bn tonnes of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere: 4 per cent of global climate-change emissions from 0.1 per cent of Earth’s land Deforestation causes 18 per cent of Co2 emissions 90 per cent of Sumatra’s orangutan population has disappeared since 1900. They now face extinction The article references that “demand is rising at between 6-10 per cent a year. China’s billion-plus population is the biggest consumer, importing 18 per cent of global supply. About 16 per cent arrives in the EU.” OK the China stat frightens the shit out of me and I want to highlight why. Kishore Mahbubani, (Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singaporeand a member of the World Economic Forum) said: the “explosion of Asia’s middle class, which was named this week by the World Economic Forum’s Agenda Council as one of the ten most significant trends for 2014, is stunning.” Referencing the World Economic Forum Global Agenda 2014 report, it stated that the middle class in Asia is estimated at 500 million people today, but that number is expected to reach 1.75 billion by 2020 – a three-fold increase in just seven years. This prediction is considered one of the

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