First, to Gordy – he’s got pneumonia. Thursday night was not good – Eunju was exhausted and very upset that the antibiotics weren’t working as quickly as she’d hoped, and Gordy was frustrated that he had to go back to using a big oxygen mask instead of the smaller nasal tubes.
But in GOOD news – he’s talking, he’s able to give directions (to the Korean food shops at the Central Markets in Adelaide so Mum and Dad could pick up some bibimbap (also seen on the cover of this month’s SBS “Feast” Magazine) for Ju- because comfort food when you’re exhausted is a Good Thing. Gordy can move his arms and legs, too, which is a Big Thing. These are amazingly hopeful signs, given what the outcomes could have been.
Latest report I had this morning, he was slightly better, having had stronger antibiotics overnight, and was able to clear some of the muck from his lungs.
So he’s still in the ICU for now.
And now to the rain.
It’s been wet and miserable for a few days now. And we do get nervous when the weather bureau starts issuing severe weather warnings… after the floods in January last year, nobody believes any more that “Toowoomba never floods (it’s on top of the range).” So as I’m writing this in the warm, dry shed/studio, poor Mr Beloved is out in the pouring rain ensuring that it stays that way: he’s installing a “make-do” sandbag system (an old tarp and lots of dirt) and some big pieces of timber which will help to divert water away from the doors.
Not pretty, but should do the job...
(The rain is already pooling in the short time between getting this far and Mr Beloved having a break while I took a photo…)
Paranoid? Perhaps. We like to think of it as being prepared. Places not that far to the west and south of Toowoomba have already had rainfalls in excess of 200 mm this week. The ground is already soggy, and that’s exactly the sort of conditions last year that lead to all the run-off from what felt like the entire hill ending up in our yard… The Bureau of Meteorology reports Toowoomba had just over 25mm of rain (that’s an inch) overnight, and even though the official rain gauge at the airport is currently showing only 0.8 mm since 9am, we know that’s not an accurate measure of how much rain OUR house gets. I can guarantee that the dog got more rain on her than that in the journey between house and shed!
Let’s hope we’re being overly pessimistic, and that the rain stops soon. There are very few days when I wish for a clothes dryer – weeks like this though…
