Since my last post, things have been happening and there has been material for several posts. I have been in hospital getting a hip replacement, but that is of little importance, other than to me. The United States elected a new President, after what I thought was one of the most bizarre campaigns, and then there was . . . But more of that below.
The surgery and the follow-up care were carried out with professionalism, skill and commitment, and I can assure anyone wondering that New Zealand does have good skilled medical care. One can argue about the politicians’ involvement with health care (and many of us Kiwis do), but I could not have asked for more. While recovering, the election results were coming in, and I had nurses pausing and discussing. Many Americans probably do not appreciate the importance many ordinary people in other countries attribute to their political scene. Of course there is no personal involvement, so we could make our comments in a detached sort of way. I am sure all who are following my blog, or other writings, will have seen enough comments on the actual result, so I shall leave it at that, other than to add that only too many of such comments show some ugly aspects of the writer that probably should not have been shown.
Then it was time to come home. My daughter thought I was being silly coming home because I have some fairly steep steps to climb, but no problem. The hospital had the rule, if you cannot climb up and down steps, you cannot come home, and I had practised. A lot of people commented on how well I was doing, bearing in mind . . . I put that down to three things. First, for weeks before going in I had been doing exercises to strengthen hip muscles. You cannot do anything about what is to be cut, but with bad hips, the muscles around them tend to atrophy through lack of use. You can do something about that. The second, I was determined to do what had to be done, and I think attitude helps. Finally, I had some long-term goals. Simple goals, like being able to walk down the beach in our up-coming summer. Be that as it may, I mention it just in case anybody else is to face such surgery. One can imagine all sorts of things, but it helps if you can focus on the desirable.
So, the day I came home we had, in a 24 hr period, the total average rainfall for November, and here was me hobbling up towards the house. Any moss on concrete, when wet, tends to get slippery, and you need slipperiness under crutches like you need the plague. So, the end of the bad luck?
Nope. I came home on a Saturday, and had a quiet Sunday, but then shortly after midnight, the house started shaking: a 7.8 earthquake. (Equivalent, I have been told, to 5.35 Mt of tnt.) This was centred at Waiau, which is about 40 % of the way between Christchurch and Wellington. This has apparently got international attention, especially “cow island” – three cows stranded on a pillar where the rest of the land had subsided. In one sense it was good this happened at Sunday/Monday midnight because many of the high-rise buildings in the Wellington commercial district lost sheets of glass, and there would have been serious casualties had there been people wandering about down below. Meanwhile, the electricity to the house went out. For me, there was worse to come – just as I was getting back to sleep, the sirens for a tsunami warning started up. No real likelihood of a tsunami where I live, because I am about 70 meters up a hill. But these sirens went on and on.
Then on Tuesday I had to go back and get dressings changed. No problems, except there was a serious storm going on, a number of roads were closed, and I had to hobble both down and up my path to my house. Of course my inconvenience is nothing compared to others’. Apparently, the whole town of Kaikoura has to be evacuated by sea because all land routes to and from it are blocked by huge rock slips. These road closures are all over the country. Earthquake/storms have closed at least 7 roads in the Lower Hutt area where I live, and a good number of houses have had to be evacuated. Then, of course, the aftershocks; 2000 of them. These have ranged as far north as Taupo, (half-way up the north Island) and a number directly under Wellington. A number of high-rise buildings there are under suspicion.
Yes, this has been a period where things have been happening. I just wish they would slow down, or happen somewhere else. I know that is hardly fair to someone else, but I have felt that a quiet spell for recovery would be good.
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