Hardboiled's Journals

merry cracklefart

Merry Christmas!

'Tis the Season...

Merry Christmas, and Happy Yule!

Yes, itâ�™s one of those personal question and answer things, and Lexidiem hit me on this (thanks for thinking of me, John!)â�¦

Answer the questions, post it in your journal and then pass it on.

Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper except being a man i'm useless at wrapping. So, I get my 7yr old daughter to wrap for me.
Tree; Real or Artificial? Artificial this year due to costs. But normally a whopping great big real one.
When do you put Christmas tree up? When i find time. Was about one week ago.
When do you take the tree down? 12th Night. 6th January
Like eggnog? hhhhmmpppffffff its like drinking puke.
Do you have a nativity scene? Nope. Not a religious family so we tend to stick to the pagan side of the festivities. although I am strating to feel more christian towards my friends and people i meet
Favorite gift received as a child? Action-man eagle eyes. He had a beard and his eyes moved he was awesome!
Hardest person to buy for? My dad. He's not aloud smokes or alcohol and he doesnt read and he's got everything and normally ends up being socks
Easiest person to buy for? The girls in my life! Jewles for my wife and something pink and fluffy for my daughter. or something with a horse on.
Worst Christmas gift? A free clock off Ringtons tea my "grandmother"(mental old witch) gave us.
Mail or e-mail a Christmas Card? Cards to my dear friends in Uk and emails to my friends in other countries
Favorite Christmas movie? Goodby Mr Chips (the original one) only ever seems to be on at christmas. I love this films so much. A true story of friendship and love.
When do you start shopping for Christmas? christmas eve normally in a blind panic.
Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? no but i am buying less every year.
Favorite food to eat on Christmas? mince pies!
Clear or colored tree lights? whatever comes out of the box first
Favorite Christmas Song? Andy Williams - the most wonderful time of the year
Travel during Christmas or stay home? Stay at home i hate travel at christmas
Store bought or homemade gifts? Store bought! to busy(lazy-thanks kirst)
Angel or Star on tree top? Angel that Lydia made. its cool
Open presents on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve? Christmas morn.
Most annoying thing about this time of year? the over commercialisation of the season. I'm not religious but i do not get the spending frenzy that occurs. I'd like to and i do try to , but more onus on the friendship and caring part of christmas. Like having my friend jason be with us.Hes family anyway.might as well be.
Lights outside? not this year we havnt
Mistletoe? not that bothered.T

that was fun!! Christmas traditions are always so special to me.. I will tag a few of you and really look forward to hearing about YOUR traditions.

What a difference a day makes

Well after my last posting, Lydia seemed to be doing so incredibly well. The whole team of Consultants, Doctors, Surgeons and host of other medical staff said she was doing very very well and there was talk of being released home maybe 2 weeks ahead of schedule. Well, day 7 post-op was her last great day. She was bouncey, lively and cheeky, much like the Lydia of old. The day 8 she had a temprature of 39.7c and everything went pear-shaped.

Turns out she has an infection somewhere. So the last three/four days, the medical staff have been testing, scanning , x-raying and testing again to see if they can locate the souce of infection. Turns out, she had a collection of fluid in her body of bile draining from the new liver. ALthough the donor liver was functioning perfectly well, as it was a split liver(not a whole donor liver) the cut surface was still leaking a little. Well bile in the body is just nasty. This made lydia so very unwell. The fluid was compressing her right lung and making very very hard for her to breathe. The bile was causing unbelievable amounts of pain in her little body. Its just horrible watching your little girl writhe in pain knowing there is absolutely nothing you can do to take it away. One feels so bloody helpless its unreal. You stroke her head whisper in her ear but you feel...what the fuck am i doing?...she needs morphine or something. So unwell to the point that she went back to theatre yesterday to have a second drain inserted to remove the bile collection.

As i am at home at the moment (about to return to hospital) I hear she is doing better already but god knows? I bet she is tired and sore. I know my wife will be ready to change over and come home.

It just goes to prove what a roller coaster ride we're having. One minute filled with joy, the next we're watching our little girl getting worse to the point she's fingthing for breath and wracked with pain.

All i can say is, keep praying for her. All your kind words of love and support really mean the world to her and my wife and I.

I'll try get some more photos on soon. Perhaps less of her and more of other things. God knows this must be boring for you all.

Love and hugs to each and everyone of you.

Rich

p.s. incidently, does anyone know what you would call a collection of doctors?

today is the day

Well after my post last night, we were on our way to buy a new school uniform for the monster and the phone rings,

"mr mellen, you're not going to belive this" it was less than 24 hours of getting home after the false alarm and they had another liver.

As i write this, Lydia is in Surgery for her transplant. She went in at 6pm GMT and is expected out in Intensive Care at 5Am tomorrow.

As we live 30mins from hospital rather than sit in an uncomfortable waiting room we came home.

I'm not going to be on here much for the next three weeks, but please do feel free to call me, mail etc. I will replay when i can.

Thank you all for your support and prayers. They really do mean the world to me.

Love you all

RIch

8 Random factoids of Hardboiled

8 Random facts about Denali Luna

Here are the rules:

1) Only list 8 facts.
2) You must then list 8 TAGS at the end of the post. This means you must name 8 people on Buzznet who now must do the same blog.
3) Go comment on their profile and tell them to come read yours! Mark demands participation.

-------------

Facts

1. I was born in Hartlepool in the North East on England where we are known as monkey hangers. Son to a Scottish Mother and German Father.

2. I played rugby at the very highest level and even had trials for England

3. I have taken the Queen's shilling in the Royal Marines

4. I have a pierced ....(ahem)....you know...erm....man's bits

5. my daughter and wife are my girls. I would die for them.

6. I love my friends more than anything else. If i call you my friend, you know i will be by your side through everything and anything. (some friends have already found this out)

7. I am a staunch royalist and would give my life for my Queen

8. I struggle with depression and occasionally self harm as a result.

I'll tag these 8 people in hopes that they haven't already been tagged:
evangeline, buddoman, dougieb, snowsmiles, lizette, kathy1981, gooddude, jmc

Back from the dead

Hi friends,

Sorry i've been quiet for so long. My life has once again been turned upside down.

How do i say this succinctly? My little girl Lydia, has to go for regular check ups at the hospital because of her Liver disease. Well a couple of weeks ago, the radiologist found white spots on the ultrasound scan of her liver. 2 days later, she was given a rush MRI scan of her live which proved inconclusive. He blood test markers are all over the place and our consultants( some of the world's pioneers in childhood liver diseases) are baffled. To cut a long and traumatic story short. She has been put on the transplant list. She is now awaiting a new liver.

We have yet to tell her as this morning is our first day back in UK. We took her to France for a respite break. Lots of ponys, water parks and EuroDisney. Filled her two week break with joy and laughter. Took her 3yr old cousin too.

We don't know what the future holds for us. Our conslutants are confident and opptomistic but being her parents we are filled with fear, worry and intrepidation.

She is our world and we would be lost if something went wrong.

Ontop of this, because I have been over come with thoughts of my daughter, I have taken my eye off the ball at work and risk losing my company. Bill have not been getting paid becasue my mind was elsewhere and not on the business.

I have like 500 pics of our recent trip[to France. I will post as many as i can.

much love to you all

Rich

F**K IT!

F**K IT indeed. I am not enjoying life at the moment. I am working more hours than there are actually hours. All around me seem to be enjoying life and being succesful and all i seem to do is work and get no further forward. Where is it going wrong. So much in my life is pissing me off at them moment. and to be brutally honest I have come close to letting my demons loose and throwing in the towel and saying F**K IT i've had enough of this shit.

People tell me to take time for myself and make sure you have quality time. difficult to do when you'reworking working working. I know in the grand scheme of things I am better off that say an Iraqi civilian or a Sudanese.

I'm sorry i'm not posting much but I just havn't had time to sit down and download all my pics. Not that i've taken any.

My daughter is also going back into hospital on the 8th May to have more Liver Dialasis. Yet more stress. So much for retiring when i'm 45 i'll be in a box before then.

Love to you all

Don't let the bastards win

rich

New World Religion

In the light of the current world state where so many wars are raged on the premis of religion. I would to offer for thought a New World Religion.

A religion where anyone can join in.

Where everyone is equal.

Any race is accepted.

Any sexual orientation is accepted.

Any belief is welcomed and open for discussion

A religion where no-one is persecuted for their beliefs.

No one part of our religion is better than the other.

No one person is in charge and leads us into strife or conflict.

A religion where you are not required to dress a certain way

There is no singla god. You pray(if you want to) to whatever God you wish in any form your God takes.

No god is better than another.They are all equal.

A religion where the only rule is to live morally and ethically right. Be honest, loving, caring and welcome strangers as tomorrow they will no longer be strangers. We don't need a catalogue of rules. We merely need to treat others how we would like to be treat. If we all opened our hearts to warmth and light, the darkenss would be extinguished.

I believe if a number of people all join me in this form of religion we could make it a legitimate religion.If We all live by the moral ethics mentioned above our would would be more at piece. If we welcomed those in to our arms that are at war with others and themselves we would show that we can all live together.

Today, smile and say hello to a stranger. It will make their day. I do it everyday and it really works.

Serious Objection

Who or what is MCR, my chemical romamnce and Villy valley or village idiot or whatever the hell hius bloody name is. Who are all these freaks wearing eye makeup?

Buzznet seems to be inundated with pictures and videos of them? I've never heard of them and i listen to some pretty diverse music stations.

Has buzznet suddenly become a fanzine for them? freedom of speach and all that, but in moderation please. I challenge you all. no matter what you search for, i guarantee you will mcr,or villyage people or what ever they are called.

Also, i alway thought buzznet was supposed to be a platform for your "own" images not images you paste from other websites and videos you steal from MTV. Surely there are copyright laws to think about here.

ooh it does make me vexxed

someone should tell him!

So, there i was, working in my shop today. When a couple walk in. They are late 30s early 40s. The male is blind and the female is.....well.......erm.........she had an adams apple dude and hands that made my shovels look dainty!

Now i am about as open minded as they come. Hell i've even strayed a little myself. But, you'd think one of his friends would have told him he'd married a man???? I mean she was 6'4" and 300lbs with razor burn.

I almost ruptured my panceas supressing laughter. It was one of those moments you only see in cheesy sit-com shows.

well it brightened up my day.

what a week...

What a week indeed. Well its started really a couple of weeks ago. We've booked our summer holiday. We're heading to the Normandy coast for a week to look at the Normandy landing beaches and other significant battle points like pegasus bridge. Something i've wanted to do for such a long time. As we're taking Lydia, this will be interspersed with visits to Zoos and themeparks. This is the first real holiday we've taken since lydia was born. As she has a sever liver disease, its not always been easy to visit other places. but she is doing so much better thesedays. Of course we've had long weekends away with her but nothing like this. It'll be an adventure.

So coming into this week on a high, i was shot down when i found out, my bank had not been paying any standing orders for two months. and for some reason failed to notify me. BANKS!!!!!!!! I FUCKING HATE THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!! So i went to town on them big style this week. useless fuckwits.

Then, last night, coming home from work, I got busted by the police. I was doing 93mph in a 70mph zone. FUCK! Thankfully the officer was really nice. still ticketed me. and verbally warned me about my speed but did it all really quickly as i was in hurry to pick up Lydia and was running late. He could have arrested me and had me banned from driving for that sort of speed but was very pleasent. Shame i got busted though. Went to the police station today to hand in my license for endorsing, Asked if i got a discount because i only 50mph today. Apparently not. according to the officer on duty. LOL worth asking i thought.

So who wants to come to france with me? I cant wait

Thanks for listening.

Rich