I found out today my sister had to take my uncle to hospital. He was having trouble breathing and had been having problems with his legs for a while, although he hadn’t said anything about them.
There’s no excuse since he lives literally less than five minutes from my Mum and Dad. He’s my Mum’s older brother so I can appreciate the fact that he doesn’t want to turn to his little sister when he’s having problems. The thing is, my mum is the rock of her family.
She’s the youngest of five children, and without doubt the first one any of her siblings come to with problems.
anyway, I spoke to my mum, earlier today and I mistook what she said when she mentioned my uncle. I don’t want to sound heartless but when I thought she meant her uncle, who is very old and hasn’t been too well recently, I wasn’t too surprised he was in hospital and I asked her to let me know how he was.
Later this evening, she called me to say that my uncle was okay but they were keeping him in overnight to run some tests.
Let’s say when I was aware of my mistake I felt fucking terrible. My uncle William is my Mum’s youngest brother, but the third of five, and has always been very close to my family. In fact he introduced my dad to my mum, so if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be here.
Once I found out my mistake I called my sister, who was the one that had to take him to hospital and stay with him until my mum and dad got there. I can only say I’m really proud of the way she handled herself today. She’s solid in a crisis, and today she truly showed her strength. My uncle looked like he was on the verge of having a heart attack, according to my sis, and she got him to the hospital in record time. The way she described it to me earlier tonight I could tell she was totally freaked out by it all.
Let’s just say our family have had a few scares in the last year, my uncle today, my aunty, (my mum’s youngest sister) had a mild stroke around new year last year, and about this time last year my granddad was rushed to the hospital with chest pains.
I should be finishing of my NaNoWriMo novel tonight but I’m too stressed, I’ve tried to write but I just can’t get the thought of my uncle in hospital out of my head. At one point today he had lot’s of chest monitors attached to him, and the doctors had no idea why he was so ill.
My uncle should be fine we hope, although he needs to take better care of himself. It was a hell of a scare today and when I see him tomorrow he is going to get some shit from me for scaring us so badly.
As it stands, the fact that he got so unwell without us knowing, and the relief that he should be okay constantly has me close to tears.
There’s nothing like your family being in trouble to put your little problems into perspective.
I’ve had a few thoughts about the NaNoWriMo over the last few weeks. The one thing that I can say without doubt is that unless you have lots of free time, your screwed. I’m sitting around 30K words which is way behind where I should be.
That’s the case because of the high number of nights I’ve been working late or had things i couldn’t get out of. I fully intend to complete the novel, but it’s a hell of a lot more difficult when you have no free time.
I have lots more to write so I’m going to go now. With only four days left I have to focus on siting down and churning through the word count.
1. James Morrison – Undiscovered
2. Jeff Buckley – Grace
3. Mogwai – Mr Beast
Technorati Tags: NaNoWriMo, Writing, Music
So far this week hasn’t been the best week for writing. Between working late most nights, and going out for a “couple” of beers my timing and motivation have been bad. Friday night I ended up at the casino and didn’t get home till 6am, and I was still drunk when I woke up on Saturday. I spent the entire day just lying on the sofa, watching TV and falling asleep at regular intervals.
At the moment my current word count is 15,302 which is really far behind where I want to be. By the 22nd I need to be at 35K but unless I have a huge writing session I’m not going to make it.
I’ve been doing my usual “I’ll do it later” bullshit which when I realise I’m doing it, I get pretty annoyed with myself and write a few hundred words.
I’m at a bit of a lull in the current chapter, basically It’s a transition section between an important plot setup and the actual event. I have to tie up a few things before I can move the characters on to a part of the story that should be fun to write. Basically when I get to that point I fully expect the word count to rocket up.
Well I best get back to it. This quick piece of procrastination is over. I’ll post another update on Wednesday
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Update
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I’ve managed to get a decent amount done since I initially wrote this post. Now I’m sitting on 17,362 words, and I want to get to the end of the current scene which should take me up to at least 18,000 tonight.
So far my NaNoWriMo novel is coming along quite well. I’m still building the characters, and the story has taken a couple of little unexpected twists. I’ve been having ideas in the most bizarre places, so I’m very glad I always carry my little pocket Moleskine with me everywhere. I had one idea that altered the main plot slightly when I was in a meeting with a supplier at work. I couldn’t wait until the meeting had finished, (and not just because I wanted to note the idea down), and as soon as it had I quickly noted the idea and the potential changes it’s going to impose on the characters I’ve already introduced.
At the moment I’m sitting on 8742 words, which is much less than I’d have liked to have been on, simply because a few unavoidable social outings had to happen over the last week and a half. I missed a few days because of them, which probably meant there are about four or five thousand words at least that I would have written on those days that didn’t get done. I’m sure I’ll catch up with them in no time at all since I really don’t have any other social events this month that I can’t miss, with the exception of the 30th, but I intend to have broken the 50,000 words before then anyway.
If I intend to get to todays target I’d better get back to it. I’ll post another update next weekend and then more than likely the weekend after.
I played in the APAT US Open last night on PokerStars. There were 180 entrants this week, all of them very tough players. To the extent that after an hour of play there had only been just over 50 players busted after over of play.
I was card dead for almost the entire first hour, and the hands I did get involved in resulted in small pots. I went into the break slightly under my starting stack.
As the blinds increased, I felt that I had to make a move soon and lost my patience slightly. It was a flaw I had thought I had managed to remove from my game, but apparently not. Then after some poorly timed raises, I found myself with a rather small stack and in push or fold territory.
After about 45 minutes into the second hour, on e of my pushes was called by two opponents, and I knew I was in trouble. They checked it down, and I went out. I ended up finishing 108 out of 180, which is pretty disappointing.
I do like the way the APAT tournaments are setup, but I made a fwe glaring errors last night which is frustrating.
No matter, I’ll play in another one soon and try to give a better accounting of myself in it.
