Almost back to normal...

My dad had an operation yesterday (Wednesday) to fit a defibrillator to his chest. Everything went as well as can be expected and he will hopefully be back home in Hong Kong on the 1st April. Because of the operation I delayed my going back to Sydney for a few days until he was given the all clear after it.

Last Thursday after his heart attack he had to be resuscitated eight times over three hours with the defibrillator, so he's lucky to be alive today. The doctors said that if he wasn't in hospital at the time he wouldn't have made it. They can only suspect that it was the antibiotic drip that he was on at the time that caused the heart attack, but they still aren't sure about it which is why they recommended having a mini internal defibrillator fitted.

Since everything is as good as can be expected with my dad now I've rearranged my flight to fly back to Sydney this Friday so I will be back in Sydney on Saturday.

Here's a photo of me in my surgical uniform just before they needed me to operate earlier this week. Well I had to lie about being a doctor so I could have a go at operating, I never could say no to anything. I'm sure it would be as easy as playing the kids Operation game, mind you I was never great that that.

Just behind me you can see an intercom unit which you had to use to be able to speak to my dad while he was in isolation. You had to clean your hands before and after wearing all the hospital gowns and then dispose of everything in the bin after every use. My hands had never been so clean in my entire life!

Hopefully everything will be back to normal this weekend and I'm looking forward to getting back to Sydney. I called Barclays bank yesterday to try to transfer money to my Australian bank account seeing as I had been paid recently. Guess what, they wouldn't let me transfer the money because the Australian account was in a slightly different name, it's in my official passport name! The woman who let me do it last time will be told off for letting me transfer the money then, so I have to either check with the Australian bank that if funds are put into my account with a slightly different account name will they refuse them, or write a letter with a validated photocopy of my passport to change my Barclays bank account name. Alternatively I can just give up banking with Barclays as they have been nothing but trouble since moving out to Australia and switch all my main banking to my Nationwide account. I think I'll do the latter since it's much easier than the first two options. Grr, bloody pants Barclays!

I've also had a problem in trying to cancel my Fitness First membership as they claim to have not received my letter to cancel my account or have refunded the last two months membership fees. Another grr to Fitness First!