So happy it's February

January was a disappointing month for lots of reasons. I came into the new year full of clean slate thinking and then I had a stroke. That made me lose a lot of confidence. Then they told me it wasn't severe and that made me feel good but I kept writing, typing, using scissors to get the use of my right hand back.
I also didn't like the droop in my mouth. My speech was stuffed. Two weeks later it started reversing and now it's all good. Everything is about 95%. My speech gets tied up if I'm tired. My hand and mouth are normal again.

However when doing the MRI for the stroke to see if it was a stroke or my MS relapsing they found a growth in my nasal/pharyngeal area. A day of a general anaesthetic and surgery saw it removed and I waited a week for the biopsy results.  Thankfully it was clear and was not cancer. Big sigh of relief.

Koko in hospital

Then my cat got bitten by a poisonous whip snake on Austrailia Day holiday weekend. He is a housecat with an enclosure outdoors and the snake got into the enclosure. We have lived here 24 years and never seen a snake. It had to be in January.   I'm very close to consulting an astrologer and finding out what planets have gone retrograde in my chart. Only kidding.

Thinking the paralysis and neurological damage was from an injury and the vet being closed because of the holiday he slept on the couch comfortably all day and we took him in Tuesday morning. After almost getting back to normal he suddenly crashed. He got through that and then due to an underlying heart condition we didn't know about I'm sorry to report he passed away.

Beautifully photographed- more later.

It was blogging and reading books that kept me sane.  I'm working through the book about the two best friends who travel the world collecting rare old books from the 16th century.
Entitled Old Books and Rare Friends I am enjoying it very much. I'll write about it once finished.  I'm also dipping into now, 10 pages a night or so of The Songs of Sapa by Luke Nguyen which is a giant almost coffee table sized hard cover travelogue of Vietnam and cookbook. Beautiful photos.

Really good fun.

I have read 6 other books already listed on the blog page so I won't repeat again. I still have to review one of them.  I'm also looking through a new book entitled How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare.  It is a new book I saw the other day and couldn't go past it. He explains so much about Shakespeare and it is for people who are older children or those who have come late to Shakespeare. I've had a bit of Shakespeare but it's been during school or my Play Reading course and I have seen films of some of the plays but this is an all rounder excellent reference. I'll be writing about it more before long.

Everyday of January I made myself read something, write something, sit still and think of other things. It was such a difficult month but all of the above really helped deal with everything quietly and seamlessly. You just keep going on.

Now it's Feb. I am doing better. I haven't had another more serious stroke, I don't have cancer and my darling cat-boy is going to live.  We have decided to not go by the calendar year and start the new year fresh again with the Chinese Calendar Year.  Welcome to the Year of the Horse. May it only get better.