Wednesday, December 1, 2010

MIL, weather and other updates

Thank you to all of you for the kind thoughts on MIL. Surgery went well, they amputated the leg below the knee so once she gets a prosthesis she will be able to walk a bit more naturally. We have not seen her yesterday, we planned to go to the hospital (which is at the other side of the city from where we live) but the weather and traffic were so bad it was absolutely impossible. It took us two hours to get home from work (normally it's no more than 20 minutes). We will go today.

Weather is really cold and it keeps snowing. So Ireland doesn't do snow well at all, it happened in January too. Schools are closed, roads are at various levels of danger (depending whether they salted them so it's very slushy or not and so it's hard snow/ice), cars are not equipped with winter tyres so they are all over the place and drivers are either way too careful (they could walk instead at the speed they are going) or not enough. College issued a statement they are shutting down now and probably will be closed tomorrow too. Given that it's the last week of term with plenty of lectures and labs to finish I don't know how they can fix it. I had less than half the class this morning and thankfully I only had very light material which is not part of the exam. But tomorrow and firday I have three hours teaching plus continuous assessment with the final year students and we'll have to find a way of having those hours done. You see, next week is revision week and then exams starts immediately running till the 22nd of December, there was really no contingency plan in place. We'll see.

More bad news came last night from various relatives in Mike's family, I won't go into details but let's say that things are looking quite bad or at least two of them and feel very sorry for them.

I'm just waiting for Mike to arrive and we go home!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm glad your MIL is doing ok, and I hope she recovers well. Sorry about more bad family news though.

Alex said...

So glad the MIL's surgery went well. Hope Mike's family is ok, and stay warm!!!

daega99 said...

I had MIL in my prayers - glad surgery went well.

Stay warm and safe in the snow & ice!

Kakunaa said...

So sorry for more bad news :( But the amputation sounds like it went as well as it could, and that is FANTASTIC news! Be safe, okay?

Mrs. Chapman's 2nd Grade Class said...

So glad your MIL's surgery went well. Sure will be praying for her.

Anonymous said...

Good that your MIL's surgery went okay. Sorry to hear that there are more family members not doing well. You have your plate full right now, and if it keeps snowing, how can you possibly continue working through December? Keep those kitty cats warm, keep Elvis safe and I hope you all get to be home soon.

Momasita said...

I've been seeing the weather from your neck of the woods on the news lately. It does seem a bit of a mess.

I'm glad that the surgery for your MIL went well and hope she makes a full recovery quickly.

Adele said...

Fran, so sorry to hear that they had to resort to amputation for your MIL, but so glad that the surgery went well. Elvis' grandma needs to be around for a good, long while.

And you certainly have been hit by the snow! We had something similar earlier this year and it was terrible - we ended up squeezing in extra classes during our "reading" week. Nobody was happy.

Mad Hatter said...

Gosh, Fran, I'm so sorry to hear about Mike's mother and other family members...Sending lots of love and prayers to you all.
Love,
Maddy

Jana said...

glad your MIL's surgery went well. I hope things improve with the family and the difficulties they are going through.