Update! First picture allowed to be exposed to the Internet! I think he thinks it looks a lot worse than it actually does!

Ironically, yesterday, I was talking to Ian about how things seemed to be going a lot more smoothly recently…spoke too soon! Today I got a phone call from him, saying that he was in A & E – apparently he’d had a falling out with a chainsaw at the top of a tree…oh the quiet life of a climbing arborist!

Being the cool, calm, collected person that I am, I started freaking out and asking a million questions. “It’s not that bad” he said, “I’ve just cut my nose open.” “Whaaaaat?!” I screamed, whilst a million gory images flew through my head. He managed to convince me that it wasn’t serious, even though, realistically, I should have known that if he was in the Emergency Room, it was going to be worse than he was making out.

An hour later, I got the following text: “Bit worse than I thought. Probably be in overnight. Got to have reconstructive surgery.”  Now, I know he’s the type to play things down, but oh my gosh! Dashed to the hospital, with Mia in tow, and was escorted to him. He had a massive bandage covering his nose, so I couldn’t see the damage (probably a blessing) and was attached to a drip. It turns out the chainsaw blade had cut through the columella (middle bit) and one of his nostrils and the surgeon is going to attempt to reattach it! All I could come out with was “You’re going to look like Daniella Westbrook!” (Google may be required!) You’re going to look like a “cokehead”!” In retrospect, possibly not the most helpful comment!

Went home to pack him an overnight bag, dropped Mia off at a friend’s place and then went back in to see him. He’d been moved to the orthopaedic ward and was looking thoroughly miserable. He hadn’t been allowed to eat or drink anything since arriving, in preparation for the operation and the incident had occurred just before lunch, so we were on about twelve hours without food at this point. Ian and food should never be parted, it’s just not a pretty sight and the mood was worsening!

I’m a firm believer in: if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry! Thus, I tried my darndest to lighten the mood. When I walked into the ward, he was wearing a beautiful gown in a fetching shade of lilac, which, coupled with his nose bandage, would have made for an excellent picture to look back on and laugh at. It was clearly too soon. He was having none of it and glared every time I tried to point my phone at him.  After searching high and low for doctors to pester about when his operation would be, how long until he could come home, would his nose ever be the same again?!…he asked me to leave.

I did suggest that he should ask for a 2-4-1 type deal and get his hernia done at the same time. Back story: Ian has had a hernia for about the last six weeks, again done at work, but he can’t prove when it happened and his boss is too much of a tightwad to put it through his work insurance, so he’s on the waiting list for an operation for that too! We were told it would take around four weeks for a surgery date…six weeks ago! So he’s been strapping his intestines back in place every morning and going to work in pain, supposedly on “light duties”, which, funnily enough, are exactly the same as what he was doing before! Anyway, that suggestion didn’t fly!

So, it is currently 8:40pm and I am debating whether to stay lucid and worry myself silly, or crack open the bottle of wine in the fridge and get piddled…The moral of the story is, just when you think the road is straightening out again, there is another hidden dip which makes your stomach churn! I’m opening the wine!

No accompanying picture today: model refused to cooperate!