weekly update

Good morning to all. herewith the weekly update, there is not enough happening to justify a daily blog. Cara is about to finish her first week of school and it went ok, also it was a short week with independence day, a swimming gala on thursday and the teachers generally not giving her too much homework so that she can adjust to the pace once again. next week she will be able to return to boarding school and she is very much looking forward to being able to spend time with her roommates. Her schoolbag still needs to be carried by someone else as it is too much weight on the sternum, and she is not allowed to participate in sport yet, but other than that she should be able to cope with the weekly school routine. we had another check-up with the cardiothrorasic surgeon on tuesday and her lungs are clear, so the effusion will not come back and she is allowed to follow a NORMAL diet. yipee!!! at last!!! so we had to organise a pizza for her, smoked viennas, and just tasty, fat containing food for her and she is eating lots. she does suffer from allergies right now and is on medication and that has led to a persistent dry cough which we struggle to contain, also at night now. she is also very demanding and she needs skills to cope with the trauma and the situation in general. time will heal lots of things too...
we have crossed the 1000 mm rainmark here on the farm and managed to have more vehicles stuck in the field, including the cattle truck on our farm entrance road. what a year, this must certainly be the record year rainwise in the history on this farm. it is about to start raining again....
we are trying to post a current picture of the madam ( another nickname for bobbies ) on the blog but currently she does not want to be on a camera. we wish you all a wonderful weekend!

another week past op

hello to everybody. cannot believe how fast the week has gone past! we are basically 6 weeks past-op now and according to the medical experts, by now the immune system should not be supressed anymore and she should become a lot better. we had a small setback last week Friday in the form of a stomach virus which made her throw up but Rita soon had this one sorted out! so from a very low weight of 28.8 kg we have her back on 30.3 kg and have to get her back to her pre-op weight of 34 kg and then beyond that as she is severely undernourished right now and has been previously. but everybody who knows her can testify that she has had a very healthy appetite and eats big portions. so mama/ me/ moi can testify that long term patients are very difficult and she is still subdued, quiet and very demanding and edgy, but this is all due to the healing process. the sternum is fully healed by now and she will be able to return to school after the independence weekend. somebody will have to carry her schoolbag for her in the first couple of weeks as that is still to heavy for her chest. in a couple of weeks time she will probably also be able to return to her boarding school and her group of friends, whom she misses a  lot. she dreams a lot too, all part of the process to get rid and work off the trauma. for now we keep her busy with cooking, her cats and toys. we have over 930 mms of rain since the start of the rainy season and all damms are still overflowing. like our neighbours says, at least this year we do not have to worry about cattle standing without water in the field somewhere. our favourite, brand new hobby is retrieving stuck landcruisers, trailers and tractors out of the farm ( they get stuck on trackroads! ) and if we do not have our own to pull out we assist the neighbours as they seem to have taken to the same hobby. we have also created a new work outfit...black rubber boots and yellow raincoats...very fashionable. have a great week and best regards from us all here on Progress!

farmroutine

hello to all the fans! we have been to the local peadiatric cardiologist dr. chris hugo-hamman last week and had chest x-rays done, echo etc and he is very happy with her progress and has taken her off some medications and also thinks the chyle's effusion has healed ( thanks to orgon and rita ) but says we should for safety sake just stick to the diet for another week and then slowly start re-introducing. the only medication she is on now is the diuretic and the fluid restriction is also a thing of the past. cara is very thin though due to a lack of muscles and restricted eating choices, but will hopefully come back to her old weight soon. she has lost about 4 kgs and has picked up only half a kilo so far.
we are almost over the jetlag, it really hit us this time after so long in the states.....
the cats tipsy and tapsy are being trained by cara to become circus participants...she spends hours with them and has started knitting inbetween the movies ( she loves those and soon there will be no more movies left she has not seen.....she just watched beethoven and absolutely loved it )
today it has been raining non-stop and everyting is wet, wet, wet. we had over 800 mm rain by now, our average is 350 mm. have a good evening!

Cara is back home!!!

Cara and Sonja have arrived home yesterday morning with a two hour delay from Frankfurt and were greeted by their families. Cara was very tired but delighted to be home and see her father, Alec and her cats.
They are now on the farm and continuing the long road to full recovery. We will continue to keep you posted on Cara's recovery. The new photo on the blog was taken on the day when the two left the states for home.

frankfurt

frankfurt is actually not cold and cara is missing out on her snow......yes we have landed in deutschland and as cara was tired we went to the sheraton for some napping time. we are now back at the airport enduring a 2 hour delay because of some airline part that is not here yet for air namibia and will hopefully be on our way shortly. one thing i never told you all about is how kerri and claus roggensack managed to cara back to eat food by ordering lean biltong ( yes the real african stuff, not american beef jerky) from somewhere in the midwest over the internet and getting stuck in the snow and having it personally delivered by kerri.......that was extraordinary and cara gets her measured 1 to 2 ounces every day and is absolutely delighted.
 thanks so much you 2!