rapid update

my apologies for not writing anything lately. (i wonder if many people read my missives? and care?- i do know of a couple! it's very gratifying guys- thanx heaps.)

i haven't been writing because i've been trying to be a good host to our friends robyn and phillip who had flown over from their home in the netherlands to visit us. of course i managed to do an absolutely lousy job of that.
rob and phil arrived on sat 30th june. because we have a miserably tiny apartment they had to pay for their own apartment in the city. hotels are stupidly over-priced in kiev so most people that stay longer than two nites get a furnished apartment instead. which is not to say these are reasonably priced either. a moderately sized studio or one bedroom place will start at $100US per nite.
i hate to think what the whole trip cost them.

on sunday we did the touristy thing and visited a few churches and what is known as St Andrew's Descent. which is a steep, twisty, cobble stoned road lined with souvenir stalls. it's called andrews descent because the saint apparently walked up the hill, planted a cross on top and descended the hill using this route. fair enough i suppose. the souvenirs aren't that exciting. we managed to keep our wallets unopened.

monday and tuesday rob and phil did more touristy things themselves in the morning and came and lazed and played with percy with me in the afternoon. on wednesday they took the chornorbyl tour. yes, there are organised tours of the exclusion zone. (we intend to never take our innocent, developing daughter anywhere near the place.) apparently it is very creepy. they got within 200-300m of the reactor that is now encased in ever crumbling and therefore ever maintained concrete. they were told to only walk on the paths, not the grass or moss. i'm not sure of the reason.
their photos are eerie... they show a fairground were the bumper cars are left exactly were they were when the last person was driving them, and a ferris wheel rusting into ruin. this was particularly poignant for robyn as she told me her and phillip had some wedding photos taken on the same model ferris wheel at home in australia.
buildings abandoned with contents intact now have small trees growing out of the gutters. it's been 20 years and nature is claiming a place in this place no-one else wishes to claim.

at about this time too, i think tuesday, i sustained a small cut near the nail on my left big toe. i thought nothing of it. i can't even remember how i got the cut. on wednesday afternoon, while rob and phil were touring the land of the damned, i went to baby group! and got even more depressed at what some companies will obviously pay for their employees apartments, and what ours will clearly not. this place was even nicer than last week!
by the time i left it had started to rain. (note: the weather here is very changeable, a sunny morning does not preclude a rainy afternoon, and vice versa and sometimes twice in one day.) it was only a short walk to the metro station and then a short walk from our metro station to home, as it was not raining very heavily i decided to continue rather than try to shelter in some inadequate over hang. i layered up percy and went on my way. unfortunately i was wearing open-toed sandals and got very wet feet. i really believe this was the beginning of my woes. i think i got some bugs/ bacteria/ microphages, whatever, a.k.a shit, in the cut on my toe. it got badly infected.
p.s. percy travelled home fine, she didn't have a drop of water on her. nevertheless i changed her and rugged her up good.

thursday my toe hurt a lot but i figured a good clean should see it right. nah-ah. thursday nite we walked, me in pointy toed boots (yes, i'm a dick head) about 15 minutes to a restuarant for dinner. it was almost worth it as there was a non-smoking section! this is a massive deal in ths country but i'll have a rant about that another day.
i was in bad shape by friday morning. paul telephoned the american medical centre, which is a medical service run by americans to bring western medicine to the eastern bloc- thank god. there are centres in kiev, moscow, somewhere in poland and i think belarus or somewhere like that.
we got an appointment for 11am. paul ended up taking the day off work, well- off the office, he still worked from home when we got back.
the doctor took one look and said "off with her toe!" okay, i exaggerate but for a micro second i really did hear that. no, what he recommended as the best course of action was to remove the whole toe nail as the infection will not clear otherwise. we, at least me, blanched and agreed. i don't see what else we could have done.
do you know how toe nails are removed?!! (if you don't want to know, skip the next paragraph.)
an elastic band is wrapped very tightly around the base of the toe, a local anaesthetic is jabbed in (three times!) and the doctor sticks a pair of scissors under the nail to the quick and levers/cuts it off! my stomach is turning just thinking about it again. the infected flesh is snipped off, the whole lot cleaned, doused in antiseptic and bandaged up.

of course percy decides this is a great time to do a monster poo. poor paulie had to strip her off, clean her, change her, clean her and change her again because she also decided to pee mid change, on the adjoining operating bed whilst trying to reassure his fretful wife that both her toe and her daughter will be just fine.

this surgery put a decided dampener on our plans to entertain rob and phil. i had intended to take them to lavra on friday, instead i found myself gaping as my toe was butchered and they went by themselves. of course rob and phil are two of the most capable, enterprising and adult, adults i know so they were just fine. lavra is a unesco world heritage listed site here in kiev of middle ages churches, monastries and caves also previously used as monasteries and holy sites.
the weekend also consisted of me lounging about the apartment with my foot in the air and asking for more ibuprofen. actually i'm trying to keep the ibuprofen to a minimum. i know it is considered safe to take whilst breastfeeding but less is more i reckon.

phil returned home on saturday and rob has been staying with us, tolerantly sleeping on the lumpy lounge for four nites.
may i say robyn is a saint. she has been absolutely a god-send (says the aetheist) these past days. she has done everything so that i need do nothing. washing, shopping, cooking, laundry, lunches, desserts, interpreting with taxi drivers, playing with and holding percy, you name it. i'm sure this is what she thought her holiday would be. NOT. i was in tears to wave her off this afternoon.

so this is why i've been a crap host and slow in writing.