Well what a month. The biggest rollercoaster month of my life and it had nothing to do with poker. It all started with a visit to the hospital with the missus for her 6 27 week scan. After seating around for 4 hours we were hit with the bombshell that the missus had be diagnosed with pre-eclampsia. For those not in the know this is an illness that only pregnant women get and if not monitored and treated can lead to death for both mother and child. In a nutshell its bleeding scary! So the missus is admitted to hospital and i'm left to look after Jade and myself. Needless to say with all this going on there was absolutely no place for poker in my now stressed real life!
For a week I spend my time visiting the missus in hospital and then going home doing the house work that she should be doing!!! Let me state here and now that I wouldn't do the house wife job for all the money in the world!!! FFS its never bleeding ending....cooking, cleaning, more cleaning followed by more bleeding cleaning!!! Did you know that the shirts hanging in the wardrobe actually get there via a series of operations that including THREE electrical appliances?! And don't get me started on making kids packed lunches....jesus talk about fussy!!!!
Anyway a week on and i'm starting to beg doctors to let the missus home - she's sick of being in hospital and i'm on the verge of a mental breakdown and was starting to realise that kebabs every night may seem like the perfect diet but after 7 of them they get kind of boring. Problem was that the two big indicators off pre-eclampsia, high blood pressure and high protein levels, were still showing their ugly heads so a return home was not happening. In fact they were that high we were told that the baby was going to be delivered three months early as the only cure for the condition is to deliver. An hour after being informed of this decision, Zara Rose was delivered by emergency caesarean at 19.00 10th March, weighing in at 700g.....believe me that is small!!!! The up shot of being born 3 months early is that you need a lot of help! So Zara is now in intensive care baby unit at Oldham Royal. The missus spent another week in hospital before finally returning home.....but for 5 weeks she has to rest!
So rather than getting back our mum, wife, cleaner, cook, common sense etc we actually received an additional mouth to feed...and my missus doesn't like kebabs!!!! Add to this the three daily trips to the hospital to see Zara, it doesn't take much to see work (poker) is just not happening! Well this isn't completely true because no matter how much is going on, my urge to play got the better of me and I found myself getting up at 04.00 or 05.00am to fit a couple of hours in!!! FFS!!!! And the really really sick part is i've actually had a winning month!!!! I Know, i don't get it either!
The missus is slowly getting back on her feet (this after major complications after birth) and fingers crossed in a couple of weeks she should be back to full fitness. Zara is also doing great, she's got a long way to go but the last three weeks she has shown thats she has got her mother's fighting spirit and is doing really good. She's still tiny mind you! The chances are that she with remain in intensive care for at least two months but all the signs are positive and she should be fine.
As for the poker, well i'm hoping the worst of the problems from the real world have passed and I can again begin to get some structure back to my daily life and get the playing, mentoring and writing back in the daily routine.