I was supposed to get a blood test on Monday. I fasted and everything. And then the doc couldn't find my veins. This is not an unusual problem, although he's been pretty good at it before. It's just sometimes nobody can find a good vein in me. And it's not usually this bad.

So I came away with a paper for a pathology appointment where the people seem to manage it very well and swiftly (they're also younger; I like this doc, but he's pushing 70 if not 75). I made the appointments for a couple of weeks time because it's fasting, and because my veins in both arms had not been forthcoming so no point in trying again and collapsing them further.

Tuesday was the solar battery guys (which is going quite great guns, tbh), and while I was clearing stuff away for them, I felt a sting in my heel.

Ugh. Pointy wood splinter, in under the skin. I pulled it out, tossed it away, and thought nothing of it. I didn't put any antiseptic on it, or try to clean the thing out. I just didn't think of it at the time since the splinter came out cleanly.

Except, obviously, the splinter wasn't clean.

Five hours later, my ankle hurt right in the spot where the splinter had been - over the achilles tendon, making walking difficult. I skipped hockey training, went to bed early.

Woke on Wednesday, still swollen, and the swollen area was slightly larger. I was a bit worried, but hoped it would pass. By midday, I was feeling tingles in various extremities. Not a good sign. We had a set of antibiotics from...some time previous. So I started taking those - keflex, is the type.

I booked an appointment with the doctor the next day. Went to bed. Woke up feeling a little better, but still with the swollen heel and the tingly. The doc looked at it, declared it infected, and put me on a course of penicillin, which I've been taking the last four days with varying regularity. The tingling has pretty much stopped (phew) and I'm supposed to check in with him on Tuesday.

So that was my near-brush with infection this week.

Lesson: when stuck by a bit of anything in the garden, clean it off!

--

Today, the half-brother and his family are coming over for dinner. Hopefully the little girls will be okay, because the twins are eager to meet them. I've met them both before, although the younger one was only just over a year old and she wasn't great with strangers, but we hardly see them at all and we're not really a presence in their lives except distantly.

I'm doing dinner - roast goat loin and roast pork. Along with roast vegies.

Anyway, hopefully it all goes well.

I suspect my site is one of great frustration for these guys.

There is no space near our switchboard, so they have to make a stand-alone space for the battery and inverter to go. They have to dig down to make a base. There are tree roots like crazy.

It's not a nice site for installation - the house was not designed like modern houses: the land cleared of trees, the slab poured all over and everywhere. This house was built on enclosed brick footings - a base wall on clay that has lasted surprisingly long.

I'm probably also not the kind of homeowner they want to work for, someone who'll let them do their job instead of asking all kinds of questions and stuff.

Okay, and I'm stressed too rn.

Apparently the battery guy wants to come in TOMORROW.

*sigh*

Luckily, I prepped the planned battery site on the weekend. One less thing to think about. Although I guess that's forward planning on my part.