good luck with it mate…its a tough but rewarding journey
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Best of luck 
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Best of luck to Mrs ISMF1 and yourself. 
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All the best mate.
What we* all want to know is what material you used to eject said fluid sample.
*Royal
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Good luck mate, my sister got lucky and got pregnant with the first attempt 14 years ago.
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Had my father’s memorial bash yesterday. He didn’t want a funeral, he wanted people to get together and have a party at the golf club he was a member of. Over 150 people were able to make it, which is itself a wonderful tribute. I think we gave him the send off he hoped for. Cheers Dad. 
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How is she doing now?
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Thanks for asking mate. It’s a bit complicated. She’s in that pre-rehab unit, atm there are no massive changes, she’s still in a somewhat intensive care setting, atm they are trying to get rid of that tracheostomy tube, which is somewhat of a step-by-step process, she’s been able to go with a placeholder thing for 8 hours, they increase that slowly. They need to make sure the whole swalloing thing is working correctly.
She’s also getting other forms of therapy - ergotherapy, physiotherapy and they’ve started to work on the stuff that is necessary for her to learn to speak again, exercises with tongue/mouth etc.
She’s very tired a lot of the times and sometimes she’s sort of there but not really there, as in she’s not really concentrated/focused, maybe a bit ‘down’ (completely understandable of course). Other times she’s totally ‘there’ and follows conversations, smiles, occasionally nods/shakes her head etc.
So, small steps, but I for one try to remain positive/optimistic.
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The hurricane has passed and thankfully we personally had no real damage. We lost power only for about 24 hours, but the internet is still out. The wind wasn’t that bad by the time it got to us so while we’ve got a lot of clean up there isn’t much structural damage from the wind that I’ve seen. The rain is another matter though. It’s always wet when hurricanes pass anywhere near, but this was like nothing I’ve ever seen…statistics are saying it was a once in 1000 year day of rain fall and so pretty much every low-lying water-adjacent part of the city is underwater. That is now what is largely preventing the city from properly reopening and services getting restored, but I’ve found a quiet cafe down the street I can do half a day’s work in before I go home to continue the clean up.
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interesting.
a friend moved his family to Lakeview from WA state, he is still without power but has internet? no damage to his house but neighbors not so lucky
ex lives in Tampa now, no power but has been updating twitter regularly.
Do events like these make you reconsider if you should be living there, or have you priced them in already?
The damage always seems to be a bit capricious. The one we had about 4 years ago left one of my best friends completely unscathed, but then 2 houses down a tree fell and split the house in half.
Ares of the Gulf coast, especially down south have been destroyed by the worst of the winds (Cat 5 at the time it first made landfall) plus enormous tidal storm surges, but by the time it gets to central florida the issue is more the abundance of lakes (often water filled sink holes) that can overflow with heavy rainfall. That appears to have been what has caused the majority of the flooding in Orlando.
yeah I saw that one particular town that took the brunt of the storm surge and headwinds of it making landfall is pretty much annihilated. then it was a hurrendous dump of rain which the surrounding area isn’t able to deal with so it floods.
Shitty situation for certain, but at least there’s enough infrastructure around to get the damages dealt with quickly.
Occasionally. Being even this far in land does make a big difference…we get hit by all of them regardless of which coast they hit, but at much lower intensity than the coastal areas. It’s seemingly a decent trade off and so that difference is definitely what has prevented me moving over towards Tampa or to South Florida. I’ve lived here for 25 years and I think we’ve really only had significant disruption 3 times (although 2004 we were hit directly by 3 separate major hurricanes in the space of about 6 weeks), but thankfully even those direct hits were more about losing power for a few days than having structural damage. Growing up on the coast in west wales storm induced power cuts in the winter were very common so maybe I just shrug that inconvenience off more than most do.
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I asked the question “still happy you moved?” of my friend in Lakeview, this was his repsonse:
“Oh yeah. Have to clean up the yard of debris every 5 years or so to live where I can breathe well (no allergies), and go to the beach when I want. No more mind-numbing cold (Wenatchee is a dry cold) and no forest fire smoke in the summer. Seems like a good trade. I wouldn’t want to live on the coast though, chances of getting destroyed are way higher”
National-Grid failure. Nationwide power outage for 6+ hours.
I tested positive for Covid, again, on Monday. Feeling rough This frigging virus doesn’t want to leave and it sucks the energy out of you.
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Which is why I don’t understand the cavalier attitude many have with regards to it.
Get well soon!
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Sorry to hear that. Get well soon Maria 
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