What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday? (Very long post and a gory photo so if you’re squeamish, be warned)

Well it’s been almost a month since I’ve updated my blog, the reason for which I will explain after I’ve shown you What’s on my Work Desk this Wednesday.

As it happens, what’s on there now has been sitting there for almost a month too so you can deduce from that there’s been no crafting going recently.

On my table is a finished page for my Family Tree Scrapbook, the beautiful book of K&Co papers that my lovely friend Lythan brought me for my birthday a couple of years ago and are kept solely to used for this album. Lastly on my table is the album itself.

The page I’ve made represents my oldest confirmed relative from my mother’s line, my Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather Thomas Bush (born 1749) and his family.


You can read about the family on Family Footprints in the Sands of Time

When I stared this page I really didn’t have a clue how to go about it, especially as there were no photos and very little information about them but in the end I decided as this would be the very first page of my ancestors it made sense to do a large Oak Tree.
I found the picture on Google and changed the size and colour and then printed it out onto some Bazzill card stock.

The Oak leaves were cut using two different sized punches and then coloured with Distress Inks.
Next I printed the information I had using my computer and made a little plaque for each member of the family. These were attached to the tree and the small Oak Leaves were scattered across the tree to add some detail.

I then made a set of tags which hold the baptism details, attached the larger Oak Leafs to the ends and tucked them behind the plaques so that only the leaves show.

I finished the page with a Green border that had Oak leaves punched from it so that the backing paper showed through and in the two bottom corners I’ve added some decoupage Oak leaved and Acorns.


I was also lucky enough to have been given this ‘I Like Your Style’ award last



week by the lovely Angie who’s Glimpsing the Past blog is responsible for getting me working on my album again. I’ll have to pop back later to add it to my Family Footprints blog, fill in my 'addictions' and pass it on to a few people but I just wanted to thank Angie so much for passing it on to me.


Right then, now onto the reason why I’ve not been crafting for almost a month.

Who would have believed that doing a good deed for my big brother by taking him to the opticians for his new glasses would turn my world up side down, but it did.

While I was waiting for him I decided to ask if I could try bifocal contact lenses because since my last check up in June I need reading glassed for absolutely everything and I spend most of my time walking round with them perched on the end of my nose and peering over the top for distance………it’s such a pain.

The receptionist asked the optician if they were possible with my prescription and she said it was but I would need to make an appointment to check that they fit well. I had a bit of luck because they had a free one in about half an hour, so I waited.

When I eventually went in it wasn’t my usual optician and she didn’t know the history of my eye problems.

I had a vitreous (jelly inside the eye) detachment about three yeas ago which is monitored, so I filled her in and then she had a look.

Now things started to go pear shaped.

The vitreous detachment in itself isn’t sight threatening, just aggravating because you get a dark shadow in your eye, a bit like looking through sun glassed all the time and lots of floaters. In my case I had a large piece of the jelly break away about eighteen months ago which caused a few problems but you get used to it and learn to ignore it most of the time.
When she looked in my eyes she said there was something not right and that we should forget about the new contact lenses as this needed to be sorted out first. A second opinion for another of the opticians confirmed that there was a problem with my Retina.

I was sent to the local Eye A&E where it was confirmed that I hade a detached Retina and then to Moorfields Eye Hospital in London early the next morning for emergency surgery to save my sight……all very scary.






Warning..........gory photo coming up.






Now apparently it’s rare for a vitreous detachment to go on and cause the Retina to detach, about 1 in 100.000, but muggins here had to be the one.

I underwent a two hour op where they removed the jelly from my eye, repaired the detachment with Cryotherapy (freezing) and then filled my eye with a bubble of gas.

I then had to spend the next three week lying in my side, only getting up for ten minutes every hour, so that the gas bubble rested on the site of the repair to help it heal.

I had stitches in the White of my eye and couldn’t see a thing out of it for the first week but as the bubble was getting smaller I began to see shapes and shadows.



They told me that the op has an 80% success rate but unfortunately I had to be one of the 20% that it failed.

A week after my op I was back at Moorfields A&E suffering all the same symptoms and was told that it had detached again. At first they were going to operate again but then decided it could be probably be repaired using Laser. I waited to see the consultant and he finally decided to leave it for a couple of weeks to see how it goes because it was only a week after the first op.

So there you have it, if I hadn’t have taken my brother to get his glasses sorted I would never have know this was happening and I could have lost my sight permently.


At the moment it’s a waiting game. I have to go back to Moorfields next Monday with the prospect of having to go through the whole thing again but for the moment at least I can see enough now, all be it with double vision in that eye, to be able to update my blogs and send a few email, but not much more.

I’d like to thank everyone who has sent me Get Well messages via the Daring Cardmakers blog and for all the lovely Flowers, cards and craft goodies that I’ve received.

I’m so lucky to have such wonderful and caring friends, so Thank You.

I’ll try and keep you posted of my progress when I can but for now crafting must remain on hold.

See you soon……I hope!

Sue
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