snow snow snow..

Well the snow has come and I thought it was time for another middle daughter update!
Thank you to all our faithful followers who have been checking for updates! I am very sorry that there have been none! Between AOL being rubbish and cutting off our internet in what they call "line upgrading" and our hectic routines.
The family are doing well! But at the moment we are all snowed in at our different little parts of the city. School cancelled for all of us! Unfortunately that means that Mum and Dad are also snowed in making Marks and Spencers more difficult to reach! But we are all troopers and we will survive on Tesco!

Dad continues to make slow but steady progress. Adjusting to being home has been a massive learning curve for all of us. But it is so great having Dad at home and not having to travel back and forward. Despite what some people may think, home is the best place to recover! Dad has received countless visitors since returning, including some international jet setters. Visitors bring wonderful stories and smiles and the occasional christmas decoration!

Purdey is causing he usual mischief! She has now learnt that she is tall enough to "subtly" nab things off the table! Poor mum lost her roll for her bacon roll while she was fetching the bacon out of the Aga! Purdey was very pleased! This is her first snow and she loves it. If only everyone had as much enthusiasm for the snow as Purdey does!

1 year and 3 days later...

368 days have passed since Dad's accident. 368 days since the last 10 seconds of the season went very wrong. 368 days since 3 very brave people battled to save our Dad. Every second of those 368 days we have been grateful for those people, it is because of them that we still have our Dad here.

This year had been hard, but you, our friends and family have stood by us every step of the way. Dad is now home and it is wonderful having him here every day. Our journey and therefore our blog have by no means come to an end, so I'm afraid you will be stuck with us for a wee while longer.

Thank you to everyone that has phoned, written, e-mailed, visited or thought about us in the last 368 days, you are all in our thoughts aswell.

The days will keep on ticking by, and hopefully in another 368 we will have reported lots of wonderful positive things on the road to recovery!

For now we are all up and well,
all we can say is THANK you to everyone who helped us get here!

Love from the middle daughter!

thank you donna

some people and their families even think of colin and myself while they are out in the sunny lands of provence.Donna and her son christopher have been firm family friends for years,,having been through many a crisis in both families together,I know donna would always be there for me and that i am there at the end of the phone if she needed help.So it was of great surprise when she phoned to say she had just returned from a family trip and had a few bits and pieces for me,,,but it turned out to be more than i have ever imagined.She went on to explain that they always make a detour when on france to have their own personal pilgrimage to Lourdes.Donna is no stranger to her own medical difficulties,,and deals with christophers ailments also with fun and love,,as well as always being there for her true friends.Well this trip she included the mitchell clan in her preyers and as she said lit the biggest candle there,,it was nearly in competition to the ramp that can be seen from space,,,and came home bearing gifts,,,the sweetest rosary and angel,,a st. chistopher and best of all a bottle of holy water,,can you imagine,,so there i was 5 min ago dabbing this precious liquid to colins spin and neck and legs,,,,Donna and i believe in miracles,,we believe in the higher force,,,so if there are any miracles for us let them be soon.

its not going to be a good weekend ,,i can feel it in my waters

Well things arent to good today,,,colin has a slight split mark,,,this can bring massive problems but as team mitchell,,carers ,district nurses and myself,,the consultant ,,obviously,,,have had a discussion and decided bed rest is to be had,,This is not a desicion i take lightly as it causes great stress to colin,,,well to me realy,,obviously,,as he becomes frustrated and down,,and as i have said before that is my role in this family,,,anyway although we had decided to try and escape the house today its not to be,,he is in bed with his dvd,,his kindle book and a face that would make you cry,,,worse than normal,,i have escaped to the drawing room on pretence i am tidying up,,,must look that on google in case he asks questions about it later.tyding up i mean .Mind you hes lucky im here,,,oh yes he is,,as is my habit i take purdey into the grounds,,ok garden,,around 3am most mornings while the turn carers do their thing.but there i was this morning,,3sh,,am,,,in colins long,,to my ankles towelling dressing gown,,navy,,very cosy and colin cant wear it any more,,i used to wear a lot in the bad bad days as i felt closer to him,,,,,ok ok so mine was in wash,,,it also has a hood,,,my blue uggs,,,ok ok children have uggs i have sainsbury ugllies,,,,so now you have picture,,old woman in long dark hooded robe,,hood up ect,,,,digging a hole in the earth with spade,,and i suddenly thought ,,,oh my god how would i explain my self to the police if they were to come down our lane at this precise time,,,,they have a look round for bad boys in the night,,,our lane is so dark and quiet it has attracted them,,,i have known it to have drug dealing done,,ladies of the night,,,and something to do with the local kennell club,,im sure the local pc said doggers,,ah well i have always loved our four legged friends,,,,would they believe i was only getting rid of purdeys waste that she had produced for me on our nightly expedition,,,or as the girls call it the poo run,,,would i be taken away to be questioned or just run straight to the mental health ward,,,,neither this time i got away with it.

gaelles visit

Many months ago i received a message from one of the intensive care nurses from the western,the nurse that dealt with his admission on the day of colins accident..gaelle...from that day she has kept in touch,,i have never met her,,she was on night shifts and was in later than i.But this week we had coffee,,,she was amazing,,we spoke for hours,,she filled in spaces on that night and weeks that we never knew,,she was caring and had a bond that was built up with colin in those very dark hours.she had conversations,,although colin was unable to speak,,,by lip reading that she recounted,,it was amazing,,colin speaking of his family and life,,,the outcome was
not good in those days,,the staff in the western were amazing,,they saved colins life,,they sat through the awful chats in the ..beige ,,room as consultants dicussed colins fate and future.it had been very bleak,,total paralyis and full ventilation,,if indeed he survives,,she had found the blog,how bizarre,,and had kept in touch with is progress and let the rest of the western staff know,,colins progress watched with interest by all in edinburgh,With every improvement they were amazed,,,it was not meant to happen,,but it did,,colin did it,,,they saved colins life,,but colin saved himself.People like gaelle are scarce,,they work with love and caring and most of them work in the western general intensive care ward,,,you never realy want to meet them but if you do,,end up in that ward,,please believe me whatever has happened they will move heaven and earth to pull you through,we are very grateful,,I still have colin and the girls their dad.Without them it would have been so different,,,,,,,,,,

another week

Its treatment day,,we have carers every morning but every second we have the district nurses,,,not pleasant but essential,,and one of the carers has just come to tell me that colin is a bit down today,,very quiet,,,well he can just forget that,,if any one is going to be depressed its me,,i have just finished the kitchen,hall drawing room,,im about to start on the bedroom,,at least 3 washes and 2 ironings the podiatrist and the physio,,the doctor and messages and paperwork to do,,,,,,so i reckon i have the upper hand if it comes to moaning,,,and i am the centre of colins universe so maybe i should just remind him of that this morning,,,,,,,there thats it said so i can take a big breath and just start again,,,,,

IM A DEERHOUND,,,life according to purdey

Well there i was enjoying my saturday rest,,a weekend of mooching around was on the horizon when mrs,m, announced,,right purdey come on were off and so we were,,in to this big van thing,,seemingly her chums lesley and douglas knew a man with a van,,,hmm ok ill give this a chance and so was dumped in the back with Mr.m....no way. there we were off along the road,,me and mr m being shougled about in the back,,mr m winging on that he felt like he was the pope in the popemobile,,,oh my god id been kidnapped by the dog catcher,,or worse,,,but i could hear mrs m chatting away in the front,,it seemed a long way but suddenly the van doors opened and mr m was wheeled out,,,WOW this was dog heaven,,there were millions of us ,,who knew,,mr m and i sat,,i protected him and they tied him to me ,,guess they were worried that hed wander off,,so i was the official minder,,,and then there were horses and men in white trousers and what i heard mrs m call stick chicks,,,wow you could see right up their skirts,,,not my type realy,,but hey mr m and douglas seemed to like what they saw,,mr m said he was eyeing up the horse flesh but im not convinced,,,horses men stick chics,,hmm reckon there must have been a polo match just about to start,,they ate sandwiches and strawberries and did i get any ,,did i what apart from that nasty man douglas throwing strawberry husks for me,,,what the heck ive eaten worse,,and then it was my turn to be paraded...reckon people had only come to see me,,this polo thing seemed quite lame to me,,,and you know what people didnt know what i was,,,a lurcher,,are you having a laugh,,a whippet cross,,oh my god are you being serious,,IM A DEERHOUND,,,dont know who was more upset me or mrs m,,,was my pedigree in question,,surely not,,and a possibility of two potential fathers a lurcher and a whippett,,im distraught,,there will have to be dna tests,,appearances on jeremy kyle and jerry springer,,,my mother will have to declare my real father,,were they on a break,,was she just unfaithfulll,things were getting worse some well connected lab bit me on the nose and some ex army terrier started to do some very unsavoury advances to my hind leg,,,realy,,do they have no manners and if one more chap sniffed my butt without an invitation,,well i tell you it was just not nice,,there was some good times,,there was the sweetest pup,,well it might have been a hamster but this lady kept cuddling it and smooching and saying it was a dog,,so who am i to question her,,after all i am from a single parent family and at this moment am very confused about my father,,,aah well and so the day went on,,lots of people stopped to talk to mr m..friends old and new,,some realy old i think,,....Amanda someone,,she was a different breed from mrs m,,she had realy brown skin,,,mrs m is always complaining she is peely wally white,Amanda carried that hamster pup around she was very chatty and mr m liked her,,,shirley someone,,her pup must have done something realy wrong as she didnt bring it,,mrs m liked her chat ,,,a little pitbull called thom and a whole lot of douglases,,not sure what breed they are but there were lots of them from greatgrandpa to baby max,,,nice to hear their litter was kept together,,,a man called manclark,,he must have a very big lorry as mr m said he played elephant polo,,gillian and rory,,now he was a funny one barked at me one moment and sniffed my butt the next,,men....Will ,,he was nice had a lot of horses and even more children,,,and i heard mrs m tell lesley that it was his pitch and his ball so when his black lab bit my nose i just yelped,,didnt want him to put us out now did we,,,there was Johnny back box man,,dont know what that meant but only saw him for a second,,geoff and charlie,,now i wouldnt mind if they took me for a walk,,they were cool and i bet they would know i was a deerhound,,and this realy cool guy fraser,,,he was like me and was desperate to check out that picnic basket,,,George,,,what did he mean that he was robbed,,,do you reckon the other side was playing dirty,,,shhhhh,,,fiona seemed to be his mate,,and little puplet sarah,,At one point mrs m looked very red and sweaty,,why she was running after me calling my name as i ran from those bully dogs i dont know,,id have gone back to protect her,,what a fuss,,but thats women for you,,,im only little so if id forgetten anyone im sure they will understand,,after all they all seem to be realy realy nice and great chums of the mitchells,,now what mr m meant about how he wouldnt have gottten through it without his friends and family i dont know as we all know its us dogs that are the real friends,,but hey if it makes him happy,,,think its nearly the end of this polo season lark,,boy i enjoyed that day but watch out you guys,,you little terrier who was doing unmentionable things to my leg and that black lab that tried to bite my nose of cos. 2011 me and mr and mrs m will be back and i will be big and dna tests will have been completed,,,and on behalf of me and my new family id like to say one more thing,,,,I AM A DEERHOUND.................