Grandmothers & Great Aunts

Mum is in hospital at the moment having her various treatments adjusted. Mum was diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia or CML a number of years ago. It is a form of slow developing leukaemia that can take 10 to 15 years before progressing to a more aggressive and terminal phase. New drugs have been developed that can prolong the progression of CML. The biggest threat to those with CML is being assaulted by others diseases such as infection. This is where things for Mum get tricky as she also has a primary immune deficiency that means she is more susceptible to infections. Add to this a few other chronic conditions and she becomes a Dr's nightmare as they try and juggle her various treatments. So it has gotten to the point that her various specialists have locked her away for 6-8 weeks in hospital to review all of her various treatments to try and optimise them.

Well today we sprung her from hospital for a few hours of retail therapy (also to go home and get a few more clothes and other essential items). Mum and Dad offered to pay for our pram and a number of months ago we laybyed our pram of choice, along with our car seats and change table (laybyed during the mid year sales and saved a few quid!! - my excuse anyway and I'm sticking to it). We took Mum to pick the layby up today. Amazingly she had never been in a Baby Shop and was blown away by the whole experience. Her idea of what was available for new babies was pretty much limited to Target, Big W, Kmart etc. We really enjoyed the experience. However we were not able to take our exciting and much anticipated purchase home. It turns out that the Grandma to be and her sister, Great Auntie Jan had discussed today's little outing and decided based on long time superstitions that the pram should not come into the house until much later in the pregnancy. So it was whisked off to Grandma's house to be safely stored until the little ones arrive. Vince felt that he needed to make it clear that Pop was not to try and put it together (like everything these days it came in a flat pack). That it was his job to put the pram together!!

So it seems that Great Nana Geekie has managed to pass this superstition on down the line. I wonder what her and Nana Florance would have thought about all of this? I feel sorry that they are not able to suspend a wedding band over a pregnant belly on a piece of hair. I feel good though that I know enough of these to make sure that they are passed on down the line.

In the picture above is Mum (right) Auntie Jan (centre) and Auntie Sandra (left) and Georgia.

Vince's lot are a whole other story for another day.

J.