It's okay, I've done it before.

I'll just leave this here...



You know what to do.

Happy New Year to old friends and new friends, old fandoms, new fandoms, and all the rest of the original lyrics to that song, 'cause I'm sure Rabbie Burns was a fangirl!

GOOD LOVE, GOOD HEALTH, & GOOD FORTUNE TO ALL in 2014!
And please don't break the Internet tomorrow

Darry Xx

I had a lovely birthday full of cake and wine and a long walk and beautiful weather.

There was also lots of packing.

I'll be posting a proper thank-you when we're all settled next week, but in the meantime, thanks again for all the tweets, PMs, comments, texts, gifts, love, kisses, and friendship.

I'll see you all in a few days from the northwest!

♥

I'm sorry this is so late, but here's a big THANK YOU to sra_danvers, capitu, knowmefirst, and invidious for the groovy pencils, and sassy_cissa, goldylost, knowmefirst, ldydark1, joan_waterhouse, nenne, kayladie for the adorable pandas!

I'm shattered; work is crazy with flu season starting next week and the NHS restructuring is landing on my desk soon. Also, my referral to the gym for Phase IV of cardiac rehab came through, and I am spending all my free time (!) there. I actually cried when I got on the cross-trainer. IKR, WTF? But I was just so delighted to get back to the gym after nearly a year.

Anyway, I'm taking a break this weekend and going to this for absolutely no reason. *cough*

Hello everyone! Yes, some of this barely-controlled joy is pharmaceutically derived, but it's also the result of sleeping well, eating well AND FINALLY HAVING THE CORRECT AMOUNT OF CIRCULATING OXYGEN IN MY BODY.

I came home from hospital yesterday. It is very weird to think that exactly this time last week, I was on an operating table with a bunch of people's hands in my chest. I have an enormous scar now, but at least my heart is working like it should be! A good trade, I think. Evidently, it wasn't pretty: my heart had become "grossly enlarged" and my pulmonary veins were more of a mess than the angiogram and MRI had indicated. The surgeon fixing them was able to re-route them all to the left atrium. I had my mitral valve repaired (annuloplasty), with the aid of some Gore-tex sutures to replace a couple chordae tendineae and a synthetic ring (for which the other surgeon gave me the serial number - in case of recall, I guess - EEEK!) There's a chance that I'll eventually need the valve replaced, but not any time in the near future. They also performed a pulmonary vein ablation procedure to control my atrial fibrillation.

The following people should be sainted for acting above and beyond the call of duty with their visits, gifts and hand-holding whilst I was being jabbed and lines and drains were being yanked out of me: meredyth_13, accioscar, mayfly_78 and felidaeryl. sati_lotus kept me laughing and I even got a nice tweet from my favourite True Blood vampire - THANK YOU, ALLAN!

Huge thanks also goes to alovelycupoftea, vaysh11, groolover and dysonrules for finishing up hd_remix. I owe you my mod life, ladies!

Finally, THANK YOU TO EVERYONE HERE for your lovely messages, vgifts, e-cards, emails, healing thoughts, and well-wishes. I could NOT have got through this as easily as I did without my internet friends, and I thank god for all of you.

I'm still going to be lying low on LJ for awhile whilst healing and getting back fully into RL, but it should be back to business as usual in the virtual world in the next few months.

♥

Overdue post is sort of...overdue.

( Hearts for me )

( Thank you and Kinkfest recs )

( Remix and Hols )

( My broken heart )

( Travel fail )

Right, that's enough of my blathering for now. Hearts to anyone I may have missed and thank you all again for keeping me in your thoughts.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

Thank you to everyone who has left messages. cards and v gifts; it made the last few days go by quicker and kept me smiling.

I've had my trans-oesophogeal echo (which was bloody awful) and an angiogram (which wasn't; it was cool).


Here's the update:

♥ My mitral valve needs repairing/replacing (they'll know which when they get in there).

♥ At least one of my pulmonary veins (the tubes that lead back from the lungs to the heart with oxygenated blood) is connected to my RIGHT atrium, not my left, where it should be. I think the docs were as surprised as I was when they saw that.


Next up, an MRI on my heart to find out exactly how many of my pulmonary veins are connected to my right atrium. Shortly after that, I'll have my endoscopy to see if I do or do not have a hiatus hernia - docs now aren't sure I do, but if I do, I can start treatment for that.

Then it's on to the London Heart Hospital for the operation to fix the valve and move the pulmonary vein(s) to where they should be. This will require two surgeons, so my surgery date will depend on when they're both available.

In the meantime, I'm on a very large cocktail of drugs to keep me from getting too short of breath, keep my fluid levels down, thin my blood, keep my heart in a regular rhythm, and best of all, keep me pain-free.

These are hereditary conditions, so I'm going to send all my notes to my sis and she'll see a cardio asap, and so will my kids. I've managed to make it to 45, carry twins and teach aerobics without this being a problem, so it could very well be masked in them.

I'm barely making it up my stairs these days, and am very tired. But I don't feel particularly frightened, just so much better to finally have a diagnosis.

taradiane, I'll be spamming you.

Hello - just poking my head out of RL to say THANK YOU to eveyone who left such lovely (and suggestive!) comments on hp_love_anon. My fandom friends are some of the bestest people in the whole damn world! *hugs computer*

Huge thanks also to o_k_go for that sweet little innocent gift over at hd_fanart.

OMG, it's the return of ass_news! Or it will be on Wednesday if I get my shit together by then. It's going to have to wait for the weekend...

And, I don't suppose anyone's see this yet. I've absolutely no idea what kind of prompt to leave...*cough*

THANK YOU ALL FOR MAKING MY BIRTHDAY SPECIAL

Please, please, please tell me if I've left your name off this post. I've tried to keep track, but my kids keep stealing away my fandom notebook to draw pictures of zombies and the list got a bit jumbled up.

So, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for the

Mentions, Glittery Posts & PMs!
leo_draconis, moon_foot, cinnatart, girlofavalon, tari_sue, sesheta_66, alaana_fair, subtlefire, besamislabios, wincest_drarry, alisanne, valinorean, jtsbbsps_dk, elkica, megyal, brinimc, lady_of_clunn, leela_cat, kittie8571, nicevenn, ladyoneill, yggdrasilian, scarletladyy, njphelps, goldylost, lijahlover, fireflavored, treacle_tartlet, themostepotente, blamebrampton, delphipsmith, sabinefrappe, lilyginny27, sassy_cissa, beren_writes, mayfly_78


Paid Time, Cupcakes & V-Gifts!
Anon???, sra_danvers *besos*, aigooism, joan_waterhouse, leo_draconis, cleo_jay, geneva2010, deathlydragon, fancypantsdylan, cassie_black12, steamyaffair, moonlitdark, bryoneybrynn, nenne, winterstorrm, winter_june, starry_diadem, veritas03, faithwood, noeon, teganscrush, kitty_fic


Tweets!
I reckon I might have got birthday tweets from everyone who follows me *hugs*, and I also got birthday shout-outs from my darling DH kids: James (who shares my birthday along with HBC), Hugo, young Lily, & young Snape.
And I got a sweet birthday Direct Message from my favourite Paralympic athlete (see icon) *melts*
Oh, also dysonrules sang Happy Birthday to me on Facebook, but I think that’s best forgotten.


Ecards!
Mostly from guys named Dan or Harry, but there was one in there from demicus, and one from kilter, as well. All were bloody brilliant!


Stuff!
citrus_lime drew me this sweet little picture, which is WS!
savagesnakes drew me this sweet little picture, which is very much NWS!
bleedforyou1 wrote Hiss & Slither, ssssweet NC17.
Darling cleo_jay and cassie_black12, my muse and conscience, got me DVDs and CDs from my Amazon Wish List.
groolover sent me THE most wonderful kissing copper card and I shared a birthday song with the spring-birthday fen!
A fantastic mug and face-to-face lunch with the wonderful (and gorgeous) being_here.
HUGE thank yous to everyone who contributed to snitches_n_smut this month, with special mention to alaana_fair, who not only drew me stick-art, organised the the concept of H/D Support! A masterlist is on its way (with thanks to vaysh11).

There are rumours of other things in the works. I wait with bated breath...

Okay, yes, I did leave someone off that birthday post yesterday - me (on the 26th).

But I've already got my pressie, 'cause alaana_fair, vaysh11, and the beautiful wincest_drarry have teamed up to do THIS:



You may remember that snitches_n_smut is the community my soul-sister, cassie_black12, made for me for my birthday last year. And I'm very lucky to have it be the first comm that H/D Support has taken on.

In lieu of prompts, I'd love for people to follow their advice and let themselves go mad in the most ridiculous and creative ways.

And thank you to everyone for making this such a fun place to play! Oh, and the foil hats - the voices in my head are much clearer now :)