Last of my Shielding, hopefully (week 1 of 2).......

 

Saturday 8th August

Major surgery Friday 7th and sent home Saturday, very quick eh? The ward was unbearably hot so really pleased to get in the car with air con. Hubby is taking really good care of me as always. Two weeks further shielding but in this heat I'm not moving far from this fan. 

Forgot to mention last week that I'd made a bean bag tablet stand to sit on my lap, which is ideal now when I keep nodding off. 

Surfing through Amazon Prime we came across this Gourmet Detective which looks like our sort of joint thing to watch. Light but with a story. It's not a series but a collection of films, each about 80mins long. We enjoyed the first one with plenty of humour. 

Grrrr I thought I was getting the hang of this new blogger editing, but this one will just not behave! Every time I open this page it gives it to me in raw HTML and I have to change it to compose mode. Now after adding in the first pic it decided all the text would be centred and refuses to let me left align it again. I'm not in the mood just now to do anything about it. 

Sunday and Monday I felt I was making gradual progress, but Tuesday was a really yukky day for me. Tuesday was also my birthday. Lovely getting so many cards in the post, and some special ones ordered online from those family members not venturing into shops yet. There were phone calls emails and more messages of good wishes on social media than I could count. 

Plus three deliveries of flowers.

These from friendHM which fit nicely in the vase she bought me last Christmas. 

These from friendM and they came with chocolates. 

Took three of my large vases! 

And my favourite are from Daughter&co who not only chose beautiful flowers but managed to find some that come already in a jug..... she knows me so well 😍

Another film recommended to us by our Son.

A good old fashioned who-done-it 🙂

The rest of my week has been feeling battered and bruised and really suffering with the heatwave. Hubby waiting on my every need. But I am making progress and better than doing too much too soon and this weekend will be cooler...... we knew it would as soon as we ordered another cooling unit which arrived Friday hahaha. 

Take good care of yourselves.

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Noah saved the day.........

Wednesday I had to be at the hospital for 11am for surgery, nil-by-mouth of course from the night before. I was prepared for an overnight stay and warned it could be a little longer. 4:20pm I was told my op had been cancelled. So messaged Hubby to come and take me home.

While I was waiting for him I messaged some of the people that needed to know starting with my children. After all the expected conversations Daughter suggested that the next day we do something extra "as it's a day you didn't expect to have free" she said, and suggested Noah's Ark Museum  which has been docked on the Ipswich Waterfront for three months and we've never found the time to visit before. Ideal!

We all loved it and it gave us plenty to admire and discuss. I adore all wood and the craftsmenship was wonderful. We are not religious as a family but mostly understand the bible stories and were amused by the narrative boards a little by some of the translations from Dutch. The dialogue was all done in a humorous way and very entertaining.

Then a walk along the Waterfront in the sunshine and a cuppa in a cafe.
My spirits were lifted.
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Packing........

Oh my it certainly has felt like a full on fortnight! We've been catching up with friends that we didn't fit in around the festive season, so a couple of lunches out and an evening out as well as our usual evenings out.

I've had a theatre night and we've had the cinema which I've already told you about.

For SERVSC Bloodrunners there was an evening at The Rosie Neonatal Hospital in Cambridge where they showed us around and fed us well with pizzas and cakes to say thank you for the milk runs that supply their premature babies when mum can't.

And a quiz night held in Ipswich which was good fun and also raised over £400 for the SERVSC charity

I'm out again tomorrow, lunching with friends but today we were home, catching up with ourselves, doing some much needed housework and thinking about packing for two weeks in Florida starting 4th February but first I've another short stay in hospital starting this Wednesday to pack for, plus we did have a visit from Daughter, R, O and the dog, a very welcome distraction! 

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A Real Mixed Bag.....

The week before Christmas our Son was unwell enough to be rushed into hospital and kept there for four days so we did a dash from Suffolk to Wiltshire then Bath and back to Wiltshire then home to Suffolk all in a day. We'd packed a bag to stay if need be but in the end it worked out best to come home. Happy to report Son is fine just needing lots of rest now to recover.

Nine Wednesday-friends had a lovely Christmas meal out, with friendsT&F producing funny photo props out of her bag lol.

Then back to BfriendM for drinks and a late night.

I left a few bags of gifts with people that night and came home with lots more bags for us to put under our tree. 

Daughter had been in and out of our house with various children for days, glazing and firing clay gifts and wrapping here out of sight of recipients etc. Bringing bags in and taking bags out. 

Christmas Eve our favorite neighbour-friendsP&A came in for drinks and nibbles (P is also unwell so taking it easy, not that we do anything strenuous here lol).

Christmas day was lovely. Daughter came with children, M came later on his motorbike so he could leave when he needed to. Son and fiancé came too, so nine of us at the table. Dinner all cooked really well (surprised me too), including options for vegetarians and a vegan. Only realised two days later that I'd forgotten to put the cranberry sauce on the table oops.

27th is our extended family day (has been ever since my siblings and I set up homes of  our own). Hosted here as usual. This year we totalled 30 people, six of those invited couldn't come, two were too ill to come, for one boyfriend and one fiancé it was their first time (hope we didn't scare them), we met a guest friend who was sharing Christmas with one of our families and we all had lots of cuddles with our two newest 2016 babies. So another big bag of secret Santa gifts very theatrically handed out by O with help from great-nieceE.

Thought I'd be finished with my knitting bag, but couldn't get it finished so the bag has been shoved behind the sofa. Actually just remembered I've two books unfinished on my kindle that I need to get back to.
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Medical avalanche........

Been a very busy time of late and calander booked to stay that way till just passed the new year.

R and O performed for the last time with their Saturday drama group, a fun performance as always. Unfortunately this drama group has been ended by the County Council as they only want to run Saturday school for music in future so this was an emotional end of term and end of an era for the children and also for Daughter who started coming here for her own music as a child and now as a parent has helped with registration and tuck shop for years. Sad farewells all round.

Last week seemed to be dominated by medical things too, and none of them involved my health for a change.
     We are both fine, which has been no easy task in fact, as Daughter then O and now M have all been ill with a sickness bug and we haven't been able to avoid seeing them.
      Our next door neighbour has a very serious medical condition diagnosed 40 years ago (told back then she only had six weeks to live) and she now needs stronger magic so has been in and out of Papworth Hospital and sometimes Addenbrooks over the last few weeks. Her husband has been asked to take in various bits of her medical supplies when he visits every day but midweek he phoned Hubby urgently asking him to go into their house and find some tubes in her medical supplies and get them to Papworth as he was there already (as the hospital had the wrong ones) so on his bike more than an hour's ride away! The staff were so grateful.
     Wednesday night I was out with my friends and before dinner had arrived friendM had a really funny turn, acting so weird that we were all concerned and I thought she should get checked out so took her and her partner to the local A&E. They decided she needed an ambulance to the main hospital about 11 miles away. FriendsT&F met us at the local hospital then went to the pub to tell another friend we should have met what was going on, then met us at the main hospital. Meanwhile I took her partner home and we gathered up what she might need if they kept her in overnight, then as he hadn't even had time to finish his first pint we could take two cars and ended up following the blue lights into town. It was nearly 1am when I left them there as having checked her thoroughly they suggested maybe a CT scan, but by the time I got home they had text me to say "no scan needed on our way home" so I was relieved and slept well. The think she'd had a TIA or mini-stroke! Very scary at the time and there will be follow ups but thankfully she's feeling fine now.
     While we were in the hospital friendM got to see her daughter as she was there with a sick baby, thankfully they'd just been discharged and I caught her just in time before they left for home.
     Heard from friendLW too who is totally drugged up as she has horrid sinus problems so she can't breathe and makes her sick and made her eyes really swollen.
     Also I went to visit friendHM to tell her about friendM and she is still unwell having one infection after another and now has a nasty rash on her face and in her eye.

My mum always said that winter needed a really cold snap to kill off the germs but even that wouldn't help for most of this!
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Where does all the time go?........

Will try to remember what's happened since our holiday but too much to write in full so excuse the jumble of short memories, but I'm quite relieved I could remember as much as I did to record it at all (head been quite fuzzy lately).

Inevitably after a holiday follows laundry processing! Along with what was left in the laundry box it was three machine loads, lovely weather so all pegged out for a very full line, and just as I was adding the last few socks the line broke and I caught it then had to hold it up off the ground while Hubby did a quick knotting fix. Our line is the longest retractable cassette line that also hooks onto an extension. It was very heavy! Before the holiday Hubby had planned to reclad the shed as it was taking in water, however a lot of the frame turned out to be rotten so a much bigger job than expected. So after being interrupted for line fixing Hubby continued to rebuild the shed.

Hubby has also been busy with SERV Bloodrunner events. He always comes home amazed at how generous people have been......then has to count it all up and get it to the bank.

As an update about our friendDJ, while friendM was on holiday then we were on holiday friendDJ had been moved out of the hospice and into a nursing home in another town, because his first floor flat was no longer suitable. So friendM and I met for lunch then to visit friendDJ. Sad seeing his deterioration and his world reduced to that small room at the nursing home. We wheeled him out to sit under the trees by the pond. The staff seemed really friendly. On our usual Wednesday gathering this time we took fish and chips to the nursing home and took over their dining room so with DJ there were eight of us. We lifted his spirits. We also lifted the spirits of a few other residents who passed through or entered and stayed, possibly more entertainment for them than normal too. One lady looked fitter and a little younger and was totally intent on getting us recruited to help her put on a Christmas show. When she left the room briefly to get her dolls to show us another lady who was old, frail but bright as a button, laughed and said "take no notice of her  (the first lady) as she's totally bonkers".

Another update on a long story, this time my ongoing bp and joints problems. Early May my GP sent a referral to the hospital, this week I checked with them again to be told that appointments had now extended to 24.5 weeks waiting from referral, which means I'm unlikely to get an appointment before mid-November! So I phoned the surgery who had no doctors appointment so booked me in with the Nurse Practitioner. She actually couldn't help as it was such an ongoing problem that she made me an appointment with the Doctor for the next day. Doctor has now sent a letter asking the hospital for an urgent appointment. She also doubled the dose of my beta blockers so I'm back to taking my bp often and recording it.

Wow M had been nominated for a BAFTA (not the film one, the gaming one) so Daughter&M were invited to London for  the awards. Have to say he didn't win but we were all so proud of him even being nominated :-)  We were having the children here for the day, some of which E was at rehearsals with County Youth Orchestra (for their imminent tour in Germany). End of the day they all went home except O who had asked for a sleepover.

It was another very warm night and all the windows were open, and we could hear really loud music. At first we thought a neighbour was having a garden party then realised it was much bigger than that. It was the first of two nights of Jimmy's Farm festival. Jimmy's Farm is about four miles away from us!

Poor O nearly had his sleep over, all settled into the middle of a double bed, having had a long story read, then we had to go round the house shutting all the windows to reduce the outside noise......but he couldn't settle so mum came to get him.

Sunday was another lovely hot sunny day. Son and fiancé had arranged to come for lunch and O wanted to come back early (as if he'd really slept over) to make our desserts, Daughter and R came too after taking E to another rehearsal day and staying to help. So food on the table inside but all sitting outside for a real summer lunch, followed by afternoon tea,  and sat there through to the evening in the garden, lovely!

And today we have come full circle by doing three machine loads of laundry and pegging it all out on the new repaired washing line. While Hubby continued to rebuild the shed.
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The Hospital Drama......

Honestly you couldn't make all this stuff up. I'm used to watching medical dramas on TV and knowing that they've had to exaggerate stuff to make it dramatic and exciting but this time it was for real.

Firstly I will shout loudly that I think our NHS is wonderful, Ipswich Hospital has never let me down and all the staff work really hard under lots of pressures (mainly just not enough of them).

I mentioned early February that I had a headache, just before I had that horrid flu/virus/bug thing for a couple of weeks too and the cough turned into a chest infection, they all cleared but the headache remained (it's been six weeks now)! My GP and I were working on it and I had a CT Scan booked for two weeks time.

Well I'll miss out the boring part and go straight to..... I went into A&E at 8pm Tuesday with the worst head so far and NHS Direct told Hubby to take me straight in!

The Medical Bit....
Basically they've tested everything, head ct scan, lots and lots of bloods, bp hundreds of times, ecg, chest xray, urine tested for proteins, reflexes and back of the eyes! All results good/normal apart from very high bp which they think is the cause as I had a prescription change at the end of January and headaches started early February. So they are on the case and introduced another bp pill and I'm being referred to the dietician.

Very good news as at first they were talking about brain bleeds and tumours which they've thankfully ruled out, also with the tests one consultant suggested doing a lumbar puncture which I don't think is a pleasant procedure but phew they changed their mind on that. .......all enough to raise the bp even higher!

The full series all in one night.....
Episode 1
We arrived at A&E about 8pm to a very full waiting room, the signs said 3.5 hours waiting time but thankfully we were seen by a doctor about 10:30pm (no triage first). After a full examination we were told I needed to stay in overnight so I sent Hubby home for stuff  (hate hospital gowns) when I was sent for a Head CT Scan at 11:30pm, had a lovely nurse with me who was very chatty.

Episode 2
It was just after midnight when I was taken to the assessment ward, there were no beds only trollies and the nurse put a sheet and pillow on the one in bay 2 and I was told a doctor would come round to see me then I'd be moved into a ward,  so I sat in a chair. I mentioned to the nurse that I'd had nothing to eat or drink since lunch and been sick during the afternoon, the lady in the next bed overheard and said she was really hungry too so the lovely nurse brought us both tea and toast :-) Hubby arrived back and found me and left a bag of stuff, bless him!  The ward had minimal lighting and the staff were walking around quietly to encourage sleep but I'm wide awake sitting in a chair.

Sadly there was a woman just out of my sight who sounded very old and frail saying the whole time "help me, help me please, I need help" each time a nurse went over (very often) she was asked not to remove her oxygen mask and how can they help, but she never gave a proper answer so she must have been very confused, her name is Iris. Another bed nearby had a woman sleeping but every 15 mins the nurse turned her lights on and took ages to wake her and did all her obs.

About 2am the woman in the bed to my right got up and went to the toilet right beside me, then obviously had a problem and pulled the red cord. It was impressive how many members of staff arrived instantly and all piled into that little room, I could hear everything and they worked as one team! She seemed ok once they had her back in bed and the ward settled down again, a little quieter too as Iris had been moved out.

Episode 3
4am and I'd still not seen a doctor when a porter arrived and moved me to the observation ward, so there I got undressed and into bed hoping to get a little sleep. That's when I discovered where Iris had been moved to, opposite my bed, and still removing her oxygen mask and calling out all the time.

In the next bed to my right lights went on and lots of noisy help for that elderly frail lady who had pulled out her cannula and was covered in blood, they changed everything and sorted her and all was calm for a very short time until she broke her catheter which took a lot more noisy help and clearing up and the poor patient called Jean was not being helpful as she was obviously confused, all this time they had pulled my curtain half way for her modesty I think.

About 5am and the doctor comes to see me, tells me what's what and prescribed a pill. I lie down again then very soon after just as I'd got comfy again a hand comes round the curtain and Jean fell on me! I hit the alarm button and held onto Jean who wanted to carry on her journey when she was obviously unable to stand. Jean was put back into bed but I then felt that I needed to keep an eye on her and twice more talked her back under her covers before she attempted more escapes!

Each time I've got comfy, this time around 5:30am the nurse gave me tablets.

6:15am and it woke a couple of others so would have woken me had I been asleep, there was lots of male shouting and swearing down the corridor, definitely sounded like a male patient being very aggressive to the staff, it went on for a while then sudden quiet so either security had removed him or the staff had resorted to the tranquiliser dart!

7am lights on and tea came round and yet another bp check.
It was declared morning, but typically both Iris and Jean stayed fast asleep lol
About 8 to 8:30ish and all the beds were being changed and people given help washing, but I did say I'd only got in my bed 3 hours before so they just tidied it when I went to the bathroom to wash myself.

Episode 4
8:40am I came back from the bathroom and was told to gather my stuff and hop back into bed as I was moving to another ward. Sent Hubby a text as he was coming early. Had to send someone back to find my shoes and socks left behind, one nurse collected them then another nurse reported back that she couldn't find them, hmmm seems a lack of communication there! Thankfully breakfast came round on the new ward, breakfast hadn't arrived in the old ward and I hoped I hadn't missed it as my belly was rumbling and if you've had no sleep you need food more than ever.

10am a consultant, three doctors and a nurse gathered round my bed. The consultant knelt beside me and explained everything really well, although he did scare me a bit suggesting some invasive tests he thinks I might need.
10am and Hubby also arrived but didn't know whether to come through the curtain or not so didn't and I repeated it all to him when the doctors left.

Can you see I had nothing better to do than clock watch, even the batteries in my phone were dying so I couldn't play in case I needed to ring Hubby (thankfully he brought my charger).

Episode 5
Stopped clock watching now I had company lol
Next pharmacist came round
Next was taken for chest xray
Next was the ECG which nurse said looked OK
Hubby went outside to put another parking ticket on the car and text our children as he had no signal on the ward, my lunch arrived so I text him to eat before coming back. What did we do before mobiles?

All done by lunchtime but I never saw another doctor and I kept mentioning to the nurse that I needed discharging.

Episode 6 finale
The rest of the afternoon was playing that classic married couples game with Hubby of "what shall we talk about next / you think of something to talk about / no you think / but it's your turn / no I started the last conversation".

5:30pm finally discharged yaay!


So eventful and very tiring (you must be exhausted just reading all this) and a lot of times funny and surreal, but all in all a worthwhile two days to get so many good results, as my GP and I were dealing with it but while it was bearable there didn't seem to be any rush. I'm actually glad it became urgent or my doctor sending me for each test one after the other could have taken forever!

So fingers crossed this new bp pill is the magic one, but if it is or not I'll keep you up to date, but no more dramas eh?
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Christmas, crafting and eating.......

Another Christmas craft I've started but sort of abandoned is this...

 

No proper tutorial to link to for this as it was shown to me by a friend. Start with card cut to any size with a ratio of 3:1 then score in thirds and zig-zag diagonal (as you can just about see from this photo). Secure beads onto the corners to stop the threads slipping off and fold into the hexahedron shape and secure with tape then wind with embroidery thread securing with pva glue. And what you see above is as far as I've got, but they will hopefully hang on the tree next year ;o)

 

Art/Craft wise I've also been painting t-shirts. These are very old plain tops that have long been splashed with cooking grease etc so with some very old (35+ years) fabric paints that I was amazed still worked I'm giving them a makeover. Pink one is done (needs ironing) and the yellow one in progress!

 

 

 

 

The Christmas cards are all done and the presents are half way, as I needed to get a bit ahead of myself due to a day in hospital yesterday for a minor op and a slow day today which was recommended but actually apart from an uncomfortable throat I'm feeling fine :o)

Glad it's over with and I wouldn't have changed the date, however, my biggest disappointment was that I had to miss E's end of term concert yesterday and R's Christmas drama performance this morning.

 

And the Christmas dinners of course.....been booking and organising one for my old work mates on 22nd, pre-ordering and paying for another with the usual gang on 17th, lunch on the 9th with old college friends, had the first one last Thursday with friends and one other lunch in the diary too for 12th, but unfortunately should have had one tonight which we've cancelled as that friend is unwell.

 

Hubby has also now booked his Sainsbury's delivery slot for 22nd so I'd better get on with sorting out the shopping list. Ho ho ho!

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Spooky and scary....

Halloween was the spooky. Midweek they were here pumpkin carving and the seeds got roasted, some savoury and some sweet.

Then they actually had their own party on Friday night but came here for "Halloween the sequel" on Saturday. No photos I'm afraid but we ate swamp stew, followed by gravestones in slime washed down with magic potion then out to the garden as we'd noticed some of the witches must have had a sleepover and were on their way home with broomsticks overloaded with goodies that they kept dropping!

O is going through that phase of questioning the reality of many things, but running round the garden with his torch shouted out excitedly "I knew witches were real".

Needing the hospital again was the scary! I've had a problem since just before the pre-booked CT Scan which worried me but thankfully the scan came back clear so the thought that the cancer had returned was eliminated with great relief. However tests and explorations have shown there is a polyp in my cervix which needs removal. Just had the date through for 5th December as a day patient. I had this procedure three years ago and seriously hoping it's not going to be a regular thing! Anyway, nothing sinister just another of life's hiccups.

Any my favourite de-stresser just now is to make another bag...