Tag Archives: anticoagulant

Not Very Happy

19 Replies

I had a phone call from the doctor today. It was a cheery enough phone call, because I am a lucky man and like my doctors. However, the news was rather depressing. I have been reclaimed by the anti-coagulant team and been put on Warfarin again. My next blood test is Monday.

It seems I am too heavy to be put on the new drug, which may not be powerful enough to do the job. My fault for being so fat, nobody tied me down and forced m to eat, so there is nobody else to blame. It would have been nice if the doctor had spotted this before giving me false hope, but I had a pleasant two or three days before it all fell apart.

The problem is that the anti-coagulant team runs the department like a bunch of petty tyrants. They can’t abide the thought of anyone evading their clutches and they can’t envisage a life without Warfarin. Despite the claims in the video they play you as part of the indoctrination, it does interfere with your life and they make no effort to be flexible.  They once demanded that I break off in the middle of a holiday to drive 40 miles to hospital and have  a blood test. When I told them there was no way that was going to happen they decided to be more flexible. It was a five day holiday and I’m not spending the best part of a day messing about with a blood test.

Another time they set a student nurse onto me. She rang me then told me, quite aggressively, that I had to start taking my Warfarin properly as my test results were unacceptably inconsistent. I had, it seemed, failed to hit the target on nearly fifty percent of the tests. (Teaching them how to bully patients is obviously a responsibility they take seriously).  I did a quick calculation in my head.

“I think you’ll find, ” I said,” that I have hit the target every time for the last six months. The problem is with the early tests when i was being tested two or three times a week and you couldn’t get my dosage right.”

“Oh!”

She then went silent, tapped a few keys and agreed that I was right. The simple truth is that Warfarin is a very imprecise treatment and the anti-coagulant team aren’t much use when it starts to get out of control.

So there you are. Imagine me as a victim, teetering on the edge of a pit as arms reach out to garb my legs and pull me down…

I went for Big Brother today, as he’s the nearest thing to a pit of demons that I have in my media.

Then, to make my day even worse, I broke eBay.

Confusion, Rugby and Russia

18 Replies

Took Julia to work this morning, tried to get the mowers started, was unsuccessful. That wasn’t the best start. Sadly, with this being a project run on a shoestring they rely on gifts, and nobody gives a good mower away.

Went to supermarket for cash, walked the length of the car park (that’s my “exercise” for the day) and, as I got to the machine, remembered my wallet was still at home. So I went home, scraped all my change together and rang a taxi.

As I walked into the hospital it suddenly struck me I didn’t have my phone with me.  (This was solved when the lady at reception very kindly rang for a taxi at the end of my blood test).

Short wait, blood rest and good news at last. Well, mixed news, to be accurate. They have interfered with the natural functioning of my body to the extent that my blood now clots so slowly that I can no longer play rugby as the bruising could be fatal, and, like the Romanovs, I am likely to make a bad ruler of Russia. They achieve this by making you eat rat poison.

As I haven’t played rugby for years, and don’t like the idea of Russian winters this isn’t too bad.

The good news is that I can now go to the GP surgery for testing instead of the hospital, will eventually move to four tests a year instead of three a week, and I’m officially less likely to have a stroke.

 

On balance I’m prepared to give up rugby and Russia to lead a healthier life.

TGIF

14 Replies

First job of the day was to wake up. I did not achieve total success in carrying out this task. My mistake had been uttering those immortal words “I’ll just have another few minutes.” I set my new phone to give me 15 more minutes and, 25 minutes after it went off, was found cuddling it affectionately to my bosom.

Julia soon put a stop to that.

We visited the Mencap garden next and I had a look at the progress made during the week. Julia is aiming to build some interest amongst group members and to tidy up a bit. It’s never going to be immaculate, and that isn’t the intention, but she is aiming to make the garden more productive and define the wildlife areas more clearly. We know from bitter experience that visitors are all to keen to complain about weeds, and that this always causes problems.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Then, after coffee and cake (the remains of our stash from Mrs Botham) it was time to go home. It also seemed a good time to take Julia’s new Facebook profile photo.  She always looks happier after cake.

I realise that cake for breakfast is probably frowned on by Big NHS Brother but what harm can a bit of cake do? The sultanas alone must be worth one of my five a day, and if they really want us to go to ten a day I’m going to struggle without cake.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Great job, cake, wonderful husband – you just have to smile

From home, it was off to the anticoagulant clinic again. I won’t bore you will the details, but after struggling to get my blood to respond to anticoagulants they are now struggling to stop it responding. I let them flap for a bit, but as stress is a killer I decided not to worry about it.

Final job of the morning is checking out a few blogs and writing my first post of the day. That is now done, and after loading a few pictures I will be doing my first job of the afternoon, which is eating lunch. The other plans are collect prescription, shop for evening meal, visit duck pond, eat ice cream and watch Pointless.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

In the evening I shall coerce Number One son into washing up, collect Number Two son from the station, cook tea, dispense unwanted fatherly advice on a variety of subjects, and complain that nobody speaks clearly these days. They will counter this final assertion by pointing to hearing aid adverts on the TV, though I may well be asleep before any come on.