Tag Archives: anticoagulants

Monday Musings

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I injected myself last night . It was a few days behind schedule because it’s easy to forget to stab yourself with a needle. It ranks below dieting and exercise as a way I’d like to spend my time. I’d rather eat salad.

It was mildly uncomfortable, but this morning I noticed that it had bled overnight. Not much, just enough to make Julia recoil in horror at my blood-flecked night attire. That’s what happens when you have injections to take and pills that stop your blood coagulating. As I’ve said before, several of the pills I take are to stop the other pills doing me any harm. It’s not a sustainable way of going on, and I promise you I never set out to do this to myself.

Add that to the fact my right leg, after being held at a moderately uncomfortable angle last night, felt like the knee had been stuffed with gravel, and it wasn’t a great morning.

Then we had emails . . .

Stamps, stamps, stamps…

An Australian wants us to send him a parcel (value about £140) listed as a present with no value on the customs form. He also wants us to send it without insurance or the need for a signature so he can keep his costs down. I sympathise, but on the other hand, there are so many things that could go wrong with that arrangement that we really can’t do it.

Another Australian gave us a lecture on parcelling up his order and keeping costs down. It’s always tempting to write and thank them, point out that we have a feedback of over 10,000 (done the hard way) so it’s possible we know about packaging, and ask if they have any helpful tips on sucking eggs as my grandmother is finding it tricky.

But I don’t. I have the good name of the shop to consider.

Yes, I know you are wondering what could be hard about sitting in a shop sending parcels. The easy way to get to 10,000 feedback is to sell mass-produced items from a wholesaler, which fit neatly into a padded envelope. Compared to laboriously listing individual items with a variety of packaging needs, that is the easy way. I packed eight parcels this morning, using four different sizes of envelope, three different postage methods and six different postage rates. It’s not as hard as some jobs I’ve done and I’ve never fallen off a ladder or given myself an electric shock whilst doing it (unlike my previous lives in farming and gardening) but it has its moments.

Magical Worlds Stamps

Bad Start to the Week

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Sorry, I fell asleep in the chair last night so did’t post. Then tonight I decided to shake up my routine by not using the computer until late. I got that wrong – got carried away watching TV and suddenly it’s late and I still have a blog to write and sandwiches to make..

So here I am.

Not much to report.

I injured my foot this morning in a rather foolish pedicure accident. As  a result of the Warfarin it took just over an hour to stop the bleeding. I would normally gloss over this sort of stupidity, but if this is to b a warts and all diary I need to tell the truth. I am irredeemably stupid, don’t have the sense I was born with and can’t be trusted to put my socks on without incident. That;s not me being self-deprecating, that’s a direct quote from the Court of Enquiry hosted by Julia when I had to call for help. She wasn’t amused, and that First Aid Course she did last week appears to have skimped on information about pedicure incidents.

I’ve been watertight for the last 17 hours, so the repair seems to have held. With all the excitement I couldn’t take Julia in to work and had to take my breakfast to the shop. Not the best start to the day for either of us. I should have fitted in a blood test this morning too, but had to miss it. Ironic, as I could have provided plenty, and all without needing a needle.

We have  a severe weather warning with thunder and lightning tomorrow, which is OK for people like me who work indoors. Not quite so good for Julia, who will be out in the gardens with her group. She says she will take a coat. I think they’d be better cancelling the session. You can do without that sort of stuff when you are out in the garden and all the shelter you have is either a steel portacabin or a polytunnel with steel hoops. I keep thinking of lightning conductors . . .

 

A Few Bits of News

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The arthritis drugs aren’t working as well as they have been and my fingers are starting to play up. I wonder if it’s the time of year as they did this to me last year. As the world slipped into lockdown my major concern was getting dressed with half my fingers out of action. It’s staring again and this morning I had to use a hot water bottle to get my hands working when I got to the shop.

he anticoagulants aren’t working well either, as shown by my recent test results. They are wandering about all over the place and have become rather too high recently – meaning I’m now in the zone where I could have  a problem with bleeding. Not so bad for a shop assistant but when I was gardening this would have been a nightmare. I used to bleed badly after pruning pyracantha at the best of times. It would probably look like a horror film if I did it these days. I’ve had a leter from the hospital about this – ity seems they are seeing more erratic results in lockdown, and that levels generally seem to go up. That’s a relief, as I have been trying to work out why it was happening. Seems I’m just part of a lockdown phenomenon.

Do you remember that I was short-listed by Acumen magazine a few weeks ago? I prophesied that I would fail to make it from shortlist and my prophesy turns out to have been wrong. I have two poems accepted for the next issue and have just checked the proofs. I’ve never been accepted by a magazine that has proofs. I must definitely be going up in the world.

I think I’m going to have to stop writing about my poetry writing because things are going too well at the moment and it’s getting a bit close to showing off. I’ll wait for some bad news before writing about it again. To be fair, it should only be a week or two before I get cut down to size.

Dullness Personified

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This morning we only had two parcels to do, which didn’t take long. In the afternoon we had four more sales. I suspect some people were bunking off and using the office computer for eBay instead of work.

The rest of the day was taken up with refilling drop down menus (which can be tricky if you let your mind drift), sorting coin covers (as in First Day Covers with coins on, not covers for coins) and drinking coffee.

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It wasn’t the most interesting day I’ve ever had.

As you look at the pictures of First Day Covers, and your eyes glaze over, you may understand my view.

There was a letter from the Anticoagulant Service when I got home – I have passed yesterday’s blood test and as a reward I now have three weeks until the next test.

A busy evening followed, as I began work on my talk for the Numismatic Society.

I’m sure the enthusiasm will wear off soon…

Now I’m off to pick No2 Son up from work – he had a late shift today. It’s misleadingly named as the night shift is, of course, much later.

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I’m not sure how long I can sustain this level of excitement.

I would say “be still, my beating heart”, but considering the dire warnings I keep getting from the Anticoagulant Service this might be tempting fate.

A Day With Few High Points

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I’ve just spent several minutes trying to remove an unwanted comma from a piece of work. It’s frustrating when you can’t get a computer to do what you want it to do.

It was even worse when I realised the “comma” was a mark on the screen. Laptop screens seem to attract more detritus than the screens on ordinary computers.

That’s been one of the highlights of the day.

The second was my blood test. The blood was not flowing well today and it felt like they were having to dig it out. When they removed the needle it suddenly decided to flow. Fortunately it hit the chair arm rather than me. Having changed specially for the visit I was glad that it didn’t go on my clothes.

It seems I passed the blood sugar test two weeks ago. Unfortunately I had a phone call from the anticoagulant service this afternoon to tell me that things had not gone so well. I need to go down for testing again next week: they do that when things don’t go well.

The final high point was sitting in a chair making demands for constant hydration (tea). Number One Son is back from Portugal and has been working well with the kettle. He even put a couple of sausages and some beans together for a light lunch.

I had to pay for this attention by listening to his views on nutrition and where my diet is going wrong. As his first degree is in Sports Science, including nutrition, he has the moral high ground.

Apart from that, I just sat here gently recovering and shouting at the television.