Tag Archives: blood test

Blood, toil, sweat and sweetheart brooches

Today started well when I had just a short wait to have my arm stabbed. The blood flowed well and I was able to et out and get Julia to work in plenty of time. I’m hoping the free flow of blood indicates that it is going to give me another five or six weeks before the re-test. Tomorrow’s post will tell.

We will spool forward to my recent telephone conversation with the doctor. It seems that while testing for the arthritis consultation they took it upon themselves to test for liver function using a new test they can now do.

So, I had a test done for something we hadn’t discussed, for a condition I’m showing no symptoms of, to get a result that isn’t germane to the current issue so that I can be investigated for a result that isn’t any cause for concern and that isn’t going to cause any problems.

Meanwhile, I still have trouble dressing myself because of the arthritis in my fingers and would like to get that sorted before winter sets in.

But that doesn’t matter because they have a new test they can do for something that’s more interesting. I’ve agreed to have a scan because I was so tightly wound up by this point that I was on the point of being rude, and I’ve been brought up to be polite. I also don’t believe in being rude to people who may have to check my prostate at some time in the future.

But I am not happy.

On a brighter note, Number One son will be home tonight. He’s having two nights in Nottingham then going up to Leeds to look for a job. This is good as we get to see him and discuss his trip, then we get rid of him. This, despite what Julia may think, is the natural cycle of life. You are born, you grow, you get a job, you leave home and pay your own bills. Then it starts over again. You settle down, you have kids, you moan about their effect on your finances…

The grandparents turn up and get them excited, give them fizzy drinks then go home and leave the consequences. I’m looking forward to that bit.

In the middle of all this, I had a delivery in the shop.

My military sweetheart collection is progressing in a shaky and uncertain manner. Like all my collections it is under-financed, under-researched and badly neglected. I’ve decided to put a bit more structure into my collecting. With the sweethearts I’m going to start looking at eBay a couple of times a month and buying something that seems reasonably priced. If I don’t find anything it doesn’t matter. If I do, it will be a bonus. If I buy one item a month for the next ten years that will be 120 extra brooches for the collection.

Royal Scots Greys Sweetheart Brooch

Lothian & Border Horse Sweetheart brooch

Hampshire Regiment Sweetheart Brooch

Last week I bought a lot of brooches from eBay consisting of six pieces. I therefore stuck to my principles (just about) but managed to add five to the collection – one, I think, is destined for the swaps box. They have a definite Scottish theme to them with four out of the six being Scottish Regiments.

They are a sort you don’t often see – made to look like a hanging banner by folding celluloid over a pin. I suspect they were cheap at the time and , because they don’t look like jewellery, they didn’t survive in such numbers as the more durable and attractive metal ones.

Royal Engineers (Broken Pin)

Royal Scots Sweetheart Brooch 1

Royal Scots Sweetheart Brooch 2

At 600 words that’s more of a memoir than a post, so I’ll let you go now. Thanks for sticking with it so long.

A Difficult Day

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I’m typing and watching TV. John Torode, the Australian cook from Masterchef (where he is partnered by greengrocer and pudding-eater Greg Wallace) is drinking mate in Argentina whilst learning about Argentinian beef.

Even Argentina, with all its open space is moving to rearing beef in feed lots.

It’s sad, but true. I was tempted to use the word “irritating” about Torode, and “even more irritating” about Wallace. But manners got the better of me, so I didn’t.

I’m intrigued by mate, but having read about the preparation I may give it a miss. I’ll add my favourite bit of mate trivia before leaving. It’s the bit about the South Africans around Groot Marisco, in case you were wondering. I have covered it before, I think, though I can’t find the post to confirm that. It’s a bit like the Burnley and Benedictine story. Or why they speak Welsh in Patagonia. Or Afrikaans.

I do love trivia. I quite like Argentina too, after watching today’s programme, but that’s mainly based on the fact that they eat a lot of meat. Even their truckstops serve barbecued beef.

On the other hand, I don’t like laundry and I don’t really care for six hours of decluttering, but it was my programme today, as dictated by Julia. (And yes, I have selected my words with care.) I did manage some deadheading, so it wasn’t an entire waste of a day.

Tomorrow we are starting our holiday, though we aren’t actually going away. I have a blood test tomorrow and have to book an X-Ray appointment for my left hand, which will probably see off another day. I was hoping for anti-inflammatories and a steroid injection rather than another bloody visit to the hospital.

More medical discussion tomorrow, for those of you who are interested. It’s nice to be able to discuss medical matters without the necessity of removing my trousers.

Last Minute Post

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I seem to have passed the blood test, as there was no panicky phone call this afternoon.

It was a troublesome visit for a number of reasons. I had trouble getting into the car park, for one thing. The man who got to the machine before me decided to reverse out. This took several minutes and nearly cause two accidents. I wasn’t sure why he did this, but he then drove in through the exit (which had a broken barrier), so I presume he was inconveniencing us to save a couple of pounds.

The main testing room was closed today. I suspect it’s part of the long running problem with water leaks. As a result the queue was longer than usual. I didn’t help matters as I’d forgotten my appointment card, which slowed things down.

They got the vein first time, which was good.

The barrier was still broken when I left, which was also good. I love free parking.

There was more to my day, including nine parcels and a Teddy Tail badge, but that’s a story for another day. It’s just that if I mention it I can use the photo. This gives me an excuse to use the Rupert badge too. I may as well chuck in the Cococubs badge too.

Cococubs badge

Rupert the Bear

Becoming Pollyanna

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In fairness, I should have added one small bit of good news to yesterday’s post.

Despite a couple of lapses of memory in taking my anticoagulants I managed to pass the blood test, with a result of 2.4 against a target of 2.5. I may not be getting any better at remembering the tablets, but I am getting better at correcting things.

That means I have three weeks until the next test.

I also managed to get in and out without incurring car parking charges, so that was another bonus.

Sometimes you need to look for the little chinks of light.

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.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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.

When Things Go Wrong…

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Have you ever noticed that when something goes wrong, more problems follow? Say, for instance, that you fall asleep in front of the TV and wake up with just thirty posting minutes before midnight, the computer seems to slow down and photos refuse to load.

Well, that’s the sort of night I’m currently having.

I’m posting now, then I’m going back to write the rest of the post and add photos, so if you’ve read so far and there is nothing more to read you may want to come back in twenty minutes.

I started off with a blood test, arriving at 7.20 to find a longer queue than usual and a notive on the wall telling me that the average wait last month was 12 minutes. This is three minutes (or 25%) longer than the nine minutes claimed last time. Or 33% depending which number you start with – I’ve never quite understood which is the right way round. It didn’t matter, because the actual wait was over twenty minutes.

It seemed longer because I’d forgotten my glasses. I’ve broken two sets recently and the situation regarding spares is getting tricky. As in, I have no spares. The current position is that I have misplaced two sets and broken two, which just leaves me with one set – the ones that make me look like Clark Kent.

OK, I look like Clark Kent in an alternative universe where he looks like a well-worn version of Santa Claus, but the glasses are similar.

I’m now waiting for the results.

We had a reasonably active day, with twelve parcels after which I visited friends and went home early to do a few jobs. These included drinking tea, watching Pointless and doing a little light snoozing.

I also started listing my collection of Peace and Tribute medals from the Great War as I’m doing a talk on them for the Numismatic Society next year. Yes, 2020, a year after the centenary of the Peace Celebrations in 2019. I have a gift for timing.

Huddersfield Peace Medal.

I’m gathering information at the moment, which is where I’ve been all night – head stuck in the internet looking for interesting anecdotes about Peace Medals. Unfortunately you’ll have to wait for next year as I don’t want to use all my material in advance of the big day.

Did I mention that I don’t like public speaking? My aversion to public speaking is greater than my combined aversion to working, spending money or eating salad. Yes, I’d rather work as a buyer in a salad factory than give a talk. The only thing that outweighs this is my vanity.

There are basically two types of medal that come under the Peace Medal banner – the cheap white metal ones given out to children as part of the Peace Day Celebration and the better quality ones given to returning servicemen to thank them for their service.

I mentioned in a previous post that things did not go well at all Peace Day Celebrations. The ones in Luton, for instance, went spectacularly wrong.

Here are two examples of the different sorts of medal.. They are all larger than life size.

Plymouth Peace Medal 1919

Plymouth Peace Medal for School children.

Washington & Barmston Tribute Medal

Washington & Barmston Tribute Medal in silver and enamel. Note that the town gave rise to a famous surname, and the coat of arms was used, according to informed conjecture, to have been used in the design of the Stars and Stripes.

Easy as a Monday Morning

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On Friday I experienced an uneasy feeling, which grew through Saturday as I realised that I probably had a blood test this morning. I say “probably” as I had neglected to make a note in my diary and I had mislaid the letter giving me the next date.

Eventually I found the letter (which also counted towards my decluttering quota) and confirmed that I did indeed have a blood test this morning.

In the manner of these things, the plan suffered a set-back. I woke at 6.15, summoned by my bladder and then went back to my nice warm bed bed. That meant that instead of leaping into action at 6.30 I hauled myself out at 6.45 and the whole day started slower and later than intended.

There wasn’t much of a queue and the phlebotomist hit the vein first time. I bled well after they removed the needle and I’ve had no panicky phone calls so I’m presuming all has gone well.

As I left the hospital I noticed that the day was much lighter than it had been three weeks ago for my last test. Spring is definitely on the way.

I’ll leave out the boring bits – parcels, swearing at other drivers, TV – the normal stuff that makes up my life.

Tonight we had the beef stew I’d meant to cook last night. (We ended up with frozen veggie burgers due to time constraints). It turned out reasonably well despite my normal cooking technique of chucking stuff in and seeing what happens. I keep meaning to learn how to cook properly, but I never get round to it.

It’s cottage pie tomorrow. I made it while I was doing the stew. It’s good to be a day ahead.

That’s about it for today. Nothing interesting happened and I have 23 minutes left to post.

A Packed Monday

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This morning I dragged myself from bed reluctantly and groaned as I felt the arthritis in my finger. I had, just days before, been wondering if I’d get to spring without more trouble. It seems not. I went down for my blood test. For the second time in three visits I had a learner. She was heavy-handed but accurate and relatively painless.

Because I was late Julia took the bus to work and left me to fill in an hour before going to work. A full breakfast at Sainsbury’s filled the gap.

I then started on parcels. There were fifteen, several of which we had packed on Saturday afternoon and two of which were for collection. Then we had two people in to sell things and things to put on the eBay shop. We also had a lost parcel to deal with. It had been posted by ordinary post and had disappeared. The way eBay works means we have to send the money back and pay 80 pence to PayPal. In the old days we’d have shown the reciept from the post office to prove we’d posted it and told the customer he should have paid the extra for insurance. Experience suggests we’ve been had over, but who can tell?

Finally the lady who wanted two coin sets came in. She was buying them for presents as they represent birth dates. Seeing that we had more, she bought three others and left the shop after we planted the idea of coin collecting in her head.

It was then time for sandwiches, packed by Number Two Son the night before, and a trip to Newark. I caught up with an old friend, which is always good, and treated myself to a Fry’s Peppermint Cream. It’s a long-established chocolate bar – I remember my great-grandmother eating Fry’s.

On the way back I saw a few good sunset pictures, but couldn’t find anywhere safe to park and photograph, so I’ve used adawn shot from last week for this post.

The rooks seem to be gathering at their nest sites, I’ve seen two largish gatherings this week. Looks like spring is coming, though all the weather reports are forecasting cold weather and snow this week.

We had stew for tea. I’d made it last night using up a lot of slightly wrinkled vegetables so we reheated it, Julia made dumplings and I managed to eat my five a day out of the same bowl.

Then Julia produced a bar of Thornton’s dark chocolate with chilli. She didn’t know I’d already had chocolate and I seem to have forgotten to tell her.

That’s about it. On balance it was a good day.

White Rajahs and Other Stories

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Today started with a blood test. I aimed for ten past seven to avoid the arguments we had last time and arrived at 7.16. Instead of the machine there was a box of printed cards, which didn’t inspire confidence. I took card number 18.

On a brighter note, there were only a few people waiting and when they called for Number 15 I realised some people were waiting for other things.

The day started to look better.

After a swift test I was able to get home quickly enough to take Julia for breakfast and then get her to work on time.

They are hoping to get the ticket machine fixed tomorrow. Apparantly it was chaos on Monday when it broke.

Taking things back to Monday night, the main news is that I’m booked in for a tooth extraction next Tuesday and a blood test on Monday – it needs to be within 72 hours of the extraction, though I’m not quite sure how it helps. I’m on anti-coagulants so I’m going to bleed. You don’t hear about too many people bleeding to death from tooth extractions so I’m not too concerned. If the dentist wants to worry that’s up to him. Or her.

They rang to arrange that just as I was leaving home for the monthly meeting of the Nottinghamshire Numismatic Society. The subject was The White Rajahs of Sarawak, and was very good. It was reasonably entertaining and I learnt quite a lot of interesting stuff. One of them lost an eye in a hunting accident when in his 80s. He was known for being careful with his money so popped down to the local taxidermist (he was living in Devon in the days when towns had taxidermists) and bought a job lot of glass eyes. His favourite, it seems, was an Albatross eye.

If he’d been poor he’d have been regarded as an idiot, but as he was rich, with a private kingdom, he was merely eccentric.

Now fades the glimm’ring landscape…

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I nearly caused a riot this morning.

Arriving at the hospital for my repeat blood test at 6.58 I went to the machine and pressed the button for my ticket. There were a few comments from people already waiting, though I didn’t really listen. When I turned round there was a whole crowd behind me jostling and muttering like a crowd of zombies.

It seems that the machine doesn’t switch on until 7am so they all sit there, mentally forming a queue until they can get a ticket.

All they needed to do was ask – as soon as I understood what was happening I handed my ticket over the the man who was “first” in the queue. Even after I did that they kept on muttering. It was very tempting, particularly in one case, to administer a swift tap of the forehead – being backed up against a wall can have that effect on a man.

I made a mistake. It’s easily corrected. There was no need for a lynch mob.

Due to this I now know what the man in the Bateman cartoon feels like.

It seems the hospital keeps the machine off until 7am to stop the problem of people queuing at 6am – an hour before the session opens.

I didn’t realise there were so many people desperate to have blood tests.

It didn’t really save a lot of time turning up at that time, as I ended up seventh in the queue, which is pretty much the result I get when I go down at 7.15, but at least I was able to get home, pick Julia (and a lot of surplus art supplies) up, and get them all down to Mencap in plenty of time to start work.

The NHS, as I pointed out when being summoned for this second test, seems to think we don’t have other things to do in our lives.

The blood tester, incidentally, denies not filling the tube properly, despite her suspiciously lengthy perusal of it yesterday. Her evidence – she always uses a syringe so has plenty of blood to fill a tube. I didn’t argue, but yesterday I had multiple tests and she used three tubes on the vacutainer, with not a syringe in sight.

After dropping Julia off I went to work to bore myself to death. It rained heavily on the flat roof and was dark when we left.

The photographs are from yesterday, tonight was too dull for a decent photograph.

Last Glimmering…

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Life after the Care Farm