Tag Archives: healing

Covid Paranoia

20 Replies

On Tuesday I spent several hours in the back room of a shop with two people who texted on Thursday to tell me that they both had Covid. I tested immediately, and was negative.

Today, waiting between my two appointments at the surgery, I started with a small, dry cough. During the day, it carried on . . .

By the time I got home I realised that I had probably passed it on to several people, including my two workmates. They have both visited their elderly parents during the week and this clearly is not good.

As soon as I got in, I tested again and watched for the result.

Single bar next to the “C”. I’m still clear. The cough is still here too, but yet again a simple cough has been magnified into something it isn’t. This is a relief because I didn’t want to be responsible for spreading the virus to vulnerable people.

Both my friends are double vaccinated and so far, despite one being over 80, are reporting symptoms like those of a heavy cold. This is good.

Medical report – I have a cough and a case of paranoia. I also have some exercises from the physio and am feeling better already. The nurse is impressed by my capacity for recovery and thinks I will be able to take over my own dressings quite soon. Flu vaccine is due at the surgery this week and if it arrives they will vaccinate me during one of my other appointments.

It’s all looking good.

Diet report. We are only dealing in broad figures as I had my shoes on and didn’t count the decimal places but I have lost around eight pounds in the last two weeks despite eating apple crumble and ice cream, a McDonalds and chicken kebab meat with chips. You can see why I struggle with my weight, can’t you?

My breakfast of wheat biscuits, fruit and toast and marmalade remains the same. My lunch is just one sandwich with fruit or tomatoes (that’s reduced by one sandwich). In the evening I try to eat smaller portions in the evening but haven’t made any other changes.

If I cut down more i could probably loose more weight, but I may not feel quite so good about it if I cut out all the stuff I like.  It’s a balancing act, but it’s working.

Overdoing it

18 Replies

Yes, you guessed. After weeks of sitting with my leg elevated, I finally, after a week of building up to it, managed to overdo things. After my haircut and shopping I spent the rest of the day gradually deteriorating as my knee stiffened and my leg throbbed. Maybe “Back to Normal” was a bit optimistic. Just one more day on the zig zag of recovery.

It’s at times like this that you appreciate the magic of WP. I’ve been reading about Captain Moonlight, dining out and the Dave Clark Five over the last few days. Life would be a much poorer place without this ability. I don’t use the internet in the living room these days, as |I’m trying to restore the art of conversation (which is basically me talking while Julia grunts and uses her laptop. To be fair, she does take her work seriously, and does do a lot of planning, even though the general culture of the organisation is to take the money and do as little as possible.  I won’t go on, but as I watch her fill out forms, do training and plan sessions for hours every evening, I do a lot of thinking about the unfairness of life.

I’m going to go to the doctor soon, then will go to work for the first time in just over three weeks. I have grown lazy over that time. It hasn’t been like lockdown where I had plenty of time to do things – most of the time was spent sitting down like a vegetable, unable to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time.  Four pages of a book has been a struggle.

In the last week things have improved and I’ve been writing again, though I haven’t actually typed or submitted anything. Good news is that I just had a haibun accepted, so things are still working their way through the system. I am able to write, but so far haven’t typed much. I’m going to have to start the whole, dull, copy typing process again if I’m going to get back to making regular submissions. I need to get a couple of submissions knocked into shape as the end date for two magazines is 15th of this month – five days is cutting it fine even by my standards.

Generally, despite the up and down nature of my recovery the week has been a positive one and I’m better now than I was when I started. Even yesterday was a positive, despite the knee pain – it was me that caused the pain by trying too much. My immune system just keeps chugging along and healing as fast as it can.

Sunday Morning Catch Up

23 Replies

I haven’t been particularly fluent in the last week and I’ve missed a few things out.

The anti-coagulant blood test came and went. They managed to get the blood first time and the next appointment is in two weeks time so things are back on track. I’m hoping to extend the interval so I only need monthly tests. I know someone who has quarterly tests, which would be even better.

We went to the farm on Friday, as I mentioned and found that Evie the sheep dog had died at the weekend. The general view is that she had eaten poison, though I’m not sure where she would have found any as all the rat poison round the place is put out properly in bait boxes. It’s not the best run farm but they do get that right.

She was bred to herd sheep, and as I mentioned when she first arrived she immediately tried to herd the Quercus group, but she was never properly trained and I’m not sure if she had a fulfilled life or not. She didn’t seem overly happy at times, which is a shame.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The new puppy

The men in sheds were saying how good my bread was on Friday. This isn’t linked to any proper measure of quality, they just used to like getting free bread when I was practising and made too much. I said I didn’t bake these days as the kneading plays havoc with my arthritis. Next thing I knew I was being offered healing.

Gingerbread men
Wheatsheaf Loaf
The proof…
Brown loaves
Soda bread

I’m not much of one for faith healing and that sort of thing, and was prepared to feel no benefit, but can’t say that was the case. There may have been some improvement for a couple of days, but it might just be wishful thinking. The jury is out, but I’m certainly not going to dismiss it. The improvement may show more about my imagination than about my arthritis, but even an imaginary improvement is worth having.

Then on Saturday I met a paranormal investigator. You’ll have to come back later for details, as I need to get down to the launderette now. Suffice to say that if I had doubts about healing…

 

Random Reflections

21 Replies

It’s now ten days since the medical profession applied heavyweight medical equipment to some of my more delicate bits. I’m pleased to report that the bleeding has stopped, the swelling has gone and I’m now resigned to the indignity of the catheter. Only five weeks before the replay.

I’ve been doing some thinking about my leg too and with a combination of exercise and stretching it seems to be improving. If I can keep that going I should be back to proper walking by the end of the week.

The only remaining problem was the changing of the leg bag. I haven’t changed one before so I was slightly apprehensive about what might happen. As it turned out there was no problem – everything went without a hitch and I am now connected again.

There was a potential for trouble but I managed to avoid it. Depending on which brand of product you use there are between two and four lengths of tube between catheter and leg bag. The brand issued by the hospital  has 4 lengths. They fitted me with a 30cm tube after the operation.

So they obviously gave me 30cm tubes with the kits they sent me home with. Well, you’d think so. Even with a 30cm tube I have to take care how I set things up. The consequences of getting it wrong is that you squeak like a hamster and have to wipe the tears from your eyes.

Fortunately I checked before opening the packets, as the tubes supplied by the hospital and District Nurse are all 10cm. Fortunately I’d ordered the larger of the two sizes available on prescription (a different brand from the hospital supply) so the ones I collected yesterday allow me to walk without trouble.

It’s tempting to launch into a collection of catheter anecdotes (I have a few…) but I will maintain some pretence of good taste. Well, I will after a couple more paragraphs.

My latest scheme is to experiment with food colourings. I’m looking forwards to showing the doctors a bag of lurid-coloured liquid and seeing what they do. Julia is refusing to help with this, but has suggested beetroot. It is, after all, well known for turning urine red. I’m currently taking a proton pump inhibitor as part of my doctor’s crusade to test every sort of pill known to man, and this may prevent the desired result. I also really hate beetroot, which is another drawback.

On the other hand I’m not sure what constitutes a lethal dose of food colouring. It’s the sort of thing you need to know, because although brightly-coloured urine is a joke, food poisoning is no fun.