Tag Archives: recovery

Rest and Recovery

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Well, Julia is back. She was released around lunchtime on Friday and my sister came to pick her up with me. It all went well – she was standing by the pick-up spot and we almost got a space. The lack of space didn’t matter as there was a taxi in front of me picking someone up and I slotted in behind him and combined with him to stop traffic. They must have hated us, but that’s how it goes. She had to walk 50 yards whilst bleeding from a neck wound when we arrived, but I fail to see why she should walk a foot further than necessary on the way back.

She has slept a lot since arriving home. Considering that her time in hospital consisted mainly of sleep deprivation and blood tests I can’t say I blame her. Not only did she not get a bed until 5am on the first night, not only was it noisy with someone listening to TV all night, but tey woke her up several times on the second night to check her and to extract blood. They seem very keen on blood tests, which seemed a bit strange as the reason she was in hospital was to try and stop her bleeding.

Anyway, you need to sleep while you are healing, so I have been making her go for a lie down now and again, plus making cups of tea, home made soup and easily chewable foodstuffs. She went out to the country park with my sister this afternoon and they toured the food stalls that are there this weekend, returning home with snack food for tea.

She enlisted my help in removing the dressing before she went out. It’s about the size of a small pillow, and not very convenient if you want to walk around.  The idea is that it applies pressure, and also reveals any new traces of bleeding.. However, despite our efforts yesterday with micropore, it kept coming loose and flapping about so today it had to go.

Imagine a dressing secured by four bits of sticky tape. Three of them won’t stick and the fourth is bonded to the skin by some mysterious chemical process and won’t come off. I tried several ways, including sneaking up on her and trying to surprise it, but it stayed stuck. It’s stuck to her throat and, as you may recall, her throat is badly cut, wounded, stitched, bruised and generally tender. The bruise resulting from all this is about 9″ x 4″. Fort hose of you who use metric that’s about the size of a paperback book. I’ve never quite managed to go metric for size.  For some reason I can do furlongs, chains, yards, ells, cubits and hands but never quite grasped centimetres.  Metres are easy, because they are about a yard, but the rest is a mystery.

 

We got three bits off and detached the dressing from the fourth so she is able to go out with just a light scarf for camouflage. Eventually, I’m sure, the other piece will detach itself, but for now it can stay.  If it doesn’t fall off naturally, I will just have to paint it the same colour as her neck and hope nobody notices.

Good or Bad or simply Human?

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It’s about three weeks since I did any proper cooking. It was very tricky cutting veg, even with my big knife and various ingenious techniques.  I hve confined myself to a few convenience meals and ringing for takeaways. I think I said that even the act of buttering bread or stirring cheese sauce was challenging – that’s how bad it’s been.

Today I am cooking roasted vegetables with belly pork. It’s so simple it’s hardly cooking but the cutting of vegetables makes it easy to compare with three weeks ago. It is so much easier I am cautiously forecasting a return to normality in the next few days. My main qualification for saying that is optimism rather than science, but what is faith without hope? Or charity?

Here’s a diversion for you. It’s always a surprise to think that the Gloster Gladiator what was basically a design from WW1 fought the Luftwaffe in WW2. For those of you who don’t follow links – this comes from Faith, Hope and Charity being the names given to three Gladiators that defended Malta. It was a bit more advanced than the Great War designs, but it really did belong to a different age, fighting with the RAF over France in 1939, in the Battle of Britain, Norway, Malta and the Mediterranean.

One of the pilots using the Gladiator, was Roald Dahl.  I’m tempted to ask a serious question here, but I won’t. I will just mention that it just shows how complicated it can be to sit in judgement of people. Roald Dahl, anti-Semite and author i need of rewriting, as we are now told we must see him, was also Roald Dahl who risked his life many times to bring down the Nazi regime. Two of the earliest RAF casualties of WW2, by the way, were members of the British Union of Fascists.

Life is complex when you try to sort it out into good people and bad people.

“C’est la vie”, say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell.

I enclose the quote because you never can tell, and because you don’t often get a chance to quote Chuck Berry in a post about anti-Semitism and the BUF.

A Month of Illness

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It very quickly became apparent that Plan A (the active one involving doing lots of stuff) was not going to happen. It’s too cold and my back feels stiff.

Plan B (the one that involves salmon for tea and some moderate tidying) looks like the one to aim for.

I have others, going right down to Plan F – watch TV, think of a good excuse for when Julia comes home. Even I wouldn’t sink that low after she’s been working all day and I’ve been at home. Not until next week after the novelty of Mondays off has sunk in.

Yesterday was a notable day. My bowels returned to proper function. They have not distinguished themselves during my recent illness and I have been concerned. However, it’s not necessarily a subject for in depth conversation so I will leave it there.

It was also the first night when I have felt comfortable sleeping on my back. I had a much better sleep than usual, slept in too long and, as a consequence have the stiff back I already mentioned. It was good to get back to normal.

The first cough I recall was on the tram as I travelled to my knee X-Ray appointment. That was 14th December or thereabouts. It’s 15th January today, so that’s a full month from one end to the other of the illness.  It’s been a long time, but having lost weight nd had some decent rest I have to admit I feel better than I did a month ago when I thought I was well. Strange how you need to become ill to get better.

Looks like a bishop in a cage – Crowland Abbey

2023 – The Last Post

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Yes, I know it’s slipped round to 2024, but these things happen.

Somehow, with my frequent slippages of time and my good intentions about punctuality never quite working out, it is appropriate that I am late. I have just, as usual, fallen asleep in front of the TV, woken and made a decision about whether or not to blog. Really I should go to sleep, but he urge to write is strong.

I am finally beginning to feel like I am recovering from my chest problem, It’s far from a full recovery, but I am at least starting to feel like I am making progress. It took a while at the beginning as there were symptoms from several things to unravel and I spent at least a week getting worse. Even yesterday, I felt very weak. Today I have begun to feel a little better. It’s surprising that you can sleep for 8 hours at night, then snooze through a lot of the day, and still end up feeling tired, but that’s how I am at the moment. While you are sleeping, you are healing.

Yesterday I decided I wouldn’t make any submissions for December. There seems little point in rushing work which can be left to mature. There are plenty of opportunities for submissions in the next few months – better to do something decent than rush into doing something badly. It always seems slightly rude not to support an editor who has accepted work in the past, but it also seems slightly rude to send something when you know it isn’t your best. There is so much more to making a submission than merely writing it and sending it off.

Photos are mainly Julia.

Back to Life

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I’ve had a leisurely start to the day, to say the least. It started with a cooked breakfast because I wanted to make sure Julia had something decent before she left for work. The weather is not bad here but there’s a chill in the air and the threat of patchy rain to add to the overnight soaking. As I write, Derrick and Jackie Knight are still under an amber weather warning as Storm Ciaran rips along the south coast. Normally I envy them living n the New Forest, but when the weather is intent on breaking branches and toppling trees I find myself less keen on it. I know there are lots of bits without trees (forest in England refers as much to an area of land enclosed for Royal hunting as it does to a place with trees.

Robin Hood lurking in the Forest

Sherwood Forest and the New Forest, very different places these days, were once mixed areas of heath, farmland and woodland set aside for Royal hunting and under the Forest Law rather than the normal law of the land. To a certain extent, the New Forest still is. If you let your horses and pigs wander free round here people would soon protest. And the pigs would soon be in freezers.

After breakfast I went back to bed to continue my recovery before rising for a second time to do a few odd jobs. The phone is currently squeaking at me to remind me that I have a phone call to make. There is always something to do. For the last ten days this “something” has mainly been sleeping and whining, but now it’s time to return to real life.

Acorn Sculpture – Sherwood Forest

Still Sleeping, Recovering and Repeating . . . and Browsing

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Today has mainly featured me sleeping, recovering and repeating, as mentioned in the previous post. It hasn’t, unfortunately seen me doing much in the way of work. When the doctor suggested another week off I was happy as I was feeling quite ill at the time. I also thought I may get some time for writing. Unfortunately this hasn’t happened as I am still quite out of it. This is what I’ve discovered before – healing takes longer these days.

Tomorrow I will try a little harder. Julia is off tomorrow, so although she will find lots to do, I will be able to spend at least an hour or so with her, probably more if I act in a pathetically needy manner. The doctor did say that she would rely on boredom and daytime TV to drive me back to work and I can feel it happening. Even if it does turn into a discussion of my shortcoming and my need for exercise (we don’t see eye to eye on that at all) it will still be better than sleeping in front of antiques and makeover programmes.

Where, I ask, have all the decent quiz shows gone?

I found a really interesting internet site earlier on. It seems to be South African in origin (it features the letters “za” which I always take to indicate Zuid Afrika) but I won’t hold that against it. I still haven’t got rid of all the junk I picked up when using a South African family history site so I am always a little suspicious. However, it did present me with the snippet of information that some Roman Coins had been found whilst excavating a Japanese Castle.

The link is a different link so you don’t need to worry about the security. They are 4th century coins but the castle thrived  from the 12th to 15th Centuries, so they seem to have spent a lot of time travelling. Were they actually used as payment, or did Japan have coin collectors a thousand years ago?

I am distinctly short of suitable photos.

Japanese Quince – Arnot Hill Park

 

Sleep, Recover, Repeat

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Clara Butt – Obverse

Clara Butt Reverse

Sorry. They say sleep is essential to recovery, and I seem to have been concentrating on recovery (in a chair in front of TV) for the last couple of days. The good news is that it’s working, but I do seem to have slacked off on the blogging.

In the wakeful gaps I spent some time reading a book that claims it’s possible to write a novel in ten minutes a day.I must have bought it a few years ago, judging from its position in the pile. So far it’s proving to be a disappointment. I know it’s theoretically possible to write a novel in ten minutes a day (even Don Quixote, if your taste runs to that length) but I was hoping for more specifics. So far it’s been about how to manage time.

This is useful, but so far it’s more about time management than writing. However, the fact I’m writing this is proof that it works. I’ve planned a sliver of time to write and I am using it. later I will watch an antiques programme then, probably when I wake up, I will write more. Or eat then sleep then write more. I’m undecided on the exact order.

Leicester Base Hospital showing soldier in “Hospital Blue” Uniform.

The “Base Hospital” was also known as the 5th Northern General Hospital. In 1914 it was empty, having formerly housed the county Lunatic Asylum. In 1921 it opened as a University, eventually becoming Leicester University.

I can tell I’m getting better. Last night I went to bed after deciding I didn’t have the time or energy to do the display on fund-raising flags I was planning for the Numismatic Society. This morning I woke up with the outline in my head. The brain is a wondrous thing.

It’s  bit nippy now, despite supposedly being a warm day. I’m going to go into the other room now, put a blanket across my knees and try a spot of recovery.

Sir Harry Lauder Obverse

 

Sir Harry lauder Reverse

Sir Harry Lauder was a man of many parts and the first British recording artist to sell a million records. His son was killed in 1916 and Sir Harry spent much time raising money for the war effort, including his Million Pound Fund to help disabled Scottish soldiers on their return home.

 

Smugness, Success and the Art of the Humblebrag

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Warning – this post may contain smugness and inappropriate levels of self-satisfaction. I have also invented a new (to me ) form of humblebrag –

Do you realise how much time it takes emailing editors to thank them for accepting your work? I’ve had to do it three times in the last three days and it’s hard finding time to actually write the poems.

That’s. of course, an exaggeration, as i’d be happy to spend all day thanking editors, and in truth it only took about ten minutes in total. I tend, like editors to have a fairly standard reply, because after “thank you” there isn’t much to say.

The story is that I have spent the last few days hammering away at the keyboard. I did this because I am lazy and disorganised and only work when under threat of a deadline. Even then, the “work” of writing poetry doesn’t compare to cleaning out a chicken she in November, or cutting lawns in the middle of summer. Anyway, I managed six submissions in the last  four days (they were written but not finished.

One had an acceptance within 24 hours. I have already written about that. This morning I had an email to tell me someone had accepted three poems from yesterday’s submissions (which is a high level of editor industry and well beyond the call of duty. This evening I switched the computer on and found two more had been accepted. That had taken several days, which is still stunningly speedy considering editors also have day jobs and get piles of poetry sent to them.

Obviously, I’m happy and grateful, and, as you may have noticed before, success is a double edged sword, as I start to worry about repeating it. However, it goes deeper than that. It’s 12 months since I had cellulitis and the associated sepsis, and about eleven since I had Covid. It has taken all that time for me to get going again and to feel I am back up to standard.

Title? Can’t really think . . .

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I’ve been trying to get into the comments for the last two hours. All I get is a small circle going round and round . . .

Is anyone else having this problem?

Anyway – Julia’s swollen eye is now definitely on the mend, which is good as progress has been slow over the last few days and I have been struggling for supportive things to say. There’s only so much you can say after the first day.

Over the last few days I’ve had a couple of emails from editors. One was an acceptance. However, to cut my ego down to size, they did offer a couple of suggestions which improved the piece considerably. It was a masterclass in editing and an example of how things can always be improved.

The second was a hybrid – neither an acceptance or a rejection, but an invitation to make alterations and resubmit. Generally I’m all in favour of chances to be published but over the years I’ve had bad experiences with this sort of thing and have never had an altered piece accepted on this basis. You know where you are with acceptances and rejections, even with conditional acceptances, but this sort of hybrid never seems to work for me. I can’t see this being the one to break the sequence, particularly as I’ve only been given a few days to do it. Fortunately, I no longer have my old drive to be published so I’m not going to stress about it. Some you win, some you lose. This piece will eventually be recycled, but not just yet.

Meanwhile, I have answered a few comments by going through past posts but still cannot call up the comments as a whole. I hope this might be fixed by the time I post tomorrow.

 

Slowing Down, Taking Stock

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Things are stuttering along. It is, as before, a zig-zag course towards improvement and today, after submitting my first piece for some time, I am once again wondering why I bother writing.

I’m clear on magazine articles. I don’t do many of them, but I do it for the money.

Poetry is different. I’ve been sent one or two free copies of magazines and have had two certificates, but the rewards of writing poetry are mainly spiritual.

At the moment, I’m thinking of stopping submitting so much. I can dress this up as spiritual renewal or an issue of quality over quantity, but in truth, I’m just getting a bit fed up with some of the editors I have to deal with.

Most of them are brilliant (though even the brilliant ones often turn me down – nobody is perfect) with a positive attitude, open minds and helpful comments.

Others are a bit on the academic side and a touch prescriptive. I won’t get too specific, as they all work hard to produce the magazines we rely on, and I don’t want to criticise anyone personally. However, one or two seem to get their preferences mixed up with the “rules” of writing Japanese poetry forms. Even the various societies, with their panels of experts, don’t produce rules, just guides. These also often edit what I consider to be my voice. I write as I speak, and if I want to use an expression from the midlands of the UK, I don’t see why it needs to be ironed out by an American with an academic background in English.

Meanwhile, there is the group of editors who want to be excited by my submissions. I write about my life. It’s not exciting. I’m unlikely to display the qualities required by these editors.

I have limited time at the moment, and have decided to use it more wisely. One submission has gone. The other, with its manufactured false excitement and linguistic fireworks, will stay in the draft section. Eventually, as it matures, it will be used, or dismantled for use in other work.

But it won’t be sent out this week to curry favour with an editor who wants me to be something I’m not.

My Orange Parker Pen