Cinderotto

The little cat goes back home to his beloved daddy tomorrow.  He adores his dad, his dad adores him; it’s a beautiful thing.  

Otto has missed his dad this past fortnight, I can tell.  I can tell by the way he wakes me at dawn by pummelling my face with his paws and purring loudly, his nose touching mine.  He does this to his dad and his dad lets him get away with it, he gets a “fuck off Otto!” from me.  He’s a floppy, silky pyjama case of a cat and I too adore him, but my love of him is a fraction less than my love of sleep these days and, as much as having him flop over me is delightful, I do actually have to get out of bed at some point and drag my arse into work at a reasonable hour.

I think I’ve been a good hostess to the little feller while he’s been here.  Of course, he’s not been allowed to leave the house, but he’s had a nice clean litter tray every day, lots of cuddles, four meals a day… three if you count what goes into the dog because… well, here’s the thing, I have to put his food on my desk in the little study so that the little dog can’t get to it.  The odour, of course, filters into my bedroom.  God, it stinks to high heaven.  I do wish he could eat it a) without throwing it all over my desk and b) in one sitting.  While it’s hanging around, Rocky gets ever so jealous, so he’s been having the odd pouch of Felix too, just to prevent him from exploding with envy.  

Otto came with his own food parcel: a box of Felix pouches and about ten trays of extra special “gourmet” Sheba.  Like a wicked step mother, I’ve been feeding the Sheba to the dog to keep him quiet and the cat has been left with stuff that smells like poo.  

Wax

I don’t hide the fact that I use wax strips to remove my moustache hair.  Despite reassurances from well-meaning blind people (or utter cocks who are lying to me), it can be quite substantial moustache hair, especially if caught in the cruel light of the mirror in the lift at work.  Or caught in heavy machinery.  

Anyway (:@), after waxing my moustache last night, I had a spare strip left over.  Tempting as it was to try it on the dog, I refrained and, in that moment as i held it over the bin, ready to discard it, I had an epiphany… try it on your chiiiiiiiiin… try it on your CHIIIIIIN!  So I did, and it was great.

You see, I can’t see close up enough anymore to tell whether I have out of control beard growth.  People are often too scared to mention these things (or liars), and I can’t pluck blind, so this was a revelation.  I’m so happy!

At the hospital

I had a hospital appointment today to see the neuro-endocrine people following my recent surgery.  I actually thought the appointment had been made in error because I only attended the same clinic in July.  Soooo, I entered the full-to-bursting waiting room with less than positive expectations for the experience that awaited me. I was appalled by one particular site that greeted me as I took my seat: female; overweight; shorts; tattoos; crew cut; bleached hair; talking rubbish at the TV.  But you have to accept that there are lots of different people in the world and that it’s not for long that we have to be in proximity of those we’d never be caught dead associating with.

The TV was on, set to BBC because that’s the safest way to ensure that none of the people in the waiting room are also appearing on the Jeremy Kyle show.  It was a programme about antisocial behaviour, as usual.  After I’d had my blood pressure taken, I returned to the waiting room and, to my horror, the only seat available was next to Madame Tattoo.  I sat down and admired her… ink… on her knee caps… while sending out calls for help via text.  

Looking up, I saw the noticeboard that informed me my doctor’s clinic was running an hour late.  Thank fuck I’d charged my phone.

I sat and waited, watching the site visits to my blog go up and up following a recent post about a potty-mouthed, but adorable,  Dane

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Unbelievable.

Time ticked on, and the waiting room emptied.  The TV was on a timer and turned itself off.  Mercy!  

I was getting a bit restless, needed a pee, was starving hungry, was anticipating a negative experience with the doctor.  Humph. [Insert unsmiley face emoji here]  And then I was called into to see the consultant… some other guy I’d never seen before… here we go, I rolled my eyes (internally of course, I didn’t want to seem impolite).

I couldn’t have been more wrong.  He explained everything to me, all the different types of hyperparathyroidism, how and why they can occur and then he said: “With you, it’s clear that you’ve been deficient in vitamin D for a number of years.  When you had a test early on in 2013, you had a negligible amount.  Over a period of time, this will affect the feedback mechanism and cause your parathyroid to produce more and more PTH to compensate, and this is probably what happened with you.  We’ll take a blood test and either give you a massive dose of vitamin D, like you’ve had before, or just put you on a maintenance dose for life.”

I was like, what? Really?  Is this anything to do with my Pepsi Max addiction?  

So that’s it.  It should all be sorted.  What I really wanted him to prescribe was a new life in the Mediterranean, but what with NHS cutbacks, they’re no longer offering this particular treatment.  I’ll have to stick with my vitamin supplements and oily fish.

At the hospital

“I must remember they’re only a Band 2.”
“I must remember they’re only a Band 2 and they’re hassled.”
“I must remember they’re only a Band 2 and they’re trying to help other people.”
“I must remember they’re only a Band 2 and it’s not their fault there’s nobody else around to take telephone queries while I’m waiting in for them to acknowledge me and now I’m late for my fucking appointment!!!!”

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So today I realised that, if a hospital appointment letter tells you to “go to main outpatients”, it actually means “use your psychic ability to work out that you actually need to go directly to the endocrinology clinic in another hospital building”.

My hospital visit had started well; I got a parking space straight away and with fifteen minutes to spare. There was no queue at the outpatients reception and I was seen straight away by a woman who couldn’t figure out that when I said “Cristina with no h, so that’s C-R-I-S…” I meant it was spelled with a C and not a K and, no it still didn’t have an h. She looked slightly confused as she tracked down my appointment, but told me that I should’ve gone straight to the clinic in the Ladywell Building. I knew where that was, it was fine, thanks, no seriously, I know where I’m going, thanks for the map, yes, I know where it is, no honestly. STOP TALKING!!!

There was a queue at the Endocrinology department reception and I waited with growing impatience and thinly disguised agitation as the poor receptionist had to deal with people who shouldn’t have been there, people who should’ve got to the back of the queue, people who phoned up with a lengthy enquiry as the time of my appointment came and went.

Now, I HATE being late for appointments, absolutely hate it. I’d rather get somewhere an hour early than run the risk of being late (apart from today of course and most days at work), so when my turn came, and I could hear myself saying it and still couldn’t stop myself, I said “I’m here for an appointment at 11.30 and I had been on time, but was sent to the wrong place and then got caught in the queue here.”

Why did I do that? Why have a veiled dig at some poor hassled woman who had just been trying to help people?

She looked at the clock and acknowledged the time, then she got her vengeance on my passive aggressive dig by noting on my appointment form that the time of arrival was 11.36 and my appointment time was 11.30. “Take a seat in the waiting area”, she smiled benignly.

Too short
After just a few minutes I was called into a small room where I had the indignity of my blood pressure, height and weight measured.

BP: 135/70
Height: 161cm
Weight: OHMYFUCKINGGOD!
BMI: You should be 19 feet tall for that weight

So that was good.

Soon after I was seen by the reg. He was lovely, took a few lifestyle questions, bashed his head on the desk when I told him I’d been given an aggressive course of vitamin D therapy by my GP, and he explained things perfectly (there is the possibility of surgery). For now though, it’s more blood tests, DEXA scan to check my bones aren’t made of sponge, kidney ultrasound to make sure they’re not full of pebbles, 24 hr wee wee collection. Hang on… 24 hr urine collection, into a bucket? More or less.

So that’s my Sunday sorted: collecting every drop of pee over a 24hr period and storing it in a 2.5L bottle then taking the whole sloshing lot to the clinic on Monday.

Anybody who knows me will know how much of a problem this can be for me. I can’t wee outdoors, I can’t wee into a toilet that’s the wrong height. Let’s just say that Sunday will be a good day for picking nettles because there’s no way I’m going to be able to aim into a bloody jug and I anticipate much coming together with my own excretions.

It’s only a bit of wee. Imagine the fuss I’d be making if I’d been diagnosed with a terminal illness. For everyone’s sake, that really doesn’t bear thinking about.

There’s rosemary

This little iPad keyboard is perfect, absolutely perfect. Everything about it is beautiful; from its shiny piano-black surface, the pressure required to register a keystroke, to the satisfying clickiness of the keys. I love it.

And because of this, I shall now continue to type something.

One week on from her dramatic entrance into the Big Brother Hospital, Big Con still hasn’t been evicted, despite a morphine-induced fight with a couple of the night staff who decided to put her on a commode without waking her first. Things are very serious. She’s well, but has a severe infection in a knee joint that was replaced eighteen months ago. For eighteen months, she’s been voicing her concern that the joint was painful and inflamed, but nobody seemed to take these concerns seriously enough to fully investigate where the problem lay. Essentially, the joint was full of pus and bugs and she’s having to stay in hospital until the worst of the infection has cleared. These things happen. They shouldn’t, but they do, and all you can do is hope for the best while being aware that drastic measures may need to be taken if things can’t be resolved through the use of antibiotics.

Anyway, the daily trips to the hospital are slightly draining, but it’s good to witness her improving in health and humour. Unfortunately, hospital visiting also exposes you to:

  • Hospitals
  • Hospital patients
  • Hospital visitors
  • Not being known for my tolerance of rule breakers, I found myself constantly distracted by the six visitors at the bedside of the woman opposite my mum. They were noisy, but worse than that, there were more than the “maximum of 2 visitors” at a time. “Stop being so numerous! And you, woman, yes you! Stop looking like something from Big Fat Gipsy Weddings!!” Perfectly nice enough people, but THEY WERE BREAKING THE RULES.

    They keep moving my mum too. I don’t understand this. One day her bed is in one position, go to visit her the following day and, before you’ve realised it’s not her, you’re sat down next to a complete stranger. Luckily a lovely stranger who my mum, once I’d found her, wasn’t at all subtle in telling me that “Sylvia has dementia, but she’s lovely”. Sylvia seems perfectly fine to me, it’s Rose on the other side of you who I’d be worried about. Rose seems to think that I’m a volunteer hospital visitor and wants to hijack me. Rose is very pleasant, but she speaks very quickly in an Irish accent and is a little hard to understand. But I don’t want to understand her, I don’t want her speaking to me and interrupting my time with my mum.

    One of the most disturbing thing about visiting my mum is seeing her feet: both are deformed by bunions; one has had a toe amputated; and let’s just say, she can’t reach down to attend to her toenails or dry skin. As soon as she gets out, I’m paying for a pedicure for her.

    All being well, and I’m confident it will be, I’ve decide to have the family round at my house for Christmas Day this year. This will be the first time in history that we’ve not spent the day at my parents’, so I’d better not fuck it up. To ensure success, I’ve decided to let Mum and Dad do the prep for the dinner as some traditions simply can’t be broken and my dad loves peeling the veg, which is great because I can’t abide this task. It’s an exciting and slightly daunting prospect, but I’ve been given the idea of producing a spreadsheet to help me plan and I’ll get my folks smartphones so they can have calendar reminders of what to do and when.

    For me, last Christmas was lost in a haze of despair, anxiety, prescription drugs and booze. I am determined for the festive season of 2012 to be a metaphorical door slamming on twelve difficult months and an advent calendar window opening on a new and happier phase of my life. If not, there’s always sherry… and turkey curry.