Tag Archives: Illness

December will be magic again

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No it won’t.

It is a dark, cold, wet and dismal month. A month of forced joy and unwarranted expense. A month when those of us who are alone have the joy and excitement of people in relationships or who have families thrust upon us by the TV commercials and radio programmes that paint a picture of togetherness and love, sharing and happiness. More and more, Christmas serves as a reminder of my exclusion from the life that I’d hoped for; a life that I thought I’d had not such a long time ago.

Still though, I introduce a tree into my home and decorate it with lights that welcome me when I get in from work. It is a fragile connection to that life that I thought I was going to have, one that may yet still be waiting for me.

Pffft.

At least there’s sherry.

Walking back to muddiness
Everything is wet at the moment and I am engaged in an eternal battle against the gruftiness of my kitchen floor. The little dog thinks nothing of wading through muddy puddles and piles of dirty leaves while we’re out on our soggy walks. On returning home, he never wipes his feet on the doormat and loves nothing more than shaking off the excess filthy water from his little body before jumping on every chair in the living room.

People who suggest going for a walk as a leisure activity are quite clearly insane. They’d soon change their tune were they to ever acquire a dog and be forced out at least twice a day, rain or shine. I don’t resent the little dog, just the mess he creates, and having him is good thing for a person who would most likely not leave the house unless they absolutely had to, but I will less than politely decline the offer should anybody suggest going for a walk just for the sake of it.

Caught a light sneeze
My immune system better be up to scratch to deal with the afternoon I had. My sister sings in a community choir – of all the things! There was a shindig of a number of choirs, orchestras, bands and the like at the Tudor mansion that just so happens to be smack bang in the middle of Salford. I went along to show my support because Mother had to take care of my niece who had become ill through the night. It was not my plan to spend my Sunday afternoon being coughed and sneezed on by the diseased masses, or constantly kicked by a toddler who was sitting next to me on the knee of his mother.

But I sat amongst the crowd and listened politely. There was the youth choir, followed by some saxophones – both excellent. Then, controversially, a primary school orchestra had muscled in on the event uninvited and they spent seven minutes torturing us with renditions of fuck knows what played on instruments that were all out of tune. Well done, Miss, you pushy twat! There was a brass band that played Mars from The Planets; it’s quite threatening enough as it is being the in heart of Greater Manchester’s answer to District 13 without having a terrifying soundtrack as accompaniment. They were OK though, in a sort of weird out of tune way that would have been quite good if it was intentional. Flutes. Recorders. Hey, nonny nonny, let’s get our Tudor thing on, and finally, the Salford Community Choir, which was very good and mercifully prompt at finishing in time for me to escape just before the football crowd emerged from the nearby Theatre of Shit.

I called in to my sister’s house on my way home. The little one was lying under a blanket on the sofa looking quite dreadful while Mum looked after her. I stayed just in time for my niece to throw up next to me. The last time I had a child with sickness bug do this, I succumbed myself two days later and what followed was the most dreadful day and half of aches, pains, shivers and vomit. Needless to say, I’ll spend the next two days monitoring all my physiological signs for any hint of being struck down myself. If I had my way, infectious diseases would be like that runic spell in “The Night of the Demon”, whereby, if you get exposed to an infectious agent but manage to pass it on to somebody else before the symptoms show, you don’t get ill yourself. It’s in the trees… it’s coming!

Women glow

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It is with great pleasure that I can announce that we’ve had summer. The past two weeks or so have erased the memories of the cold easterly chill that cursed us and made our bones shiver for so long. There has been warmth and sunshine. The nation is invigorated… and burnt to a fucking crisp.

After spending a few hours after work and most of the past two weekends exposing as much as myself as is decent to those wonderful, warming ultraviolet rays, I am carrying a healthy glow. My intention this weekend had been to get sunburnt to within an inch of my life, but sense took over and I saved myself the agony with a good covering of factor 8. I don’t think you can get factor 8 any more.

The smell of sun cream on my skin stimulates such joy. Then I rub it into my eyes and the resultant chemical reaction between Piz Buin and contact lenses causes my corneas to melt. But I don’t care, the tears don’t worry me because my ageing skin is protected for a full day. Apart from the skin on my nose, where the sun cream gets rubbed off pretty much as soon as it’s applied because of my need to constantly clear my nasal passages.

So here in bed, there is pleasant warmth radiating from my, hrrm, not sure what colour they are, “tanned” bits.

The little dog doth explodeth
As I entered my house after coming home from work on Friday afternoon, my joy at welcoming the sunny weekend was immediately turned to dread as a familiar smell hit my senses.

“Oh God, he’s pood”

I went upstairs and approached the bathroom, which is the usual scene of such crimes, to be met with faecal carnage the likes of which I’ve never encountered. The little dog had had a major sickness-induced explosive evacuation in the bathroom. My CSI skills concluded that, in an act of desperation, he’d had to poo in the bathroom, then again in the bathroom, and some more. He thought he was safe, so moved to the landing, where his explosive diarrhoea hit the carpet and the wall, then into my bedroom… where he threw up.

I never knew a dog could projectile vomit until Friday afternoon. I never knew a little dog could produce so much awful smelling poo from one little anus.

I’ve spent a good deal of this weekend pursuing him with a toilet roll and some wet wipes so I could clean his nasty little backside before he rubbed more germ-ridden shit on the carpets and soft furnishings.

And of course throughout all of this, he was trying to clean his own bum, so I had two shitty ends to deal with.

What on earth could have caused my poor little baby to get so poorly? Maybe it’s something to do with the fact that he’s a stupid fuck who prefers to drink stagnant water instead of the fresh stuff I carry around for him while we’re out on our walks.

And then there’s his love of rolling in stuff. Yesterday he surpassed himself with a dead fish. When I bathed him, the magic bubbles released from his fur: general dirt; poo; sand; grass; moss; fish remnants; goose poo; fox poo and la piece de resistance: a cricket.

GOD!

If EVER I think for one second about getting another dog, I will remind myself of this weekend.

Dry the rain

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In the second week of April, the temperatures finally attained a level that is more fitting of the season. And so it came to pass that we basked in the glorious sunshine dodged the wind and rain all weekend.

There’s always a trade-off: freezing cold temperatures, but beautiful sunshine; or relative warmth with wind and rain. It’s just the weather, we’re used to it being unreliable and unpredictable in this country, yet we still go on about it, mainly because it’s fucking shit.

Today though, I was not going to be defeated. The forecast told me it was going to be windy and cloudy with a slight chance of rain in the morning. It mattered because I was determined to dry my washing on the line. I pegged out my whites, which means non-darks, and observed the skies as the strong winds blew ever blackening clouds towards me and my clean washing.

I’ve never been so stressed in my life. So much so that, while my clothes dried eventually, they fell victim to having cigarette smoke blown onto them as I stood sentry in the yard, waiting for the precipitation to form heavier water droplets that signalled the onset of an unholy downpour. It didn’t happen.

Maybe next time I should wait for less perilous weather conditions before risking a stress-induced migraine and emphysema while drying my laundry.

Punch bag face
I’ve just waxed my moustache and plucked my eyebrows. I look like I’ve been punched in the face or attacked by a herd of angry wasps.

Who decides on those words for groups of things? What are the rules there? I suppose “herd” speaks for itself, i.e. anything that can be herded. But aren’t they called flocks of sheep and flocks of birds? Packs of dogs, packs of crisps. If you get prides of lions, do you get prides of sealions? Murder of crows? What? P-p-p-p-p-pickup a penguins.

Jeez.

Below the line
After whinging about how people in this country whinge about not having enough money for food and how they should learn to budget properly, plan and cook meals and that, I’m going to be doing something to try to put my money where my mouth is. From 29th April to 3rd May, I’ll be participating in the Live Below the Line challenge to try to raise some funds for UNICEF and to highlight the problems of poverty in the developing world. All I have to do is use no more than £5 for all my food and meals for five days. EASY! Or it least I thought it would be until I considered:

  • No coffee
  • No Pepsi Max
  • No store cupboard items
  • No fizzy water
  • No cigs (not a bad thing)


    • I went to Aldi today and was encouraged by their 19p packets of spaghetti. Let’s face it, I’m going to be living off pasta and beans on toast for five days. I’ll also be comatose and headachy through caffeine and cigarette withdrawal. But it’s a challenge that I will look forward to; this is a very worthy cause and I’m not going to be whinging my way through it. And it’s only five days, after which I have the luxury of being able to return to my relatively affluent lifestyle, many millions never have that opportunity.

    See through
    Another week of being prodded and poked beckons as the ongoing saga of misbehaving metabolism enters stage two: secondary diagnostics. First on the list is another blood test tomorrow. Tuesday I get to have low-level radiation fired at my bones to see if they’re still bones or whether they’re turning into sponge. I have to lie still while they do the scan, I’ll pretend that I’m on a sunny beach somewhere. Wednesday I’m back at the hospital to see the endocrinologist, but my DEXA scan results won’t be ready, so it’ll be a massive waste of time. Such bloody fun.

    In the meantime, I can’t donate blood, yet I’m being constantly bombarded by the blood people wanting O neg donors. Yes, yes, I KNOW stocks are low, but I can’t help at the moment because there’s actually nothing wrong with me.

    One positive aspect of all this is that I know my heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, pancreas and bladder are all absolutely fine. My duodenum, on the other hand, might be on the verge of bursting its contents into my peritoneum, which might kill me. But then at least, I wouldn’t have to worry about whether it’s a good drying day.

    Only when I laugh… or move… or breathe

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    Saturday: the bad beginning
    Saturday started much the same as any other: late waking; feeling tired, as per; wanting to get up and about and not waste the day. Feeling rougher than usual, I just blamed it on the excesses of my week off – too many late nights, a bit too much booze – and dragged myself into Bolton.

    As I mingled with the other zombies, my head was empty, dull and dizzy. Autopilot took over and I spent £100 before I realised it, inhaled a hotdog and made my way to Sainsbury’s to spend even more. Indigestion was kicking in, but I ignored it as usual.

    I prepared my dinner and sat down to eat while watching Bridesmaids. And then the pain really started. Radiating from my stomach, up into my left shoulder and down my left arm. It was just stomach ache, but it was bad enough for me not to be able to laugh at the pooing scene in the film.

    Needing help, I called my sister and asked for omeprazole, but when I went to collect it, she insisted on taking me to A&E “I think you’re having a heart attack”.

    “It’s just stomach ache”

    But she won and I ended up being wired up to an ECG machine, having tube after tube of blood taken for tests, chest x-rays and stomach palpations.

    Now, here’s a thing: always dress as if you might get murdered. I hadn’t shaved my legs for a week (electrodes for the ECG also go on your legs), my underwear wasn’t my best, but worst of all, I was in such pain when I left home that I couldn’t bend down to fasten my shoelaces so I’d just slipped my Crocs on. Yes, Crocs, in Casualty, in Salford, on a Saturday night. I fitted in quite well.

    My ECG was fine, my blood tests seemed ok, but at 3am, it was decided that I should stay in overnight so the tests could be repeated the following morning. I was happy with this because the pains had now radiated across my chest, I was experiencing a tightness there and it was difficult to breathe in. I was wheeled to the assessment unit and settled down for the night.

    Sunday: a nasty surprise
    I didn’t sleep: my stomach and chest were killing me; the lady opposite me was snoring; the one next to me was saying her Sunday prayers; and the one across from me was whimpering all night, needing help from the nursing staff.

    After and hour’s sleep, I was woken again for more blood to be taken and for more questions and prodding from a rather lovely doctor. The repeated tests showed I was fine, I hadn’t had a heart attack, just a little bit of gastritis. The consultant said he’d write me up for some omeprazole and I could go. He wandered off, then came back. “Your calcium level is three!” He seemed startled. “I can’t let you go, we’ll have to wash you out and bring it down before you can go.”

    Crestfallen, I lay in my bed as the drip went up, the chilled fluid flowing into the back of my right hand. Just one thing came to mind: how am I going to wipe my bum? If only they were euthanising me.

    Things weren’t all bad though, the staff were brilliant, lovely, respectful, humorous and the food was great. I’d be able to cope. I told myself a number of things: It’s only one night, it’ll be fine. Mum and Dad are looking after Rocky, I have my phone and the 3G signal is good here. My bed neighbour was a little confused and deaf, but she’s fine and the lady across from me has quietened down at last. Oh fuck, she’s died!

    My folks dropped in for a visit. “Do you need anything bringing? We can ask Alan to drop some things round later if you do.”

    “No, it’s fine, honestly, they’ll let me out by tomorrow lunchtime. Anna brought some things this morning so I can have a wash and do my teeth. I’m fine.”

    And then I got my period. This was turning into a challenging day, but things were made easier by the staff… and hospital toast.

    Monday: carry on nurse
    You wake up early when you’re in hospital. They come and do things to you at 6am, put things in your ear, light up your finger and make your arm explode. On Monday, however, I was woken by a strange, baleful humming coming from the right of me. My bed neighbour was stood up out of her bed, holding on the table. She’d completely transformed from the person she’d been just a few hours previously, poor woman.

    Don’t get involved, you’re out of here in a few hours. The consultant confirmed this to me on his round, “We just need to get your blood results back to make sure they’ve dropped and then you can go home.”

    I waited for a few hours before I asked my nurse if she could take the cannula out of my hand. “Better not just yet”, she smiled at me. What was that supposed to mean? Bored of sitting in the bedside chair, a snooze seemed appropriate so I got back into bed. And as if by magic, the doctor appeared, smiling.

    “Hiya, your heart tests are absolutely fine, so you should be able to go home…” I beamed a smile “… hang on… but your calcium levels have actually gone up, you’re going to have to stay in. There’s some medication we can give you and we’ll put a couple more litres of fluid through your drip, but you’ll have to stay another night.”

    Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!! I can’t go another moment trying to wipe my bum left-handed. I can’t stay here, I’m fine! The soup is delish though…

    And so another day had to be endured. Another day in which I’d perfected the institutionalised, slipper and gown, drip stand shuffle. This time though, I was becoming upset for the amazing standing woman and her poor, desperate family; for the lady opposite me who was inexplicably poorly; by the new woman across from me who refused to heed medical advice and who DIDN’T FLUSH THE FUCKING TOILET. It was getting to the stage where I wanted to staple her oxygen mask to her face. “You being poorly is unfortunate and of course you should be treated with the best possible therapies, but you not doing as you’re told is prolonging your illness, wasting these people’s time and costing money!”

    Then my medication kicked in and I dozed off. Sleep was never unbroken and I woke, pondering things like, why are all the really fit nurses looking after the other bays? It dawned on me: the Crocs had been noted in my records and I’d been labelled a potential perve risk. The last thing a busy hospital unit needs is a Benny Hill chase scenario.

    Tuesday: the ersatz ending
    I woke feeling fuzzy headed, the ward was calm. My bed neighbour was sat up in her bed, looking alert. “Morning!” she said, as if the previous day simply hadn’t happened. We had our usual triple repeat conversation and I felt so glad that she was back.

    The doctors came. If my calcium hadn’t gone down enough, they were going to admit me. This was getting ridiculous.

    As the morning progressed, I started to feel groggy, but I put it down to lack of fresh air. I slumped in my chair waiting for more bad news when the lovely Jose gave me a thumbs up and said “They’ve come down!”. The next thing I knew, I was being turfed out.

    Adios! Adieu! Ciao! I’m off!

    Into a taxi I hopped, off to my folks’ to be reunited with my little boy and to spend the evening convalescing. Showered and refreshed, I lay on the sofa and started aching, shivering, sweating. Now, if I wasn’t savvy, I wouldn’t have taken note of and looked up the drug they’d pumped into me to find out that it commonly causes flu-like symptoms and I’d have been straight back into hospital, thinking I was dying. So, Mr Doctor, nil point on that one.

    I spent the night feeling like I was dying, woke up drenched in sweat and aching like a bastard, but at least I didn’t have somebody poking something into my ear or making my arm explode. At least I could go to the toilet and I could wash my hands properly without fear of pulling a cannula out. And at last, my body was my own again.

    Wednesday: we’ve only just begun
    It’s far from over. There is still no confirmed diagnosis for my condition, and I left the hospital with very high calcium levels. I still feel weak, groggy and achy, but the sweats have stopped. My tummy is still a bit tender, but now I have antacids and I can steal omeprazole from my sister.

    There are some things that I can do for myself too: cut down on fatty food; cut out the booze; stay away from the chillies; lay off the ibuprofen; get some exercise.

    As far as hospital stays go, mine was fine and I was treated so well, but even if they do have the best homemade soup in the world, I’d rather not try it again.

    High on Sinex and Vaporub

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    Oh my life!

    These holes in my head have been blocked since December and they’re showing no signs of releasing me from the daily torture of nasal gore.

    Each morning, I awake with the instant need to expel the demons from my nostrils and I am met with at least three tissues worth of vileness. Hardened pea skins mixed with blooded bleurgh and red and green snot. The rest of the day my drips constantly, but no sneezing, which is one minor saving grace to this predicament.

    My poor brain is lacking in oxygen; I could be doing anything that I have no awareness of. Your honour.

    Even the milder nights that afford the opening of the bedroom window bring little relief.

    So much stuff has been shoved up my nose and in my mouth in an attempt to bring some blessed remission, yet nothing works. Tonight, I have resorted to this:

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    It’s a sinus washout pot and you do this with it:

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    That’s it: you fill it with a warm solution of whatever it is they provide with the thing, shove it up your nostril, tilt your head, et voila! it comes out of the other nostril, supposedly cleaning out all the sinus crap along the way.

    I’m not convinced. I just feel like I’ve been swimming upside down in chlorinated water.

    But don’t I look young in those photos? They’ve been retrieved from my old blog, which was far more entertaining and not at all censored like this one is. Poor me, life has aged me beyond my years. Or maybe it’s my sinuses, eating away at the life force within me.

    I’ll report back in tomorrow and let all ten of you know whether it’s worked. Of course, any sinus headache will have nothing whatsoever to do with the bottle of wine I drank tonight.

    Tally ho!

    Dr Feelgood

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    The electronic voice called out my name and invited me into my GP’s office. I knocked on the door and entered to find my beaming doctor waiting for me.

    “So, it was a good job I ordered a retest of your calcium levels!” she said, smiling, half proud, half relieved.

    “First of all I saw your phosphates were low, but then your calcium came back pretty high twice. So we’ll just see what happens with the scans that you need doing, but it’s good that we picked it up.”

    “Yes,” I responded (I need a refresher in UK vs US quotation marks and commas), “and now that I don’t have lung cancer any more, I can smoke again.”

    Of course, I resisted the temptation to throw that one in, but I did mention that it was nice that I wasn’t dying yet, trying to convey sincerity.

    The great thing about where I live, or rather where I pretend to live, is that the GPs have access to your hospital diagnostics because they have a rather snazzy integrated health records system. I mentioned the vitamin D therapy and she asked if I’d been retested at my recent hospital visit. Logging in, she noted my test results. “You really don’t need to take any more vitamin D!” she exclaimed, “and don’t be too concerned about your nearly dangerously high levels of calcium. You are feeling ok, aren’t you?”

    She’s lovely, my GP. When I first encountered her eleven or so years ago, it was to beg her to let me come off Seroxat, but she insisted that I stayed on them for at least a year. Today we discussed coming off my current medication and she allayed my concerns about the side effects of reducing its dose. I’m not concerned about coming off antidepressants, I don’t feel the need for my stabilisers any more, but coming off medication that affects your brain chemistry can have the most unwelcome effects on your synapses.

    So this is it. Fourteen months of hell are behind me, with the occasional wobble anticipated, and I am looking forward to finding myself again. Not certain what my next incarnation will be just yet, I’m certain that I’m never going to allow myself to be treated badly by anybody ever again.

    Huge bonus today was that I was actually served by the pharmacist when I picked up my scrip. She even spoke to me, asked me if I wanted a bag for the toothpaste I was buying. *sighs*

    Horsey, horsey
    The horse beef scandal has me slightly amused. Part of me thinks, this is actually a pretty dreadful state of affairs, which of course it is. Another part of me thinks, if people didn’t buy these crappy ready meals and cooked their own food with ingredients that they know are bona fido (sic) what they’re supposed to be, then they wouldn’t have these concerns. Plus, cooking your own stuff from scratch is cheaper and healthier and far more satisfying.

    It’s an educational and cultural problem that needs to be addressed, but other than banning ready meals and takeaways, I don’t see how it’s going to happen.

    I see harassed women at supermarkets with trolleys full of varieties of frozen ready meals for their families. One child will eat one thing, another something different, Mum something else, Dad, probably a takeaway. It just wasn’t like that when I was a kid. We all ate the same thing, prepared freshly by my mum, sometimes using off-cuts of meat, or bulking out a bolognese sauce with beans to make it go further.

    The supermarkets do try their best to give recipe ideas to people, “feed a family of four for a fiver” guides, Jamie Oliver has tried his best too. But unless people are actually taken to the supermarkets and shown what to buy and then how to cook it, allowing them to build the confidence to do it themselves, then nothing is going to change. I note, however, that the Government plans lessons in cooking in schools so that every school leaver will know how to cook 20 meals. This only applies to England and Wales because you don’t need lessons in deep frying mars bars and pizza.

    I made a simply delicious soup tonight. Unfortunately, it did turn into something akin to the Magic Porridge Pot and just kept growing and growing. I have some for lunch and dinner tomorrow, and possibly for lunch the day after. The fridge is still stocked with more of the vegetables to make some more, but I might donate these to my parents; I’m all souped out.

    Back to the horsebeef thing though, I’m expecting Waitrose or M&S to pull a marketing coup by starting to stock prime horse fillet on their shelves. “This is no ordinary rib-eye steak. This is our 28 day matured 84 oz Aintree rib-eye steak.”

    I thank you.

    Brown

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    So, in the sense of “so” I suppose, I’ve been trying to collect my wee all day today. Two things are apparent:

    1. My aim is poor
    2. I’ve not had enough to drink today

    I know number 2 is true because my collection is brown, rather than yellow. Maybe I should dilute it a bit to make it look more normal. Maybe that would be the most idiotic thing I could do.

    Hopefully I just have one more collection to go and I’ll be able to take the piss (ha ha ha) into the hospital tomorrow morning. I say hopefully one more collection because I really don’t want to be doing that palaver in the middle of the night.

    The whole thing hasn’t been as traumatic as I’d imagined and I’ve managed to get through the day without weeing on myself any more than I usually do.

    Go me.

    Hunger
    I’ve not been hungry today, despite eating about a fifth of what I normally would. This includes eating only one minty Viscount at Mum and Dad’s as opposed to the five or six that I’d normally demolish. Go me again.

    The one concern about this new eating regime is: how does the chew each mouthful twenty times before swallowing apply to soup? Since I’m now doing soup for lunch on a regular basis, this is something that I really need to know. Am I supposed to swish it around in my mouth twenty times as one would taste a wine? If I do this, will I get confused and spit instead of swallow? In addition, what about stuff like fruit? Do I really need to sit down at the table and put my cutlery down between each mouthful when I’m eating an apple? I think I might contact Paul McKenna to find out.

    Irrespective of these quandaries, day one of hypnotised Tina has been fine. I really enjoyed my dinner tonight and I really did feel satisfied having eaten about a fifth of what I’d normally have guzzled.

    And I’m doing this without counting calories or points or worrying too much about fat content or paying a subscription fee to a diet club. Because it’s not a diet I suppose, it’s effectively a new relationship with food.

    How do I approach a burrito from now on? Surely there’s only one way to tackle a burrito and that’s to shove as much in your gob as possible before the whole thing falls apart. We’ll see.

    This questioning of lifestyle change is very much akin to how things were when I gave up drinking so many years ago. What about my 30th birthday? What about going out for drinks after work? What about Christmas and New Year? What do I do if somebody offers me a drink?? It all turned out to be remarkably easy as it happened, I just asked for pop and told people that I didn’t want to drink any more. Some people were fucking arseholes about it, but the vast majority just accepted it as I had done. The pressure on people to drink alcohol in social situations is utterly ridiculous, society needs to grow the fuck up.

    Idiot
    I e-mailed my ex this morning. Something in me hopes she sends me straight to spam, but you know how it is when there’s something eating you up inside and you just feel compelled to get it off your chest? Well, short of driving to Derbyshire to find her and have it out with her, then ending up a blubbering wreck instead of a strong and forthright person with a valid argument and lots of pointy hand gestures, this was the best option.

    The upshot of it is, if the e-mail doesn’t go to delete unread, she knows I’m desperate for revenge (answers, closure), but I’m not going to do anything about it, however, I’ll be starting to reduce my dose of antidepressants starting next month.

    That’ll keep her on her toes.

    I shall now toss and turn and metaphorically punch myself in the head for two hours while I try to find sleep.

    I thank you.

    At the hospital

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    “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.

    Growing pains

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    I’ve been looking after my niece again this evening. The initial plan was for her Nanna to have her overnight, but the little girl plays tricks on poor Mother when she stays over. For some reason, she always wakes in the early hours and asks Mum to go and sleep with her in the spare bed. This results in my mum being kicked by the wriggler and not getting any sleep.

    Little Con’s latest thing is waking in the night with achy limbs, the dreaded growing pains. I remember how awful these can be from when my long bones were growing – they didn’t grow that much, admittedly, but still enough to cause night after night of the most horrible pain in my thighs, knees and hips.

    I prepared badly for tonight: no Calpol. I’m sure she’d be fine with a cocodamol should the need arise. She did have a nice warm bath before bed though, so I’m hoping that might go some way to help.

    Despite her constantly telling me that she doesn’t like spending time with me, she seemed to enjoy tonight. I’d bought her a new colouring book and a bribe Barbie comic in an attempt to get into her good books. Despite this, she stopped at one point, fell silent for a few seconds and said “I miss Tia”. Tia was her cat that had to be put down this week after a brain tumour or other such lesion manifested itself. It’s a hard thing to take for a little one and there’s that period of missing the animal and then worrying about forgetting them, especially when the only photo of the cat that her mum had was one that she’d taken on her mobile phone after it had been euthanised. The cat used to be sort of mine (another pet that my ex ex wanted before she wanted the dog) so I had some photos of her that I’d managed to take when she wasn’t skulking upstairs. In all honesty, it was the oddest cat I’ve ever come across and I wouldn’t be surprised if it had a brain tumour growing from the time that we acquired it. But Little Con loved her and it’s a shame that one so young has to learn about death.

    Death.

    After my recent skirmish with death, my health situation still isn’t resolved. My current concern is whether this super high dose vitamin D therapy is going to cause a massive increase in my calcium levels that actually push me into a coma or cause me a cardiac arrest. I spent most of the day feeling utterly dreadful (dizziness, ataxia and other weirdness). This was despite falling asleep at 8pm, then going to bed at 10pm last night and oversleeping until 8.30 this morning.

    What I also did last night was install an application on my phone called Sleeptalk, which is a noise-activated recording device that picks up and records all the sounds while you’re asleep. Intended as a bit of fun to see whether you talk in your sleep or to assess how bad your snoring is, I set it going then was in the land of nod by 10.30pm.

    Listening to the playback this morning, it became apparent that I need to do something every night: remove the little dog’s collar. I’d forgotten to last night and there are about twenty or more recordings of him scratching or shaking and jangling his collar and nametags loudly. I didn’t stir on any of these occasions, but the noise must cause some disturbance in the pattern of my sleep.

    I didn’t talk in my sleep, but there were a couple of moments where I could be heard turning over and “owing” at the pain in my back. And then there were the two occasions when I had to drink about a litre of fizzy water (then go for a pee) because I was so thirsty. My thirst got me worrying about side effects of hypercalcaemia then I let rationality back into my brain and blamed it on the huge anchovy pizza that I’d had for my tea.

    Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma cha… arse off

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    On a number of occasions over recent days the notion of “karma” has been brought to my attention.

    It’s OK that somebody can be hideous, or do something hideous, because the laws of karma dictate that they will get their arse bitten for their misdeeds in due course.

    I have constructed a very well thought-out and philosophical argument with respect to this discussion and my viewpoint is thus: what a load of absolute bollocks.

    The only way to ensure that somebody pays for their wrong doings is sweet revenge at the hands of those who have been wronged. The cleansing of the soul, that feeling of “YES, you bastard, you deserved that” can’t be put on hold while waiting for ripples of consequence to do their cosmic rounds and eventually, maybe, turn back into a tidal wave of shit that smacks the fucker in the face engulfs their entire being with all the crap they’ve poured onto others.

    Revenge allows this. Standing over somebody as they cry and plea for forgiveness, as they surrender when they can’t take any more of the unholy smiting you unleash on them, as their world falls apart around them and they are left, as you were, a wreck of a person cast against the rocks in an stormy unrelenting ocean of despair from which there is no rescue. They shall pay, and the currency is SCREAMING!

    Acts of vengeance are controlled, enacted and witnessed by those who have been wronged. They are certain. In one way or another, they allow closure, and maybe a stay at Her Majesty’s pleasure, but oh that sweet feeling of finally letting go of your demons would make the harshest environment seem like paradise compared to the life of hell and emotional turmoil that would otherwise be your certain destiny.

    Karma? For a start, there’s no evidence for it, in fact, all evidence is contrary. Horrible things keep happening to people who’ve never done any harm, yet nothing bad happens to complete shitbags. Even if karma did exist, there’s no control over it, it might just happen… one day, when you’re probably dead anyway. And you’ll probably never get to know that the bastard has had their comeuppance. It’s a rubbish notion and I’m firmly with the Old Testament on this one: go out and get revenge.

    And this is where I stop because my thoughts of revenge range from a few scratches on a car to The Life and Loves of a She Devil. Poor Bobbo.

    Poor Bobbo indeed.

    Rickety
    After much speculation as a result of allowing my imagination to run away with a few selected Google facts, I saw my GP for my test results this morning.

    He’s been reading up on my current history, he told me, as I sat down and awaited the bad news.

    The bad news is that I almost died of shame at having to be prescribed vitamin D because of a severe deficiency. In 2013, in the UK. I was actually hoping that he was going to prescribe me a month in Mauritius, precisely because I live in the UK in 2013 and we haven’t had a summer for six years. I might just go to the electric beach and pretend.

    In other news, I probably don’t have lung cancer, which I kind of knew anyway. I do have to go back for a second chest x-ray from a different angle… OMG! He didn’t want to break the bad news to me, did he? Maybe I DO have lung cancer and he didn’t want to be the one to tell me, certainly not at 7.30 am on a dreary Monday morning. I could tell the way he avoided eye contact with me. I’ll stop now, I need a second x-ray because the original image wasn’t good enough to prove conclusive and they have to be sure.

    So my hypochondria lives to see another day, and I live on to see many many more. Enough to plot and scheme and imagine dastardly deeds. Or just a few drunk texts.