Still improving but still sad.

My own health is currently better than it has been for quite a while and seems to be holding. I still have some big problems first thing in the morning and last thing at night with my socks!!!!! but other than that I am a fully functional person again. Today is our son and daughter-in-law's wedding anniversary so most of the family are having a celebratory meal. janis, our camper van is back on the road and also functioning well now and we are hoping to manage a UK holiday in her next year when I have retired (see above). I am also stocking up as best I can with components for my retirement hobby. Both of these areas are recorded on their own blogs as listed below left.

Some you win.................

Whilst in the throes of improving my own health, one of my closest friends, Fred, has died very suddenly.
 He and I worked together at Freedom Fields Hospital when Sally was born and we remained friends when I left. I went to Plymouth Sound and he moved to Derriford when Freedom Fields closed but he still visited me every Wednesday when our shifts allowed. Just before we went on our summer holiday earlier this summer, Fred collapsed and was taken to ICU at Derriford. When we returned from our break, another friend told us where he was and Hazel and I went up to see him. He was in an induced coma and seriously ill. That's when we discovered that he had developed Myasthenia Gravis, a very debilitating genetic disorder that affects the muscles of the neck among other things. Freds father has it but nowhere near as bad. Anyway, over the following weeks, Fred slowly recovered but, having had a tracheotomy, was unable to speak and had some breathing problems. Nonetheless, last Tuesday he left hospital and moved into a good nursing home to recuperate. Hazel and I visited him on Thursday evening and he was pretty upbeat and joking with us. On Saturday evening we had a bit of a shock when we were told that he had collapsed again and had died almost instantly. It seems that, whilst in hospital, he was also diagnosed with a faulty heart muscle which would have required open heart surgery. As he needed to at least partly recover from his recent illness, he was told it would be a while before he would have the surgery. Sadly, he never got it and his heart problem appears to be what killed him. We are now waiting for the post mortem to be completed in order for a funeral to be planned. Makes you think!

Beginning to catch up a bit now...........

The hydrotherapy is beginning to bite, I am feeling the burn, even underwater, and muscles are relaxing and smoothing out. I am also having success with my walking correctly regime, that is also painful sometimes but I am about ready now to go back to my normal walking shoes again.

I'm confessin'.............................

Forgive me blogosphere, it's been a month since my last blog.

The truth is, I wasn't too well for quite a while and, with all the other problems around me, I just didn't have the energy to get stuck into this blog. However, most of my other concerns are now sorted to at least a manageable point and, after some treatment, I am now out of that painful place I was a month ago.

The family are all on the mend again and Fred has now left ICU and is taking notice again. Russ is better than he was and we are back to making plans for our break in September.

My treatment has been interesting, after a consultation at the Pain clinic, I have had traditional pain killers, a TENS unit, acupuncture and hydrotherapy. All seem to have worked well for me and I am amazed how much has been achieved without resorting to opiates. In addition, my job has finally settled a bit now with less of a backlog of email all the time. We still have to work hard at them to keep them down but at least we are now able to keep them down. 

I ATEN'T DED

As Granny Weatherwax is prone to declare.

I went on a holiday and then, when I returned, my back finally gave up. The first week I also had a lot of pain in my hip although that has mostly now gone. Two visits to the pain clinic have also improved me somewhat and I am aiming for a partial permanent return to work soon. Life over the past couple of weeks has been both painful and boring but is now beginning to even out again.

I have been so tied up recently,

I even missed the rollover to less than 300 days to my retirement. A sad indictment of my life at present. The family is managing to cope with the health problems that most of us have but it's been touch and go a few times. We have managed to keep a lot of the problems away from the children but, inevitably, there has been some disruption for both boys because of the chaos we adults have had to wade through. The worst problems have been the fault of mistakes by and lack of interest from the health service. The local hospital seems to have been on a permanent 'Black Alert' for at least a month and even when a bed was made available, there was very little care provided for a very sick young lady. More than one operation went wrong and nursing staff have failed to offer even the most basic care at times. The best quote being, "We didn't have time to deal with her". Our problems are still not over as Lulu still needs care at home and, despite two assurances that it had been done, no visiting nurse had been booked. The next concern is when Wendy has her operation next week. The up side has been my visit to the pain clinic. Very helpful staff and a doctor who had actually read my notes. I received some very helpful advice and the promise of some therapy in the near future. The advice was to buy and use a TENS unit and it has already, in a very short space of time, made a substantial difference to the amount of pain I am in. By that, I mean it has diminished.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho etc.

Regular readers will know by now that a severe lack of posts usually indicates that I am very busy at work.

Well, last week, this was true with knobs on! I haven't had any time to myself either at work or at home.The new job was always going to take a lot of time but last week was the first week of a new term and that really ramps up the support calls. For three days, we couldn't get them below 100 emails waiting. As soon as we cleared one,another or two arrived. By Thursday, we began to make an impression and by Friday we had got it down to a dull roar of just over 30. Of course, whilst all this was going on, we were also answering phone calls and logging them as well.

At home, Lulu went in for her operation on Thursday morning and we have been looking after Corey pretty much full time since then. Glad to be of help but last night I was so tired I wanted a lie in today. I didn't get one as I had to take Ian up tothe hospital at ten to see Lulu.