At home!

My Internet problems continue. The next stage was testing the wireless from my room to the computer across the house - and there is still no connection (no sign of it in fact), even with the digital 'phone turned off. The wireless still works from the router to my PC so there is no reason to think that there is a hardware problem. It seems something is interfering with the signal. Maybe there are wires around the doorways causing problems, or maybe the other wireless signal that seems to be around (much stronger than ours!) is the reason. Whatever the cause, it makes what should be a fun pastime very frustrating.

Lots of meetings this week, and when the nurse came to do my port flush I ran to meet her without any breathlessness (not overenthusiasm so much as embarrassment - I had been driving off when she turned up). A small bit of stitch still remained after the last port op. and it had been catching on shirts and other clothing causing untouchable irritation, so that was also cut off. The interesting news from the appointment is that my blood results - for which my consultant was waiting on regarding Itraconazole - finally came through yesterday (after about five weeks); the results were just acceptable, but the reason for the delay is that bloods seem all to be going to another hospital. Very strange.

I have been taking lots of no.15, the anti-inflammatory, cooling tincture. It has worked, but cannot cope with the worst of the heat. Even with lots of water and salt tablets I still end up with thick, dry sputum. It is irritating, causes sometimes violent coughs and does not really want to come up. The only thing to do sadly is to take everything possible and get through it. Similarly the hay fever largely just has to be endured.

I have also seen the Osteopath a couple more times (actually two different practitioners). It seems that after my surgery my upper spine, and thus my upper ribs, neck and shoulders, was left very tight. So while I did not appear to have much of the usual defensiveness (hunching of the shoulders, upper arm leaning forward), the area needed a lot of work (and still needs more since both upper an lower ribs had suffered again with all the coughing in the heat).

Lots of things have changed in the last couple of weeks but nothing unusual healthwise!

by Picks-at-Flies  Comments

From work again

I still have no Itraconazole (it has been about four weeks now). To an extent I have given up chasing it for the moment since I realised that there might be another reason for my lungs: dust. Over the last five months of tiredness and frustration, I have slowly but inevitably let my paperwork build up. I finally have tidied away my cards (one of my hobbies) into boxes, but every time I look at the paperwork with an eye to clearing it, my body shudders.

I was recently reminded how much my life depends on adrenaline. It would not be much of a stretch to believe that I need to tap adrenaline to get me out of bed in the morning and that it does not leave my system until I am asleep. And this is causing me the problems now: to clear my paperwork requires a surge of adrenalin, and curiously it doesn’t really want to flow for tedious annoying tasks like that.

The other problem at the moment is that since I spent a lot of energy (and adrenalin!) writing this big letter for the church, I have not been able to get to sleep at a decent time. It takes adrenalin to eat in the evenings, and then adrenalin to get to bed… so by the time I am there I am pretty wound up. So even if I get to bed at a reasonable time, I get easily distracted and still stay up late. Even going to the gym – normally a good way to get nicely tired – did not solve anything. Nor have the days when I have slept in the afternoon/evening.

However, the aim is to slowly (or quickly) dredge up enough energy to tidy my room and then dust it. The process has been helped by the removal of my friend’s stuff back to Morocco. This stuff has been replaced by an incredibly heavy an awkward chest of drawers from the next house (there went more energy as I took it up and down stairs), but it did enable us to remove a lot of dust, and the chest will even hold random things until my sister can get a house to put it in.

On a random note, I was given a “stress ball” this week which is too solid to ease any stress at all. However, it does seem to be reasonably good at increasing the strength of my grip. It keeps me busy at work while I try and sort out my email from here.

by Picks-at-Flies  Comments