Health

Forgive Me, Father, For I Have Sinned

| Richard

It’s been a while since I updated this blog.

I’ve been so busy and every time I sat down to update, something else would come up, so …

On the Friday afternoon after the last update I rode up to Silverstone for Kevin Ash’s memorial lap which was a fitting tribute.

I'm on the black bike with the video camera on my helmet
I’m on the black bike with the video camera on my helmet

Saturday and I thought I should do some more cycling: I’ve injured my knee in my training for the Berlin Marathon and had to call it off for this year on the advice of my Consultant, though I’ll still be there to support GT. So off I went for another quick explore along the Thames Path, South and North: 11 and a bit miles in all. Great fun.

Iced Tea stop at Greenwich
Iced Tea stop at Greenwich

The following Saturday saw the start of the new football season. Jack and I have now moved seats to a more central location – which meant paying full adult season ticket rates for him as well as me – from where we watched Norwich get a draw against Everton.

The View From...
The View From…

The following week saw loads of hard work and travelling between offices, interspersed with blood tests and seeing my Consultant and Physiotherapist – with whom I’m so comfortable, I started undressing whilst she was still in the cubicle talking to me. And an after-work meal with colleagues at the Folly. We found out the next day that my colleague from Colchester fell asleep on the train home and ended up in Ipswich. No trains back so he had to wait until after 1.00am for an airport coach which dropped him off in Colchester at 2.00am but the other side from the station so he had to walk through Colchester at kicking out time, stopped off for a kebab en route and got in at 3.00am. He’d forgotten we were out for the evening so had only sent a text to his wife at the last minute…

The following weekend ended on the Bank Holiday with my upping my pushbike mileage to 20 miles as I continued past Greenwich – and the obligatory stop for an iced tea – and on to Woolwich where I caught the ferry across for the first time since the late 80s. Nothing’s changed. Saturday had been off to GT’s for the evening and some shopping the next day: some killer heels from Kurt Geiger.

Cutty Sark at Greenwich
Cutty Sark at Greenwich
Urbex
Urbex
Thames Barrier
Thames Barrier

 

A shorter work week – with more doctor’s visits – ending with Club Antichrist on the Friday night with Alix. Great fun! Home at a reasonable time, though, as I was off to Norfolk again the following day.

The following week started well with a fundraising burlesque event for Dixie Evans at Volupté which meant a whole load of cocktails mixed by Josie, including an utterly fabulous Amaretto Sour (or two) (two measures of Amaretto, one of strawberry syrup/liqueur, lemon juice, Angostura bitters and an egg white). And the week ended on a high note with a meal at an Italian restaurant in Ewell Village with GT and shopping for leather jackets for her.

And the small matter of a 20 mile pushbike ride on the Sunday morning down to Hampton Court, following GT as she’s training hard for the Berlin Marathon. Mad woman!

Oh and talking of leather, I ordered a gas mask and a bespoke ladies’ white leather straitjacket, which will both probably find use in one or both of these locations:

Passage
Passage
Deserted
Deserted

 

One evening that week, walking home from work, I came across the London Air Ambulance landed on Potters Field by Tower Bridge as a cyclist had been squished. I happened to take a quick iPhone shot of the landing site pausing only to try to set it up as best I could and then I uploaded the image to Instagram. That night, a local news site picked up on it and asked if they could use the credited photo on their site, which they did. The next morning it was picked up by ITV News and used on their site with credit (eventually). And the London Air Ambulance themselves picked up on it and asked me if they could use it for their promotional stuff. I was happy to licence it to them and indeed made a bigger version for them as the original would be too small for print:

London Air Ambulance at Tower Bridge
London Air Ambulance at Tower Bridge

That week, I also heard that I would be heading off to Canada for a week in October and another trip there in December, both for work.

And we’re almost up to date! Last week started off with a hospital appointment for some 18 burns to be applied to my face… It improved significantly with an impromptu gig – Kings of Leon at the Roundhouse courtesy of the iTunes Festival. A great gig!

King of Leon
Kings of Leon

Saturday was spent relaxing … and another 20.7 mile ride on the pushbike which I’d fitted with a new gel MTB seat. This appears to have made only a slight difference: at 17 miles when I have a load of cobbled streets to ride over, my arse still hurts! But at least today there were some random Morris Dancers out:

Morris Dancers
Morris Dancers

6% Chance of Dying

| Richard

So today I had my check-up at the doctor’s surgery. It turns out that I’d lost two kilos and 1cm around my muffin-top since my last visit, my BP was down to a better 128/78 and everything else was OK apart from my cholesterol which was reading 5.2 which is actual below the average UK level for men.

When all the stuff is put into a calculator, it means that in the next 10 years, I have a 6% chance of dying from a heart attack or stroke. Or put another way, a 94% chance I won’t.

Which is nice.

So, more vegetable soup for the next two days and repeat again (hopefully not ad nauseum…).

Not Dead Yet

| Richard

A very curious weekend.

On Friday, a friend gave me a big bag of Revels and a big bag of Maltesers in return for picking their son and his sleepover stuff up after football practice on Saturday and depositing them at their house. The fact that I was doing the coaching and would need to drive within a few yards of their house on my way home didn’t seem to be a consideration, but despite protests from Mrs Blue, she went ahead and insisted on my having the love from chocolate. Jack was having his mate sleepover here on Friday night and I had a burger and southern-fried potatoes for tea with them (having consumed most of the Revels before helping Amy with her paper round as usual). I woke during the night in a lot of pain from my chest – it felt like I had pulled a muscle in my chest or back and so a fitful night ensued. I even popped a couple of Rennies in during the night which seemed to help a bit.

On Saturday night, I cooked a nice king prawn korma with cauliflower, peas and carrots in the curry, served with boiled rice and naan bread. Nothing too spicy. I was in bed well before midnight and was woken by a bad chest pain again around 1.00am ish. I got up and walked about before going back to bed and eventually managing to drift off. 3.30am and I was in serious pain. My left arm had gone cold as sometimes happens when my sleeve gets wrapped a bit tight around my shoulder. But it was the pain in my chest that was a bastard.

Now I know what you’re thinking. But I knew I wasn’t in pain in my shoulder or arm. No nausea. No sweating. Downstairs, our Big Family Book of Hypochondria had a handy flowchart. Sliding my finger across to the first box, it read “call an ambulance”. Pfft! I fired up my lappy and visited the NHS Direct web site. {Clickety-click} “Call an ambulance immediately.” Pfft! Rang them: “we’ll send an ambulance”. “No thanks,” quoth I, “can I speak to someone as I think it’s indigestion.” So I spoke to a triage nurse sort of person. Very helpful he was, even after I’d dismissed the option of … an ambulance. He suggested I tried sleeping sitting up as if it was caused by acid in my stomach, it’s best to allow gravity to help out. I should avoid Ibuprofen for the pain as that can irritate the stomach too. So I took another couple of Rennies and a couple of Paracetamol and sat down to sleep. Amazingly, I did snatch another two or three hours’s sleep.

Sunday morning and it’s a football match, so I headed up to the park to carry a couple of goalposts and erect them. Some shortness of breath but then they are aluminium and 3/4 size, so that’s not too surprising. Then I ran around for the next hour refereeing the game – end to end stuff, so lots of running for me. No problems at all. Then cooked some pasta and tomato for lunch and chicken and mushrooms in a mushroom sauce with tagliatelle for tea. Jane had bought some Gaviscon and fruit Rennies during the day, so before turning in I swigged 20ml of the Gaviscon – which smelled of peppermint but tasted of cheap Playdoh-substitute – and settled down. 1.30am and I’m up, chewing a couple of Rennies. Back to bed and awake at 7.00am this morning.

Today sees mithering from Jane about making an appointment to see the doctor. 12.50pm and I’m seeing the duty doctor. She looks aghast as I tell her about the ambulance refusals. Checks my blood pressure and history, then orders an ECG. So little squares are shaved out of my chest hair and legs and I’m wired up. All checks out normal, apparently. We go through everything else before she prescribes some PPIs (Lansoprazole). The NHS Direct says:

However, you need to consult your GP first if:

  • You are 45 years or older with new or recently changed symptoms of indigestion.

Ah.

So anyway, we’ll see if they fix whatever’s broken. And amongst the side-effects for men is the possibility of breast growth. Result!