Mutton perhaps

Yesterday was a ropey day. My abdomen was playing up badly. By the afternoon all I felt up to doing was lying down & keeping as still as possible. This 8, now 7, week wait to go to the hospital seems a long time. I'm already looking eagerly for the letter in the post from the hospital with the appointment date & time.

It was pity. We actually had predominantly blue skies. It would be a great day to go out for a bit.

Today it's once more grey & wet. Typical. We're hoping to get off to the Farmers' Market later on. There wasn't one last month. We missed it. The meat in particular tends to be of so much better quality at a similar, if not lesser, price than the supermarket.

I'm contemplating trying to see if I can buy some mutton. I've never tried mutton, always lamb. I think this stall is the first place I've ever seen that sells mutton. From all accounts it is supposed to be more packed with flavour than lamb, though I do appreciate the delicacy of the latter.

Mutton does really seem to have gone out of favour in this country. I appreciate if it's a very old animal, it may be very tough & unexciting, But I can't see why there shouldn't be something inbetween, a stage where the animal has matured sufficiently to add more depth of flavour without excess toughness. 

Anyhow, we'll see. I'm also thinking of buying a leg of lamb to roast at the weekend. We haven't had a roast for a while - the last time was when the Fox roasted a pheasant at the beginning of the month. I'm also hoping to get some pork steaks & some sausages. I had to resort to some sausages from another source earlier in the month - and very sorry examples of a sausage they proved to be, tough-skinned & flavourless.

Now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that we don't get too wet in the process. It looks more like a day of showers rather than the non-stop onslaught we had earlier in the week. 

On it goes

Still it comes. It rained all day yesterday. If anything it seems even heavier today. There's just no let up. Needless to say the way to the greenhouse is once more flooded. The bog garden now extends pretty well across half the patio area. However it is nowhere near the house yet & that's the main thing. The garden will recover. I obviously did a good job when I re-planted the bog garden. All previously efforts have drowned but these plants seem to be really flourishing in this year's rains. 

The next thing I will do is update you on my hunt for a diagnosis for my abdominal pains. The doctor has decided that the next stage is another visit to the hospital to see someone with more specialised knowledge. He is inclined to suspect that I am right in my analysis & that Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is the most probable cause. In the meantime he's put me on a different antispasmodic, one specifically designed to treat IBS. It does seem more efficient. I've even had a couple of painfree days & nights, a chance to catch up on my sleep a bit. However, it hasn't solved the problem, though the character & frequency of the pain has reduced & altered. He also told me there is an 8 week waiting list for the hospital. I reckon that makes it December before anything more will be known. The waiting continues.
 
Yesterday a different home help came. Angie, our usual helper, is off as her youngest daughter went into labour during the night. Her daughter is only 17 & wants her mother there for support. Next week Angie herself is having a minor op so won't be working. In the meantime the care agency is sending someone else, Debbie.

Debbie & I are struggling to find common ground at the moment. Last time she came, when Angie was holiday, Debbie was keen to talk about the Olympics which were then on - not a topic of great interest for me as you will realise. This time she was keen to discuss the TV soaps, especially "Eastenders" - she's a Londoner herself - or "X Factor". I don't watch either programme. Indeed I don't watch much TV at all. I resist watching daytime TV. And by the time I've eaten dinner & got changed, I'm either ready for bed or we tend to spend the evening chuntering over a bottle of wine with music in the air. Indeed yesterday I only watched the news & "University Challenge". It's rare that I watch more than an hour in the evening. As for soaps, I don't watch any. I just follow "The Archers" on Radio 4 - an old link with my mother who was a keen fan. 

I wonder what Debbie will think might interest me next week. 

Treading water

Once more it's time for the food shop. Just a small top-up shop this week. 

Tomorrow we go on the next stage in the search for a diagnosis as to what is causing me so much pain & us both so much anxiety & loss of sleep, i.e. we're off to see the doc & discover what next he suggests, what new test he thinks I ought to have.

We both will be relieved to know exactly what the problem is. Even if it's something dire - which I don't really think it is - at least we will be able to adjust our life accordingly, get appropriate medical treatment to ease the situation. As it is neither of us feel we can make any plans. How I will be on a particular day has long been questionable but there have been certain parameters to work within. I have known if I can take things easy for a few days - the very idea of which instantly makes me want to do things so contrary am I - I can usually do most things. Now we daren't even commit to going out for a meal with friends without wondering if we'll make it. The idea of a holiday, which appeals greatly to us after this sunless summer, is just impossible, even if it is only for a weekend. Anxieties over benefits have faded in the background. We've still not heard anything about them.

Anyhow as we're off to get food today, the Fox has prepared a quick Tuna Macaroni for dinner tonight. It's all ready to go in the oven as soon as we're back from the shops. It will cook unattended while we put our purchases away. Tomorrow I'm go to make a great pan of Pea & Mint Soup with Prosciutto in the morning. We'll buy some fresh bread on the way back from the surgery. We'll decide is we want anything more after we've had the soup. There's a quick microwaveable meal in the freezer we can have. Or a pizza. Or eggs for an omelette. As I say we will decide after the soup has gone.

I just hope we get answers soon.

Cold sets in

It rained all day yesterday. As we ate dinner, there was a brief break before the next downpour. So it was with some surprise I got up this morning to see bright blue skies. I contemplated putting my washing out to dry, especially as there was a good wind blowing to speed the drying process. I decided to leave it until I'd had my wash & brush. Sure enough the rain was back. The odd grey cloud I'd first seen was no longer the "odd" cloud but one vast cloud covering the sky. 

As for temperatures, they've sunk rapidly over the weekend. On Thursday evening we had to resort to the central heating. It's been on ever since. Just twice a day, a couple of hours in the early morning & again in the evening. We've needed it & felt no temptation to switch it off again. I can see this is going to be an expensive winter for fuel.

Indeed it's been an expensive year for fuel. We'd had to have the heating on even in June, & now it's once more on even though it's still September. There's no denying it, being disabled means you don't move around much to keep warm as well as you're not out of the house much, working or socialising, to keep warm that way either. The summer clothes have been put away. The thick woollies are once more being layered up.

Maybe the spicy meal I'm intending to make for dinner will help stoke up the internal boilers. We're having bobotie, a South African dish - we're off to South Africa  this way even if we can't actually get there by plane as we were hoping.

Getting out

I had been hoping to get off on the Mean Machine, my electric scooter, down to the fish shop this morning. We're having salmon for dinner tonight, a Japanese recipe for a change. However this week we seem to be once more in the land of rain & hail, & the Mean Machine doesn't like the wet any more than I do. Still we can go off in the car this afternoon when we're also intending to go to the butchers' for some chicken thighs for tomorrow's spicy chicken. It will just be another stop on the way.

I do enjoy my little trips on the Mean Machine. I usually go along the prom which gives me ample opportunity to look across Morecambe Bay over to the Lakeland fells & the Furness peninsula, to watch the changing light & the busy seabirds. It's also a chance to see & exchange greetings with the many friendly folk walking along the prom, usually accompanied by their dogs. The prom is a much favoured dog walking area. The dogs are sometimes let off their leads to go & play on the sands & splash in the shallow waters as they come onto the sands. Sometimes I watch the children playing in the fountains along the way, especially when it's a warm sunny day. Above all I appreciate just being in the fresh air, ideally with some warmth on my skin. The latter would certainly have been unlikely today.

It's one of the things you miss about having a mobility problem. Most of the time spent out is a quick dive in & out of the car to & from a building, be it shop, surgery or pub. The time is so brief you rarely have opportunity to smell the air, let alone to stop to meet someone, even just to say hello. I'm quite sure it's this refound sense of liberation & independence which  gives so many scooter users that benign, rather silly, beam on their faces. It's almost impossible to stop the grin appearing.

PS The urge to go to the shops is also a sign that the abdominal pain isn't playing up today. It always seems to be worse at night, though these days it does seem to be continuing  increasingly into the daytime as well. 

My readers

One of the features of the new Google blog system is that you can get all sorts of statistics about your blog & its readership. One of the things that bemuses me is that you can find out how many readers you have and what part of the world they come from, though not so detailed as to their identity. The thing that bemuses me is that a large part of my readership comes from Russia. 

I noticed this readership dried up during the month of August. It's back again now. What I can't understand is what the attraction of my blog is for an unknown Russian, let alone so many of them. And why they only read on weekdays & not in high summer. My conclusion is that I must somehow have got into an English course somehow, an example of the use of the language & a possible source of what everyday life is like for someone living in this country. Their disappearance in summer is due to the fact, as in this country, educational courses stop for the summer.

If that is the case, why choose my blog for such a purpose? It's not as though my literary skills are exceptional. I may use a wider range of vocabulary than some people. I think it is fairly obvious I am well educated from my use of words. But it's not as though I'm the great stylist, or the most subtle user of the language & grammar. 

As for the subject matter, my life I wouldn't have thought was particularly interesting or even typical. With being disabled what I can do is limited. I don't get out that much, have a wild social life, have a fascinating job. I just sit at home most of the time, doing jigsaws, listening to the radio, watching the TV, reading, chuntering with the Fox, enjoying food & wine, the garden & its wildlife - not exactly a lot.

Or am I actually under observation by the KGB? They can't believe all this everyday subject matter is real & are trying to sort out some coded message. If that's the case they have a long job ahead of them as there isn't any.

Other members of the audience I can understand. Most of the British readership is primarily going to be family and friends. It is for them I essentially write. It seems an easy way to involve them in my life, reassure them we're still alive & not doing too badly. I know some of my cousins. who I've only really got to know this century, found it a useful means of finding out something about me & what interests me. They've even said they often find it amusing, though I haven't had anything very entertaining to write about of late, just rather grim news on the health side.

I suppose, too, I write this blog as a sort of way to get things off my chest, to let them out rather than bottle them in. I also get a certain pleasure in recalling incidents & observations that have given me pleasure before, so doubling the experience. I hope, too, that it will give some pleasure to any readers. I do try to bring a bit of variation in what I write about, at times difficult when I don't actually do much. But then one thing I am still capable of doing is thinking, ruminating on things, so I try to share some of those stray thoughts.

I often speculate about my readers & what they find of interest  in what I write. But this Russian audience really intrigues me. Why don't one of you make a comment to explain the fascination? 

End of the Olympics & Paralympics 2012

It is with relief I look at the TV listings & don't see great chunks of it devoted to the Olympics & Paralympics. As non-sport enthusiasts this summer has been a matter of endurance. Even the couple of weeks break between the two lots of games was overshadowed by the awareness the next lot would soon be coming.

The coverage of the games has been thorough. Two whole channels were devoted to the Olympics. Every news channel, current affair programme, celebrity interview type programme on radio or television was dominated by them. Great if you're sports mad, a bore if you're not. The Paralympics wasn't quite so thorough, with only the one TV channel devoted to the subject, but nonetheless substantial coverage was to be found elsewhere.

So now it comes to an end & life gets back to normal. The one remaining question is the legacy of the events. 

Personally I can't help questioning if there will be any long term legacy. Certainly the morale of the nation seems higher but once people get back to earth, & are once more concentrated on the reality of austerity Britain & the problems the country, the world, face, I wonder how long that will last.

As for the Paralympics, they seem to think they will have raised the standing of disabled people. I can't help wondering about this. 

I'm sure the appreciation that disabled people can have value, however severely disabled they may be, will remain with some people, especially if they have had more, closer contact with disabled people. However, I fear that some people will come away with the view that disabled people are really just as capable as non-disabled if they just put there mind to it.

What the average non-disabled person doesn't seem to realise is that the type of wheelchairs & prosthetics needed to partake in sports cost thousands & are not supplied by the NHS. Without expensive aids & assistance, even the most eager disabled person remains disabled, incapable of pushing themselves long distances.

Equally I suspect that these disabled athletes are the exception rather than the norm. Most disabled people suffering with severe pain & fatigue just couldn't begin to think of being so active.

As for locally, I somehow cannot imagine if I turned up at my local sports centre, council run or otherwise, it will suddenly have the facilities to enable me to participate in anything, any more now than before.

What I fear is that this more positive, rosy-tinted attitude towards disabled people may end up making life even harder for disabled people. Are they to face more abuse for being lazy scroungers of the benefit system? Are they to be told they can get up and walk just by dint of will & if they can't it's their fault for not making the effort? I hope not. It is not a choice. If I had the choice I would be fit & healthy once more, able to do whatever I want, capable of coping with any adversity that came my way, be once more independent. But I know wishing won't achieve that.
 

Back to waiting

As predicted, the scan found nothing. I go back to see the GP on the 19th. Unless, on further inspection of the results something new is discovered, I suspect we're going to have another wait for another hospital appointment. My conviction that it has something to do with the digestive system, probably the bowels, remains, even grows. In the meantime I have more frequent & more intense  spells of pain, especially at night, around 2am.

On Thursday we both had to go for 6-monthly Blood Pressure (BP) readings. We were not surprised to discover our BPs were up. The Fox's BP the nurse wasn't too concerned about. It was still at an acceptable level. Mine, though, has shot up more worryingly & she insisted I came again next month for another reading. When we explained what had been happening in our lives lately, she could quite understand why our BPs were up - a reflection of our anxiety at the moment. She's hoping, after seeing the GP & maybe being reassured, my BP will go down. I suspect this spell of anxiety is set to go on for considerably longer than one month.

Then, when we came back from the surgery, the fridge broke, not seriously but sufficiently to make it impossible to keep the usual food items in the fridge door. The inside shelving of the fridge was already full of food. We hastily set out again. Fortunately, just a few streets away from us is a discount electrical store. We found another larder fridge to buy. It was delivered promptly next day. We once more have a fridge.
 
Meanwhile we try for a little light relief by watching the antics of a tiny coal tit that has discovered our feeders. It seems incredibly tame. The other day, I put my washing out. It let me come within a couple of feet of it, before flying off. I find something quite endearing about the way the white stripe goes over his head.

To the hospital

It's the hospital later this morning, for the scan. I'm in preparation already. Instructions came with the appointment. Nothing to eat for 5 hours before - not so difficult when some of that time is spent asleep in bed. Drink only water, or fat-free flavoured water such as milk-free coffee or tea. Unfortunately I like neither of the latter. I did contemplate having a squash, just to flavour the water. The bottle says it's fat free but is the sugar in it regarded as food? I'm playing safe with just water. Drink a pint and a half of water - so far I've had  three quarters of a pint. No going to the toilet in the last hour so you have a full bladder. I'm assuming that means the pint and a half of liquid has to be consumed after the last visit to the loo. I'm also hoping the seat belt doesn't press to tightly on my tum for the drive to the hospital. My one consolation is there should be an accessible loo to go to immediately afterwards.

On the whole I rebel against routine. I'm almost the opposite of someone  suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), but one thing I am compulsive about is going to the loo before leaving the house. The idea of not going, especially when I will have a full bladder, goes totally against the grain. 

I suppose it dates from childhood. One thing my mother would always insist on when we were going out, along with putting outdoor shoes & coats on, was to go to the loo. The habit stuck.

The worst of it is, I'm not convinced this scan is going to achieve anything. The one thing it won't find is if there is a problem with the bowel. As time goes on, the more I'm convinced it is to do with the bowel system. I suppose, though, it's a case of the GP eliminating the most probable before going onto the less likely. We'll soon find out. 

I'm just grateful for once it is to the hospital in Morecambe we go so we don't have to face the traffic & parking problems of Lancaster. It will also a briefer journey with that seat belt pressing on my full bladder!

All scrubbed clean

As the computer boots up, I'm aware my eyes are stinging. Then I remember & rush off to scrub my hands vigorously. I'd just been getting dinner on the go. And yes, I had chopped a whole red chilli. I had not bothered to wash my hands thoroughly. By the time I'd washed through the various knives, spoons, chopping board, saucepan after putting all the food into Big Ears, the slow cooker, I'd just assumed my hands were clean enough. Then I'd blown my nose & wiped my eyes - tearful still from the onion chopping. Clearly still more scrubbing was needed to get rid of the chilli juices before I tried wiping my eyes again.

Thursday we ended up going briefly into Lancaster, not the city centre, rather up to the leisure village near Williamson Park above the city. We'd been told there was a good butcher/farmers' market there as well as a brewery to look round with a nice bar. We were disappointed. The meat didn't look brilliant to us. The pub smelt so much of the malt & hops we couldn't sit comfortably.

We decided instead to have a drive around some of the country villages around. So we set off across the Pennine hills, with their fabulous views over to Morecambe Bay - regretting all the while we hadn't thought to bring our camera. (One of these days we're going have to invest in a mobile phone with camera built in. At least then we would always have it with us.) The morning rain had made the world look all the brighter, fresher, clearer, that just scrubbed clean look, when the afternoon sunshine arrived. We went over to Low Bentham before returning home along the other side of the Lune river.

We stopped at Ricky's for an excellent Cantonese meal. It wasn't a disappointment. As for the evening, that was spent with a bottle of champagne & the sounds of the 50s.

A bit of me was disappointed we didn't get away, but the Fox was feeling weary. That night I had a very bad night & was grateful to be in my own bed, where I could find my way to the bathroom without lights, put the radio on to distract me a bit as I writhed for 4 hours or so, locate pills in the dark to give me some relief, have a lie-in the next morning if need be without worrying about missing breakfast I'd paid for or the room needing to be cleaned. As I said the other day, if you're not feeling well, there's no place like home. 

And regardless we'd did have an enjoyable, if quieter, day.