Necessity is the Mother of Invention

I’m not a great fan of minced pork, or even of burgers, so you can imagine how surprised I am to say I thoroughly enjoyed yesterday’s meal.

I’m back to doing a bit of using up from the freezer. Minced pork was top of the list – don’t ask me how it got there but there it was. A quick shufti through my cookbooks gave me the idea of doing “Burgers with a sweetcorn relish”. I thought the relish should give a bit of flavour to the insipid pork. The Fox suggested we bought some buns but I thought I’d use up some pitta bread from the freezer, another thing I’m not keen on.

The Fox got the meat out Friday evening ready to thaw for the morning. First thing I did in the morning was to make the burgers. I added plenty of thyme & parsley to give it some flavour. I put the burgers in the fridge ready to cook up in the evening.

Nearer midday I was in the kitchen & thought I might as well get out the tin of sweetcorn from the cupboard. I knew I didn’t have any mexicorn as the recipe required but I had thought of a way around that. However, no sweetcorn. I emptied the shelf. Still no tin.

It’s a problem I find with the two of us cooking now. I always worked on the basis of buying the ingredients I needed for the week ahead, even if there was some in anyway. That way I never had to check what was in the cupboard unless I was doing, as yesterday, a use-up meal. The Fox works on a different theory. Always have some basic ingredients in, which you top up when you use the last one up. I’ve been trying to adapt to this principle but I keep finding I use the ingredient I bought for the planned meal & don’t bother to check whether it’s the last tin. Meanwhile the Fox has used the cupboard tin, seen another in which I then used & which was by then the last tin. As I don’t check I don’t bother putting it on the shopping list to replace.

Anyhow, now I was stuck. I’d made the burgers up so the meat couldn’t be used for any other purpose. After some thought I decided to fry up some extra capsicum peppers – that was how I was going to make the sweetcorn into mexicorn – then add the other relish ingredients.

The burgers, well coated with the relish, then popped into the toasted pitta bread. Brilliant. I’m not sure it wasn’t better than the original recipe. The meat was moist & flavoursome. The bite of the relish added much to it. Even the pitta bread was welcome & not the usual bit of cardboard I associate it with.

I remember once staying in a chamber d’hôte once near Rouen. The meal we had was excellent. Our hostess commented that the recipe for a smoked chicken & mushroom dish her husband made was originally the result of a culinary mishap. They’d enjoyed it so much, they made the mishap from then on. I feel just like that over this sweetcorn relish without the sweetcorn.

Still stressed

The man from the charity came round yesterday to discuss the medical. He thinks my case for continuing to receive my benefit is good. He tends to agree with me that it is a good sign that they are proposing to come here rather than for me to be going to their office. It’s the first time he’s come across them volunteering to do that. Usually the charity ends up advising the client to contact ATOS, the company responsible for organising the medicals, to request a home visit as it is impossible for the client to attend otherwise.

It wasn’t quite so reassuring when he went on to tell us of one client who has only 5% vision. He was passed as able to work. The Job Centre proceeded to insist he train as a bus driver. I don’t want to anywhere around if he takes up that suggestion!

However, the charity is happy to support me through any appeal procedure if it becomes necessary, though he clearly thinks that outcome is highly unlikely. I just hope he’s right.

The strange thing is, as I write this, I can’t help wondering if you didn’t know me personally you would be thinking that I’m trying to cheat the system. It really isn’t that. If I could genuinely believe this medical was just a check that I had the medical problems I say I had, I wouldn’t be so anxious. Experience - & nothing I have heard about the new system has disabused me of this impression – has taught me this is about finding an excuse to deny me this benefit. I wish I could reasonably consider going back to work. I’d love to & to be so well.

The stress of just knowing this medical lies ahead, has caused any sense of well-being to evaporate. I’m once more aching badly in my knees, once more diving for the painkillers. I’m once more feeling tense & rather depressed, though not suicidal just yet. My sleep is once more disrupted, giving me long hours to brood in the dark. My abdomen hasn’t complained though last night I was awake with a bad bout of acid reflux. And yes, it was just before 3am, a little later than my usual 2.30am for the cramps to hit. I’m now just wishing the medical was over & maybe I could relax again before I start to deteriorate too much.

Meanwhile the day remains grey & wet. I gather from our visitor yesterday it had been snowing in Lancaster that day. Fortunately we’ve not seen any of that. All we’ve had is rain, hail occasionally, a lot of grey skies & icy winds. None of which cheers my spirits much.

Here’s hoping things will pick up soon.

Waiting

I seem to be at a low ebb today. Any sense of energy, of drive, have disappeared. I suspect it’s the effect of knowing this medical is looming. I was reluctant to get up but I told myself to get moving. Hopefully that charity will be ringing back today.

 I’m still waiting. I did ring again this morning but the man dealing with my case was out of the office. I’ve left another message, this time with a real person rather than a machine, so hopefully he will get it. I’ll not guarantee it. She did sound like one of those dippy receptionists who don’t always do what they say they will, especially if something happens to distract them.  I sit here with the phone in front of me in hope.

It says something that just knowing I’ve got this medical ahead of me is having this effect on me. By next week I’ll be a gibbering wreck if I don’t look out. How I would cope with the pressure of work is beyond me.

I’m telling myself it’s just the weather. Yesterday was very grey & today’s no better. Rain doesn’t look far away. Even now, at 11am, I’m half contemplating switching the lights on. It’s just so dark & gloomy – a bit like me really.

Be careful what you ask for

You know that old saying "Be careful what you ask for". I'm now only too aware of its truth.

For some time I've been wondering what had happened to my benefit application.  I've heard not a word. Today the letter came.  I've got a medical next week.

The state I was in before my hospital trip there was no way they could have thought I was fit to work, but now.... Now my unexpected sense of well being shines from my every pore. I look well. I even continue to feel well. Having said that, I wouldn't like to try a trip out without my wheelchair. I still have to sit to peel the spuds & do most of the cooking. I'm just feeling a lot better.

I'm telling myself it's a good sign that they have suggested having the medical at the house, not at one of their offices which they usually do. They presumably must think that would be difficult for me.

It is probably helpful that I have a hospital appointment coming up a few days later for my abdominal problems. I also have a copy of the discharge letter from my recent hospital admission. I would have thought my trips there must be a sign that my present condition is unstable.

I just wish I could look less healthy! Though maybe by next week it will be all change again & we're back to dialling for an ambulance once more.

Meanwhile I've got on the phone to talk to the charity which helped me with filling in the form to see if they've have any advice that might help my case. Maybe someone would even come to witness the interview to ensure it's properly done. 

Of fireworks & family

I’ve come to the conclusion the recession must really be biting locally. As any person from these islands will know, tonight is Fireworks Night, the night when bonfires & fireworks are lit in nominal memory of the night Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. As is also customary, in more recent times communal bonfires are usually lit on the Saturday night nearest the 5^th of November. Increasingly parents of schoolchildren have done the same so the children are not distracted from homework.

Since we moved here in 2000 we have been entertained by the wonderful free shows from all our neighbours’ gardens. Saturday night few appeared. Our conclusion is that less money is around & smaller fireworks are cheaper than great exploding rockets or candles that shoot their colourful sprays skyward.

But Sunday night, just as we were under way with cooking dinner a great deafening screech shattered the peace. After we had returned to ground after the shock, I went out into the garden. Sure enough a rocket was coming over the roof with this deafening sound. A second followed. We hastily shut the door - we usually leave it open when cooking to let some of the steam out. - & pitied the poor animals around. All the flashes & bangs are disturbing enough for them without that unearthly screech. I found myself wondering how my cousin’s dog would be doing. He’s always nervous of fireworks & odd bangs. This really would have upset him.

My cousins are on my mind at the moment as I spoke to them over the weekend. My cousin Ann’s husband had a knee replaced mid-week & I was pleased to hear he was hoping to get home on Saturday. Ann herself, who has cancer & had started a new course of chemotherapy the same day he went in for the op, was relieved to find this course was better than some previous ones so she’d felt up to making the trips into the hospital to see her husband.

As for my cousin Trudy, she’s been having a worrying time. Apparently her daughter was in the USA at the time the hurricane, Sandy, struck New York. Indeed that very day she was due to fly from Philadelphia to Boston. Fortunately she had no problems. She was in Boston when the hurricane hit there but found all that meant was she had to stay in the hospital all day, which suited her fine as she’d gone down with a tummy bug. It gave her a day of rest before attending the conference she was meant to be at. Still it was all very worrying for her parents back in England.

Transformation

I get up in the morning. The world is gloomy, the skies overcast. I venture off to the bathroom. Soon I hear a tremendous pounding. Thunder growls. All hell has broken out. I rush out of the bathroom, still not having got as far as having a wash or brushing my teeth. I look out of the glass in the front door. The world has been transformed. It’s become a winter wonder world. All is white. A thick layer of hail stones coat the street, the cars, the gardens. And to think it took so few minutes.

Feeling well

I’m feeling somewhat bemused. For some reason I’m feeling extremely well, better than I have been for years, certainly than for the last few months. This sense of well-being has been growing on me these last few days, really since I came out of hospital.

This thought struck me when I was in the shower. Just before my shower, I had been reading an arthritis magazine. It mentioned there was a connection between hypothyroidism & arthritis, both of which I have.

I’m beginning to wonder if some of my problems in the past have been related to an underactive thyroid rather than arthritis. Certainly I have noticed some changes since I began medication for my thyroid nearly three years ago.

I no longer feel as tired. That does not surprise me in that I knew that excessive tiredness is often the reason why hypothyroidism is diagnosed in the first place.

I have lost weight slowly but steadily, but then I realised that an underactive thyroid can cause you to put on weight.

But I had not known hypothyroidism can cause inflamed painful joints, in particular in the knees. There is no denying the fact my kneecaps are not in the right place on my knees – hence arthritis. However, the medical establishment has long commented that I shouldn’t be as disabled as I am due to that cause. Maybe hypothyroidism has aggravated the situation & I had been suffering from it for years before it was diagnosed. I’m telling myself this can’t be the case. The hypothyroidism was discovered as a result of a routine blood test due to my high blood pressure. Surely they would have realised my thyroid gland wasn’t working efficiently previously. I know I had been suffering from fatigue for a long time but simply put it down to the arthritis & the extra effort involved in doing anything with such pain-filled knees.

The point is, though, that my body seems to be performing differently since I returned from my stay hospital. My knees are no longer getting inflamed in the way they did, despite getting back to my normal pre-hospital trip level of activity & despite no longer taking any anti-inflammatories.

For years I’ve sweltered at night with a burning scarlet band across my knees. It was so hot one year, when we were without electricity for several days, with freezing temperatures outside, we could both warm ourselves around my knees to keep warm. The surgeon who did my last knee op had thought I was exaggerating about the level of heat until he operated & then found it was almost too hot to operate! But now they are icy cold. So was this inflammation due to my underperforming thyroid gland rather than any arthritis? Now the medication for the former has fully kicked in, is that why I am feeling so much better?

My abdominal pain seems to have eased.  Is that due to the reduction in alcohol? Or is it again due to my thyroid now working as it should have been? I gather hypothyroidism can encourage auto-immune problem& one of the causes of pancreatitis, if that is what it was, is an auto-immune problem.

I’m not even excessively hot at night. I’ve long wanted less bedding than the Fox as I’ve sweltered away, but now I’m putting on extra blankets. Have I finally got through all the symptoms of the menopause? Or is it just I’m no longer heating the bed up with my inflamed knees?

Whatever the reason, I am feeling remarkably well for which I rejoice. I’m not yet confident enough to suggest it will last. My stay in hospital has only resulted in a change of medication, so I’m no longer taking any anti-inflammatories for my knees, just painkillers. That’s about the only difference apart from the reduction in alcohol. It seems amazing to think such slight changes could make such a difference. Maybe now I need to turn my efforts to getting a bit fitter, building up more muscles once again, doing a bit more each day… Maybe then I could even forget about benefits & think of getting back to work…Maybe all of this speculation is just a pipe dream & things well be back to the normality of so many years.

Maybe it just comes down to the fact the sun is shining & there’s some blue skies.

Whatever the reason, I rejoice in just feeling well for once. Long may it continue.