Archive for 2016

The Angle of the Dangle

Posted by on November 21st 2016 in Just for fun, Maps
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Unlike O.S. maps, this map of Britain is free and can be copied, posted etc. under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License (see here).

 

British Map

LOL @ the BBFC's protractor to the south of the Mull of Kintyre.

 

Revelations

Posted by on November 20th 2016 in Health, or lack thereof

The latest monthly out-patient consultation at LRI was a belter. I managed to prise some interesting info from the consultant, info that clarifies the current ferritin issue.

So... the dodgy result of the test prior to the first venesection... they admit that it is spurious, but can't confirm whether it's a bad test, a bad result or someone else's result. If it's the latter then I pity the other wronged patient who probably has a result of ~1675 instead of 998 on his/her record and who may have been given treatment based on it. Either way the result clearly wasn't representative of my ferritin level at the time and I've been advised to ignore it, therefore it has been interpolated on the following chart which now shows a clear downward trend and which is up to date with almost all ferritin test results:

 

 

I say "almost" because of the second revelation... nobody told me at the time, but way back in July they did a ferritin test and the result was a staggering 2887 × 10-6 g/L, that's over 14 times the upper limit! I know that at that time we were waiting for my Hb to rise to an acceptable and stable level, but that doesn't mean that they couldn't have told me about the test result. I suspect that I wasn't told because my July consultations were with Prof. H.. I've had run-ins with her before and she's always stingy with information, I suspect that it's a "Knowledge is Power" thing. Whatever the reason, I really can't be arsed to re-jig the chart to show where the result plots.

The bloods are holding up fairly well considering that I have a bit of a snivelling cold and that I had a flu-jab a week before. The latest newts result shows as just a minor droop of the line, nothing to worry about:

 

 

It's taken a while, but I now have confirmation of which type of AML I was fighting. AML Type FAB M2.

Out-patient consultations at LRI to continue at 4-week intervals, venesections at LGH to continue at 3-week intervals.

Nothing else to report.

Currying favour

Posted by on November 18th 2016 in LMAO!
Tags:

 And the award for "Dumbest, Most Hilarious and Most Unhelpful Answer of the Year" goes to...

one of the food-serving staff in the LEat Street restaurant at Leicester Royal Infirmary.

Yesterday, while I was waiting for my lamb curry with rice to become sufficiently warm to pass the thermo-probe test, the next customer at the counter asked the server if the chicken dish was Halal.

With only a split-second of hesitation and with utter conviction the server responded with just one word:

"Mostly."

I looked at the other customer. She looked at me. We both had that "WTF?" look on our faces.

For a while words failed us, we couldn't speak for laughing.

Happiness comes from the most unlikely places.

My angels

Caring At Its Best Winners 2015 / 2016

My angels take the stage to receive the "We are one team and we are best when we work together" award at about 3:00

The Ward 41 team have been my extended family for so much of this year, I owe them much more than words can say, and I'll never be able to thank them enough for all that they did.

Here are some snaps kindly sent to me by HCA Natalie... the roll-call, the citation, and one of the shift-teams. Hopefully I'll be able to post a few more pics soon.

It makes me feel really sad that some members of the team have already gone on to other things in other places while I've been out, and I've not been able to give them goodbye-hugs and thanks. I'll miss them more than they'll ever know.

Update: Here's another pic kindly sent to me by Ward Clerk Sam, who always manages to miss the photo opportunities:

They scrub up well, don't they? TBH, I didn't recognise some of them with their clothes on 🙂

Random Acts

Posted by on November 11th 2016 in Just for fun, On the box, Video (YouTube, Vimeo etc.)

For those who missed it on the telly, here are four minutes of brilliance:

Ferritin / Addict

Posted by on November 10th 2016 in Health, or lack thereof, Maps

I went to LGH for venesection no. 3 today, and got the pre-bleed result from venesection no. 2 - you may recall that I had a bit of a WTF episode during that session.

That pre-bleed result from venesection no. 2 was 1462 × 10-6 g/L - way higher than the previous result, but it seems to more like what we expected, and the Hb is still holding up:

 

 

This seems to add weight to the theory that the pre-bleed result of 998 × 10-6 g/L from venesection no. 1 was either wrong or not mine. Time will tell - two points on a graph isn't really enough of a basis for a trend. Nevertheless, I still intend to "discuss the matter" when I attend my next haematology out-patient consultation next week.

Anyway, sitting on a bed for over 2 hours today in a room full of ill people while intermittently bleeding into a bag does have a few benefits... as well as getting me free cuppas and biscuits, it also allows me to get stuck into a good book which I've not read for some time:

 

 

Map Addict. A Tale of Obsession, Fudge & the Ordnance Survey, by Mike Parker.

If you've not yet acquired a copy, I recommend that you add it to your Christmas wish-list. It's much better than a poke in the arm with a sharp needle eye with a sharp stick.