Author Archive.

Poor timing and high mileage

Posted by on September 20th 2019 in Health, or lack thereof

T+140 (Wednesday) and I was back at LRI yet again, this time for only the mandatory weekly dressing of my Hickman Line. I wasn't booked in for a consultation and for bloods & observations, they did them anyway.

It's somewhat ironic that what they didn't do was the mandatory weekly line-dressing.

To be fair, on T+140 they did make a plan to remove the line on T+141 (yesterday). So two appointments in two days***. Why they couldn't have made that plan when I attended last week so that I could have had the line out on T+140 is a mystery.

While I was waiting for the staff to line up their ducks, I had a rummage through the contents of the information display, and found two Anthony Nolan info-cards. It was the first time I'd seen them, copies were not included in the info pack given to me pre-transplant:

 

 

You'll note their first bullet-point regarding the sharing of my donor's location, age and gender. Well, it's a tad late for that, they should have told me way back when the process started, before I posted this back in April.

*** "... two appointments in two days" becomes three appointments in three days when factoring in the fitting of a 72-hour heart monitor today at a different Leicester hospital, and rises to four in six days when considering the monitor removal appointment three days later. My carbon-footprint now looks like a KLETS sole with Blakey's Segs.

Somebody didn’t think this through

Posted by on September 18th 2019 in LMAO!, Lost in translation

No room at the in/out

There's only just enough room for a wheelie-bin. Ella's ersatz café racer won't go through.

I had words about it last week, this week they've been disregarded.

The house that the driver is visiting has a driveway but no cars parked on it or in front of it... they're all in front of our place. Go figure.

 

Varmint

Posted by on September 16th 2019 in In the garden

He won't go to waste - Nature will send scavengers.

One down, several more to go.

Steady as she goes

Posted by on September 12th 2019 in Health, or lack thereof

T+133 yesterday and I was back at LRI for another weekly haematology consultation and another bone marrow aspiration (no trephine this time). It seems that I'm doing quite well - they stopped the "you'll probably be on these forever" anti-rejection Ciclosporin, stopped the Folic Acid and told me that the Isavuconazole can stop when I've finished taking my current stock. Bloods are good, and the Serum Ferritin is decreasing without provocation.

Of course, all this means that I'll be taking a managed risk from now on, but I'm sure that they will be there to catch me if my parachute fails.

They're pleased that I've arrested the weight-loss but say that I still need to work at putting on a few more pounds each week. If I start losing again, I'll be admitted and fed via a "nose-hose" (nasogastric tube). The advice from my haematologist and from my dietitian is to "eat lots of crap food", which flies in the face of the healthy-eating advice given by the cardio team. I think I've struck a fair balance... I'm getting decent mileage from large doner kebabs with salad and chili sauce, and the... ahem... occasional Guinness 🙂

I must admit that I'm perplexed by their parameters for my weight-increase efforts... my current weight and BMI are well within the healthy range for a bloke of my age, height, ethnicity and activity level, yet they have set a target well above the NHS guidelines, and the cut-off for the "nose-hose" is slap-bang in the middle of the healthy range.

Maybe they're fattening me up for Christmas?

Desinged

Posted by on September 3rd 2019 in In the News, Lost in translation, Name and Shame, On the box

I see that the Beeb's proof-reader still isn't up to the job: