Why do we in the Northern Hemisphere who have daylight saving, always say with surprise, soon into November ‘Doesn’t it get dark early?’ Luckily we have squirrels to light our way home.
We learnt a new word today at our ‘Wellness Pilates’ class. A new class is starting at the sports centre – Equilates. Browsing the internet I see it is not new. What is it? Clue below and answer at the end of this post.
Too many books? You can never have too many books or can you? A decorating project Chez Tidalscribe led to moving a lot of books and wondering why so many are unread. Some are inherited from my book loving aunt and uncle, others date back to our Book Club days when we would leave a book club, then re-join it later to get yet another introductory offer of six books for a pound each, then there are the treasured Christmas presents. Many are beautiful illustrated hardback non fiction, excellent reference books in pre internet days. Alas, when we are writing a blog or checking facts for our novels, we don’t say to ourselves ‘I’ll just pop downstairs and look that up in the very heavy giant Encyclopaedia of British History or the equally heavy Family Medical Encyclopaedia ( probably out of date )’; we just Google it. As I dust each book to decide where to put it on the new shelves I am overwhelmed with guilt at my neglect and promise to read it on the afore mentioned long winter evenings.
Answer to equilates.. apparently around for a while, it is Pilates for horse riders, not the horse, though that may well come. We didn’t know horse massage and saddle fitting was ‘a thing’ till a family member trained for them and soon acquired plenty of clients.
Don’t bother to sit down, there is no point in getting comfortable as you are bound to have forgotten something and will have to get up again.
Whether you have sat down purposefully in your snug office to get on with some super creativity or are settling down with dinner on your lap tray to watch your favourite programme, you will have forgotten something.
Ready for a nice cup of tea/coffee or a cooling beer? Planning to look at the newspaper, check your emails or watch TV? You will forget a pen for the crossword, your phone or the TV remote. Conversely you may sit down prepared for every eventuality then realise your drink is still sitting in the kitchen.
Here is a helpful list of items you may need before sitting down for a tea break or a cosy evening with Netflix. Select according to your interests, hobbies, age and health.
Smart phone, house phone, iPad, TV remote, knitting, tablets ( the sort you swallow ) , glass of water for said tablets, wheat bag heated in the microwave for your neck or any sore body part, ice pack for knee or any injured body part, cutlery for your dinner, beanbag tray for your dinner, notepad and pen in case inspiration strikes, hankies/tissues if you have a streaming cold, throw for snuggling under…
But don’t think you can relax, even if you have checked the list. Do you need to let the dog in, feed the cat? Have you closed the curtains/blinds? In the northern hemisphere days are drawing in and ten minutes after you settle down passers by will see a brightly lit tableau of you lounging on your sofa. I know this because I love to see front rooms lit up and have a peep at people’s décor and what they are up to.
Even when you are organised and comfortable there are events beyond your control, like your Amazon delivery arriving…
You open a new page on your computer to go and visit your favourite bloggers or Facebook, but you never get there because you can’t resist clicking on to startling headlines about celebrities you have never heard of or, shocking events somewhere… you don’t know where till you click on to the item.
Why do you feel compelled to find out why the unknown celebrity, who appears on a programme you have not heard of, is so devastated with the news about …what? Obviously you can’t concentrate on writing your blog without finding out if that really is an alien ‘mummy’ or how someone choked to death on a marshmallow.
And where had that woman been for forty two years? Do not be tempted to go down rabbit holes as most of the dramatic headlines involve death sneaking up at the most unlikely times and places, under the strangest circumstances. Suffice to say anyone can be struck down by a mystery illness, the only symptom of which is sudden death. If you are amongst the lucky few to be in perfect health, do avoid alligators, bears, anything higher or deeper than two feet and best to avoid sleeping and eating as well.
Scroll down further and cheer yourself up by reading why you have ruined your joints and what you must never feed your dog. And look in the mirror and reassure yourself that you probably look better than the numerous famous stars whose appearance NOW will shock you, perhaps they were the Mexican mummies?
Being under the hospital for five years after cancer treatment means getting advice quicker than going through your GP. Which is how I came to be having an appointment at the Lymphoedema Clinic.
When the oncologist said I would have to have lymph nodes removed she said there was a risk of lymphoedema, but I was unlikely to get it. I replied ‘Oh good, I don’t want to wear one of those awful sleeves.’ No doubt she thought there were worse things that could happen and I assumed I would not get it, especially after two years had gone past… until I noticed that my right forearm seemed a bit puffy…
My appointment letter included a map to find the hospice where the clinic was located, the good news was it was just up the road from the bus station, but the instructions didn’t sound very welcoming.
‘There is no waiting room so please don’t arrive early… or late. If it is sunny there is a bench outside. Press the buzzer below the lymphoedema clinic sign and wait for instructions.’
It was a sunny day luckily, but I was sure nobody would answer the buzzer. I arrived just in time to hear a woman announcing she was Janet. She was let in, that was hopeful, but I guessed they would say go up in the lift, even though it was only a two storey building. I hate lifts.
The greeting was friendly and I was told to come up in the lift and turn left, or was it right and sit on a chair in the corridor. The other Janet was sitting waiting and she said ‘Oh I could have kept the door open for you’. Lucky she didn’t as it later transpired that on no account were we to enter if the door was open without ringing the buzzer to announce our arrival!
I was soon called in, by which time the other Janet and I had exchanged the complete medical histories of our families.
All readers need to know about Lymphoedema is it is difficult to spell and not to be confused with Lymphoma. Our lymphatic system is a wondrous thing we don’t take much notice of unless we have swollen glands, or doctors start talking about ‘spreading to the lymph nodes’ in cancer patients. If you are in normal health it is very clever at fighting off infection and cleansing the body of impurities. It works fine if not interfered with by surgery or radiotherapy. The salient point is that your blood is pumped round by your heart, but your lymphatic system has no pump, it relies on the general movement of your body. For the very immobile and the elderly this is why they can have swollen legs as it drains down but can’t drain up.
My diagnosis was done with a tape measure to compare arms, but also a clever high tech thingy the nurse presses at various points that reads how much fluid is lurking and where. The dreaded pressure sleeve doesn’t squash fluid out, it makes your muscles work harder, the better to keep lymph fluid moving. The condition can’t be cured but can be managed. Like all things medical there are dire warnings of what might happen like cellulitis, an infection of the skin. Any sign and you must get antibiotics straight away, so there is a card to carry on holiday in case a doctor doesn’t believe you!
Chocolate Moose is glad he doesn’t have to wear this.
The Four Big Things we have to do are skin care, exercise, pressure and lymphatic drainage which I am learning on my next appointment. In the meantime the sleeve is quite hard to get on and the awful colour makes it look like I have an artificial arm. But compared with all the multitude of medical problems people have I’m not complaining. If people ask what’s wrong with my arm and they do ask, I am tempted to say it got chopped off or I have third degree burns, which sounds much more exciting.
If you like aeroplanes, beach life, swimming in the sea, beach huts and sunshine …and people, you might be lucky and enjoy the perfect summer day. The Bournemouth Air Festival usually occurs after the bank holiday weekend and just before the children go back to school for the autumn term, which of course means the weather is guaranteed to suddenly improve. As the festival is held over four days, the chances of sunshine and planes actually taking off are greatly improved. It rained all of August and true to form Thursday 31st August started with torrential downpours.
In the afternoon it ‘brightened up’. Consultation of programme updates indicated nothing was flying all afternoon except the Red Arrows with a low level display at 5.30pm, so there was a mass migration to the cliff top.
The excitement was short lived as they soon flew away.
I usually get lost inside hospitals, but this week I got lost trying to get into a hospital.
I originally opted to have my cancer treatment at Poole hospital because my two local bus companies, three bus choices, all stopped at the main entrance. Since the sudden demise of Yellow Buses ( that’s another story for a bus blog ) my one local frequent bus service stops there. I was additionally relieved to have avoided Royal Bournemouth Hospital when the building work began…
Our three local hospitals now come under University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust. Whether this rebranding prompted the building frenzy and swapping round of departments between hospitals or followed the new ideas who can guess. Most patients just want to know which hospital they are supposed to be going to and which door they have to go in.
The original two storey unimposing building was white with blue roofs and recent improvements made it easy to get from the ‘bus hub’ to the main entrance. The main entrance led to a light atrium where the stairs, a café, toilets, information desk, buggy rides, chemist and free taxi phone could all be found. If you stuck to the main corridor that led the length of the hospital, all was well. Of course if you left the main corridor you could easily get lost, you know the scenario…
‘When you come out of the Ladies I’ll be sitting here…’
‘Okay.’
‘Oh dear, I can’t see any seats, let alone a waiting husband…’
I once went out the wrong exit and ended up in the Toby Carvery car park instead of at the bus stops.
The main entrance has now disappeared completely in the building works.
Caner treatment and ongoing medication can lead to other problems, so a recent hospital appointment led to me going off in several directions. Already existing joint problems can be made worse, especially hands for some reason, with perhaps residual nerve damage. At least having bunches of bananas for hands doesn’t stop me writing. The nurse suggested visiting my GP about steroid injections, but he suggested an Xray first.
It has been a long time since I had a face to face with my GP. The wonders of modern technology; he sent my prescription for Ibuprofen gel straight to the chemist and pinged the phone number for X-ray department to my phone. When I rang up I had a choice of Christchurch or Bournemouth; Christchurch not easily accessible by bus, I can at least walk to Bournemouth. The walk is probably an hour, ‘cross country’ past my sports’ centre and then eight lanes of traffic to cross. Not a hike to be taken if the weather is bad or on a very hot sweaty day if you have to strip off for an examination, but a hand X-ray would be fine.
There was a map with the hospital letter and on the phone the receptionist had given me directions from the bus hub… but the reality didn’t make sense. If I had just been told not to go near the hospital, but ‘stay on the road and walk for miles until you find a hole in the hedge’ it would have made sense. I hoped for a bus to arrive and disgorge staff or confident patients I could follow, but the only humans around were waiting for a bus. A board showing departments revealed I needed The West Wing. There was a gate in a fence that said To the West Wing. I opened it, but another sign said No Access to Pedestrians. There did not seem to be any way to get near the hospital. I found signs that pointed to the West Wing and back out of the hospital …and back home? Eventually I realised there were signs at intervals along the hedge and at last a gap… I finally found my way between hoardings and confused motorists to the entrance at the far end of the hospital. Then I walked that long corridor almost back to the main entrance where the X-ray department lies.
GETTING INTO THE HOSPITAL WAS NOT GOING TO BE EASY
Luckily I had planned to arrive early and relax at the coffee shop, no coffee but at least I was in time for my appointment and I was seen straight away. A cheerful young woman took me down the usual maze of corridors, confidently opened one of those doors with skull and crossbones warning of radiation… and quickly backed out saying ‘whoops, sorry’. Obviously that room was occupied and she then found an empty one. It had occurred to me I might have to take my eternity ring off… I never take it off and it won’t come off…
‘Can you just take your ring off.’
‘Well I could run it under this cold tap.’
‘When did you last take it off?’
‘Probably over twenty years ago when I had my carpal tunnel done.’
‘Oh dear, I’ll ask my colleague… try using the sanitiser to make it slippery.’
That didn’t work, more consultation, then she came back and said she would just write in the notes about the ring. I would imagine that on an Xray it’s pretty obvious if the skeleton is wearing a ring… all went well after that. For some reason I had imagined putting my hand between two photographic plates, like a sandwich maker, but the rays came from above.
‘Can you find your way out?’
‘Yes, er maybe…’
‘Just follow the red dots on the floor.’
What a simple but effective idea. When I looked at my watch I had spent a very short time actually in X-ray.
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 