Over 20 quids worth of Ouch :( (by sarah)

Not kittens this time but me. I have just had to shell out over £20 for a prescription, my back is still killing me from well over a week ago now right where it curves in the most. It is probably soft tissue damage with the possibility of trapped nerve which needs to be looked at becuase of siatica (I have no idea how to spell this word). My Core muscles are probably unstable leading to problems around my lower back - I think these are the same muscles I was working at streangthening becuase of the seperated pelvis but am not sure.

So its back to physio for me and back on the pain killers, this time its a cocktail of three:

Solpadol, Diclofenac, and Omeprazole

One of these is to protect my stomache from the pain killers as I have a nasty tendency to bleed from both ends if on pain killers for any length of time and start losing weight as food just wont stay down. The dr said this means I have uclers and stuff and asked if I'd had endoscopies about it. I said I had and lo! My notes say I have IBS this is something at least, no one has ever said anything to me before other than the biopsys came back inconclusive. I had given up on getting a diagnosis for the stomache stuff if I am honest. So I am assuming now that I have ulcers and IBS and am wondering how else to deal with them - I already tend to stay clear of rich foods, I'm on the goats milk and cheese and said by by to red meat a long time ago.

I have to wait 4 weeks or so for the physio at which point the doc says the back will probably be better but that I need physio to try and stop recurring injuries and stuff. The down side is that some of these tablets make you sleepy so I'm quiet sure how thats going to work with a Jeany-bow to look after.

I was quiet taken aback at the cost of my prescription though - ouch, ouch ouch. Oh well if it wasnt subsadised they'd probably cost more but still how many people who dont qualify for free prescriptions can afford hits of 20 every few weeks?? This is only ok for us finacially at the moment becuase things are on an upswing at the moment if this had been pre-flood I wouldnt have had the cash to get it with - sigh.

Of Infections, Bad Backs and the Curse of the Builders (by sarah)

Mum came and stayed with us last week - it was Als week in London - it occures to me that we propably havent posted about the fact he is now away in the booming capital every other week which is a bit difficult but working out. Mum's wound from her operatation managed to get infected the week after the operation - the stitches were dissolvable and so dissolved and the scab cracked whilst she was being naughty and trying to wash her own her.

She came up here with a course of anitbiotics and some dressings but the wound was just getting worse and the antibiotics where nearly finished so it was off to mine and Als Dr she went. She's been put on two lots of antibiotics and the dosages increased. Also the nurse thought she needed more stitches done but becuase mum was not going to be here that long she couldnt really do them with out having mum back for the after care. My docs recon that the stuff she was given to clean the wound with was two harsh and that she shouldnt have been cleaning and dressing it herself anyway.

The wound itself is several centimeters in diameter and shows the raw shinny pink flesh that lies under our skin. There is a strange white gloop oozing out of it but it seems alot better than it did. The nurse said that the amout of fluid she's losing through it would have ment having to lance her breast if the wound hadnt of opened up. She had to go back for more dressings and cleaning etc... by the nurses on Thursday and they dropped the bomb shell that the radiotherapy which is scheduled to start on Weds day, can not start until that wound has healed properlly and by the looks of it its going to take a while.

Mum is also in a wheel chair at the moment which was interesting as there are many many hills round here, now I only pushed her on the flate to the loos but I've done something chronic to my back (yes again) I dont think it was pushing the wheel chiar but more lickily the picking Jean up and carrying her - something dad or Al normally does but of course dad had to push the wheel chair and there wasnt room for the pushchair in the car aswell. The mysterious hernia lump has also been acting up and has decided to double in size which is apt to make me a bit narky. I also slipped on the stairs jarring myself slightly along with twisting my knee as I came off the pavement - one or all of these things has caused my lower mid back to thrumb with pain.

I wake up relatively pain free but by the everning can bearly walk, crawling is fine I can do that but sitting (especially in cars) or walking just cuase the pain to get worse and worse until I feel nueseas. Last night I had a bath and did some gentle excersises to try and ease the pain, it started to really bother me on friday and has just been getting worse each day since. I also used a hot water bottle to try and releive the pain with little affect. I was beginning to think I had a kidney infection again but it doesnt feel quiet right for that and ibuprofen rub helped alot so I think its going to muscular.

I am currently awaiting a drs appointment but the earliest is monday next week - I'm afraid I cried after I put the phone down becuase this added to the normal shoulder, pelvis, wrist and mysterious hernia lump ment that I got less than four hours sleep last night and the previous nights havent exactly been brilliant. Standing up straight is the thing that hurts the most and arching backwards is right out - the pelvic tilt offers me a little bit of restbite (ie flatening the small of my back so there is no hallow between it and the bed) but that hurts the mysterious hernia lump.

Then just too cheer things up Thursday saw the Builders visiting, the much awaited for appointment was at 12 noon and lo! he was early - good sign me thinks but then he tells me the sedule - first off he needs to find what gangs he has avalible in the area and when. They will strip the plaster off for 1 m and then the dehymidifers and heaters (instead of fans) have to be set up and the drying process has to start again. This will hopefully be done before their down time for Christmas and then the walls will need to be replastered with a drying time of about a week and then the restoration/new kitchen and floor goes in. Oh and of course the bottom steps have to come out too as they are wood and where soaked in the water.

So I had to break the news to Al - no new kitchen for christmas and the wall units arent covered by the insurance meaning we'll end up with mish mash cupboards which I dont want. Still I have a budget of £500 to pick out replacement units.

I managed to miss his call back to say when they could actually start becuase I was dealing with Jean and Mum and Dad thought I'd left the radio on rather than clicking it was my ring tone and everytime I've called back I get a woman who doesnt know anything about me. Sigh.

I will attempt to be more upbeat next post - promise.

Fireworks (by alaric)

Last night, we went up to Barrow Wake Viewpoint, which looks out over Gloucester from a hill, to see all the fireworks displays (public and private!) going on over the city. Jean loved it, and called them "pretties". There were a lot of families up there - somebody even had a barbecue going...

Then the next morning, the air outside at home smelt crisply of nitrate combustion products :-)

Attempts to Take a Bath (by sarah)

a) the water appeared to be orange - Alaric assured me that this was just clay particals from the heavey rain and that it was fine so I put lots of my nice bath pearls in to try and convince myself it was going to be a nice bath and that I wasn't sitting in something from a cess pit.

b) just lowered my backside into the water when - wha wah wah nick-nocks oh dear wet oh dear icky yuck wah wah wah. She had been sleeping and everybody else was out so I had mistakenly thought that I could have a bath to get rid of aches and pains and not be in the way.

c) Jean retrieved and de-festified back in the bath this time with her splashing me from the side, I here voices, Barbaras come back. I hurriedly start washing thinking they are bound to want to use the bathroom and I was right.

d) they tell Jean she must be about to enjoy her bath so now she thinks shes getting a bath and objects when I get back in the bath enough to make the bathtime unpleasant - I give up and get out.

With dispair I note that not enough time had actually passed for my nice bath pearls to have dissolved meaning that all their nice oil was wasted :'(

I should have known better really.

Public transport and the State of the World (by sarah)

I been thinking on the whole bus fare thing again and I am again struck by the stupidity of the world - like the restruant waste thing I am just erked I really am.

And you know what the worst bit is? Everyone expects me to have some radical view point on resources and oil when they find out about the degree - good grief I'd have thought that dealing with things like resources should be obvious?

Why are people so governed by mass media? Its driving me nuts. As I'm sure I've said before I think that reguardless of weather we have a significant affect on the climate we should be treating the resources as just that - resources and that means managing them properlly, nothing is infanite in this respect and to waste what we have is just stupidity on the grosses level. At the same time ramming stuff down the general publics throat continuously is not going to work. People are fed up of trying their best and being told - but its not nearly enough - the result? They give up and dont bother with anything.

I am thinking that things really do need to be targeted a level up - the companies, the countries inferstructure etc... The public transport being prohibatively expensive for a start is just pathetic as is the fact that imported food of the type we grow here is cheaper than that from just up the road! What is going on with that one? I mean come on!

Now I like variety - I would hate to see imports go but we don't need to import everything, do we? Why are our farmers commiting suicide? Why do we have very few full time farmers left, its slipping to the realms of hobby and a hard one at that.

I'd have thought that having an island that can not produce even its own food is just a bit dangerous? Maybe I'm pessamistic, maybe I am too hippy-esk for my own good but the whole thing just annoys me.

Sigh - I don't know what the answers are. I know my GCSE Business Studies teacher thought I had a humanitarian approach to running things which came through heavily in my business plans. Happy staff = less theifts etc... but never mind - I'm just babbling in dispair now.