This week has been awful – the Humdinger returned with a vengeance and things got worse. However, all is not lost, there’s always a silver lining.
Can I check, I have told you how much I hate being ill? The
Earlier this week I was feeling much improved from my humdinger of a cold which lingered over Easter and beyond. And so I did my usual thing of feeling much better and resuming normal life. Except it was too soon, far too soon. As I type this, I feel really awful; the usual mixture of a waste bin filling with tissues, a voice which is starting to sound like Tom Waits and that feeling of being out of energy.
It was, perhaps, the delights of returning some timber to the sawmill as they had made a mistake in the wood they had supplied me which was the final straw. I had thought it must have been me that made the mistake but no, it was them. At first they tried to shrug it off but with a little persistence they admitted they had made a mistake, or more specifically one of the men who worked there. I got the impression he was going to be in trouble for it.
As I was driving home I felt so awful I couldn’t even unload the car. So for the next few days I have been coughing, sneezing and spluttering everywhere. Even the end of my nose is sore because I’ve been blowing it so much! Now a few days later, I do feel a little better but there’s one lesson I MUST learn, is not over-estimating my recouperation.
To make matters worse, I hate being bored and being idle. So I have continued plodding my way through Ann Widdecombe’s autobiography but there’s only so much I can take of her each day. As I read her book, I can hear her shrieking voice, almost as if she’s yelling at me personally with her slightly pompous utterances. It is enough to put me off the Tories for ever, not that I have been much of a supporter with my centre-left views.
To optimistically ease things, I decided to embark on putting together a 350 piece model train, complete with clockwork mechanism (see above photograph). My mother had given this to me as a birthday present. It is trying my patience somewhat but at least I did quite well for the first few hours. Just don’t buy me another, even though it was what the Doctor ordered, so to speak.
Speaking of Doctors, I had my latest chat with one of the renal consultants. This was one of the regular, routine checkups which my kidneys have. I was convinced there wasn’t going to be any change, since things have been stable for the last couple of years. Turns out my blood has become more acidic(!) but this is easily treated through doubling the sodium bicarbonate which has been prescribed. My creatinine (the normal measure of kidney performance) has disappointingly gone up and I was miffed about this. I did wonder if it explained why I was feeling so grotty.
Still, there’s a bright side to all this. We are now in May, by far my most favourite month of the year. We get nice clouds, the days are getting longer and warmer. Summer is coming and, if everything falls into place, I’m going to New York – yippee! I have booked three different hotel, so I can see further than the skyscrapers.