Tag: health

News from the last few days

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Katy’s operation on Monday went well and so far, so good. It got rid of a deep-tissue infection that’s been plaguing her since after Bean was born, so yeah, good riddance!

She was discharged on the day and has been feeling fairly well since, with only the occasional bouts of discomfort. Hopefully that’ll be the end of that! She needs to get the suture clips taken out next week.

The oldies were a big help with Bean. They went on a massive cleaning spree on Monday and installed new shelves in Bean’s room, then Mel and I spent the whole of Tuesday replacing the kitchen sink. Of course, this being our house, it fought us all the way. I swear the man who did most of the work a couple of owners ago was an idiot, or a cowboy bodger, or a mix of both. In the end, we ended up ripping out a large section of the drain pipe and redoing the work ourselves instead of trying to make everything fit with the loony-tunes installation that was there before. Wednesday was a chill day, with a side trip to Scottsdales. With the sunny weather we’ve been having all week, we had BBQs and chimenea fires all week.

  

Bean’s in nursery today and tomorrow, so the oldies have gone back home for a well-earned bit of peace and quiet.

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Liveblogging Katy’s op

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9:15 At Addenbrookes. Katy had her BP checked. Bit high. If it doesn’t come down, they’ll give her some drugs cause atm it’s too high to operate.

9:45 katy just had her BP checked again. Just having me around lowered her pressure by more than 10 points. Just goes to show what a bit of laughter and a quick grope can do :-)  good to know that my years of being a letch came in handy (hur hur!) I keep telling Katy that it’s cause she’s relaxing cause she’s feeling well known emotions (happy anger, frustration and exasperation).

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Nice to know they care :-D

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I’ve been off work for the last 2 days, battling the terrible affliction that is man-flu. When I went to pick up Bean from nursery tonight, I ran into one of my office mates – who shall remain nameless, suffice it to say that he’s part of the Spanish Mafia. His first question was not about my state of health, but rather to know if I was coming in tomorrow and, if not, who was going to unlock the room where the wine is stored in preparation for tomorrow’s wine & cheese.

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Come on, NHS, pull the finger out!

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Normally, I can’t complain about the NHS. It gives a very acceptable level of service and I’ve never been disappointed so far. The only downside of it, as far as I can see, is that it’s too bureaucratic and the left hand doesn’t even know the right hand exists at times.

I’ve been waiting for my post-vasectomy fertility test results. I’ve called the GP surgery twice and they’ve not gotten anything back. I was told by the cell path lab that it would take about 5 days to get the results back. That was 10 days ago. After calling the GP (twice), the Saffron Walden community hospital where the procedure was done in the first place (and being transferred to the coivemail of somebody who is on holiday until the end of August), the Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow (twice, and once after doing a Google search to get the phone number of the cell path lab from some random press release, because it’s not on the main hospital website) and finally being bounced around 4 or 5 people in the outpatient clinic of the SWCH again, I finally found somebody who could tell me that, yes, they have the results but, no, they can’t give them out to me because they need to be reviewed by a doctor. They’ll fax the results to him and get back to me sometime this week.

Oy.

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Je suis malaaaaaaaaade

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We are all malaaaaaade these days.

It’s rough goings in the Cote household these days. The beastie was cutting molars last week, so he was in a right grump and he was running a continuous low-grade fever for days. Katy had to take the week off, which really stirred things up for her work (again! gits!!!). I had a few nights of sweaty, fever-ish sleep and I thought that’d be the worst of it, but whatever I have is getting nastier. I sound like I’m a 2-pack a day smoker (which is ironic considering that I stopped smoking months ago). I’m horking up green bits like crazy and my nose is a faucet. I’m so sexay at the moment, it’s scary.

Now the beastie seems to have caught whatever I have because he sounded like a sea lion last night a few hours after we put him to bed. He slept through the night, even though he had a few coughing spells. I didn’t really sleep though, because I was too anxious about him waking up crying. I really need to work on that. It’s rather ironic that I’m so worried about him not feeling well and waking up crying (and waking me up in a panic) that I don’t sleep myself. Yeah, that’s useful…

Katy’s pulled a muscle in her shoulder and is also getting a cold.

The whole household needs a bit of pampering, but it’s in limited supply at the moment.

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I need a vacation from my vacation

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I’ve been on leave since last Wednesday and I can’t really say that I’m rested and relaxed. I spent Wednesday cooking tons of food. We went to the seaside on Thursday with Katy’s parents. That was a nice day, but ended in a less than pleasing note when the beastie – exhausted and probably having had a bit too much sun – melted down after being put to bed. It’s always a bone-searingly scary experience when he wakes up wailing after being fast asleep. He just never does it and I always worry about the worst happening… Friday was my birthday and I spent a large part of it in my kimono. That was good, and Katy went nuts with prezzies and wrapping paper.

Katy’s parents left on Saturday and we had a quiet day. We went to the market to pick up some veg and do a quick shop at Waitrose for some food for a fondue we planned for dinner. The evening was nice, but the night was very short because the beastie had another episode of at 4:30 am. He’s been really grumpy since Thursday, and has been drooling a lot and running a bit warmer than usual. We thought it was just teething pains. This morning though, he was roasting! We called the docs and they said to keep an eye on him and call back if we’re still worried. The rational part of me things it’s probably just a cold. He’s been snuffly and snotty in the past 2 days. The irrational part of me just wants to go to the corner shop and buy a pack of fags and chain smoke and worry. The problem is that the irrational part of me has a louder voice these days.

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I do not need another allergy

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Last monday, Tolstoy paid me a visit while I was in the bathroom. I gave him a quick scratch on the head and a stroke on the back and my hands immediately became itchy and red. † I figured that he’d been rolling around some stringing nettles or something of the sort – it happened before, so I didn’t really give it a second thought. Except that the itch didn’t go away. I’ve been putting steroid-based cream on my hands for the past week and it still itches like a mofo. And now, something has spread to my elbows, back of my knees and top of my feet. I went to the doc this morning and she says that this are all classic signs of eczema. Damnit, Jim, I don’t need this shit right now. The “consensus” right now is that it’s mild, and might go away by itself considering that it appeared so quickly and that I should just keep my eye on it. We’re going to wash all the bedding and keep the cats out of the bedroom for a while and see what happens. In the meantime, I *must*not*scratch*!!!!

In other news, I went for my yearly eye exam and my prescription changed, but not significantly and my eye pressure is still very good. This makes me happy.

In other other news, the gold cross that I’ve been wearing since I was 18 broke this morning and I don’t think I’ll be able to fix it. This makes me very sad :(

† Wikipedia tells me that this is dyshidrosis (aka dyshidrotic e., pompholyx, vesicular palmoplantar dermatitis, housewife’s eczema) and only occurs on palms, soles, and sides of fingers and toes. Tiny opaque bumps called vesicles, thickening, and cracks are accompanied by itching which gets worse at night. A common type of hand eczema, it worsens in warm weather.

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Been a trying weekend…

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Health matters have been problematic in the last two weeks. I’ve just about gotten back all the mobility in my foot but I now have this stupid phlegm-y chest cough. Katy had a migraine last Wednesday that left her vomiting for most of the night and part of the following day. I stayed home from work and managed to catch either a 24-hour bug or a touch of food poisoning. The result of which was I was puking my guts out Friday night and was completely useless on Saturday. I was back on my feet – mostly – on Sunday but Katy is still feeling out of sorts. She went to the doctor today so hopefully that’ll be on its way to being sorted out, but with the beastie being difficult because of his teeth these days, it still promises to be a bumpy ride for the next few days. I’ve already taken a lot of leave time so I’m a bit conflicted about staying home, but at the same time, if she needs it, family comes before work. Still, I just wish things would settle down for a bit and the universe would give us a break.

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