Thursday, February 07, 2008
07 February. Medical matters - successes - and failures for some.
Whoops! I have just woken up from dozing in front of the TV.
So I still feel sleepy!
It hasn't been a busy sort of day - but there was another disturbed night.
I woke at quarter to two and noticed that once again there was little to be seen in my night bag. Oh no! Surely I had got it right and switched the tap off. Indeed I knew I had done it. This time "it" was not flowing onto the floor - but all over the bed.
At such moments I feel sort of angry that my body has led me to such indignity.
This morning I saw Bill Clinton and I easily persuaded him to allow me some more time without any input from him. I explained about all the intrusions and problems of the last few months and asked that whatever treatment he deemed necessary for me could be left for a month. There will be 3 fillings - all repair jobs to teeth at the top which just continue to lose whatever fillings he puts in. He still thinks we should persevere to keep propping up the remaining teeth.
Anyway - today was a very short appointment.
This afternoon we had other medical appointments. Bill has been put on a higher dose of the blood pressure tablets. I have sorted out blood test forms - and this will include a screening for coeliac tendencies. I checked that the surgery have the right dosage for the sodium bicarbonate that the hospital doctors put me on.
Then we took the prescriptions to the pharmacy in Brighton Road. A pharmacy can be a gathering place for the sick and poorly and the people who work there know all our troubles. The woman behind the counter is an old childhood friend of Bill's - Pauline (nee Curiton), for those of his brothers and sisters who might read this.
Sadly we discussed the dead and the dying with Pauline. Celia died not so long ago. Bill and I knew Celia and her husband Mick from the cancer self help group in the early 1990's. I knew that cancer had returned to Celia's life and more recently Bill met Mick a number of times at the pharmacy and we discovered that Celia would not make it.
Pauline then passed on news of another that we know, now in the hospice. Another childhood friend of Bill's (Sylvie) has been a neighbour of ours since the 1960's. For many years she has lived with her friend Pat. Sylvie has been very ill over the years with Crohns disease, but it is Pat who is dying at St Catherine's.
I returned home, feeling aware that the indignities of the bag and difficult diets were not such a heavy load to bear. It really does seem, that unlike Celia and Pat, I can look to the future and if there has been a battle against the disease then I might have won again.
Right, lets hope that this night brings some undisturbed sleep - with no cleaning up and bed linen changes.
Good night.
So I still feel sleepy!
It hasn't been a busy sort of day - but there was another disturbed night.
I woke at quarter to two and noticed that once again there was little to be seen in my night bag. Oh no! Surely I had got it right and switched the tap off. Indeed I knew I had done it. This time "it" was not flowing onto the floor - but all over the bed.
At such moments I feel sort of angry that my body has led me to such indignity.
This morning I saw Bill Clinton and I easily persuaded him to allow me some more time without any input from him. I explained about all the intrusions and problems of the last few months and asked that whatever treatment he deemed necessary for me could be left for a month. There will be 3 fillings - all repair jobs to teeth at the top which just continue to lose whatever fillings he puts in. He still thinks we should persevere to keep propping up the remaining teeth.
Anyway - today was a very short appointment.
This afternoon we had other medical appointments. Bill has been put on a higher dose of the blood pressure tablets. I have sorted out blood test forms - and this will include a screening for coeliac tendencies. I checked that the surgery have the right dosage for the sodium bicarbonate that the hospital doctors put me on.
Then we took the prescriptions to the pharmacy in Brighton Road. A pharmacy can be a gathering place for the sick and poorly and the people who work there know all our troubles. The woman behind the counter is an old childhood friend of Bill's - Pauline (nee Curiton), for those of his brothers and sisters who might read this.
Sadly we discussed the dead and the dying with Pauline. Celia died not so long ago. Bill and I knew Celia and her husband Mick from the cancer self help group in the early 1990's. I knew that cancer had returned to Celia's life and more recently Bill met Mick a number of times at the pharmacy and we discovered that Celia would not make it.
Pauline then passed on news of another that we know, now in the hospice. Another childhood friend of Bill's (Sylvie) has been a neighbour of ours since the 1960's. For many years she has lived with her friend Pat. Sylvie has been very ill over the years with Crohns disease, but it is Pat who is dying at St Catherine's.
I returned home, feeling aware that the indignities of the bag and difficult diets were not such a heavy load to bear. It really does seem, that unlike Celia and Pat, I can look to the future and if there has been a battle against the disease then I might have won again.
Right, lets hope that this night brings some undisturbed sleep - with no cleaning up and bed linen changes.
Good night.
