MCL and Me

Rated PG for discussion of vomit and pictures of rash. After being discharged by the doc at about 11:00 last Monday due to waiting for tablets I didn't get to leave the ward until about 18:00. My ever present Taxi driver, Dad, came up during normal visiting at 14:00 and stayed with me whilst we waited. It was a bit odd that, like the nurses who came into my room, he had to wear an apron and a mask:- even though we were going to be driving home together once I had my meds. I guess the idea was just to stop it spreading on the ward I was on. When I got back to the flat it looked liked I was not the only resident of College Road who wanted to take precautions (thanks Gareth ;o) :- That evening I took my first dose of Tamiflu along with a ham sandwich. The leaflets warn that nausea and vomiting are common side effects of Tamiflu but usually only with the first dose and that effect is reduced if the tablets are taken with food. However all was well and I thought I was going to be ok. Th...

Yes a live blog posting from the QE hospital. It all started on Saturday when I woke feeling rough with absolutely no energy. then my anti-fungal medicine made me heave though I wasn't actually sick. My temperature was a bit up at 37.6 more than my usual 36.5 but below the danger level of 38. Unfortunately I had to logon to work to help with the go live of a new server and my colleague (and now boss) was on holiday so there was noone to cover for me. I struggled through the changes needed in between spells in bed. Sunday I felt a little better and my temperature was down to 37.3 but I still had no energy at all. Monday I started out feeling even better but after bringing the sainsbury's delivery upstairs and putting it away I felt worse again and had to go back to bed. I had asked mom and dad to pop over in the afternoon and when I got up to see them I had another bout of dry heaving with a tiny spec of blood in it (most likely from the straining + not fetching anything up) . I...

This morning I went to the transplant clinic for the first time in six months and it was, just marginally, a bit more unusual than a regular visit. I had my bloods taken and then realised this morning I had already taken my ciclosporin which I am not supposed to do when I have bloods done as one is to measure the "ambient" level in my blood and this would be distorted by the morning dose. I was obviously out of practice going to the clinic. Then through a convoluted sequence of thought processes which I won't go into here, I convinced myself I hadn't actually taken my ciclosporin and took my second dose that I would normally take at tea time. Oops. I then went in to see the doc. She checked the skin on my chest and neck and said there was little or no evidence of Graft Versus Host Disease so we are going to reduce my steroids from 5mg per day to 5mg one day and none the next. Getting ever closer to coming off them. My other blood results were the second unusual thin...

On Tuesday I went to the late evening clinic at the eye hospital having been referred by my optician because my pressures were a bit high. I got my long suffering taxi driver Dad to take me in case I had my pupils dilated and couldn't drive back. We arrived early and it was pretty busy. My appointment was for 18:45 and I was seen about 19:30 I think. They were short staffed apparently. The doc I saw did the usual eye exam checks with the big light and called a colleague to come in to take a look at my map-dot-fingerprint dystrophy caused by my dry eye syndrome as he thought the colleague would like to see it. The doc then recommended I start using the night cream lacrilube again and told me to come back in six months. At which point I gently reminded him I'd been referred for abnormal pressures and could he check them. I guess he'd had a long day. Anyway the good news is that my pressures are fine and I will go back in six months for a general check. The checks they do i...

Sorry for the bit of an intermission on my blog. Of course in one sense it means nothing exciting is going on medically which is a good thing but I really should try and manage at least one update a week. I will try harder. My excuse, such as it is, is that last week I was working Wednesday to Friday doing a disaster recovery test at Hewlett Packard's (HP) recovery centre in Rugby. This is where we pretend some of our systems have exploded and we go down and try and recover them using just the backup tapes onto new equipment provided by HP. These are relatively intense sessions albeit with some periods of inactivity whilst we wait for the data to be recovered from the tapes. This along with travelling to and from Rugby for three days meant I was really tired by the end of each day. More so than usual. You'll be pleased to know, however, we recovered the systems successfully even if the client never turned up to test them. In other news I finally got my eye hospital referral sor...

Well I finally got the automated system at City Hospital to understand me when I encountered it again today. When it says "Did you mean Eye Centre or Eye Department at City?" you have to say "Eye Centre" again not say "Yes". Not really intuitive particularly given the way the inflection is on the sentence. After that, when I got through, my referral from Vision Express is still not on the system despite supposedly having been posted two weeks ago and faxed 3 days ago. The woman at the eye centre said give until Friday and if not on the system by then get Vision Express to fax it again and she will walk it through the system. Meanwhile a non-medical item. Irrational Pleasures There are some things in life that give you far more pleasure than they really ought. Disproportionate to the significance of the item or act. I refer to these as irrational pleasures. As you will see below I have currently deprived myself of one my specific irrational pleasures and t...

Well another week has flown by, such a trite saying I know but I feel the need to say it somehow. Quick recap on the week's events: The 20/20 Cricket on Sunday 28th June with Dad was a great day out. The weather held and there was an exciting last ball win for Warwickshire. The week at work has been its usual intense mix of tasks. I made it in the to office on Tuesday and Thursday, as is becoming my routine now. Whether I shall have to retreat to my bunker next month when Swine Flu takes a real hold or not remains to be seen. I chased the eye hospital about my referral from the opticians from the 25th June and it was there I encountered City Hospital's wonderful voice recognition system. "Please state the name of the department or person you wish to contact". I said "Eye Centre" not expecting that to work at all, but low and behold back came the response "Did you say Eye Centre?" but then despite three attempts it could not understand me saying the...