Month: June 2022

Always “When” rather than “If” . .

/ Tony / 4 Comments

After about 2½ years of mask wearing, stepping into the road to avoid people, and hand sanitising, I finally succumbed to the virus. We had both tested negative on Friday morning (we have to do a lateral flow test [LFT] before R*** can come home for a visit) so everything looked okay. I had been feeling a little off colour since waking up but put it down to simply being a summer cold.


Saturday came, and I spent most of the either dozing in the chair or in bed. I was still thinking it was a cold and nothing else. By Sunday, I was thinking that the cold was lasting longer than it should. K*** said I should do a LFT to be on the safe side and I was beginning to think it might be a good idea. Then it showed … positive … which was not too unexpected. What was unexpected was the feeling of relief. Relief that I now knew what it was. I called K*** and let her know, before calling the boss. That’s another story, which I may put in writing when the anger dies down.

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Flash forward to today (Monday) and we are testing again as R***’s care home had said that he could go back as long as he tested negative. Well, nightmare time again, this time K*** tested positive. R***’s test was negative, so he was picked up around 11:00. It’s messed him up a little as cannot do any of his normal activities, has to be tested every day and his team have to go back to wearing the full PPE.

Then, at around 12ish we got a phone call from his care home. They are obliged to do a test when he arrives as a matter of course. Amazingly he tested positive. Could not believe it. So now, not only can he not do his normal activities, he is not allowed out of his flat until Tuesday.

The week got better . . .

/ Tony / 4 Comments

The are no images in this post for reasons that you will understand as you read.

It’s been a bit of a rough week. In fact, it started the Friday before. I had been along to the Drs for my INR test, which was only just over a week since the last one. It had been a little high previously, so my dosage had been cut and it was time to check that it had worked. Problem was that it had gone even higher. No idea why, but it was well out of my range. The clinician decide to reduce the dose again and gave me an appointment for the following Wednesday.

Then in the early hours of Monday morning, I started to feel unwell and began a bout of S&D (sickness and diarrea). I had not felt as bad as did for years. I spent the whole day between and and the toilet. By late evening, I was beginning to feel a little better, but decided that I should not go to work in a kitchen with diarrea. That’s how it spreads. Tuesday came and went and I was beginning to think I had got the better of it.

How, by lunchtime on Wednesday I had a sort of relapse. I had no energy and literally no interest in eating at all. I thought It would be a good idea to go have a lie down and just rest for a while, to see if that helped. I had rung the INR clinic to explain the situation and we decided that it was probably not the best of ideas to have an INR test that day, and I was booked in for Friday.

By the time of the appointment, I was feeling fine again. Everything seemed to have cleared up, although my energy level was still low. I talked though how I had been with the clinician and was expecting the worst. However, I didn’t expect my INR to be so low, that it was out of my range. It was low enough for the clinician, to explain that I was at a slight risk of a stroke and what signs to look out for. She boosted my dosage drastically for two days and asked me to come for a test on Monday, before work. A little worrying.

On the plus side (sort of) I have lost about half a stone in weight and haven’t had an alchoholic drink sine last Sunday. The weight will probably start to creep up again, as it always does, but the cutting down on alcohol will be a great benefit.

Still some lingering issues . . .

/ Tony / 3 Comments

After the last issue with my laptop, when it turned out I was using the wrong profile (see this post) I have been most careful with updates. Touch wood, the last couple have not been a problem. In fact (groping for more wood to touch) the computer start-up has improved from a poor 8 minutes to a more appropriate 3 minutes. Not too sure how long that will last though.

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I think I must be one of the very few people that are not really bothered about this Jubilee stuff. I just cannot get excited about it. Especially at this time with the current issues facing the country. I think of the billions being spent on these four days of ‘celebrations’ then I get angry at the people that say my youngest cannot be fully funded in his care home..

And all the plastic! Everywhere you look there are plastic Union flags. The great majority of them are upside down. Most people don’t know there is a correct way to show the flag. The red ‘X’ is set slightly off centre of the white ‘X’ which means (bear with me …) that the left-hand lower and upper legs have narrower lower white parts. This rotates to the right-hand and narrow bands become the upper side of the bands.

To the great majority of the country, I suppose it doesn’t matter, but it’s just another part of our culture being eroded. It’s as bad as the poor use of the English language that has pervaded the way some people speak. I get quite tetchy when I hear someone say “fustrated” instead of the correct “frustrated”. That and the incorrect use of the word “done” in phrases usually by football pundits. Phrases like “The boy done good!”