Friday 19 July 2013

The Lesser Of Two Evils

After such a hot week I was quite glad to find myself bowling along the A428 towards Papworth in an air conditioned car in beautiful sunshine.

It has been a tough week one way or another. My legs, feet and stomach are swelling in the heat making me feel very uncomfortable. Some days I leave work with feet so swollen it is hard to walk. The extra diuretics are helping though but that is not necessarily a good thing. I will explain why later.

My daily routine has been changed to cope with the weather. I get up at 6am in the cool and shower in tepid water before having a light brekkie and heading off to work. There I commandeer a fan and a chair as near to the door as possible in order to get every little breeze thats going. I eat little, mostly fruit, but drink lots throughout the day with the occasional trip to the loo for a splash of cold water on my face and neck. Once home it is another tepid shower and then a sit down for a read of the newspaper with yet another drink. I eat a very light tea around  6pm then I do my meds and go back to the settee where my appetite increases in line with the decline of the heat and I have another snack around 9pm before it's upstairs and a wash down with a cold flannel before bed. It is very boring but it seems to work for me and has so far stopped me having any serious problems and that is all that matters.
Not all for me, Peter's is on there too.

Today I went for my regular check up at Papworth. I always go to Papworth about three weeks after visiting the Brompton so that test results have time to be transfered from one hospital to the other. Overall it was good news. They are very pleased (and quite surprised) that I am still stable and said that the longer I remain this well the better my chances, which is very good to hear. I was given advice about taking care of myself in the heat which basically amounted too, 'if you don't feel like doing something then don't'. To be fair the doctor did say I seemed to be doing the right things so as long as I continued to cope the way I am I should keep doing it.

Then we got on to the thorny subject of my weight. As you all know I've been rejoicing lately at my apparent weight gain until it was pointed out to me by the Brompton that I was retaining water. I've been on extra diuretics for a couple of weeks now and, although my swelling has gone down, it means my weight has also dropped. In fact I've lost 3kg since my last visit. However they did take into account the fact that no one tends to eat a lot in very hot weather so were not that hard on me. They told me to eat what I could and provided I started to gain again when the weather cools down I should be fine.

Whilst there I dropped in on Anne.

Anne is still in CCU but is slowly making progress, she will be there for another week at least but hopefully will be back on the main ward soon. I must say she was much more cheerful and positive than I think I'd be and I can't help but admire her courage. It was really nice to see you Anne and if I can I'll be back to visit you again soon.

Having heard that I'd dropped weight again Peter took me to KFC for a greasy meal. I surprised myself by gobbling everything down in double quick time. The fact that they had the air conditioning going full blast and it was like sitting in a fridge probably helped. Once back out in the heat I felt nauseous and bloated but as it was the first full meal I'd had in around a fortnight I felt it was worth it and the feeling soon passed.

Arriving home I received more good news in the post with a letter stating Barclays have paid back PPI on two car loans I'd taken out in the past. I received just under £3000 which has been put straight into my savings until I decide what to treat myself with. I'm still waiting to hear back from Barclaycard but they said they would let me know by the 7th August, so I still have a bit of a wait for that one. As I'm feeling lucky I'm splashing out on a lottery ticket tonight. Watch this space!

The Apprentice Watch.

I really was in two minds whether to bother watching the last episode. Neither of the remaining two candidates really rocked my boat and, probably for the first time ever, I didn't care which one won.

The choice was between 'Bitch Queen from Hell', Luisa or Lipstick Leah. Both were 'passionate' about their businesses and both would give 110%, ignoring the fact that you can't have more than 100%.

Luisa wanted to start a web based bakery supply business but became a bit confused about who she was aiming for. She also chose to ignore market research feed back and aimed for a female market. Isn't Britain's most famous baker a man? The website was so pink you'd have thought it was designed for Barbie, rather than by a barbie.

The Rod Of Asclepius, Greek God of
Healing and Medicine

Leah went for a clean clinical look for her cosmetic surgery business and insisted on the rather disturbing name of 'NIKS' despite market research showing the public hated it. For me Leah lost all credibility when she added what she thought was the symbol for medicine to her logo. What she actually added was the symbol for commerce making me think her motive is purely financial rather than her desire to 'help people look their best'. Wouldn't you expect a trained doctor to know the difference? At that point I almost favoured Luisa.

As you can see the symbol for medicine has one snake and no wings. The symbol used by Leah has two snakes and wings at the top of the staff and is actually the Rod of Hermes the God of occupations and trades.

Lord Sugar was understandably worried about going with Leah as he worried about the 'morality' of the business. However Luisa put herself on dodgy ground when she said her other businesses 'look after themselves' which LS took as a sign of poor commitment. Leah then pointed out that the margins on her botox injections would be greater than the margins on Luisa's cupcakes and greed won the day.

So a disappointing end to a great series. I just wish Lord Sugar had swept the two bimbo's aside and called Neil back for another go. If it had been the old format of getting a job instead of starting a business, Neil would have walked it, no question.

Right I have a bag of grapes, a cold drink and the newspaper to read, more tomorrow.

No comments:

Post a Comment