Sick and Fed-Up

Sunday 28 February 2010

Without turning this blog into my personal whinge-fest I’m beginning to lose the will!  My elbow hasn’t improved this week and the antibiotics have lowered my immune system enough to allow cold-germs in.  I rarely have colds and this one isn’t sitting well.  It’s the sort where I need to sip something constantly or cough continously so I’ve chosen the sipping method.  I know we’re recommended to drink so many litres of water a day, but the frequent trips to the bathroom don’t make me feel any happier.

I plan to ring the doctors’ surgery tomorrow and insist on seeing a doctor.  Our surgery opens at 8.30 am and takes calls from then on, but this means that from 8.30 am til 9.00-ish their phone is engaged.  By the time I get through all the appointments have gone for the day and so far, despite asking if I can make an appointment for the following day, I’ve been unlucky.  The fact that I’m usually outside washing down the parlour or feeding the calves at that time is “not their problem”.  According to Terri they’re supposed to allow me to do this, so I may have to insist pretty hard.  I am determined though.  We’ll see.

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Height of Fashion?

Monday 22 February 2010

If having an elbow shaped like a balloon, especially a large red, hot balloon, made one the height of fashion then I’d be there!

Despite a whole week’s worth of antibiotics the elbow is still throbbing and now, much to my disgust, the skin is falling off like a snake shedding its skin.  I went back to the nurse at the surgery today.  She wasn’t very helpful and after asking me what I thought we should do about it (causing me to point out that I didn’t actually have any medical knowledge) she dashed off to find a doctor to ask his advice (which apparently takes about ten minutes).  I sat alone in the room wondering what the outcome would be, whether she’d notice if I nicked the stethoscope currently lying on the table (it was a brief and fleeting fancy), if I had time to weigh myself on her very precise scales, why she had a copy of ‘The Idiot’s Guide to DOS’ on the shelf as well as other trivial questions and when she re-entered the room she was all smiles.

“The doctor says you should have another week’s worth of antibiotics only this time we’ll give you some really strong ones and get rid of it once and for all.  We’re OK with penicillin, are we?”  I assumed this was the royal ‘we’ because she might have been OK with penicillin, but I’m highly allergic to it.  I believe it might make mention of that somewhere in my medical notes.  Well, that and the fact that I told her a week ago that I was, which is why she gave me a ‘mycin’ rather than an ‘illin’.  Good job one of us is paying attention.  She looked a bit crestfallen at this news and reverted back to the ‘mycin’ which “might not be as effective”.

I did wonder then if it’s that ineffective, why am I paying £7.20 a pop for it?

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Poorly

Today I am poorly and don’t feel like coming out to blog very much, but if I disappear again for a while at least you’ll know where I’ve gone.  I’ve been to the doctor and she tells me I have infected bursitis in my elbow.  There was talk of needles, draining and a hospital stay for intravenous antibiotics, but I’m hoping it won’t come to that.  In the meantime I have antibiotics that require swallowing, which sounds far nicer, despite being an alarming shade of red.  Natural colouring, do you suppose?  I wonder how many cochineal beetles died for these?  Do they still use those?  You see, I’m rambling – I’m feverish!  I think I’ll go for a nice lie-down and hope the swelling goes away before tomorrow, which is my deadline to see if the antibiotics are actually working.

Back whenever.

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That’s as close as you get

Friday 12 February 2010

Yesterday we delivered a couple more calves to friends who farm in Fiddington.  I posted a photo before of his feral cats but every time we go Steph asks us to bring one back.  This one’s cute and just begs to be called something like Fluffy – it’s a long-haired tabby kitten – but sorry Steph, that’s as close as you get!

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Every Day …

Wednesday 10 February 2010

I read somewhere that you should do one thing every day that scares you.

Here’s a suggestion:

Take your new car that your anxious husband warns you has actually been lowered five inches and will probably catch on very bumpy roads.

Decide to visit friend Val (The Woolly Shepherd) at her unit in Dunkeswell, somewhere you’ve never been before.

Punch the postcode into the sat nav and decide to follow the directions to the letter (after all, you have no idea where you’re going!).

Leave Taunton after visiting other friends and go exactly where the sat nav tells you.

Argggghhhhhhh!

Who programs these routes and why are they all small, remote, country lanes?  The only thing I passed along the way was running water down both sides of the road.  The only thing on the way back was the largest lorry you’ve ever seen.  Thank goodness I discovered yesterday that my wing-mirrors flap at my discretion; with the flick of a switch they were cowering against the side of the car hoping not to be ripped off as the lorry squeezed past.  Who knew that the route to Dunkeswell was so steep!  After that I decided to completely ignore my sat nav and follow the road signs instead.  I left it on though as I like to cause it frustration.  I swear with each missed side lane the computerised voice got tenser and wearier as she ‘recalculated’ a new route.

It was a beautiful journey though through trees, up and down hills.  If the road had been wider I might have been tempted to stop to take photographs.

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Slow Day

Tuesday 2 February 2010

February already?  Who’d have thought it.  So…. what have I achieved since Christmas?  I think the answer has to be, not very much.  As usual I started the year with enthusiasm, but after the social whirl that was my life pre-Christmas, the post-Christmas period has been – well – nothing!

So, I’m going to try not to keep doing it.  Nothing, I mean.  Today I got the paperwork up to date and dealt with everything in pile-order rather than putting stuff to the bottom ‘to be dealt with later/when I feel more like doing it’.  I wrote a birthday card and got it ready to go with (surprisingly) more than one day left until the receiver’s birthday, wrote several cheques to pay long-outstanding bills and forced myself to fill in the form you need to complete when you sell a car and declare SORN, as the guy in the garage had many, many tales of people who’d been prosecuted for not declaring SORN even though the car had passed from their ownership.  I’m not convinced, but just to be on the safe side I supposed I’d better do one.  He might be right.

I also spent a little bit of time going through my internet bookmarks, especially those for other blogs.  I love blogs and visit quite a variety, usually looking for inspiration in one form or another.  I was sad to see that about twenty percent of my bookmarks were to dead or dormant sites.  Where have these lovely bloggers gone?  Did they get bored and wander off, or was it some unavoidable circumstance that stopped them?  It was quite sad really.

Stephanie has decided she’d like a party for her eighteenth birthday in March.  Themed!  Apparently within her social group ‘themed’ is in, so her theme is a masked ball.  I always wanted to go to one of these – note the use of the past tense – in a swirling, dazzling ballgown with frills and lace, glitz and glamour.  I saw one I fancied on Ebay yesterday and showed Steph who immediately did her best to adopt a tactful face.  A little bit of expression slipped through though and I could see she thought I might be a bit old for that now.

“Don’t you think it’s a little gothic?” she said.  “After all, you don’t really want to look like Morticia Addams, do you?”

Bugger!  Back to boring then.  However, looking at a dress described as ‘sexy, deep-cleavage cocktail dress’ modelled by a real person rather than a model, bearing in mind the dress was a size 18 and looked like it needed pricking with a fork, I think she might have a point.

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