Victoria Zigler's Blog: Zigler News, page 4

Of Birthday Flowers, Christmas Trees, And Dried Lavender

I never got around to sharing my birthday photos.  So, here are the flowers I got:

 

The yellow ones in the bunch are from Kelly, and the pinkones are from a friend named Dara.

 

And here are my birthday cards:

 

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We went minimalistic with decorations this year, but onething we did get was a real tree.  We don’tusually, but I love the idea of real trees, so Dara helped Kelly to arrange it for me as a special treat.  And here it is:

 

One photo shows it during daylight, the other after sunset.

 

Also, here are the Christmas cards we’ve received so far:

 

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When Dara went to pick up the tree, they were handing outdried lavender, so she grabbed me some…

 

My living room smells like a cross between a lavender fieldand a Christmas tree farm, and I love it!

The #Dogs Letters To #SantaPaws 2023

Dear Santa Paws,

Mummy and Daddy say you are coming soon. I’ve been a very good girl, so I’m sure you will be bringing me something nice. remember to bring something for my brothers too. Yes, even the tortoise.

The thing me and Logan want most though is for Mummy to stay home with us and Daddy. She keeps going to the people vet, and we don’t like it. Please make her stay home with us where she belongs.

Lots of licks,

Lilie

Bad Blogger, Medical Mutterings, And An Apology

I’m a bad blogger. Not only have I neglected your blogs, but my own too.

 

In my defence, I was in hospital for a lot of the past fewweeks, and – while home now – am running on minimal spoons all the time thesedays.

 

Anyway, I wanted to stop by and say, “Hi,” and let you allknow I’m still alive.  Still hanging inthere, and doing about as well as I can be under the circumstances.

Just a short post to say…

I’m back in hospital. Yes, again.
Wish I hadn’t ended up spending my birthday here, but never mind. It happens; it’s not my first hospital birthday.
I have no energy to post more, so I’ll just say hope you are doing okay.

Medical Mutterings: The Way Things Stand

I have not planned on doing this post yet, but I think I need to. 
The liver is able to repair itself when it’s damaged.
At least, it is up to a point.
I’m already past that point.
There is no getting better, only trying to stabilise and slow down my liver failure.
Had I noticed I was sick sooner, or had they listen to me sooner, maybe we might of caught things early enough to have a different story. But I didn’t, they didn’t, we didn’t, so this is the way things stand.

Celebrating #Samhain 2023

Despite still feeling pretty unwell, I was determined to try and do a little something to celebrate Samhain )otherwise known as Halloween, or Nos Calan Gaeaf in Welsh).  So we hung up an Autumn themed reef on the door...

Kelly helped me make sure there was a Mr. Pumpkin-Head (what I always call my carved pumpkins, ever since I wrote the poem of that name years ago) to put in the window...

And I enjoyed some tea in my new 'Witches Brew' cauldron-shaped mug (brought a couple of months ago, but not shown to you at the time, to match the teapot I got a couple of years ago)...

 

 

While we watched episodes of "Wednesday" on Netflix and waited for trick-or-treaters.

 

There were very few trick-or-treaters (even when compared to recent years, when we've had less than there always used to be when I was young) between the rain and our minimalist approach to decorations, but I'm sure Kelly doesn't mind finishing off the Halloween chocolates.

October 27th 2023 Medical Mutterings

Now that I’m home, so have access to my laptop – which makeswriting blog posts a lot easier – I’ll update you on my most recent medicaladventures.

 

~

 

On September 27th I went to A&E complainingof abdominal pain, with my stomach feeling more bloated than usual.  I spent the entire day there, only to bebarely examined and told I needed to drink more liquid (ironic considering I’dspent the whole day there with nothing much to drink) and told I needed to losesome weight, and then sent home.  Mycomment about having lost another kilo (just over 2lbs) since July, despitehaving not done anything to try and lose any, was dismissed as not being goodenough.

 

Then, late on the night of September 30th, wecalled the number for non-life-threatening urgent medical care, because my painand the bloating were worse, and I was starting to have trouble keeping food down.  The out ofhours doctor came to see me in the early hours of the morning of October 1st,and then arranged for an ambulance ride for me to the hospital, because shethought I might have some kind of abdominal issue and should at least bescanned.

 

Long story short, I’ve been in and out of hospital eversince (mostly in) and it turns out what I have is liver problems.

 

I’m now on medication to try and help with that.

 

I've also got some new rules for eating, a special meal replacement shake to have as one of my meals each day to ensure my body gets what it needs each day even if I don't manage to eat much, along with some medication to help me actually keep food down, which is something I'm still struggling with.

 

~

 

In other medical news:

 

I’m still waiting to find out about the sleep study thing.

 

And, as for my back, I had my MRI, and it turns out I have asyrinx (air bubble) on my lower spine, which is the cause of the problems I’vebeen having with my back.  Apparently usuallyair bubbles form and burst as you go through life, but sometimes they don’tburst, and put pressure on the spine, causing pain and other issues, which iswhat’s happened with me.  So, I was rightthat it wasn’t weight related.  But itwasn’t nerve-damage either, which is why the physio exercises weren’t helping.

 

Still in hospital

Today’s post is late, because there nearly wasn’t one.
I’m still in hospital. Managed to get myself a bad bout of flu of some kind while in here being checked out.
Will give you proper updates when I can.

Super speedy check-in

I was not able to schedule a post ahead of time for today, but was determined one would go up, so this is going to be very short.
My health is proving to be a big issue right now. In fact, I’m writing this from the hospital dealing with all kinds of tests to figure out what’s going on properly.
I hope everything is going better for you than it is for me currently

Of Transport Companies, #AutumnEquinox Celebrations, And Medical Mutterings

When we took the dogs to the groomer a couple of weeks ago,we used the transport company we’d used to take them to the vet.  They’re useful, and much cheaper than cabfare, but not particularly great at being reliable at timekeeping, and seem tokeep forgetting I’m blind even when I’m standing right there.  We couldn’t book a ride back from the groomerwith them though, because they didn’t have an available car (even though I’dtried to book a couple of weeks in advance) so I had to look for an alternativeoption for picking the dogs up.

 

Luckily, as it turns out, there’s a second transport companyrecently been started up in the area, which works similarly to the other one,and I was able to book the second trip with them.  So far, I’m more impressed with this second company,since they arrived on time to pick me up, and were a lot more helpful to me(which makes me feel better about any time I might need to use them withoutKelly joining me on the journey).

 

 

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The Autumn Equinox was a couple of weeks ago, as I’m sureyou know.

 

With my lack of energy and not feeling great, we didn’t do much,but we made some apple pie and had it with ice-cream (dairy-free ice-cream forme, of course).  So at least we didsomething nice for the day.

 

I’d have liked to do more.  But between how I’m feeling in general andhaving been out to take the dogs for grooming the previous day (even if thetrips there and back weren’t long ones) I didn’t have the energy.

 

*~*

 

I went to the sleep clinic (eventually – after the hospitaltransport got sent on such a stupid route we were all late for ourappointments, so grateful the hospital takes responsibility if we’re late ontheir transport and fits us in when we finally arrive) and got the device theywanted me to wear for the sleep study.

 

Hopefully they got something from that device,because Kelly helped me make sure it was turned on (because, of course, it wasall visual and not accessible to me) but when we got up in the morning it wasoff.  We don’t know how, or when, it gotturned off, but it happened some time while I was sleeping.  Anyway, I’ll find out in a few weeks, whenthey say I’ll either get asked to do another sleeve study or told the results of this one.

In the meantime, my MRI appointment came through, so I havethat on October 11th.