Random Ramblings - June 10th 2018 (LBE & FD)

Monday posts are covered for the next couple of months - partially due to the fact I was already ahead on "Music Monday" and "Monday Motivation" posts from having done a batch of them back in March, so just had to do a few more posts to fill in the gaps - and I've done some extra Sunday and Friday posts too. This post you're reading now had to be written in little bits over several days, because I have a few things I want to tell you about.

Anyway, beyond that... Well, if I miss a posting slot, I'm going to have to deal with that. At least I can take comfort in the knowledge that I tried to make sure I wasn't going to miss one. Knowing that helps... A bit anyhow.

I know it doesn't really matter. I mean, I know you'd understand if I miss days with everything I'm dealing with right now. But the part of me that knows that is being told to shut up by the part of me that feels I should stick to what I promised to deliver, which is making it difficult for me to accept the truth, even as I'm able to acknowledge that it is the truth. I hope that made sense.

I thought I'd done enough. It should have been enough. If things had worked out how I'd hoped they would, it would have been enough. But things are happening slower than I'd hoped as regards the medical stuff, and other things have joined those I was already dealing with.

I've done my best. I can't do better than I'm already doing. Now I just have to make myself accept that - preferably before I lose what little sanity I've managed to retain thus far.

***~~~***

As I mentioned above, things are moving along with the gynecology stuff, even if not as quickly as I'd hoped, nor even as quickly as should have officially been the case. Yet, on the other hand, they're moving more quickly than I'd expected, since I know what hospitals are like for taking forever to sort out appointments, so wouldn't have been too surprised if things had moved more slowly. Disappointed, yes. But not surprised.

When you have to go through a doctor to see someone over here, there are three levels of doctor referrals: emergency, urgent, and general. An emergency referral is meant to get you seen within two weeks, an urgent one is meant to get you seen within four weeks, and a general referral is meant to have you seen within six weeks. Those numbers are only what they aim for, and appointments can happen a bit quicker, or take a bit longer to come through, depending on who you need to see about what, how busy they are, and whether you get lucky and someone else has to cancel or reschedule.

As an example of this: Kelly is still waiting for the appointment to have the lump on his head drained. When he called this past Friday - because it had been six weeks since he'd seen the doctor - all they'd say was that he was on the waiting list. So he still has no idea when he's getting that done, despite being told he'd have it done within six weeks. Unfortunately, that kind of thing is normal for a general referral.

Anyway, I was supposed to be getting an emergency referral to the gynecologist. It's what the nurses at the hospital asked for me to have. It's what I asked the doctor to do for me. It's also what I understood he was agreeing to do. But it's not what he did, as I learned when I called after 13 days to find out why I didn't even have an appointment date yet.

He only requested an urgent referral.

OK, so that's better than a general referral, I suppose. But I was supposed to get an emergency one. Was I surprised I didn't? No! But I was disappointed, and maybe a little annoyed.

The appointment centre for the hospital said I could call the doctor and take it up with him if I wanted to. I didn't though. By the time I could have gotten to talk to a doctor, he could have had time to write the letter and send it to them, and they could see it, the other two weeks would have almost been up anyhow. Plus, if I didn't manage to convince him to ensure it was an emergency referral when I spoke to him originally, I really didn't know what I could possibly say to change his mind and get him to upgrade me to emergency status. If he'd only given me a general referral, I'd have called and said something, but at least he did arrange an urgent one, I suppose. *sigh*

So, I did the only thing I could do: waited.

At least, I waited a few more days, and then called the appointment centre back.

Well, they said I could. So there! Plus, I said I waited. I never said I did so patiently. *wink*

Anyway, at first it seemed like I'd be out of luck again, and they said about all they could do would be to eMail the gynecologist's secretary to chase up the appointment. I agreed to them doing so, and hung up, expecting to need to call again in a few days, and quite frankly feeling rather annoyed about the whole situation. But the phone rang a few minutes later, and I was able to make an appointment then and there. I was even lucky enough that someone had cancelled their appointment, so I was able to have one within a few days.

Amusingly - Or maybe it's only me who finds it amusing... I am suffering from blood loss while writing this, after all, and when it gets very bad I have been known to find things amusing that really aren't (that's my excuse anyhow) - I got a letter from one of the other doctors from our surgery the day after the appointment got made, asking me to call them. When I did, it was to say they know it can sometimes take months to see a gynecologist, so they wanted to know if there was anything they could potentially do for me in the meantime. I don't think there would have been much they could do, if anything. But since this discussion happened two days before my appointment, it no longer really mattered, and I just found it amusing that they decided to suggest potentially doing something helpful a couple of weeks after the initial phone conversation, but not when I was actually talking to them to ask for help. I wonder if the fact I spoke to a male doctor on the phone, but it was a female doctor who saw my notes and offerred help means anything? Maybe not, but now I'm curious...

So, my appointment was for 11:00am on May 24th.

Unfortunately, since this was with one of the lower level gynecologists, she didn't have the power to approve or deny any requests. All she could do was examine me, do a biopsy so they could have the results by the time I saw the next person in case there's anything worse than what we're already seeing to worry about, talk to me about potential options, and make recommendations based on her findings. Fortunately, talking to me and comparing my notes with what I was saying, as well as what she was seeing, seemed to have her agreeing that a hysterectomy is a potentially good idea in my situation. How much this will help my case when I speak to her superior is unclear, but it will potentially help my case that I have the medical people on the lower rungs of the ladder appearing to support my decision.

It might have helped that they could tell by my responses - and how low my iron level is, despite my being on iron tablets, and having had a blood transfusion only a couple of months ago - that I was serious about what keeps happening. Plus, I was dizzy enough that the nurse had to grab me a couple of times to keep me on my feet. That almost landed me some time back in hospital then and there, I think. But I'm just on the side of the numbers with my iron level where the fact I have iron tablets to take means they're willing to just send me home. I am for now anyhow. Although, judging by how I'm feeling, exactly how much longer that's going to be the case remains to be seen.

Anyway, they were going to do more checks on me than they did, but she decided it wasn't worth it Since I'm so set on just having an end to it, and the things she was going to do were designed to see if certain other options might be open to me. She figured it was a waste of my time and hers to do them. She wrote something in my notes that essentially said she'd discussed them with me, but since I feel the other options wouldn't be something I'd want to consider anyway, she decided not to proceed with those particular tests. I know she did, because she read it out to me as she wrote it, with two nurses in the room to witness this. She also wrote a fantastic referral letter, which she sent me a copy of, to expand on those comments. As long as they pay attention to what she said in her letter, I should actually get something done.

While I was waiting, she told me that - if symptoms got really bad, and the appointment was taking its time - I should go to A and E if I feel I need to. They won't be able to do much, but they can check my iron level at least, and give me a blood transfusion if it drops below a certain level.

I haven't gone to A and E though, since I haven't felt any worse than seems to be my normal. Besides, I got an appointment through a few days ago, and am seeing the gynecologist on Thursday June 14th at 4:50pm. Hopefully this will be the gynecologist who can actually make decisions, and I can convince this person to do what needs doing so we can finally get me sorted out. Cross your fingers and toes... Get your furkids to cross their paws... Think positive thoughts of agreeable doctors... Pray... Whatever you think might help!

Actually, it looks like I have a busy day that day, though I shouldn't need all those crossed fingers and positive thoughts for the other appointment, so save them for the gynecology one.

My appointment with the asthma nurse, which was meant to have been on June 6th, had to be rescheduled for some reason, so I have that coming up on Thursday too. That one's at 3:20pm. I considered rescheduling that one again, but since I do have time to go to that one first, and it's sort of on the way to the hospital anyhow, I figured I'd just go straight from the asthma clinic to the hospital. Since the appointments are an hour and a half apart, I have time for the asthma clinic to be running a bit late, while still leaving me with plenty of time to get to the hospital - even given the fact I'll be going through town during rush hour. At least this way I can get them both dealt with out of the way. Plus, I can save a bit of cab fare, and have one less trip up our stairs to deal with.

The inhalers and spacer seem to be keeping things under control as regards my asthma, so I'm expecting the asthma appointment to go quickly and smoothly, since it's really just to check that this is the case, and I'll order refills while I'm there.

I do have a post scheduled for next Sunday. But, if I'm able to do so, I'll move that one to one of my empty July slots, and do a quick post to let you know how the appointments went. If you get anything other than a medical update next Sunday, you know I wasn't able to do so for some reason, in which case I'll come update you when I can.

***~~~***

I could so do without this right now, especially on top of everything else, but... We'll be moving in the near future.

I don't know exactly when, but it will be as soon as we can, and it's only partially by choice.

I really don't feel like going in to the full details, but the short version is that we've been having issues with one of our neighbours. It's not just us. Not even close. She's caused problems for other neighbours too, one set of which had enough and moved away last year. Another set of our nice neighbours are planning to move away because of her too. Not that I blame them.

We tried to ignore her originally. All of us did. We hoped by not reacting she'd get bored and go away, which some people like her often do. Not her though. She just started causing more and more problems, until we were forced to do something. It's like she felt she needed to raise her game to force us to react; she seems to want the reaction, and the drama surrounding it, even if the rest of us would rather avoid it and live peacefully.

No. You didn't miss me mentioning it in a pprevious post. I've been trying not to mention it on my blog and social media. Partially because I didn't want to add to the negative posts out there, and partially because I just didn't feel like going in to it, especially when there were so many other things I could be posting about.

Anyway, it started with the odd noise complaint - whether we were making any noise or not; sometimes she'd actually wake us to complain of apparent noise, and other times we weren't even at home - and gradually got worse. It started a few months after we moved in here, but only escilated towards the end of last year. She even has a stick (the handle of an old broom) she uses to bang on her ceiling, which is meant to be a signal to us that we're making too much noise, and should stop, but which only serves to annoy us (and everyone else in the building, and adjoining buildings). She complains about noises - real or imagined - day or night. Meanwhile, she thinks she can make as much noise as she wants, regardless of the time of day or night, including banging so much with her stick that the neighbours in the process of moving right now were forced not only to move their fish tank away from the adjoining wall, but also to go sleep in the car with their baby. It says a lot when it's quieter in the car in the street than in your own home, doesn't it?

Anyhow, as I said, we've been trying to ignore her. The problem is, now it's at the point where she's claiming we're being racist towards her, and that Kelly is stalking her. She even went as far as to go up to him in the street, scream abuse at him, and then take a photo of herself with him behind her to use as apparent proof of this (all he was actually doing was standing there waiting for the light to change so he could cross the road to go to the shops on the other side of the street). We couldn't care less what colour her skin is; she could be purple with pink polka dots for all we care. Our only issues with her are the verbal abuse and threats we've been getting from her. Some of which, I'd like to point out, are logged with the police, including an incident where the police heard her being verbally abusive and threatening to us while I was talking to them on the phone. So it's now way past the point where we can just ignore it.

So, what it all boils down to is this: the landlords have been involved since a few months after it all started, the police have been involved since the end of last year, and now everyone's had enough. Since she doesn't want to move, and the landlords and police know the stairs are hard on me anyhow, we've been asked to move. Actually, it's more like we've been told we either move, or we only enter or exit our property when we can be reasonably confident of not running in to her, and go the other way when we see her coming down the street. In short, we either move, or stay as far from her as living in the same building will allow, even if we have to be inconvenienced in order to do so. Accompanied by comments about how they understand how hard the stairs are on me sometimes, and wouldnt I be better in a downstairs place, and if they were us they'd have moved by now, it makes it perfectly clear what they want to happen. Though I notice neither the landlords nor the police are offering to help us pay for the move they want to happen so badly.

So, I guess we're moving.

We're not completely moving away from this area. We like this general area. We moved here on purpose almost seven years ago, and nobody's going to bully us in to moving away. We're just moving enough to put some space between us, so we're no longer her neighbours. We could move away to a new area, but why should we? As I said, we like this area. Other than the tourists who seem to forget about nearby residents potentially wanting to sleep at night, and some issues with seagulls getting in to garbage when idiots put their bags out too early, or people don't clean up after their beach parties, it's a nice area. We won't be bullied in to giving it up completely. Moving to a different part of it. Fine. Moving away from the area completely. No! It's a big enough area that we can put a bit of distance between us. That should be enough.

Oh, and to those tourists I mentioned: beach parties are fun. Yes... Absolutely! Beach parties that go on until like 3:00am however, are only fun for those at the party. Also, if you're having a party on the beach, please take your rubbish home with you when you leave. Just saying.

Anyway, we'll be moving as soon as we can arrange it, and trying not to run in to her in the meantime. Quite frankly, we'd be moving immediately if we could, but circumstances - financial especially - don't allow for that.

Right now we're trying to get the money together while packing. This essentially involves me sitting on the floor with a box, while Kelly fetches stuff to put in to it, because I'm better at making the best use of space in the boxes, but even sitting down to do that requires me to take regular breaks from the task. The plan is to pack as much as we can while waiting for my gynecology stuff to be sorted out, all the while saving as much as we can each month, so we can be ready to move as quickly as possible afterwards. It's the best we can do, since we'll need the time to get the funds together, and my constant need for rest makes packing a slow process. In fact, since even with rests I can't do more than maybe a box a day, and even then have to take some days off, slow process is an understatement, and packing hasn't gone as quickly as it would have if I could do more.

Like I said, I could so do without this right now.

Since we have to move though, we're going to take the opportunity to move to a place with less stairs. After all, it's true the stairs are hard on me - and still will be after I get them to do the surgery, because of my leg and asthma - and Kelly wouldn't mind less stairs to deal with. So we might as well have something potentially helpful to us come out of this, right? Besides, if the landlords and police are going to use that fact to push for it to be us moving instead of her, the least they can do is allow us to only look for places that will take away the stairs issue.

***~~~***

Apparently the new kettle we got a couple of months ago has a removable filter near the spout.

This was something I didn't realize until I accidentally knocked it off while sticking my hand in the kettle to check the water level when I was filling the kettle a couple of weeks ago... If I'd known about it, I'd have been more careful how I stuck my hand in there.

No, I wasn't risking making hot drinks while all dizzy like I have been. I was just filling it with cold water. Kelly was making the drinks. I'm pushing things enough as it is, without risking falling while holding a kettle full of hot water. Just thought I'd get that in there, for those who may have thought about it and been concerned.

Anyway, it took us absolutely AGES to figure out how to put it back on, because I never knew it even came off - as I mentioned above - and Kelly couldn't remember how it was supposed to go.

Naturally, as soon as we'd managed to get it reatatched we realized it was one of those situations where it was easy to do, once you knew how, and you felt silly for not figuring it out sooner.

We'll just chalk it up to a learning experience. At least we know how to remove and reatatch it now, and I know to be careful not to knock it off when checking the water level in future.

***~~~***

I don't remember ever having tried artichokes before. So I did a couple of weeks ago... On a pizza.

As one of their vegetarian pizza options, one of the pizza places near us has a pizza with artichokes, mushrooms, and garlic. It sounded interesting, so I tried it. I actually really loved it.

They also had one that involved asparagus, and I tried that too. I didn't enjoy it quite as much though, but I wasn't all that surprised. Not because of the asparagus... I really like asparagus... But because it involved olives, and I'm not too keen on olives. It was nice enough, but the one with the artichokes was better.

The same pizza place also does a fantastic salad, and some very tasty cheezy garlic mushrooms.

Hey, we may be saving to move, but we do need to eat. Besides, why should we give up weekly take-away night? Saving is one thing, but she's making us suffer enough, without also taking away take-away night. Just thought I'd get that in there, because I did actually have someone tell me the other day I shouldn't be ordering take-away if I'm trying to save to move.

***~~~***

Kelly saw a picture on Facebook several weeks back. It was entitled something like, "How to bother a geek," (or words to that effect). He described it to me at the time.

I was going to post it here, but he couldn't find it again to grab it for me.

The picture featured the actor Patrick Stewart, dressed as the leader of the X-Men, with a quote above him that read as follows:

Use the force, Harry!
~Gandalf

It bothered me at the time, and still bothers me now... Nearly two months later. Haha!

I guess that makes me a geek.

If none of that means anything to you, and you don't understand why it bothered me, you obviously aren't one.

I won't hold that against you. I will, however, explain if you want me to.

***~~~***

There are several birthdays among family and friends this month. I'd like to wish everyone a happy birthday, but I keep falling behind on that. So, if you had yours recently, or are about to, then a very happy birthday to you from me!

I want to mention two birthdays in particular though: my Mother-In-Law, and my Dad.

Kelly's Mom celebrated her birthday yesterday (June 9th) and my Dad celebrates his this coming Wednesday (June 13th).

So, happy birthday, Mom, and Dad!

***~~~***

Did you know that some people celebrate Fairy Day every June 24th?

If you're the kind of person who does... Happy early Fairy Day to you!

Also, if you're the kind of person who loves fairies, and believes in fairy magic, you may be interested in reading this post about the faerie star and what the seven points of it stand for.