4years 8 months blood results and another Amber update

The scores on the doors for this month. Thyroid seems to be on the frisk again, not at all sure what is causing that, watch and see I guess. Certainly explains why I've felt like a flat tyre for the last couple of weeks (I'd been putting that down to post Christmas / overdoing things / dodgy tooth thing and worrying about Amber)

Poor Amber had another funny turn on Tuesday, I got a paniced message from doggy daycare to say she'd collapsed and couldn't get up, she was just thrashing her head around and one of her eyes had rolled back in her head. Left work in a panic only to get home and find her wandering around with her eyes where they should be. Later that evening there was a massive explosion of sick and after that she perked right up (persumably because the nasty came out).

I have plumbers booked for tomorrow to come and give me a quote for replacing the whole shower unit in our ensuite, fingers crossed that they aren't too expensive and we can just get on with it.

So here they are, enjoy
xx

4yrs 8mths and a little bit - visitors, cooking and Amber update

Back in work again, sadly another week has passed and the powers that be at the Euromillions have decided once again that this this week it isn’t me L

It’s been freezing here for the last week, with the smart meter that shows the cost for the gas and electric rolling round at high speed racking up an eye watering daily charge. Being so cold does have some benefits, clearing up ‘dog nuggets’ from the garden is far less gross – flip side it’s like a skating rink getting to the lawn LOL

We had Gareth’s parents down for the weekend, lovely to see them and catch up and as usual we cooked up lovely things – slow cooked Greek Lamb leg on Friday and BBQ’d on Saturday (well mostly Gareth did because I was hiding in the house keeping warm and watching the Newcastle v Chelsea game – last minute Newcastle goal for a win YAY) Alternative Sunday dinner was chicken and pineapple fajita’s with lime sour cream and refried beans …. And tonight I’m aiming for Toad in the hole (but to be fair that was plan A yesterday too LOL)
I had my monthly ‘stabbing’ on Friday and was hopeful for blood results later before I hit the publish button for this post. I’ve just called and they’ve not been reviewed yet so try again tomorrow please ….. ho hum, based on recent form there’s a high chance having written this it could be 3 days before I remember to publish it so watch this space.

I have my annual meet up with the neuro 2 weeks tomorrow and as ever even though I’ve had a sneak peek at the result I’m still nervous …. Silly me ….
Amber is much better after the fright she gave us a couple of weeks back, Beagling on like the star that she is. Winston and Bella are mad and Murphy-Cat is as lovely but cowardly as ever. Gareth loves his new job and much more chilled out these days.

I’ve decided a year without a working shower in the en-suite is long enough and contacted a plumber to come and quote for the work myself. The old saying of ‘if you want something done, do it yourself’ comes back to haunt me again J

Amber’s ‘mini’ that I won in a charity raffle to raise funds for BeKind Rescue was made last week and has arrived. It’s amazingly good and the lady who makes them is super talented (I’ve had July 20^th this year booked for having the other 2 made since May last year so in 6 months’ time we will have a full set) I had 3 ordered so I donated my 3^rd back for another raffle – it didn’t seem right to just reduce my order when I had planned to pay for 3 anyway so they got 2 raffles for 1 in the end

Look how wonderful the replica of our girl is – I did consider posing her with the mini and a real carrot but decided the ensuing bedlam was too likely to end up with something being broken LOL

 

Hope you’re taking care of you, wrapped up warm and feeling loved.

It’s still Monday and I’m going to publish …. Will wonders ever cease so back tomorrow (hopefully) with blood results xx

4 yrs 8 mths (ish) - Tracy 1 - 0 Silly Appointment Time

Sometimes a good whinge can really help with things.

I called Charing Cross and asked them how I should get there for a 9am appointment on a train arriving at Paddington at 07:26am and it was universally agreed as physically impossible. They put me through to the secretaries who also agreed that World Peace & Brexit were more achievable and promptly moved my appointment to February 4^th at 14:15pm J Same location / journey, significantly less chance of getting my face kicked in by angry commuters.

Last Wednesday was awful, poor Amber Girl was in a terrible state, she literally started exploding fluids from everywhere, collapsed, her gums had gone completely pale and her breathing was similar to chain stokes in humans. Gareth left work and came home to come with me to the vets, and we didn’t think she would be coming home. The vet was epic, sure it was a horrible case of a bug going round (apparently it’s the same for dogs as it is for kids in school) which because of her age looked really bad but it could be treated. She came home – 48 hours later she was full of life and bouncing around again.

We’ve had dinner out and some really spectacular dinners in – an epic 24 hours sous vide Brisket finished on the BBQ with Brazilian spices, chicken liver and Pedro Ximines pate, Chicken Milanese and a Beef Casserole – I’ve really been cooking up a storm over the last week and there’s a plan for some spectacular Lamb Chops later in the week.

Once again I’ve been reminded I need to do some ‘rationalisation’ of paperwork (I’ve been meaning to get round to this for nearly a decade – but hey this time might be different)

Happy new year to you, hope 2020 is kind to you xx

4yrs 7mths 3 wks - Blood reults christmas toothache and the most awesome news EVER!!!!

Read to the bottom - there's something you don't want to miss down there :-)

Christmas and New Year are over and done with and normality is resumed.

We had a lovely one visiting family in deepest darkest Wales and Yorkshire. There was a slight fly in the ointment with me being unable to have a drink as a result of mega strong antibiotics. I had to have an emergency dental procedure on the Friday before Christmas. I had an enormous abscess under a tooth which left me in excruciating pain and half my face looking like a hamster storing seeds for later. All sorted now though.

I had my annual MRI on Saturday afternoon at Hammersmith Hospital in London. I’m hopeful that the results will be ‘all the lights are out’ a 5^th year of NEDA is my hope and if it’s not well I still have all of last years preparations to fight for a 3^rd round of Lemtrada. Hammersmith were great, I arrived nearly an hour and a half early (I really hate to be late for important stuff like this) and thanks to a cancellation I was in, out and back on the bus to Paddington before the actual time of my appointment time.

I’m due to see Mr N on February 5^th for my annual check-up – at 9am (AGAIN) - £48.20 to get into London at peak time but the appointment is at Charing Cross rather than St Marys – I’m having nightmares about how to get there from Paddington. There’s the London Underground and buses involved in this manoeuvre.

At a respectable time would not be too much of a challenge, but at 7:30 in the morning at the height of rush hour it is slightly more difficult to manage than Brexit or World Peace. Seriously – you can’t get a folded up child on a tube train at that time in the morning let alone a middle aged woman in a big wheelchair ……. I’ve left that with the secretaries, but seriously St Marys is round the corner and Hammersmith is on a bus route – literally anywhere else in London would be doable, but Charing Cross for 9am in a wheelchair ….. it might as well be on the moon.

My thoughts are now turning to holidays (we’re booked in Watchett again in April for Gareth’s birthday) but some friends of ours are currently in Florida ‘doing Disney’ so to speak and I’m feeling really nostalgic – not ‘do-able’ while we have Amber, we won’t leave her again because we’d never forgive ourselves if we weren’t here and something happened. In my head though …… it’s warm and sunny and I’m sipping something made of Rum and Coconuts with my feet in the pool.

Bliss

8 weeks tomorrow is the anniversary of my entry to the world – I’ll be 48 years old …. WTF ….. HOW ….. WHEN …… NOOOOOOO

Seriously I don’t get how I can be coming up to that age – in my head I’m still 27

All those promises I make to myself about losing weight, getting fit, quitting the smokes, shaving my legs more than 5 times a year (LOL) and another year has passed, I don’t smoke anywhere near as much as I used to, but apart from that there was little to no progress made in the other areas.

A New Year … to quote Yoda ….. “Do or do not. There is no try.”

I finally got my blood results for December today – mostly because my spreadsheet is on my laptop and I’ve not been at work so I didn’t bother. All terribly boring and normal as usual, I don’t even worry about the strange red ones now that the Haematology man has cleared all the scary stuff.

AND EDIT – I typed this up yesterday but time got away from me and I didn’t get round to publishing it. I did however make the time to drop my blood results across to my Doctor and Neurologist with a note for Mr N to say ‘see you in a few weeks’ time for MRI results’ ….. this morning I’ve had a reply from him, not a man of many words on email but that’s fine – this is enough J

the mri scan was stable

 

Another win for the spreadsheet and proactively making sure I keep my team up to date rather than leaving then to their own devices

Last working day of the year WOOHOO

Last day of work for the rest of the year today WOOHOO

I’m in the office and it’s a little like the Marie Celeste …. A few people here and there but it’s definitely not busy here today. It is surprising that there are so few people here because we have a celebrity visitor for the grand opening of the new office - Olympic gold medallist and sports personality of the year winner Mo Farah. I really don’t like taking selfies and thinking I’d probably look like a beached whale next to him because he is super skinny LOL I went for a head shot in the end!!

My car has to go into the Ford garage on Saturday so they can look at why the ‘oil change required’ notification is coming on every time I start the engine. We all agree that when it’s only 9 months old and has only done 6,200 miles this is not ‘normal’ behaviour for the car and that since I’m going to probably rack up 1,000 miles over the course of the next 10 days it needs to be looked at. They’re giving me a Transit Connect Van for the day so I can get around while they look at it.

Christmas shopping is nearly done – just like that a late concerted effort and we seem to have cracked it. We have a Christmas tree up, the house looks quite festive and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone.

K9 Pleasure Park is pretty swampy as it is at this time of year; the dogs are going to be renewing their acquaintance with the bath a lot more often over the next couple of months.

So this next bit might not make much sense at all but I’m having a workplace assessment for a nice orthopaedic chair done and the lady is taking photos of me which I’m sure are slightly less flattering than the one with Mo taken earlier and I’m certainly less picky about the quality of them or how many chins I have on them LOL

It would appear I’m getting another monitor for my desk too

Right I’m done for the year – I’m out of here J

4yrs 6mths 3wks - I passed the test YAY

4 years 6 months and 3 weeks

Apologies for the longer than advised absence, the training course was super intense, but I passed, I’m now a certified ‘Green Belt’ Six Sigma person – I need to pick a piece of work and put it all into practice and be assessed on it to be a practitioner but I’m certified or certifiable depending on your viewpoint I guess.

Our dishwasher randomly died on us a couple of weeks back, we had 10 days of having to do stuff by hand which was surprisingly not the ‘end of days’ scenario I had envisaged, but the novelty of a night time bonding session over suds and tea towels certainly didn’t last long. Fortunately the replacement has now arrived and been installed and harmony is now restored (apart from the bit where Gareth still walks past the dishwasher to put cups and glasses next to the sink – why do men do that??? I guess I should just be grateful that they mostly gravitate towards the kitchen LOL)

The office move has now happened, we are in our shiny new premises in Reading and despite being 1/3^rd of the distance from home of our old office – it takes twice as long to get to because I’m going in the same direction as pretty much the entire population of Berkshire each day now – I foresee getting out of bed earlier and earlier until I beat the worst of it.

We’ve ordered a new bed base which is being delivered on Friday, hopefully this will help with some of the back pain I’ve been having for the last few months – I don’t think it’s anything MS related (January MRI and Neuro review will confirm or deny this suspicion) It’s more likely to be that the old bed slats are too bendy and by big fat arse is sinking too low and making me into a ‘bed pretzel’

What else ….

Well honestly not a huge amount if I’m honest, certainly nothing exciting that makes my lifestyle look glamorous and sexy. I’m not attending any awesome Christmas parties; we have no family near us to visit with before the big Christmas drive around the country and we’ve been rubbish and not planned anything with friends. We suck so much at being social.

And then there’s the Christmas presents ….. still shooting a solid ZERO on that one ……

4 yrs 6mths - 'Dog-Art' and 4 day weeks

Ohhh but I’m liking this 4 day week game, it’s not sustainable throughout the year, but oh  my how nice is it to have a longer weekend. I wonder if I could get away with working 8-6 from home 2 days a week and 8-5 in the office for the other 2 days and do away with Fridays forever J

A fantasy, but an enjoyable one none the less.

So what has been going on in my world, well Hoops didn’t happen before the rainy season for Bella the dog field is a swamp and the course is cancelled until the British weather returns to being less ‘moist’

Apart from Work there’s really not been a whole lot of exciting stuff happening at all, we’re just bumbling along and enjoying life. Even our weekend visit to Costco didn’t happen this weekend just gone.

Lurking

Lots of Lurking and chilling out.

It was officially freezing this morning, properly freezing not a little bit of ice but sheets of it all over the car. The heated seats are on, the heated windscreen most appreciated (Gareth’s not so smug about his sunroof at this time of year when I can clear my windscreen and have a toasty warm bum and back with a touch of a couple of buttons)

Dog Stuff is all here, our epic life size lamp and mini Weagles have all arrived safely, Gareth thinks I possibly have more than one screw loose in my head for the number of custom dog things I order, especially after the thieving wood carving order a couple of years ago and the months of dealing with the police.

Still no big lottery win - £2.60 and a free lucky dip was somewhat smaller than I’d hoped for and certainly not going to fund my retirement plan.

I’m on a training course all week next week with work, Lean Six Sigma for 5 days straight with a big exam at the end. I’ll apologise in advance for no update next week, it’s unlikely when I get home in the evening that my thoughts will turn to updating here, I’m more likely to be snoozing until it’s time to sleep in the bed.

I had my bloods done yesterday and the results are back, I’ll pick them up on the way home and update them later on today or perhaps tomorrow. They’ve even been checked already and are ‘as normal as expected’ LOL

So here we go ‘dog art’