More rain is expected today. The day seemed to start with some nice sunshine, but it started raining before 9am. The most recent revision to the forecast says grey clouds and light rain for 10am, and then black clouds for 11am with heavy rain. After that it may possibly be dry for the rest of the day. Sunny spells could start from 2pm, and the last two hours of daylight could feature full sunshine. It should be a tiny bit warmer today with 13° C forecast for a single hour at 3pm. Tomorrow should be dry, and sunny spells are forecast for some of the afternoon, but there might be more than that, and the temperature could reach 14° C. Maybe the brief return to spring tomorrow !

   Yesterday was a fairly good until the evening when it all went horribly wrong. I guess I could describe yesterday morning as fairly neutral. It was pleasant without being exciting, and apart from a late shower, just before midday, I mostly just "relaxed".

  I can't say I did a lot in the next couple of hours. I only had to the very minimum to prepare for an afternoon drinking session, One thing I did was to have some lunch. I might have tried to skip it if the afternoon did not involve booze. I had one and a half corned beef sandwiches for lunch. The half was the end crust which I often waste. I had it as a sort of open sandwich. The full sandwich, with top and bottom slices of bread, also included some German, smoked cheese with jalapeños for extra taste.

  Jodie arrived more or less on time, and declared she was in a drinking mood. That didn't last after maybe three cans of beer type stuff. I noted she was still using her old phone, and had not transferred the SIM card to her new phone. The reason was that she still had not managed to transfer her childish Moomin game to the new phone. I told her I still believe that it won't transfer to the new phone until it has confirmed that she is the owner of the phone by putting the old SIM card in it.

  I must admit it wasn't a scintillating beer tasting session, and despite her claim to be in a beer drinking mood, Jodie really slowed down after her first one or two drinks. I ended up opening a couple of cans she was not interesting in, and drank them myself. Despite that I stayed under the limit to be very drunk at the end, but drunk enough to be too extravagant ordering a takeaway because I had not prepared any dinner for the evening.

  Jodie let at about her usual time to get the 6.29pm train, and as soon as she was out the front door, I was online ordering what should have been a simple couple of shish kebabs. I made the mistake of thinking that the restaurant I was ordering from was a bit expensive, and so ordered two small shish kebabs. I wanted to pad the order out a bit, and added a mixed meat kebab with chips.

  When it arrived, a full half hour after the latest estimated delivery time (which annoyed me) I took a look at what I had ordered, and decided I would have the mixed meat with salad and chips. My idea was to removed the chips, and maybe save them for something like breakfast this morning. The picture on the menu showed the chips neatly placed beside the meat, but in reality they were squidged under the meat and salad.

  I couldn't get the chips out without making a big mess, and so they got eaten last night. The whole meal was too much for me, but there didn't seem to be an easy way of dividing into two portions - it was all one mixed up mess in the cardboard container. I ended up eating the lot, and felt uncomfortably stuffed. I will admit that I did find it very delicious, and that was partly why I couldn't seem to divide it into a portion for last night, and another for today.

  I had a few stomach pains after eating it all, and a bit later my distended stomach (the internal bit, not the outside) was probably pushing against a critical artery, or even the heart itself. I had another painful angina attack. It was worse when I laid down to try and sleep, and the there was no real cure except to wait until the digestion process did it's business. I later realised that the situation was made worse by not completely emptying my bowels in the morning.

  After a modest poo in the morning I felt comfortable. What happened around 10 or 11pm suggested I should have gone again, and probably twice more. I found myself sitting on the toilet in the cold twice, and passing quite a lot. That did start to ease the Angina pains. I  can't remember exactly when it was, but I helped my restricted blood flow using the same trick as the hospital first used on me when I went to A&E at the start of the month for what would be a two day stay in hospital.

  That "simple trick" was to dissolve a 300mg dispersible  Aspirin tablet in water, and to drink it. It may have taken 30 minutes to an hour before I felt a distinct improvement. It still took until about 3am before I was comfortable enough to get to sleep. In the few hours of sleep I got before getting up, I had some weird, but sort of enjoyable dreams.

  I have no idea of the inspiration for the one dream I remember something about. It seemed to be set in Greece, and maybe in a hotel and it's bar. I didn't seem to have a room, and I had no local money, but I did have a credit card. I only knew it was Greece because Angela was going to pay for a drink using a few coins that were drachmas (the pre-Euro currency in Greece).

  I said I would get some drinks in for me, Angela, and also Jo (from Chain band). The idea, which somehow seemed logical in the dream, was that I would pay by credit card, and get Greek currency in my change. Apart from the obvious flaw in the idea, it also failed because the bar didn't seem to have any beers, or any other suitable drinks for us. That dream ended/fade out with me sitting, wedged between Angela and Jo - which was rather a nice feeling.

  I did my best to sleep late this morning, but it just didn't really happen as I hoped. I did manage to get enough light sleep to see me through to 8am when I gave in, and got up. So far this morning I feel slightly delicate, but not in any pain. The only pain was when I saw my blood glucose readings.

  It is possibly a small miracle they were not higher.  The Contour meter read 9.1mmol/l/. That is still well clear of the danger zone, but a lot higher than is desirable. The GlucoRX meter read 8.8mmol/l - slightly high, but not that much above my typical average (prior to this mostly unusual better month). The Sinocare was typically high, and this morning it read 10.0mmol/l - just on the red line. It is possible that if I had tried again I might have got a lower reading, but I just accepted that this morning would be a disaster, and there was nothing I could do about it's cause.

  What I can do is to fast this morning, and maybe I might even managed to extend it until this evening. At around lunchtime I will see what my blood glucose is like, and if it has dipped a lot I might have a light lunch. I might even have one of the two cold and greasy shish kebabs from last nights order. Shish kebabs, provided the pitta bread is discarded, have always been very low sugar meals. So one might be safe for lunch, and the other for dinner. If I really could stick to just that I might get some nice low blood glucose readings tomorrow morning - unless I have damaged something !

  One thing I didn't mention further up the page, was that I was frequently monitoring my blood pressure. It did go up quite high, but nearly as bad as when I made the decision to book myself into A&E (actually on the 3rd of this month).  One, or more of my doctors said to expects some ups and downs, but said not to worry unless my Systolic pressure went above 140mmhg. Some readings last night did reach 147mmhg, but if I did my best to be very calm and relaxed, I could get 123mmhg in just a few minutes later. I judged, rightly or wrongly, that I was not in mortal danger, and the high blood pressure readings might just be because of the pain, and not the other way around.

  As I said a bit earlier, I am in no pain this morning. My systolic pressure is just 115mmhg, and that is in the excellent area. My diastolic pressure is 50mmhg, and that, plus the 115mmhg systolic pressure, plus a pulse rate of 55bpm, is diagnosed by my blood pressure meter as "Optimum", and that is better than normal. That is good news, but I still feel I shouldn't tempt fate by doing anything more than light exercise today. I might possibly take a walk to Ladywell and back in the sunshine later today, but probably won't. It is more likely I will make every attempt to catch up on my lost sleep.
      







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