09:33 GMT

  This morning has started with rain, and the rain will continue until the end of the day (and most of tomorrow). Today's temperature is rising from 7° C this morning to 10° C by 5pm. It will stay there until it falls a single degree in the night. Tomorrow starts at 9° C, and will peak at 10° C by 1pm. Like today it will rain all day long (almost, it may be dry by 10pm). It is possible, although unlikely there could be a few brief bright intervals between showers in the afternoon, but that may be clarified tomorrow with the latest forecast.

  I was going to say that yesterday was a mix of good and bad, but maybe bad and not so bad would be more accurate. I guess there were some good bits yesterday, but I can't seem to remember them now.....yes I can ! I exchanged a few messages with Angela yesterday, and she remarked she had complete admiration for me for how I was handling my medical problems, and doing it all on my own.

  I did my best to explain that it is just a matter of going with the flow. You can't change that, but not fighting it makes it easier. I feel sad that Angela, even with the support of a husband is a very nervous patient. Maybe I just have less to lose if it all goes tragically wrong.

  My main feat yesterday, possibly worthy of admiration, or maybe just being stupid, was another walk. This time it was to the pharmacy. It may be a slightly shorter walk than to Tesco, but there is little in it. I did my best to walk as slowly as I could, and to stop now and then, but it was still an uncomfortable walk with developing chest pains. It may have helped if I had used some TNG spray, but I have doubts that helps with a faulty heart valve, and I fear it could be bad using it. However I will confess I had a single small spray before I started walking. I am unsure if it helped or not.

  I made it to the pharmacy, and then back home carrying two bags of medicines. I think it was two bags because they started as if it was my usual/old repeat prescription, and then saw things had changed. On the way home I probably stopped a few more times, and may have even managed to walk a bit slower, or perhaps I was forced to slow down because I couldn't walk any faster.

  I arrived home feeling like a sit down would be good. I didn't have that at first because I had sweet potato chips to put in the oven first. After that I went upstairs, and that made me feel a bit bad again. I then started sorting through my drugs, and made a few discoveries. I had new Amlodopine tablets. I thought they were supposed to be stopped, but I have more and I will use them.

  I also had a new box of Isorbide Mononitrate tablets. I thought they had been stopped too. One surprise was when reading teh instructions for the Omeprazole tablets. They are a slightly stronger version of pretty much the same drug to help with acid reflux that can be bought over the counter. I had been taking one in the morning and one in the evening, but I see the instructions are for two in the morning and two at night. I have now been supplied with double strength tablets and only need one in the morning, and one at night (once I've used up the lower strength tablets).

  By the time I had finished sorting out my tablets my sweet potato chips were ready, and I was looking forward to eating them. Just to make sure they were not too healthy I covered them with some grated cheddar cheese. Once I had eaten them I felt ready for my first snooze of the day. There is not a lot to say about the rest of the afternoon because if I wasn't snoozing I was probably reading (possibly from the internet).

  My evening started with dinner and TV. I watched an original Star Trek at 5pm, and then ate my dinner while watching the 6 O'clock news. Dinner was "southern fried flavour" chicken breast (or possibly assorted bits of chicken mashed together to seem like a solid lump of breast meat). I followed that with some plain vanilla ice cream.  After more TV it was about 9pm, and it seemed like I should go to bed.

  I assumed I would have a nice deep sleep, but that didn't happen. As far as I can tell at least half or more of my night was made up of short snooze like sleeps. I was only aware that I had been sleeping for these short periods because I remember dreaming. The only dream I remember had no real beginning or end, and was set in hospital. For some reason a doctor wanted to see me peeing in close up. I don't think he believed I could pee as well as I did until I hit him in the eye ! That was a very weird dream.

  Later on I seemed to get proper sleep - nice and deep and lasting a long time. Even that had a quite odd dream in it. The dream was set during my second to last job - working in a TV repair workshop for a big high street retailer. I and several others had gone outside for a cigarette (I think), and we wanted to go back in without being spotted by the manager. This was, or should have been a well practised routine.

  It meant climbing through a ground floor window. For some unknown reason the actual windows seemed to change every now and then, and we had to select the best to use. Some said we could clamber over the wash basins and get in via the toilets. I didn't fancy that. The best window couldn't be used because a manager was sitting on the windowsill with his back resting on the window.

  The only option was to go through a window that came out behind the retail counter (which never existed in the place I worked). The only problem here was that we were forbidden to go there, and so would have to make a very quick exit once through the window. One person said go right, but another said the door that end would be locked. Another said go left and down the stairs. That is what I did.

  I had never been down those stairs before, and I was amazed how deep they went - possibly 40 or 50ft down. There was a lot of storage space down there. I wondered how I would be able to get out without just retracing my steps to behind the retail counter. That seemed to be the only option, and all I could think of was to grab a paper sack of scrap/rubbish, and pretend I was just clearing up. I have no idea if I got away with it because the dream seemed to fade out there.

  This morning was another morning when I woke up early, and still felt very tired. There was/is no pressure on my time today, and so after having a pee I went back to bed and slept again for at least an hour - possibly longer. When I got up again I went for another pee. I should add at this point that I had about 3 to 5 small pees during the night. It was just enough that this morning I seem to have lost 500gm - which is pleasing, although I have a long way to go before I get back to what I was in hospital.

  Once again my blood glucose readings were good, although nut quite as good as yeesterday. The average of all three readings was 6.77mmol/l. Yesterday it was 6.70mmol/l, and so it is only a really tiny increase. My blood pressure is a little lower than yesterday, but it is such a volatile reading that it is pointless to say that this mornings 120/45 is really much better than yesterday's 126/56.

  If this were a normal Wednesday I would be looking forward to washing my hair, having a nice shower, and preparing to walk through the park in warm sunshine for my usual couple of pints of Guinness, in the Jolly Farmers, served by my favourite barmaid Ayse. Sadly it is pissing with rain outside, and that always puts a dampener on such activity. Today there is even worse - I am not sure I can walk through the park without a lot of potentially dangerous pain. If it was warm and sunny I could stop every now and then to take a picture of a duck, or a tree, or something, and have a short rest. In the rain I would just be trying to rush to the pub as fast as I can, and currently that would be foolish to even try.

  Today I think I will be very lazy. I'll definitely stay in out of the rain. I shall take any opportunity for a snooze, but there are a few things I might do. One is to check my credit cards, and and pay enough to get them back to zero. That should not take much because I have had little opportunity to spend much lately. The other thing I might do is some laundry. I still have a small backlog from before I went into hospital. That stuff is only mildly smelly, but deserves the full treatment.








   1668 words today.