09:09 GMT

  This morning is a bit cool at just 6° C, but there are some sunny spells. The last of the sunny spells will be around sunset, but then the clouds will thicken and there will be light rain that will continue into the night. Once again the afternoon temperature will be a semi mild, but not warm enough to be comfortable, 9° C.  Tomorrow may start at 7° C, but it will be a slightly colder day with only 8° C forecast for the afternoon. There will be scattered showers. The last shower may be at 4pm. After that the clouds will thin, and there could be just light cloud for the rest of the day.

  Yesterday was a far better day than I imagined it might be. There were some mild downsides like travelling to and from Kings College Hospital, but my assessment went really well, and it is confirmed that I will have my TAVI procedure on Tuesday 27th January at the very early time of 8am (or at least that is when I have to report for it).

  Today feels like a holiday because I can rest for a few days before all the hospital stuff starts up again. I think the main disappointment with yesterday was the patient transport. The staff were very helpful and friendly, but they were doing a multiple pick up, and I was the first on the "bus". It was quite a long and convoluted route as we stopped to pick up 2 or 3 other patients.

  The transport people were very conservative with their time estimates. I guess they have to be, but it did mean I arrived an hour early, and that meant a very long wait in the corridor on some chairs by the receptionist. The receptionist was great. She was quite cranky, but very friendly.  After my hour wait, when dreams of smoking a cigarette surfaced again after months without even thinking of them, I was finally seem by staff nurse Lucy.

  She was the same nurse who looked after me at my first assessment, and I knew her to be cheerful and helpful. Later on she went up a few more notches on my "nurse ratings". The first bit of news from her was that everything was ready for me, but the computer had gone down, and I would have to wait a little longer. While waiting she brought me a plastic glass of cold water which I had asked for.

  At that point the receptionist said if I had asked her she would have brought me "a brew". I had to explain I didn't drink tea or coffee. Eventually Lucy came and fetched me. I expected to spend my time either laying on a bed, or in an armchair, but we went to a clinic room. My assessment started with asking the usual questions. I answered some in a humorous way, and that got Lucy smiling, and that broke the ice completely.

  The next thing was to take 5 blood samples, and Lucy didn't let me down. I gave her 95% for an almost painless procedure, and told her to award herself a gold star - something else which went down well. In some ways that was the assessment over, but Lucy spent a fair amount of time explaining the TAVI procedure, and about my recovery afterwards. We could have skipped some of the procedure details because it is only the last bit, when the new valve is inserted into the heart that is a lot different to the two Angiograms I have had before.

  I recounted a funny detail from my first Angiogram. In that one they inserted the catheter through a hole in my wrist, and it was threaded through my arm, and over the shoulder before going down towards the top of the heart. I told her how I heard/felt a distinct squeak as it went round the bend, up and over my shoulder. I said the cardiologist, controlling the catheter didn't think it possible. Lucy said to explain it again to the cardiologist when I have the TAVI procedure to see if he thinks it was impossible too. In the TAVI procedure they will actually enter in at the top of my leg - they need the bigger arteries to get the big heart valve through.

  When it came to my recovery from the procedure I told Lucy that even now when it is not hard to get chest pains after a bit too much exertion, I still like to push myself to the limit, but without daring to cross it. She was far more forgiving than the cardiologists who refuse to believe that I do my best to listen to what my body is saying, and act accordingly. Lucy said that if I carried on that "pushing to the limit" I would probably have a quicker recovery, but... In the first weeks I will have to take it a bit easy until the new valve is proved to be in correctly, and working well. After that I should still not push past the limit, but going up to it would be very good for me.

  I really liked Lucy, and, I don't know, 30, 40, or more, maybe less years ago, I could  have easily fallen in love with her. Of course I realise it was just a silly hospital fantasy. I don't know what has changed, but on this episode of hospitalisation I seem to find nearly all the nurses to be really wonderful - cheerful, smiling, always happy to help, and then tender. It was sort of sad to say goodbye to Lucy, but I had a different treat coming up - Yousof the mad wheelchair pusher.

  He is just a porter, but unlike some, he seems very enthusiastic about his job. The corridors were a little too busy yesterday to get up any decent speeds, but at my last visit to Kings he would almost get my wheelchair fast enough to go around bends on two wheels. It was very invigorating ! The other good thing about him is that he knows where he is going - unlike the man from HATS patient transport. I said I didn't need a wheelchair at any time except when going through the hospital to get The Cardiac Catheter Lab where I had to report to. I assumed he would know exactly where to go because it is the main start point for heart patients, but I think he had less idea than I did. On my previous visit, that HATS man knew exactly where to go.

  Yousof, who looks a bit like a long haired rock star, was still a bit faster than some porters I have encountered. He took me down to the Transport lounge where I waited quite a long time to be called. When, after maybe a boring hor had passed, I hear my name called, and immediately stood up and starting to walk towards the lady (who I soon fond out was the driver of the patient transport ambulance). She remarked "oh, so you can walk OK then, and don't need a wheelchair". I said no, and said I only asked for a wheelchair while in hospital because the distances could be longer that just going to the bus outside, but mainly because I hoped it was the easiest way to get to where I wanted to go - which was not true when I arrived there (but we did get there without going too wrong).

  When I got to the bus I found there was one man on a stretcher who had to be dropped off at Lewisham Hospital, and we were soon joined by a woman in a wheelchair.  With all three of us aboard (plus the driver and the carer/porter) we set off on another very variable route - some of which was very unfamiliar to me, and even when I did recognise where we were, we soon took a different route to what I would take.  Our first stop was to Ladywell where the lady in the wheelchair had to be carried up a couple of flights of stairs. We sat on a single or possibly double yellow line for a fair time while she was taken up to her flat. Despite being a private ambulance, we still had some of the privileges of an emergency ambulance (although you do hear stories of some zealous traffic wardens ticketing fire engines and ambulance).

  The stop at Lewisham Hospital was quite tedious. It took the driver and the carer a long time to get the man on the stretcher (on wheels) to his ward which could have been 3 or more stories up in the same building I was in. Meanwhile I sat on my own in the ambulance while a fight over parking spaces was almost starting. Just to make everything worse a big car pulled up next to the ambulance and completely blocked the access road. it was all terribly chaotic.

  When the driver and carer returned I mentioned that when I was discharged from Lewisham on the 9th January, I walked home from that there, and that if I was fit I could almost have walked home in the time it took to deliver the patient to his ward. However, in my current state I was happy to wait to be delivered home on 4 wheels.

  Once I we arrived almost outside my house I found my legs were almost going to sleep after sitting down for so long. That, and the thought I was being watched to see that I was safe to cross the road, and let myself into my house made me very self conscious, and in the desperation to do the walk perfectly I almost faltered, but I don't think my very slight wobble was noticed, and in a few seconds I was indoors, and had closed the door on the rest of the day.

  My next big thing was to walk upstairs for a pee. The day before I was noticing a slight bit of pressure on my chest just from going up the stairs, but oddly enough I seemed to be find yesterday. I had my pee, and came down again to go into the kitchen. I had had no breakfast, and I wasn't offered the usual sandwich or something - maybe because I spent no time in the ward. I felt starving when I got home.

  I thought I had over done it when I had a dinner sized "brunch" for a very late lunch. I had a toasted Paninni roll with cheese and the last of the thinly sliced beef. I followed that with a simple to prepare double portion of instant noodles. As I implied, it seemed a very big meal, and I did feel very full for an hour or two, but then came the call of dinner. Prior to that call I ate my "brunch" and read some mail - both postal and email. Then I had a lie down, and snooze.

  I woke up possibly an hour later, and it was time to watch some TV and that is when thoughts of dinner starting percolating through my head. I had a rummage in the freezer, and pulled out a frozen "all day breakfast". If I knew how convoluted cooking instructions were, and what it actually consisted of, I would never had bought it. That must have been a good few years ago, but last night seemed time to bite the bullet and try it. Half had to be heated in the oven, and so it was not a quick meal.

   Having done all the cooking I tried it. The baked beans were fabulous, the sausage was mediocre, the bacon tasted sooty rather than smoky, the scrambled egg was weird, and the hash browns were like like has browns - rather alien and probably better suited for American diners to eat in some seedy bar or wherever Americans eat. In future I will stick to "all day breakfast sandwiches". They are know no be desperately unhealthy in many ways, but still very tasty.

  While watching my usual evening TV I had a yearning for some booze. I think I had three big tots of rum. Maybe it was lack of practice, or maybe it was one of the (very mild) dizzy spells they keep asking if I suffer from (as a result of my faulty heart valve), but I definitely felt slightly wobbly when I got up and went into the spare room to look out the window to see what the night sky looked like. The thing is that I thought it was just the booze, and so of no problem at all.

  I did feel very tired before I had watched all my usual TV, and I went to bed at around 10pm instead of the 11pm I sometimes wait until. I thought it would be great to be in bed, but I felt a bit uncomfortable. There seemed lumps in my bed that weren't there the previous night, and the temperature was all wrong. It was too hot under the duvet and too cold without it.

  That wasn't the biggest problem. The big problem was that my brain would not shut up. I kept thinking of the future. It wasn't any negative thoughts, like worrying about my TAVI "procedure", but the positive things after that was done. There was some negativity when I thought of how every spring, after not doing much walking in the winter, how it would take a lot of time to get my legs back in good working order. After an even long period when walking has been difficult, it is going to take a lot of "grit" to force myself to get my legs, and maybe other bits of me, back into condition, but once done I should be able get some long walks down this coming summer.

  Although I seemed to spend a lot of time not asleep (although it is possible that what I thought was my awake imagination at work, some could have been dreams) I did not seem to get up to pee all that much last night. I thought that doomed me to not losing any weight, and double so after all I had eaten, but somehow I was mistaken. This morning I weighed 1.1kg less then yesterday morning, and that was before the two large poos I have done this morning.

  I mentioned yesterday that I felt a bit constipated, and how i expected it to ruin my day, well nothing happened all day, and that nothing often included not feeling constipated for most of the -which was handy while I was having my assessment. Last night, after still not going, and yet not really uncomfortable, I took two Senna tablets.

  They seemed to work, but only after passing the hard lump of my previous constipation. On my second visit it was easy to pass a lot more, and it was still fairly firm instead of runny. It is a shame those two visits to the toilet were not done before I weighed myself. Also to my surprise, my blood glucose was pretty good this morning. It may not have been as god sas some of the better days, but an average of all three meters was 6.63mmol/l, and that is not a lot bigger than some of the best, but it is better than more than half the readings this month.

  This morning my blood pressure is possibly a int bit too low, but I still think that 108/44 is pretty good for a man in my state. I still can't quite work out how I actually feel this morning. I think I woke up feeling that even more sleep would have been good for me, and also that my chest felt very slightly tight. Since then I seem to have been feeling generally OK, and momentarily really good once I knew I was no longer constipated (but sadly such wonders are very short lived).

  As I said at the top of this somewhere, it feels like I am on holiday for a couple of days. I can relax as much as I want. The only brief interruption was when I tried to contact "Patient Transport" to arrange my transport to hospital for my TAVI procedure on Tuesday 27th. It seems they do not work, or at least their office is only open Monday to Friday. I will have to phone them on Monday, and that seems short notice when I need to get to Kings at 8am on the 27th. There is nothing I can do about it now, and so I will relax.

  If I didn't think it would hurt I might have tried a shopping trip today. Maybe I might try a very short walk today, or maybe I will just be very lazy. I think that might be my plan for today, but maybe tomorrow I might try something more. Either today or tomorrow I may do a bit more laundry. I think I reported I had cleared the backlog recent, but maybe "mostly cleared the backlog" would have been more accurate. I know my washing bag is definitely not empty. I think I am more likely to do that instead of getting the hover out - laundry always wins out even when I feeling fighting fit !

   2998 words today.