09:09 BST
Yesterday was a very
dull day, but at least it was mostly dry.
There was one brief shower sometimes around
midday, and much later than the forecast
predicted. It was a very cool day for this
time of year (or at least how I choose to
believe it should be). The morning started
around 17° C, and it slowly warmed to just 21°
C (according to the forecast (I can't recall
checking it on my own thermometers). I think
it was around 7 or 8pm when we actually had
proof the sun had not gone out. I recall two
sunny spells. Both were little more than 15
seconds long !
The forecast for today looks grim, but
maybe the latest revision is slightly less grim
(by the skin of it's teeth). The latest revision
shows the thunderstorms starting at midday, and
the lead up to them to be just mid grey sky.
They could continue until 4pm. The Met Office
forecast is a bit different. That warns of
thunderstorms, but doesn't actually show any on
the chart. It shows "light showers" at midday,
"heavy showers" at 1 and 2pm, and then "heavy
rain" at 3pm. At 4pm they say "light showers",
and after that it should be dry, but still dull.
Both forecasters predict a high of 21° C today.
Tomorrow could start chilly at just 14° C, and
it will rain, but from 11am the sun should break
through to bring sunny spells for the rest of
the day. The afternoon high may only be 20° C.
Tuesday may see the return of sunnier weather,
and the build up to another heatwave towards the
end of the week.
Yesterday, the dismal weather, even if it
was almost dry, had a dismal effect on me, and
while I didn't feel depressed at any time, my
actions, or lack of them, strongly suggested
otherwise. I did one physical thing and one bit
of experimentation on myself by way of altered
diet.
As well as the cold and grey weather to
make me feel low, I was not happy that I had not
lost more of the recent blip in my weight. One
potentially dangerous thing was to have another
of the habenero and lime flavoured Korean
instant noodles. The first one seemed to be
really hot - both physically and spicy. I
wondered if it was the cause, or contributed to
my adventures in the night, and on the toilet,
and somehow made my weight shoot up.
I made two changes when I prepared those
noodles yesterday. I used less water, and that
mean there was less boiling water to cool down.
I expected it would make the flavouring more
intense, but curiously it didn't. I allowed more
time for the noodles to cool off a bit, and
maybe not scalding my mouth with spicy "soup"
just made it seem a lot milder. In fact it was a
little disappointing, although though still very
nice.
After I had finished writing, my plan was
to have my usual rest, and then have a shower. I
was curious to see what changes had been made to
Aldi after there few days of closure for
refurbishment/improvement. The problem here was
that I had a hand towel soaking in it's big
bucket in the bath, and I would have to get that
out of the way before I could shower. Things
probably went downhill from there.
I couldn't seem to find the enthusiasm to
finish that laundry job, and the cold grey sky
outside just multiplied the lack of enthusiasm.
The next hurdle was that I began to feel that
there was no good reason to go out for any
shopping from anywhere. I had sufficient food in
the fridge, and some of it needed using up
before too long. In theory I should have been
trying to avoid temptations of things to eat
while I was hoping to get my weight back down.
I say "in theory" because while that
could have been ideal, in practice I almost did
the opposite. One thing was bugging me, and it
was that my weight did not go back down again,
and perhaps had partly gone up because I was
peeing less - particularly at night. That might
suggest as a kidney problem, but I noticed a
better reason. A condition called
oedema.
The NHS page I've linked to is interesting, but
misses one important point.
I first suffered from Oedema after my
quad bypass operation. It was, and has always
been when it flares up, the left leg - the leg
where an artery was removed for the bypass
transplant. I was prescribed a drug,
Furosemide
when I left hospital. I may have been on it for
up to a year, but it did the trick, and the
swelling of my left leg when right down. It has
come and gone in a quite mild way a few times
since then (2013), but last night my leg seemed
to be very swollen in comparison with my right
leg. I'm not sure it can account for all my
weight gain.
In a bid to actually raise my blood
glucose level, and so make me pee more, I ate
several things that should have added a fair bit
of sugar to my diet, and that included two
slices of angel cake - one of which was in the
evening. I suppose the angel cake was the most
sugary thing I ate, but I didn't hold back on a
few snacks, and had a (Tesco ready meal) prawn
curry for dinner. Essentially it was almost like
I was eating all the wrong things, although it
probably only added up to a bit more than I
might have eaten if I was set on controlling my
food intake.
It was about mid afternoon before I
gritted my teeth, and went to finish washing the
hand towel that had been in soak for so long (on
Friday I lightly wrung it out, and left it in a
big bucket, ready to add hot water after I had
had my shower, and washed my hair prior to
seeing the nurse). I had actually started
washing that towel on Thursday ! After
losing count of the amount of rinses I gave it,
I hung the towel up to dry indoors. I probably
could have hung it on the washing line, but the
sky did look like it could start to rain at any
minute (it actually stayed dry).
It was only in the evening when I did
other stuff - no reading until later when I went
to bed, and I had finished the laundry. I
amused myself in the evening by doing some
cack handed multi-tasking. That is supposed to
be the posh way of saying I watched a
documentary about Jimi Hendrix on Sky Arts, and
then, as soon as they started a long and boring
ad break I would switch to Dave where they were
showing three back to back episodes of Red
Dwarf. I would then watch that until Dave showed
an ad break, and then go back to Sky Arts for
more Jimi Hendrix.
I'm not sure when anything finished last
night, but I suspect it was around 10pm when I
went to bed. I managed to read a couple of pages
before I put the book down, turned out the
light, and quickly fell asleep. My increased
peeing in the night - mostly in quantity rather
than frequency - was as desired, and I hoped for
the best. I think watching Red Dwarf earlier
inspired one dream last night.
The dream did not feature the character
"Cat" from Red Dwarf as represented in the TV
show, but someone who had similar
characteristics....although when I try to
remember the dream I am not sure I can actually
recall seeing the person. The significant thing
about Cat is that he has, in human form, many of
the characteristics of a cat - always grooming,
and being very egotistical. The significant
thing for my dream is that he has a huge
wardrobe, and always likes to be extremely well
dressed. In the dream there was a character who
owned something like a slim, but just as long,
Volkswagen microbus. It had been fitted out as a
mobile wardrobe.
I am sure there was more to the dream
than that, but just about my entire memory of
the dream is seeing the open side of the
vehicle, and inside there was a rail from front
to back with clothes of all descriptions hanging
from it. There was also little lockers/cupboards
with trinkets and stuff in them.
When I got up I went for one more pee,
and passed a fair bit of wind (but no poo), and
then weighed myself. Yesterday I seemed to have
lost 200gm, and this morning I had put that
200gm back on. I am now back to the weight I was
the day before yesterday - the morning when,
after spending an hour on the toilet in the
early hours, found I had put on 1.6kg when I
thought I had passed so much poo that my weight
should have been less, and not more.
There were enough clues to believe I had
probably ruined my blood glucose level this
morning, but it seems I hadn't. Both the
Contour meter and GlucoRX meter gave readings of
7.3mmol/l, and that is still very good. This
time my new Contour Plus meter read 7.7mmol/l,
and although not quite as good, is still very
good. All three average out to 7.43mmol/l,
and that is less than last Friday, and the same
as last Tuesday. Last Wednesday was
exceptionally low, and yesterday was slightly
lower. Everything is in the green, and I am very
happy with every day this month, and also the
last day of June when this run of low readings
started.
Today brings a chance, possibly two
chances to ruin it all over again. If I have the
time and inclination, I may get to Aldi today.
It would be handy to see if they have any
interesting beers. Sooner or later I am going to
have to make an order with one of the beer
companies to top up my dwindling amounts of
exotic beers. Something exotic, or at least a
bit unusual, would be good for this afternoon
when Jodie will be over for some beer tasting.
Of course I would not blame her if she declined
to go out because of heavy rain and may
thunderstorms. I certainly won't be going to
Aldi if it is pouring with rain.
This afternoon should be another beer
tasting session like last Thursday, when I made
a point of reducing my booze consumption. Like
last Thursday, I have an appointment with the
doctor tomorrow morning, and to make matters
worse it is at 11am, and so I ought to try and
appear bright eyed and bushy tailed. This
appointment will be all about my cardiovascular
problems, and my blood glucose and weight will
probably not matter - although I would not be
surprised to be told that a lower weight, and
maybe lower blood glucose, would help my
problem. One other problem is that I probably
won't have time to finish writing before I have
to leave to go to the surgery, but I will finish
it when I get home.