How many times have I written in these retirement blogs that the topic of the blog might be less than desirable, but at least I’ll quote, ‘get a blog out of it’? A few times I think. You can see by the title what that focus might be this time. I believe I’ve also mentioned in these retirement blogs, writing as therapy, so here’s that theme again.
After a couple of retirement blogs about a change (or not) of lifestyle vis a vis returning to work, the harsh realities of my health float again to the top of my literary pile. My blood sugar and weight results have been poor for a while but this morning (Friday) they really took the biscuit (to go with the three (or four) digestives* that the dogs and I share each morning with my cup of tea. No there’s no connection.
Talk about between a rock and hard place. If my sugars are high, which they are, then I need to take an additional tablet. What’s the problem you ask? Well that tablet has the effect of also increasing my weight. Which, in turn, increase my sugars. Laugh, I nearly went to Bradford. I believe it’s called a vicious circle.
Mrs Summerhouse, who has not been on top form herself, owing to an attack of her Menieres** (not exactly ‘hers’ but she’s had the condition a long time and it comes and goes). At the moment it’s come and she’s a bit wobbly. And she’s the woman telling me to look for the positives.
She usually does this by citing examples of others who are worse off than I am. Now call me a selfish old git… but that’s never worked for me. It’s not that I don’t care about the well-being of others but simply that their either good or terrible health seems somewhat irrelevant to me.
I’m glad my dog-walking in the park friend has been giving a clear bill of health after his cancer treatment and that my living in OZ, podcast chum is making steady progress. I’m thrilled that two people I know well have just received new ankles after months of pain and of course delighted that Pat, who runs our neighbourhood watch, has now got a new hip after her fall. But, truth be told, I’m even more pleased that, so far, touch wood (but nothing with legs), that I haven’t had need of this type of repair work. Certainly if you don’t count polyp removal, I haven’t.
While we’re on the bright side (what a strange place this is) I’ll just report that our daughter is recovering well from major surgery and Millie (one of our dogs) does not have malignant tumours just fatty tissue in two places which do not require removal. And the really good news is that we hope Petplan should pay for the tests. ‘Should’ being the operative word.
I suppose that’s what Mrs SH means when she blathers on about the bright side, but as I say it doesn’t hit the spot for me. I’m thinking that my sugar and weight results are simply not fair (and how pathetic is that?) Not fair. I admit since lockdown we have drunk rather more than we used to. Maybe one or two extra glasses each on our drinking days. But we still have our two none drinking days – mostly. And our diet hasn’t changed, other than no pub lunches. So I go back to my original thought – it’s not fair. I hardly drink any beer these days and my weight increase shows a correlation with not eating pub meals. Whether or not this is causal, I couldn’t say.
And that’s not even all of it. I have the same stomach pains that I had last year leading to my colonoscopy and aforementioned polyp removal. One thing for sure if cancer is indicated by weight loss, I do not need to worry about the big C. So just put up with the pain safe in the knowledge that you can’t have a stomach replacement, even if you could get to see your doctor, which I can’t.
Which also means, incidentally, no diabetes checks every six months. The eye clinic seems to be trying to make up for this absence by offering me more frequent eye checks. But whether this is good or bad news depends on whether you are inclined to the positive (as is Mrs SH) or the negative (that would be me). The foot people call me every few months and, whatever I say, they say that’s excellent. I’ve given up saying otherwise but, if I hadn’t, I’d be mentioning the stabbing pain in my little toe, like last night.
The surgery have given me a shiny, new blood sugar monitoring meter though. I had high hopes of this (I mean it looks nice doesn’t it? See above) but my first and subsequent readings have been higher than with the old one, so I’m a bit pissed off with this. I think they must have given me a faulty one.
After one of my ‘sore throat in the middle of the night’ episodes (last night) I take my temperature firmly believing, as you do, that you’ve definitely got the other big C (Covid of course). So far temperature normal enough as is my blood pressure on the odd occasions I can be bothered to take it. I only do this when I feel a bit woozy and Mrs SH, who has been recently all over the place with her balance, says something like, check your blood pressure it may be too low.
So there we are, now you’re bang up to date with the latest on my health. Hopefully nothing else (bad) will have happened before this gets posted next Tuesday, but then again that is four days away, so who knows.
*Many years ago I was told if I was going to eat biscuits then digestives were the way to go.
**An inner ear infection that affects a person’s balance.