Write about what you know. This is writing’s version of football’s ‘play the way you’re facing’. All well and good and very sensible, but sometimes what I know might not be what you want to read about. And what I think I know I might not know at all. As is often the case when I start these retirement blogs I have no real idea of what I’m going to write about, at this point I can only say well, we shall see.
What I know is that the garage roof has finally been diagnosed as being asbestos, or according to the test results – chrysotile (see nice photo above). Never heard of the word but it sounds rather nice, which of course it isn’t. It’s taken a long time to get to this point but, as a result, it means we know other things. For example, that the chaps who are going to replace the old roof will take the asbestos off the roof but will not remove it.
I know that a special skip will cost about £800. Also that we can take it to one of our Leeds tips but it has to be doubly sealed in plastic bags and we have to wear a face mask and protective clothing to dump it and it costs about £46. This is the kind of thing I know about, even though I might not want to know, if you catch my drift.
I also know that for the last four weeks I’ve been feeling very shabby and that a diagnosis for myself (as opposed to the asbestos) has been about as confusing and protracted as the one for the garage roof. My self-assessment methods ranged from temperature-taking (varied, somewhat on the high side, but never quite hot enough (38 at a maximum) to be pronounced fever and hence being able to state confidently I’ve got the flu. This diagnosis eluded me).
Same with my blood pressure, high but not fatal. Blood sugar readings, ridiculously high, as high as I’ve known them. Weight decreasing, which would once have been a plus but now is vaguely disturbing. Given I’ve had no appetite for anything other than a little gently-warmed water, this isn’t entirely surprising. Cold remedies give me stomach ache and indigestion as do paracetamol. Throw in diarrhoea, as a bonus, and you know about as much as me.
Probably, also like me, you’ve no clear idea of what’s wrong with you – too hot and ill for a cold but not hot enough or ill enough for flu. The former argues don’t bother with the doctor’s as you won’t get antibiotics or anything else other than, try the pharmacist.
Which I did, I got a decongestant which did no good at all other than upset my stomach even further. This might have been because in order to locate the liquid up my nose I had to tilt my head back which meant in turn that the stuff ran down my throat and into my stomach. Mrs Summerhouse said I should not be tipping my head back. I pointed out that if I didn’t it wouldn’t squirt and hence reach my nasal passages.
My squirter wasn’t like the one she had because it was solid and didn’t have a little squirty lever on the side which generated a fine mist. Mine was either everything or nothing. Oh yes, I know so much. I went to the doctor having got an immediate appointment with the duty doctor (I didn’t even know the surgery had a duty doctor at first but I do now). That’s something else I know.
He was very thorough and we ended up covering so much of my health from diabetes to Parkinson’s, to infections, blood tests for my kidneys (I think) and me taking the opportunity to complain about the service his practice was providing. To get rid of me he gave me anti-biotics. I’m half way through taking them so I don’t know the results but I’m sure I will.
At the end of this incredibly wide-ranging examination I actually felt more confused than when I went in. Well, what did he say, Mrs SH asked me when she picked me up? Dunno, everything. I mean I know what he said, in the sense that I was there and listening but that doesn’t make it easy to write about in this retirement blog, despite what I said at the beginning.
A couple of other grey areas medically the results of which I don’t know about – blood in my pee and a visit to a urologist. The result of these tests are yet to come back so I don’t know. I know the urologist was a very nice man and I say this as one in a long line of people who push their fingers up my bottom. I guess he must have thought my prostate while enlarged was OK.
His suggestion was to add yet another tablet to my ever-expanding list. This one designed to shrink my prostate and improve the quality of my peeing. That’s good to know. I’m confident that the next time somebody asks me, what do you know about enlarged prostates? I shall be able to give them an informed answer. But just at this moment I’d have to say, I have much to learn.
That might have happened at this appointment when he started to explain the next step if the tablets didn’t work but, as this involved what might be called an invasive procedure into an area of my body that was not my bottom, I told him we’d worry about that if the tablets didn’t work and I didn’t need to know any more right now. My loss, I guess you’d say, I could have known so much more.
So there we are. Bear in mind, it’s not just medical matters and garage roofs I know about. There are many things I know, not all of which can be written about. As Donald Rumsfeld once said- there are the known knowns, the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. But then I know that.
Just a warning about Urologists, if yours are like ours here in Australia. I’ve seen two, both were rather strange, and I used to work with a chap who had found the same, and my GP says they’re all like that because of their chosen work! So don’t become panicked about what they may say!
Thanks for the heads up, it wasn’t their words but their actions that worried me slightly