10 May 2012

Apologies to my readers. If you don’t want to hear me whingeing are about nausea and the effects of withdrawal from the morphine patches I suggest you skip the blog for a couple of days.

So, I survived the night relatively pain-free-so much for the morphine patches! I got up at the same time and went through the normal process of breakfasting, shaving, teeth, hair and nasal spray before being hoisted wheeled into my study.

I say breakfasted, this comprises one Weetabix and a cup of coffee having been preceded by a Borocca drink and some fresh orange juice

To be honest, I still felt week and feeble but at least not nauseous. Whether there are any side effects of coming off the morphine patch I live to find out.

Apologies to my friends the Gordons – Cecilia and Douglas – who regular readers will recall are part of our’ oldies’ group, living close by – who came yesterday morning for a scheduled our with me before lunch. I clearly wasn’t much fun but it is so very kind of people to take the trouble to visit and chat to their old friend who is sitting with them rather like a zombie.

First thing this morning. Alice and I agreed that we would cancel tomorrow’s scheduled lunch, at The Cricketers, when the other half of the Mother Club’s committee, who missed out last time, land the come down to give me lunch. Although there is hopefully a good possibility that I might feel well enough tomorrow, even a quiet lunch, coupled with the normal dressing, hoisting etc, I find exhausting and therefore I am not prepared to tackle it unless I feel 100%. bearing in mind the majority of those coming down tomorrow are busy working men, who are scheduled to take a whole day out of their busy schedule, which I consider is extremely generous, the least I can do is to cancel early enough for them to try to resuscitate any appointments they may have cancelled in order to make this visit.

So, the day with me feeling progressively worse as time went by. Alice called to the local Doctor, Doctor Lort whom arrived to see me at around 1.30, by which time I was feeling pretty wretched. I could not face when she again. The Doctor suggested staying here at home with regular visits or going to Addenbrookes to be observed there. I had no hesitation in saying I wanted to stay here. The Doctor kindly brought me some antiseptic mouthwash to start taxing the ulcers which is burst out on and undermine time and all cross the back of the front skin, forming the lower lip. I was convinced that I had a temperature, as I felt hot and clammy which made me feel as though the odd bit of sweat was running down my back. She tried to take my temperature but apparently her thermometer was up the creek.

So, I stayed at home progressively feeling worse as the hours went by .’ My lovely’, as usual, was absolutely marvellous. She kept me provided with several towers and a small bowl which to be sick, if I needed to be. A call to Ross Nursing produced Judith a fully practising nurse of some 40 years experience. Even she, was not sure what the best move would be the best for me. Even,’ my lovely’s patience became exhausted so she telephoned the local surgery once again, asking the local Doctor, doing his rounds, to be good enough to see, what condition I was in and what was the sensible to take now. He arrived, around 5.30, and after a superficial examination said that he was not sure what was the cause of my extended stomach but accepted that it might well be withdrawal symptoms from the pain patches. He suggested that I immediately took a tramadol pill which should reduce the nausea He said that I had three options: I could stay at home on my present medication without the patches and see what happened all I could do to Addenbrookes Hospital and be observed there. I made it very clear that I did not wish to go to Addenbrookes and was quite happy just to stay at home and at the best nursing you could possibly hope for, with ‘ my lovely’. With this course of action decided upon, the good Doctor left me to resume my normal evening course of action.

When it came to supper, the best I could do was to eat a small bowl of broccoli and spinach pie, what was well I might describe as a cats version. I managed to keep that down, still remaining very weak and nauseous. However, I was very pleased to note that the nauseous feeling was beginning to lower, I kept in this fragile state until they managed to wheel me through, to my bedroom, at 8.30, where ‘my lovely’, performing her usual nightly rites, soon had me tucked up, comfortably in bed.

And so, another day has passed, but, not without any more ‘alarms and extensions‘

9 May 2012

So, I left the reader in the state that I found myself at suppertime. It became another repeat of the previous two days when I really could not face eating anything. Beyond that I felt nauseous. After Alice had done a bit of ringing around to Ross Nursing, and attempting to speak to the on […]

8 May 2012

A second morphine patch in combination with my new smart rabbit fur lined heel protectors seem to have done the trick on the joint pain-in-bed front. I am not exactly pain-free but the last two or three nights have been far more comfortable. I think with just a little more tweaking, with the combination of […]

7 May 2012

Before I say anything else, the fact that originally there is no entry for yesterday, 6 May, was because of all the messing about we were dealing with the computer to get these new systems to work – laptop to TV; and the operation of the camera mouse – I managed to lose the draft […]

6 May 2012

Apologies, I have already broken the promise, I made to my readers, not to mention the pain aspect again, until I had some resolution, but I consider it so important that other MND sufferers, and their carers, learn where I have got to in relieving this distressing side effect. I certainly was not advised by […]

5 May 2012

The Saturday of the May bank holiday. Sad to say the weather was chilly and damp and was not such as to entice young families from abandoning the warm home to get cold and damp in some activity, which inevitably will be expensive. I just wonder when we’ll get our summer? The forecast for next […]

4 May 2012

Yesterday, saw the first local elections since the Conservatives were voted into government. It only covered about a third of the country as elections are held every year but for different parts of the country. It is the first true test of the current standing the government. The incumbent party always expects to do badly […]

3 May 2012

It is just over two weeks now before the first have my visits to Lord’s for the Test Match. I really wonder how well I will cope and whether or not I manage to last from the 8.30 departure with Ollie-my Friendly Wheelchair Service-until I arrived back here around 7.00 p.m. I recall, about this […]

2 May 2012

It is just over two weeks now before the first have my visits to Lord’s for the Test Match. I really wonder how well I would cope and whether or not I managed to last from the 8.30 departure with Ollie-my Friendly Wheelchair Service-until I arrived back here around 7.00 p.m. I recall, about this […]

1 May 2012

Labour Day is an annual holiday to celebrate the economic and social achievements of workers. It originated in America in a nationwide economic depression of 1893. This depression meant take-home pay cheques plummeted. Workers walked out demanding lower rents and higher pay. Rioting, pillaging and burning of railway cars soon ensued. Although it started with […]