20/06/21 Horrible day

Cold, grey, drizzly, most unpleasant day. No temptation to go outside at all and after considering various possibilities and rejecting them all, we stayed inside all day. At least I have some justification from my wearable tech ring, which said "If you feel that you're low on energy, take it easy today." Mind you, it says that most days, but yesterday I followed its advice. So stayed in and caught up on some sleep time.

Surprisingly I hit my quite big activity target, probably because of some work in the kitchen. I made Asparagus Risotto with Poached Egg and Herbs. It tasted better than it photographed:

The idea of putting a poached egg on top of a risotto is a good one. I may well try that with some other risotto recipes. 

It was 50/50 as to whether to take a Furosemide yesterday or not. While we were still thinking of going out around lunchtime it seemed best not to, but by the time we decided to stay in it was getting too late. Inspection of my post-shower ankles suggests that I missed a trick. Maybe this morning, if the weather is too bad for the usual Sunday morning boules. Can't risk taking one before going out, even if there are plenty of convenient trees and bushes just a short walk away from the piste....

19/06/21 Tesco delivery, risotto

Another wet day yesterday. I decided against a Furosemide on the grounds that the ankle swellings had gone down substantially, and I had hopes of getting out for an hour of boules at 13:00. The ankles are up again now post-shower, but not too badly. Later today we plan to go out for lunch at about 13:30, which means a delicately balanced diuretic decision after breakfast...

Constant heavy rain prevented boules, and I spent most of the day inside, fiddling around with VoIP telephony and getting the True Call call blocker to work with it. Surprisingly complicated, but I'll get there in the end.

Mid-afternoon brought the Tesco delivery, but it was all wrong. We got a small box of stuff we didn't order, and none of the stuff we did. I don't fully understand what went wrong because I don't handle the orders myself, but there was clearly only one solution - my first solo trip to a big supermarket to do what was effectively a full weekend shop. I haven't done that since early March 2020.

Fully armed with facemask, hand sanitiser, two Pfizer injections, and those COVID antibodies I found a trolley in the rain and joined the queue for admission to the store. It moved quickly and once inside it wasn't too crowded, but I was surprised by several people using visors without facemasks as well. Masks may be close to useless, but visors certainly are 100% useless in that kind of situation.

Shopping done, and somewhat soaked by the rain in the car park, I got home in time for half an hour of online backgammon. Won one, lost one, leaving me still behind for the week. Now that summer is coming (although you wouldn't have believed it from yesterday's weather) we're cutting back to just a regular Wednesday game plus others on an ad hoc basis depending on weather etc. etc..

After dinner, made two batches of butter - one "spreadable" and one "hard" which will be needed for this evening's planned meal, asparagus risotto with poached eggs. Surprisingly few good risotto images online, so this one will have to do:

18/06/21 Rain, Furosemide

My plan to visit Thorley Boules Club (near Bishop's Stortford) yesterday was frustrated by heavy rain. At the moment their piste is sand only, and it would be unplayable  when really wet. I'll try again next Thursday. Heavy rain and thunderstorms are forecast for later today, which will probably put a stop to the usual Ongar Friday afternoon "friendly" session. Sunday morning looks a little more hopeful, but not a lot...

Despite missing the "exercise" I'd anticipated, I still hit my activity target. I think trying to fit an oversized lightweight duvet into a standard cover might have something to do with that...

The Furosemide I took yesterday produced large quantities of urine, but visually the ankle oedema is unchanged. I'll take another one after breakfast as I can stay in during the morning and I doubt that I'll be going out for boules after lunch. I probably need to stay on the Furosemide for alternate days - or as close as I can manage - for a week or two before my fluid balance sorts itself out.

I don't know why this problem has re-emerged recently after many months without it. No change in the meds, except going back onto Zometa. Offhand I can't think of a reason why the two should be connected.

Passing mention: Blood Pressure has been good recently - I got 102/70 not long after getting up yesterday morning, which is well within "Ideal blood pressure" according to my chart. 98/61 just now (01:26) - still in the "Ideal" zone but getting close to "Low". Temperature has been at the high end of 36.something, and oxygen  saturation has stayed good. 

17/06/21 Furosemide

This morning's diuretic pill (40mg Furosemide) is having quite a impact on my water balance! Couldn't leave the house even if I wanted to.

Slight correction to previous post - yesterday evening was the match against Epping, not a practice. I gather Ongar beat Epping narrowly (8.5 - 7.5). No doubt I'll hear about it all on Sunday, when Brian and I are due for another humiliation in the Doubles League...

17/06/21 Sand, oedema's back.

Woke up early again after dex night #2, did a few things about the house, made tuna mayo for lunch then went to the Ongar piste for the regular Wednesday afternoon. Nobody else there - the reason being that there is a match coming up against Epping and the team had an organised practice session arranged for the evening therefore they all missed the afternoon. 

So I had a good long practice and was just about to leave when a couple turned up and we played a few ends of singles before I had to leave for tea (fish, cat, human) in time for backgammon.

Tomorrow evening I plan on going to have a look at a Bishop's Stortford club that has recently moved from a pub (the landlord wanted to use the piste area for more outdoor seating) to a social club where I understand that, for the time being at least, the piste is just sand. That would meet my desire to play on a completely different surface...

Myeloma? Haven't thought much about it today, apart from a couple of Admin issues on the Facebook group, and remembering to take the pills four times a day.

Looking at my feet after getting out of the shower, the ankle oedema is back again probably as bad as ever although the insteps aren't swollen as they were before. That fits with my feeling the need of a long-handled shoehorn (I keep one upstairs and one downstairs) although I'm not at the stage where I can't get a shoe on at all without one.Not planning on doing anything much later today until the evening, so it's time for another Furosemide (diuretic) with the morning pills.

Finger splits, BTW, are now fully cleared up with the warmer weather. However, while grating a giant garlic clove for my pasta sauce yesterday evening, I did manage to remove a 2mm diameter piece of skin from the tip of my right index finger. It bled for a while but has stopped now. The mix of blood thinner (20mg Rivaroxaban taken daily) and slightly reduced platelets seems to leave clotting pretty much as normal as far as I can tell. 

Raining this evening. Might get a thunderstorm or two overnight. We've had a distant lightning flash or two.

16/06/21 Maldon piste

As planned, we went to The Ship in Tiptree for lunch:

Very healthy. It's got salad. 

And then on to Maldon where we had a good walk and found the Boules piste. Rather a nice one, but with a surface that looks very similar to Ongar. We watched for a while, walked on a bit, then had a couple of Rossi ice-creams.

Back home just in time for online backgammon. Now we're into summer and wanting to be out more, we'll be cutting that back from every weekday to something rather less dominating of the weekday schedules. Negotiations are in hand...

15/06/21 Dentist

Dentist at 09:00 yesterday morning, and my plans worked to perfection. Have taken double senna to nudge back to more "normal" tomorrow. I hope.

I had two fillings to repair - i.e.drill out and replace - which meant two lots of dental anaesthetic. I honestly didn't feel one of them at all, and the other was near-painless. Quite remarkable.

Went home via Brewer's Hoppit in Writtle but the paths are very overgrown and need cutting. Hardly surprising, as everything is growing fast in this weather. So it was a shorter walk then expected.

I left for the dentist before breakfast, so by the time I got back and the  anaesthetic had worn off a bit, it was a very late breakfast.Which meant very late breakfast pills, including five dex tablets. That might make for an interesting night - I usually try to take them as early as possible (within our late morning lifestyle!)

Tomorrow we plan on going to Maldon, partly because Sue wants to check out a nearby pub where she and her friends may go for lunch, and partly because I've discovered that there is a boules/petanque piste operated by the Maldon U3A. I'd like to have a look at it before deciding whether or not to  join up. I've been doing some research and have discovered a few other pistes not too far away - emailing all the clubs/groups to arrange visits. I can't possibly go for all of them, but I do feel some variety of pistes and quality of competition would be good.

Myeloma? It will do what it will. Meantime, I intend to get as much enjoyment out of life as I can. COVID permitting,  of course...

Activity target met again, mainly because of some boules practice in the back garden. I'm experimenting with methods for side-spin. As far as I can tell, only one of them works.