17/09/21 Sleep monitor

I had a fairly quiet morning and early afternoon about the house (including completing the repair of that soap dish, which is now back in place) and then went to Broomfield Hospital to collect my overnight sleep monitor for sleep apnea assessment:

As you can see, no stick-on electrodes involved - a chest and an abdomen strap, a fingertip oxygen sensor, and two little plastic tubes up the nostrils. Those are the things that may prove difficult. I told the nurse that I rarely go to bed before 14:30 and the thing turns itself off automatically at 08:00. She said no problem, that's long enough - which it may well be if I can sleep with all that lot on. I'm just treating it as a normal night and crossing my fingers. I shall keep my own O2 monitor, snore app,  etc. going as well.

We'll skip breakfast at home in the morning, because I have to get the monitor returned to the hospital by 10:00. We'll follow that with breakfast at The Hare (probably Eggs Benedict and a Garnett's sausage for me) and then I'll go on to Ongar to join the U3A group for some boules and maybe stay for the Friday afternoon Ongar practice session.

Played quite well at Birchanger last night, and the new floodlight is good. It just needs a couple of low power lights (which we've got) on the other side to fill in the very dark shadows thrown by that floodlight when it starts to get dark.

One very French player on the left, a very Yorkshire one next, and then the partially-obscured Chairman Ken. 

I used my 75mm shooter's boules and got some good hits with them. Still experimenting with the new grip and on the whole liking it although I tend to go back to standard overhand at longer ranges, plus underhand for long-range shots.

Some very small posible proto-rashes have appeared (right wrist and elbow, and left wrist). I'm applying the antiseptic cream and  watching'n'waiting. These ones are only a couple of mm across.

16/09/21 Thaxted

We went to Thaxted (Essex and "the home of British music") for lunch at The Swan with two old college friends - one of them being my unofficial medical adviser. As he and I are both Clinically Extremely Vulnerable with regard to COVID-19 and my wife Sue is Clinically Vulnerable, I asked for a well-distanced and ventilated table and they put us next to an open sash window. It was good to start moving out into the world again and spend some time in the company of old friends.

After lunch our guests headed off to Cambridge where they are due for a week's cat-sitting at one of their son's houses, and we went off for a stroll around the town. Here's a fine old house next to the medieval Guildhall:

This is the church which we know well from years of going to the Thaxted Festival concerts here:

The windmill (currently undergoing restoration):

Note the church spire in the second photo. Like all the  best spires it can be seen from miles all around, pointing the faithful up to God in his Heaven.

These two photos are of the wall of a cottage near the windmill. I have absolutely no idea what the numerals mean.

All this brings me back to the subject of live music - classical, opera, and jazz - which was my main occupation for years before the combination of COVID and myeloma  struck. I admit to a slightly obsessive personality, and to some extent petanque has filled the void left by the absence of live music in my life. I haven't been to a thing since March 2020 except the Writtle Jazz Festival (in well-ventilated  tents) and can't see myself going back to more than very occasional events for a year or two yet. That's from someone who was regularly out two or three evenings a week for music of one kind or another. At least I'm saving money on tickets this way - enough to pay for the boules with some left over.

15/09/21 Balance, and more biscuits

I've said before that I get occasional patches of a few days when my balance is distinctly worse than usual (which is not the best). I don't fall over but I'm often pleased to have a handy wall or something to  steady myself against. Last night in the bathroom before going to bed I lost balance completely and had to grab anything available to stop myself ending up on the floor. Unfortunately the soap dish screwed to the wall was in just the right place and - well, it isn't screwed to the wall anymore. I bought a new tube of No More Nails (see below) and have done a repair. Now just waiting for the glue to dry completely before cleaning up the many soap stains lurking out of sight underneath and re-attaching it to the wall.

Ongar Boules are having a bit of an event to mark Finals Day on 19/09 and of course I'll make some Cheesy Parmesan Biscuits. Had to go to big Tesco to get a couple of ingredients - wore facemask, lots of sanitiser, and careful distancing. Fortunately there weren't many people in the store so no problem until I got to the checkout, which had the slowest operator in the entire worldwide history of checkout operating... Anyway, that's where I got the No More Nails as well as a couple of essential cheeses. It still feels more than a little strange going into a big supermarket  after all this time, but we have to start inching back to "normality" at some stage.

I had a surprise  'phone call from the NHS yesterday. Thanks to a cancellation, I go in for sleep apnea testing on Thursday afternoon. AFAIK this means sticking various electrodes here and there and wiring them up to an overnight sleep monitor which I have to return on Friday morning. I'm not yet sure of the implications for my usual evening shower and etc... Curiously, the night before last and last night gave me the best snoring results yet - Snore Scores of 14 and 45 against my average of 65, and no "epic" - i.e. very loud - at all.

Played petanque at Tower last night, probably the best I've played yet. I was in a three-man team with the very french Davide and a new member I shall simply call Anon. Davide is a good shooter, one of the two best in the club and the other one wasn't there. Unselfishly he took the "switch" role with Anon - who clearly rated himself as a shooter) taking the shooter role and me as pointer. After Anon had missed too many shots (he got 2/15 or 13%) Davide gave me the role, although I think of myself as more of a pointer and nudger than an outright shooter, Be that as it may, I got 8 shots out of 21 attempts (38%) which I'm very happy with, and some good pointing throws as well. My new four-finger grip did well too - I think I'm going to stick with it for pointing at least. The only bad spot was when I realised that my right hearing aid wasn't in my ear where it should have been. Luckily I found it as soon as I got back to the car  must have flipped out of my ear when I took my facemask off earlier. Anyway, that's a day of difficult phone calls avoided.

14/09/21 Boules, and double Senna

Nearly halfway through September and at least we've had a few Indian Summer days to remember and give us some good walks. Leaves are late to turn this year - hardly any colour showing yet, and in some recent years it's been well advanced by mid-August.

Boules at Hanbury Gardens (the Epping club) yesterday morning. Despite leaving at 09:10 I only just got there by 10:00 - lots of road closures in the last few miles that forced a couple of deviations from the route before I found a way in.

Played three games, lost the first one badly and won the other two. The bowel management worked OK and I've compensated with double Senna last night. Fingers crossed. Not planning to go out until the evening so a good opportunity for another Furosemide with the breakfast pills.

After the games finished I hung around for tea and biscuits and chat. Got some interesting ideas about grip and related matters.

Ongar Boules are putting on a lunch for Sunday,which is Finals Day for our internal competitions. I shall,of course, make some Cheesy Parmesan Biscuits. The timing doesn't work for the Tesco delivery, so I shall have to mount an expedition to pick up some mature Cheddar and a few other things. I shall wear a facemask and distance as far as possible, with a bottle of sanitiser handily in a pocket. Might get that done later today, if the Furosemide allows. Otherwise, Wednesday or Thursday will be fine.

Quick update on those rashes: They've gone and no new ones have appeared. The possibility still exists that they were insect bites or the result of brushing past stinging nettles or similar.It has, BTW, been a very good year for nettles. Several regular walking routes are near impossible with exposed legs.

13/09/21 Mainly about boules

Again I find myself with nothing much myeloma-related to write about. Met my activity target with Sunday morning at the Ongar piste - not many people there yesterday and we just played a couple of friendlies. The bowel management plan worked to perfection, and I didn't take a Senna last night in the hope of repeating the performance (or lack of it) later today when I shall be at Epping. That requires leaving a bit earlier - by 09:20 - to be sure of getting there in time for the various teams and lanes to be allocated.

Ankle oedema is still there but not bad enough to make it difficult or impossible to put shoes on. I may try a Furosemide with the lunchtime pills when I get back from Epping, as I have nothing out of the house planned for the rest of the day.

Now for a boules digression. No myeloma content whatsoever, but this blog is about living with myeloma, and petanque has become one of my main ways of doing that successfully.

According to all the best experts, there are two grips for the ball, and there isn't a huge difference between them. No.1 has the ball sitting right back in the fleshy part of the hand.The fingers are curled tightly around the ball, and the thumb is definitely not on the ball, it's resting on the first finger instead.

This can be delivered without then wrist bent fully backwards if you don't want backspin.

The main variation (No.2) has the ball a little further forward in the hand, held by the loosely curved fingers.Thumb off the ball again. It needs the wrist fully cocked backwards, and gives you more backspin than No.1.:

Both grips are good for applying side-spin by rotating the wrist to the right or left .

The trouble is that the more petanque I play, the fewer people I see using these grips in undiluted form. The main deviation is that almost everybody has the thumb resting on the ball - something that is supposed to throw it off-line.

A lot of people I play with (or against) use a grip something like this (No.3):

with the thumb on the ball and balanced by the little finger resting on the other side of the ball. It seems to work well for them...

I've been working on a variation

with first and middle finger in front of the ball, and thumb and ring finger equally spaced behind. The little finger stays off the ball, which feels a lot more natural than keeping the thumb off in Nos 1 & 2. This (No.4) grip seems to offer a lot of variation in backspin from lots with the wrist fully cocked backwards to little or none with a straight  wrist. It's good for delivering a high lob (something I often find hard with Nos 1 & 2), and overall I like it rather a lot.

And of course there's also the underhand grip, which I use for shooting at longish range where I can't get a conventional grip to go far enough to pitch on the target ball. Underhand doesn't give any backspin but if you're shooting who cares?

It would probably be a good plan to stick to just one grip and learn to get the best out of it. Just as it would be sensible to have just one set of competition boules and learn how they behave in all circumstances. Needless to say I have rather more than one and there's another (which I seriously hope will be the last for a long time) coming soon. More about them later... It's just not in my nature to keep these things simple, although I admire those who do.

12/09/21 Nothing new

Another day following much the same weather pattern. Did Pill Organisation after a rather late breakfast - unusually I slept through to my default alarm at 08:45 - and then we went to Rayne for a walk along the old railway line and a (shared) panini at the Booking Hall  cafe. 

Nothing new on the  myeloma front today.

That may well be the least interesting blog post I've ever done...

11/09/21 9/11, beetroot, oedema

Another day that started grey and damp, moved through warm with heavy showers, and ended up hot and humid. Still no sign of the expected thunderstorms. Went to Ogar for some practice in the afternoon, played a couple of games with the usual others there. Just avoided the rain.  A thing to remember: when the piste is wet, the boules tend to carry on straighter than you expect.

I can't let 20 years after 9/11 go by unremarked. I remember first hearing the news just as I was getting ready to leave work. I stayed, TV and radio on, for half an hour or so while the full scale of what had happened began to come clear. Driving home with the car radio on, I and, it seemed, every other driver on the road was in a state of shock. At home, Sue and I put the TV on and just sat and watched, almost speechless, for probably two hours. Of all the "where were you when?" moments - JFK's assassination, John Lennon's murder, Princess Diana's death and more, 9/11 stands out. It changed the world.

On the myeloma front, nothing new but plenty of activity on the facebook group to keep me busy. I've just noticed that the ankle oedema is quite bad again. No chance of a Furosemide in the morning unless we have really bad weather - the plan is to go out for a walk along the old railway track at Rayne. And for  lunch, probably. Speaking of food, we've got some nice fresh beetroot from a neighbour, so it's time for my favourite beetroot and goat's cheese risotto.