21/10/22 Pictures

This cartoon was posted in the Myeloma Support group. There were complaints about it being "insensitive" and we had to remove it. I suppose it could upset some patients in fear of medical examinations I think it's rather well-drawn and it doesn't bother me at all.

This was taken in the kitchen of the Reid Rooms where we had a meeting about the new defibrillator in the village. It's a beautiful old deck oven, in need of some repairs and restoration. Far too nice to spend its days warming plates in there, it should be working 24/7 in an artisan bakery/

19/10/22 Cataract decisions

Decisions made, and not before time as I'm now finding reading anything including computer screens, rather difficult.

Dates are 14/11/22 for the left (worse) eye, and 28/11/22 for the right one. I'm going for Johnson & Johnson "Eyhance" extended depth of focus lenses - right eye optimised for distance and intermediate, left eye biased a bit more towards the intermediate so I should be ok for computer use without glasses. Will still need over-the-counter reading glasses for close vision. Not exactly looking forward to the surgery!

Now to tell Optical Express they've lost my business...

15/10/22 Politics

Normally I would regard the subject as off-limits for this blog, even in its new and more far-reaching form. But this is not normal. Never, in all my years of watching  UK politics, has there been a cock-up so multi-faceted and overwhelming. Never has the Conservative Party, once so famed for its election-winning unity, split apart into so many factions so completely. The mob got the scent of blood with Boris, and now it wants more. That seems to be the only thing holding them together. And once Truss goes, as she surely must before long as her party becomes uncontrollable, what happens next?

I really have no idea.

13/10/22 Frustrations, annoyances

I 'phoned my haematologist's secretary to progress-chase the PET scan he's organising at Southend. Left a message.

'Phoned Springfield Radiology to check they had got the nrew MRI request form that I emailed to them a couple of days, and hoping for news of an appointment. "Sorry, can't help. The computers are down, can't get into the system."

The secretary called back. He forgot to do it before going off on holiday, sends apologies. Will try to do it online from wherever he is. I'm to get back to her if heard nothing by the end of the month...

More delays!

My cataracts are getting worse, almost "visibly" by the day. Reading low-contrast text on computer screen now very difficult, even with aid of magnifying glass. Unfortunately this includes all the sites I've been looking at for information about multifocal lenses...

This is outside the back door:

The white thing on the fence is the temperature sensor for the weather station that we keep in the kitchen. The eucalyptus tree is in a raised bed made from(very heavy) railway sleepers. Yesterday I noticed that the temperature sensor wasn't there. I think one of the cats must have knocked it off while climbing to an observation post on top of the fence, but obviously neither of them is admitting a thing. 

I figured that it must have fallen into the narrow gap between the raised bed and the fence. Too dark to do much about it yesterday evening but this morning, shining a torch into the gap, I spotted a bit of white below the ivy in there. Getting it out was quite a challenge. I devised various plans with duct tape on the end of a stick. But that wasn't needed because after a lot of wiggling with a bamboo cane I managed to work it through the tiny gap under the fence and out the other side (which is also our land). And now I've moved that black container with the red flowers in along and back a bit, so that if the temperature sensor does get knocked off again it will fall into that and not all theway to the bottom of that gap again.

12/10/22 Progress

Just an addition to the tale of the Springfield ophthalmologist. There's a fancy new laser machine that measures the curvature of the cornea and the length of the eyeball - both needed to get exactly the right replacement lens. He couldn't get the machine to work on my left eye - apparently the cataract is so bad that it couldn't penetrate to "see" to the back of my eye. So I have to go back next week, by which time he will have got his old ultrasound machine out of the attic or wherever it lives, dusted it off, and got it ready for me.

That's progress for you! An unwelcome week's delay, but at least it gives time for some more research on the different types of lenses and the AMD risks.

11/10/22 Frost, cataracts, paraproteins

 The first frost of the year on the flat roof over the kitchen this morning, and some good autumn colour on the Virginia Creeper as well:

Went to see the opthalmologist at Springfield this morning. Unlike the optical Express man, he is prepared to give me multifocal lenses despite small risk of problems if my AMD gets worse. But it has remained very early-stage and stable for  what must be at least ten years, with daily Optivision and keeping out of bright light and away from UV - hence the hat I'm always wearing in outside photos. I think I'm willing to take a small risk in return for being free of the hassle of my normal varifocal glasses and another pair for the computer and another for driving. I'm always going up stairs or downstairs or out and finding I've got the wrong ones on. They drive me mad. But of course I'll need some top-quality UV-blocking sunglasses for every time I go outside.

The saga of the MRI request form continues, but more about that (probably) when I eventually get a date. And the good news is that I've at last got the paraprotein result from the last blood test - still undetctable, which is very good news indeed

10/10/22 I can't go on...

 ...with The Rings of Power. I just made another attempt to finish episode 3, and the best I can say of it is that I did actually get to the end. But it was so silly that I very nearly didn't. 

It's a disaster, it's as simple as that. The scripts are hopeless. The writers should have been fired and the whole thing re-thought from scratch. Or better, abandoned altogether. But I suppose Amazon had to get something in return for all the money it paid for the rights. At least we can hope that there won't be a series 2.