01/11/21 Stairs, paces, Pill Organisation

Stairs: did it yesterday night - straight up all thirteen, alternate feet, no handrail grabs, no stopping to re-balance. Pleased about that!

Yesterday's Ongar boules cancelled because of heavy rain. I took advantage of a break in the weather for the walk around Brickhouse Farm, just got back before the heavens opened again.. I've got a new pedometer app on my phone which picks up steps while pushing a walker, unlike the step counters built in to my phone and watch. So now I know for sure that I've done 3240 paces and 1.35 miles and burned 190 Kcal since mid-afternoon. Which works out to 0.73m per pace.

Pill Organisation has been a bit disorganised  for the last few weeks because for some reason I don't quite understand it happened on a Friday. I went through the whole lot again yesterday morning and filled in a complete Friday, so now it's back to Saturday mornings again, where it belongs.

Not so sleepy yesterday, but it was a dex night . And again tonight...

31/10/21 (3) Bathroom Scales, EarPAP, stairs

 According to my rather ancient ones I've lost a whole kilogram in one day, and two over the last three days.

I think it's time to replace. Off I go Up The Jungle again...

Last night's EarPAP claimed just 24% success (out of 1056 snores). Getting lower every time.

A while ago I was pleased with myself for going straight up the stairs without needing to hold on to anything. It's not so good now. I can still do it but only slowly and needing to get both feet onto the same step to re-set my balance for the next four or five. Much better if I have one hand free for the handrail to keep me going. This confirms my feeling that balance generally has got worse then it used to be.

30/10/21 (2) EarPAP, rain, butternut squash

After a couple of posts about the sleepiness getting better - yesterday it didn't. I got up quite late after a longer than usual night between 4 and 5 hours depending on which sensor you believe most, I had breakfast, made coffee, and sat down in my chair in the sitting room at something like 10:30. Next thing I knew it was 13:30 and Sue had gone out for a hair appointment... OTOH, no more "naps" later.

EarPAP result from last night was a bit more believable. I suppose the thing has to calibrate itself for me:

I find 74% rather more believable than 100%!

Weather forecast for later is close to 100% rain for when I should be playing Boules at Ongar. I have a feeling it will be too wet to go.

Did a Slimmer's World recipe for stuffed butternut squash which apparently I last cooked (and approved of) back in 2015. Vast amounts of vegetable chopping required. I increased all coking times by at least 50% and added a few glugs of olive oil here and there instead of the ridiculous spray oil which I've completely given up. Either you just don't get enough to do the job without dozens of squirts- might as well just be careful with a conventional bottle, or the nozzle gets blocked up. What I wonder most of all is whether the people who write these recipes ever test them in a domestic kitchen. I started work on it at about 16:00 and just had it ready for Strictly Come Dancing at 09:10 - way beyond the quoted cooking time.

Brief cricket comment: By the time I checked the score it was all over - England sweeping Australia aside by eight wickets in 11.4 overs. Jos Buttler showed - not for the first time - that when the mood is on him he's by some distance the best short-form batsman in the world.

30/10/21 EarPAP, and various

That mini-rash has faded completely away. Ankle oedema is there but at a tolerable level. As I have nothing particular on later today, I might have a Furosemide after breakfast. Of course I'm still waiting for appointments from the sleep apnoea man and the dermatology man.

An intriguing report from the EarPAP anti-snoring gadget last night:

Claiming a 100%  seems a bit much, especially on the default settings It also makes for an interesting comparison with SnoreLab:

I'll try again tonight, see how they match up.

Less sleepy again yesterday, I seem to have come out of a bad patch  of that recently. Maybe because I'm back on Lenalidomide for another three weeks?

Didn't go U3A boules yesterday - rain far too heavy and I hear that those who did go decamped early and went  to the King's Head for coffee and cakes. Having lost a whole kilogram since September 20 I don't really need that, especially because I'm on a bit of an upswing at the moment. Too much pasta carbonara at Springfield, probably:

29/10/21 Springfield, EarPAP

A good morning at Springfield - very quiet, so I got plenty of attention without any delays. They got the canula in at the second attempt, and lunch (pasta carbonara) was excellent. Took the new meds home via a shortish walk in Admiral's Park.

That mini-rash hasn't developed - if anything it's faded a little. Definitely not the established pattern, and I can't see any other ones developing.

A new anti-snoring gadget arrived in the post. It hooks over the ear, detects snoring through its microphone, and then transmits impulses to the vagus nerve to relax the airways and relieve the snoring. That's what they say. We'll see. You can't have it in the same ear as a hearing aid (just won't fit right) so should be OK overnight, but if I want use it downstairs if I'm likely to fall asleep and annoy Sue, it'll mean taking one hearing aid out with attendant risk of losing it...  That's if it works, of course. I have a feeling I may be using the 30-day return period.

I was much less sleepy yesterday, which is an improvement!

Good boules at Birchanger / Thorley. I started partnering a newbie in doubles (and I suspect he'd played a bit of petanque before), then he had to leave so the rest of us played a three-way singles and agreed to call it a day and an honourable draw at 8-8-8- Even though it was a very warm day (up to 18C), it still gets cold after 21:00 and not much fun to be out in a rather exposed place like the Birchanger piste.

28/10/21 Sleepy day and a new mini-rash

 Another lazy and sleepy day yesterday - for once I got nowhere near my activity target. I seem to be going through a worse-than-usual "fatigue" patch at the moment.The various apps that monitor sleep apnoea in different ways all give very consistent results day to day (a bit on the wrong side of the moderate / severe boundary) so it's hard to blame that for the differences.

A couple of days ago had a letter from Dr.Ha (respiratory / sleep apnoes) acknowledging the corrections I made in an email and with a revised version of his GP letter with my meds put right.

Just noticed another mini-rash  starting up in that same familiar right wrist spot. It'll probably go much darker red overnight.. Not sure if that thing at bottom right is another one or not yet.

Question: I've just finished the week off Lenalidomide, I start a new week of it this evening. If it's a side-effect, do these rashes know?

Springfield later today (11:00, no need to get up early) for Zometa and meds and hopefully a decent walk in Admiral's Park on the way home afterwards. I need one!

26/10/21 (20) Fatigue again. And again...

It turned into rather a strange day.I got up early to drive to the GP surgery a bit before 08:00 and when they opened the doors at 08:05 I went in , announced myself, explained why I was there all over again, and was told to come back at 09:10!

Not pleased at all, needless to say. but it gave me time to get home for a boiled egg breakfast before driving back again. About a fifteen minute delay before seeing Dr.Ku and after going through it all yet another time and showing him the most recent photos he asked me to send the photos in via an email link and  will refer to a dermatologist for an opinion. I asked about skin biopsy etc. but he can't order those himself, it would have to come from the specialist. He's obviously pulling back from the vasculitis theory in favour of a reaction to lenalidomide, which is certainly a possibility.

Got home and had one of my classic collapses, falling asleep in my chair downstairs with complete weariness. Eventually got over that, felt a bit more energetic and decided to do some hedge-trimming on the box hedge in the front garden. At least that was enough to get me past my fairly high Activity Target for the day.

Had lunch (Sue brought something back from Billericay)  and went straight into another bout of fatigue...

For the first time decided to skip boules at Tower, just felt too tired to go and enjoy it. Plan was to stay home and watch the Bake-Off in real time for once, but still managed to fall asleep near the end so don't yet know who went home...

No rush to get up early tomorrow so I hope for a decent sleep and a more normal day.

UPDATE 27/10/21 00:29 - as usual, feel far fresher, more energetic and wide-awake after my midnight shower than I did all day yesterday. The curse of being a natural-born night owl...