Such Is Life!

To be honest, there's not an awful lot to put in a blog post at the moment. Carol let me take Alfie out for his walk across Eaglestone Park on my own yesterday morning. I don't think she wants to let me go anywhere much on my own since what happened two Sundays ago. I suppose I can't blame her. She's not feeling too well herself. She's experiencing a lot of pain which is as a result of taking the antibiotics, or, at least that's what we've discovered by reading the leaflet which comes with these tablets. I don't understand how antibiotics can have that effect, but it's a good idea to always read those leaflets which come with packets of medication just to see what some of the side-effects might be.

I haven't driven the car since the 'Incident' two Sunday's ago. Not that I don't want to, because I do. Carol has been driving. I haven't been back to S.C.F. yet. I hope to go again next Sunday. I don't think Carol likes the idea of me going off on my own since what happened. We'll just have to wait and see. I have been feeling incredibly tired since the heart attack. Which just goes with the territory, unfortunately, but I don't feel as tired as I did after the first heart attack in 2006. The bruising is beginning to receded as the days go by, but none of the bruises are as swollen as they were when I left hospital. Some of the medication can make you feel quite unsteady as well as effecting my appetite and making food taste peculiar, particularly making things tasteless.

I mentioned wanting to by a long-sleeved top in Marks and Spencer's in my last blog post. We went to their central Milton Keynes branch on Friday and couldn't see any of the rugby tops, two of which I have already. It seemed odd that, if you go on their website, you have a good selection, but then these garments aren't available in their stores. The Carol suggested going to their store at the football stadium and it was the same there. Yesterday we drove to Kingtson hopping centre and went into the M&S store there and there as a much better selection and I chose and bought a plain blue shirt in a similar style to the Rugby shirts with long sleeves. When we came out of the carpark there was a long queue coming out onto the grid roads, but I have no idea why it was so busy, perhaps we had just come out at a particularly busy time. It would seem most people, on a Saturday morning, don't go out shopping until a good deal later, say 10.00-11.00 a.m., by which time we've normally been shopping in wherever we go, for example, Sainsbury's, when it is relatively free of other shoppers and you can get in and out easily.

Alfie's taken to running upstairs and hiding under our bed. I can't think why. Perhaps he thinks he's done something wrong. If we're about to go out and I say 'Alfie, Kitchen!', he has a habit of running upstairs, but sometimes, he will obey and comply and go into the kitchen and then get in the bed he has in the corner by the patio door. I think it must be very snug and comfortable for him, so I can't see why he would go and hide under our bed on the cold floor. Although there are a couple of storage baskets under there where I have sometimes found him hiding. Funny little dog.

We've been back over to the Kingston Centre because Carol needed some pain relief medication so we went to Boot's, which opened at 10a.m. Being a Sunday, shops open later than during the week. We were confronted by the sight of hoards of starlings in the trees around the carpark and some wandering around on the ground. I reckon they were preparing to migrate which they do at around this time of year. They were making a lot of noise, sounding to me a bit like an audience in a theatre before the show starts. One we saw busily eating the dead flies caught in the front of the radiator of a car parked immediately in front of us.

Strange how I started this blog post not knowing what I was going to write, and end up with writing quite a lot, regardless how much garbage I actually end up writing. Such is life!

Forgotten Medication

When Carol was discharged from Ward 20 on Friday, she was given a carrier bag full of all the medication she needed to manage her condition. A nurse had sat on her bed and went through a list she had of everything. But Carol has been in more pain since being at home. We were hoping that, having had the operation to unblock her bowel and having been in hospital for very nearly three weeks (together with several days when she went in and was on Ward 19.) the pain would be more under control. But it seems that two lots of medication, antibiotics, were left off this list. Most likely because of this being left out, the pain has not been reduced. Just annoyed that someone didn't deal with this to then avoid more pain, distress and for me, a lot off annoyance, and as it turned out, inconvenience. I realise that the nurses (and other healthcare professionals) were over-worked and put under a great deal of pressure on Ward 20, but to forget or 'mislay' some of Carol's medication does show a certain lapse of, I don't know, concentration on someone's behalf, or at least, not being up to scratch in some respects, which has left myself and Carol feeling a bit let down.

 I went to church on Sunday, but when I got home, I hadn't changed my clothes or taken my shoes off before Carol told me that I'd have to go out again. Someone had telephoned from Ward 20 to say that Carol needed these two extra medications and that they had a prescription made out for these two medications. I had to go in and pick them up immediately and have them made up. You can imagine that I wasn't exactly over-pleased as I was about to sit down and spend the rest of Sunday afternoon relaxing. So I had to get back in the car and drive to the hospital, park in the multi-storey carpark and then walk all the way to Ward 20 (something that is incredibly exhausting as it quite a way.) I soon got to the ward and the nurses knew exactly what I was there for and then I had to decide which pharmacy would be open in order to make up the prescription. I decided to drive to the shopping centre at Kingston as there is a Boot's chemist as well as a pharmacy with the Tesco Extra which is also there. If one wasn't open, or couldn't provide the medications on the prescription, surely the other would have them. Fortunately I didn't have to pay anything to park. I had taken a ticket from the machine when I drove into the multi-storey carpark, and when before I drove out I put the ticket in one of the ticket machines and it showed 'no payment' which was at least a relief as I was expecting to pay something, but I imagine because I hadn't been there for much more than 20 minutes, it hadn't registered a payment. I then drove out of the hospital campus and decided to drive towards Kingston. I have to say I went considerably faster than was probably wise, but, as I was keen to get the prescription made up for Carol, I wasn't that bothered. Just a good thing there are no speed cameras or no police around at the time. 

I got to the Kingston Centre and found it was very busy. No doubt people doing their Christmas shopping. Hardly able to move. I went into Boots (fortunately open, together with the pharmacy) and handed over the prescription. I was told that they had both medications and that it would take 10 minutes to complete. So I went away to kill the time, having a browse in Next, and then into another shop further along the parade of shops. Home Sense, which is full of an incredible range of furnishing items.

I returned to Boots to find they'd completed the prescription. I had to walk across the carpark to return to the car. It always seems to me, whenever I've been to the Kingston Centre, that it's not designed to make your life easy as there's no path across this carpark. For some ridiculous reason they had to put barriers in your way, fences and hedges which mean you can't get a clear path to get from one side to the other. They obviously intend for you to walk right round and this takes far too long. Well, I eventually got back to the car and then, having driven out, I then had to spend around 15 minutes standing still in the car because of a very long queue of vehicles also leaving and back to Chaffron Way. Other drivers getting very annoyed, but, lets be perfectly honest, they only had themselves to blame. What were they expecting, in the build-up to the festive holiday, with other people doing Christmas shopping. Sunday has become very much like any other day of the week, since they relaxed the opening hours of shops and other businesses. I eventually got over the roundabout at Tongwell Street (one of the busiest roads in Milton Keynes) put my foot down and shot across as I made my way home. Thank goodness I'd completed my mission and was able to get back with the medications which I'd gone to get for Carol.

New Year

Well, here we are in a new year. I don't think there'll be that many people who will be sorry that 2016 is over and done with, what with the E.U. Referendum, Donald Trump being elected President in America (mind you, we still have his Inauguration in February to come.) and countless bombings, terrorist attacks, murders and however many famous people dying, amongst them George Michael, David Bowie, Victoria Wood (at 62, far too young. A great talent gone and a huge hole left.) etc etc. You could hardly turn on the news on television without there being news of someone significant reported as kicking the bucket. Nothing but gloom and doom. I just hope 2017 will be better.

As for myself, I'm hoping to do more writing. I have a fairly good story-arc constructed (working on this over the Christmas period. Always amazes me that, giving something a good deal of time and thought how ideas come along. Usually when I least expect them to.) My health is in fairly good order. Carol has had some real health problems to deal with. I just hope she is feeling better in the New Year, what with her recent eye condition and dealing with diabetes.) 2017 will see our 10th wedding anniversary in May and the 11th anniversary of my heart attack. We had a really great summer, visiting no end of National Trust properties as well as those which we can visit, free, as members of the H.H.A. (Historic Houses Association). It was exceptionally warm and pleasant which meant we got out more during the summer months. Having the SatNav made finding some of the more difficult to find properties easier than it might have been. A really clever bit of technology which gets plenty of use. We've been to Whipsnade Zoo on many occasions. The fact we can get in free because Carol is a Fellow makes a great difference. We're hoping to see more theatre in 2017 and in particular I'm looking forward to seeing the musical 'Billy Eliot' which is currently on tour and will be visiting the Milton Keynes Theatre in May.  Just in time for our wedding anniversary. We'll need to book our tickets fairly soon if we're to have a chance of seeing it.

We went to  the Kingston Centre yesterday morning, as Carol needed to get test strips to do her blood sugar tests and it seems that the branch of Boot's the chemist was the only place we could get them. Every shop seems to have sales on. A lot of Christmas stuff going half-price or less. The sort of junk you can, quite frankly, live without. Marks and Spencer's is full of such things as champagne and stuff for the New Year celebrations. We got salad and bits for tonight. We didn't go out but actually saw in 2017. Fireworks going off all over Milton Keynes as midnight came and went. This really upsets Alfie, our Yorkshire Terrier. He just doesn't understand what's going on. The noise did seem to go on a long time.