Hi all, sorry it's been so long again.
I thought I'd post an update about my health situation. Actually I tried to post it on Friday but I ballsed up and lost it and then didn't have time to write it all again. That'll teach me to go writing long posts without saving them!
So, health wise...
It's now been 5 months since I was discharged from hospital. I'm still not back to normal as I still struggle with hills and get tired so easily even when just working at my desk. I spend several hours a day resting as well as sleeping from about 10.30/11pm right through to 9am. I can't get up much earlier, I still feel exhausted and it takes my arms a while to wake up after my brain has come around.
My INR (blood thinness) has been really quite erratic on warfarin, mostly being too low, then was alright for a couple of weeks, then went too high. It's a fun old game but hopefully that's nearly over.
Daily life has become quite routine, though not my old routine. I manage 2-3 hours of work in the morning before I have to rest for another few hours. I then try to put in a couple of hours on FastDay developments, catching up with the emails etc before I make dinner and crash out for the evening. Sometimes we have friends over but I can't manage more than a couple of 'busy' evenings a week.
I was fitting in a daily walk for a couple of months there on my nurses recommendation to help strengthen my heart - I was however finding myself increasingly tired as I tried to keep up with all my work as well as housework (Rich pretty much gave up helping much after about 6 weeks), making dinners and looking after the cats (more on that in a bit). So, I've cut out the walks in the last month and feel a bit less tired for doing so. I guess the hot weather wasn't helping either, even my friends and family note they feel more tired because of the heat - and my nurse said the same thing.
So, I don't feel I've improved at all in the last couple of months but at least it's not getting worse.
I had a consult at the hospital yesterday with the doctor who saw to me on admission in February. I was expecting this to just be a general 'how are you doing now?' chat, as my GP thought that was what it would be. He was wrong! The appointment was a couple of hours, being sent around for various tests. I had 14 vials of blood (and most of them were big ones!) drawn yesterday, urine tests, a couple of ECGs and various pokings & proddings. Basically the doc has told me that all the tests they did when I was in hospital are basically useless - I was on blood thinners before they started the tests and was of course full of clots too. So, the readings aren't meaningful. Essentially this means there's still a good chance I have a condition which caused this as opposed to it being my pill. The blood tests yesterday may not say much either as I'm still on warfarin, but I have been told to finish taking it in the next 3 weeks so I am clear of it for the next round of tests in September. After that they'll be able to tell if there's something wrong with me. I'm waiting on an appointment for another echo scan of my heart, he still seemed concerned about that.
A screenshot of my CT scan, showing one of my bigger clots follows. Hidden for the sake of the squeamish!
On the up side, he has said that if I do have to go on anticoagulants for life there's a good case for me to be on something other than warfarin as that seems not to work so well for me. The others won't be affected by diet or need regular blood tests, so life can go a bit more back to normal and I should be able to fast again then (at last!!)! I could even go back on the pill if I'm a lifer on anticoags.... but if I do have an underlying condition, it may be unwise for me to ever get pregnant, so sterilisation may be on the cards sooner than originally planned.
Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good about it all and just hope that if I do end up as a lifer the new meds won't make me so tired all the time.
So, that's my health report!
Now for the fun things- my new clowder
What's a clowder? It's a collective of cats. Yes, our new four have arrived home at last. You may recall my posting about them shortly after we lost Phoebe back in May. Well, things all changed a bit and our three turned into four. We had reserved two kittens and their mum, but sadly the kittens got really sick and little Molly died at 7 weeks old, before she came home. So, we decided to adopt the male cat who had lived with the mother cat before (by all accounts they had been good friends) - he came home with us right away and we've named him Milo. He's a fluffy black and white chap with the softest character I've ever known in a cat, he loves his cuddles and wouldn't say boo to a goose. After he came home with us we found out that the lady who was having the third kitten (ginger boy) didn't want him anymore, so we decided to have both remaining kittens. Mummy cat, Luna (a tabby-tortie) came home 3 weeks ago tomorrow and her and Milo became friends again with in a day. The kittens came home a few days later (at 3 months old) and while Luna accepted them right away, Milo showed us that he actually *can* hiss and have a tantrum if he wants to.
So, we resorted to Jackson Galaxy style introductions for a week (if you're a cat lover and don't know JG, look him up, he's amazing!) and now Milo and the kittens are best friends. They curl up together, play together, eat together and groom each other. There's a rare hiss or wallop if any of the cats annoy each other but nothing nasty. We have our happy furry family here and love them all very much. The kittens are a lot of work as they're into everything and are still on a sensitive diet due to their prior poorliness - their special food is costing about £4 a day between them at the mo, but we're slowly weaning them onto a high quality but less expensive food.
I'll attach some pictures below for my fellow crazy cat folk here
Time to go for my rest now but I'd like to make a few posts later as this place needs livening up a bit and I have some thoughts
Thanks as always for your continued patience with my situation. I do miss being here as much as I was before. I still can't believe how much my life has changed this year.
I thought I'd post an update about my health situation. Actually I tried to post it on Friday but I ballsed up and lost it and then didn't have time to write it all again. That'll teach me to go writing long posts without saving them!
So, health wise...
It's now been 5 months since I was discharged from hospital. I'm still not back to normal as I still struggle with hills and get tired so easily even when just working at my desk. I spend several hours a day resting as well as sleeping from about 10.30/11pm right through to 9am. I can't get up much earlier, I still feel exhausted and it takes my arms a while to wake up after my brain has come around.
My INR (blood thinness) has been really quite erratic on warfarin, mostly being too low, then was alright for a couple of weeks, then went too high. It's a fun old game but hopefully that's nearly over.
Daily life has become quite routine, though not my old routine. I manage 2-3 hours of work in the morning before I have to rest for another few hours. I then try to put in a couple of hours on FastDay developments, catching up with the emails etc before I make dinner and crash out for the evening. Sometimes we have friends over but I can't manage more than a couple of 'busy' evenings a week.
I was fitting in a daily walk for a couple of months there on my nurses recommendation to help strengthen my heart - I was however finding myself increasingly tired as I tried to keep up with all my work as well as housework (Rich pretty much gave up helping much after about 6 weeks), making dinners and looking after the cats (more on that in a bit). So, I've cut out the walks in the last month and feel a bit less tired for doing so. I guess the hot weather wasn't helping either, even my friends and family note they feel more tired because of the heat - and my nurse said the same thing.
So, I don't feel I've improved at all in the last couple of months but at least it's not getting worse.
I had a consult at the hospital yesterday with the doctor who saw to me on admission in February. I was expecting this to just be a general 'how are you doing now?' chat, as my GP thought that was what it would be. He was wrong! The appointment was a couple of hours, being sent around for various tests. I had 14 vials of blood (and most of them were big ones!) drawn yesterday, urine tests, a couple of ECGs and various pokings & proddings. Basically the doc has told me that all the tests they did when I was in hospital are basically useless - I was on blood thinners before they started the tests and was of course full of clots too. So, the readings aren't meaningful. Essentially this means there's still a good chance I have a condition which caused this as opposed to it being my pill. The blood tests yesterday may not say much either as I'm still on warfarin, but I have been told to finish taking it in the next 3 weeks so I am clear of it for the next round of tests in September. After that they'll be able to tell if there's something wrong with me. I'm waiting on an appointment for another echo scan of my heart, he still seemed concerned about that.
A screenshot of my CT scan, showing one of my bigger clots follows. Hidden for the sake of the squeamish!
WARNING: TOO MUCH INFORMATION!
On the up side, he has said that if I do have to go on anticoagulants for life there's a good case for me to be on something other than warfarin as that seems not to work so well for me. The others won't be affected by diet or need regular blood tests, so life can go a bit more back to normal and I should be able to fast again then (at last!!)! I could even go back on the pill if I'm a lifer on anticoags.... but if I do have an underlying condition, it may be unwise for me to ever get pregnant, so sterilisation may be on the cards sooner than originally planned.
Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good about it all and just hope that if I do end up as a lifer the new meds won't make me so tired all the time.
So, that's my health report!
Now for the fun things- my new clowder
What's a clowder? It's a collective of cats. Yes, our new four have arrived home at last. You may recall my posting about them shortly after we lost Phoebe back in May. Well, things all changed a bit and our three turned into four. We had reserved two kittens and their mum, but sadly the kittens got really sick and little Molly died at 7 weeks old, before she came home. So, we decided to adopt the male cat who had lived with the mother cat before (by all accounts they had been good friends) - he came home with us right away and we've named him Milo. He's a fluffy black and white chap with the softest character I've ever known in a cat, he loves his cuddles and wouldn't say boo to a goose. After he came home with us we found out that the lady who was having the third kitten (ginger boy) didn't want him anymore, so we decided to have both remaining kittens. Mummy cat, Luna (a tabby-tortie) came home 3 weeks ago tomorrow and her and Milo became friends again with in a day. The kittens came home a few days later (at 3 months old) and while Luna accepted them right away, Milo showed us that he actually *can* hiss and have a tantrum if he wants to.
So, we resorted to Jackson Galaxy style introductions for a week (if you're a cat lover and don't know JG, look him up, he's amazing!) and now Milo and the kittens are best friends. They curl up together, play together, eat together and groom each other. There's a rare hiss or wallop if any of the cats annoy each other but nothing nasty. We have our happy furry family here and love them all very much. The kittens are a lot of work as they're into everything and are still on a sensitive diet due to their prior poorliness - their special food is costing about £4 a day between them at the mo, but we're slowly weaning them onto a high quality but less expensive food.
I'll attach some pictures below for my fellow crazy cat folk here
Time to go for my rest now but I'd like to make a few posts later as this place needs livening up a bit and I have some thoughts
Thanks as always for your continued patience with my situation. I do miss being here as much as I was before. I still can't believe how much my life has changed this year.
- Milo
- Luna
- Luna & Milo
- Buster & Mitsie
- Mitsie & Buster
