Being home alone and not feeling great

I've not managed to update my blog for a whole week, so sorry in advance for the length of this as I know it wont be short! :P

On Tuesday mum and dad went away. Dad's sister and her partner rent a wooden cabin at a fishing resort through the winter as they both love fishing. My dad is also loves fishing so sometimes he goes to their lodge for a couple of days, but this time mum accompanied him. Dad enjoyed lots of fishing and mum explored the local towns, took photos of dad fishing and knitted! Mum works part time in our village library so they went Tuesday eve (because she worked Tuesday in the day) and she had to come back on Friday in time to work that evening. Dad got Wednesday to Friday off work last week, but had to come back Sunday eve (after a day of fishing) because he's got to go back to work. Because of all my medical problems in the past mum and dad have never been able to both go away before, so this was a new experience for me and Alf being home alone for 3 days. But we survived! :D We didn't argue (well only a little bit when Alf played his horrible music really loud!), we didn't starve (yay for pasta, pot noodles and microwavable rice!), I worked the dishwasher and even did a load of washing! Alf missed his college bus on Wednesday though after a stupidly late night, including having a shower at 12.45am! I missed mum a lot as I've not been apart from her much before, so we made lots of phone calls when mum had enough signal. And one of our lovely neighbours called round twice to check on us. We appreciated the thought but didn't have any problems so just told her we were fine. She realised that Alf should have been at college when she came round on Wednesday though, so told him off, lol!

My nocturnalism has been up and down. I wasn't at all nocturnal on Wednesday so was asleep by 11.30pm, which is very early for me! I was also not very nocturnal on Thursday so fell asleep just after midnight. I've been very nocturnal other nights though. This week I've also had difficulty getting up in the mornings and have a few lie-ins which I do usually try not to do. I was woken by doorbell twice though - once for a medical delivery and I don't know who it was the other time because I didn't get to the door in time. My Melatonin isn't helping at the moment because I can't make the ideal dose from the tablets I've got, so I definitely need to look into buying some smaller dose tablets so I can adjust the dose more finely to get it right for me.

I did have to get up earlier than I usually do (9am) on Thursday for an orthodontist appointment. Chris' girlfriend Sophie gave me a lift because mum and dad were away. My orthodontist was running 45mins late, but no-one warned me, so I thought I'd been forgotten! There was a very cute little 2 year old girl in waiting room though who kept everyone amused while waiting :) My actual appointment was very quick as I just had my wires changed and my orthodontist wasn't rude to me! Usually I just have the wires tightened, but this time I had my wires swapped for some thicker and less flexible wires, which shouldn't pop out of place when I eat :) My next appointment is on New Years' Eve, but I don't mind as I wasn't planning to do anything to celebrate. And my orthodontist said that next time he might be able to start the gap closures. I don't know what that involves - elastic bands maybe - but it sounds like progress :) I was warned that my mouth would be very sore afterwards and it has been, which has caused me difficulty eating (as my teeth would hurt when I touched them together, such as when chewing food). Paracetamol helped sometimes, but not always, but the pain is gradually easing now. My eating has also been affected this week by me feeling very nauseus one day (which is very unusual for me) and me having bad tummy aches which put me off eating.

I've spoken to my dietician via email as my weight was up again when I weighed myself on Tuesday :D So the plan now is to gradually reduce my feeds, so I'm having 5 nights of feed this week. I'm a bit worried about my weight though because my eating hasn't been very good, but I'll just have to wait and see how it is on Tuesday.

I felt very very tired at the start of the week after last weekend and although I expected that for a bit I didn't expect it would take me as long to recover as it did - I'd say I didn't recover til Thursday. But although I've recovered from that now I've still not felt right - I've been exhausted, had bad tummy aches, had a fuzzy head, poor concentration (worse than usual) and I've just felt rubbish :( Claire came round Wednesday night and we were planning to go out for a meal but we decided not to because I didn't feel up to it. I seem to have been more clumsy this week - I knocked over my cup of water in my bedroom on Monday night and it went all over my floor including over my electrical plug extension. Whoops. And then on Tuesday I'd just boiled a full kettle of water and was trying to pour it into a jug to put outside to cool for my drinking water, but missed the jug and poured the boiling water all over the kitchen surface and the floor - luckily it missed me. And my memory seems to have got worse too over the last couple of weeks, I often can't remember if I've told people things or not, which is not like me. I think most of this is ME related though, so I'm not worried, just frustrated :( There has been one positive though and that is that my temperature control seems to have been a little better this week :)

I heard some great news from R on Wednesday - she got home after 3 and a half weeks in hospital :D She's been so supportive to me, so I'm glad I could help her out when she was in hospital :) Fingers crossed she can remain at home now.

I heard from the psychologist at Hospital B via email this week. She was lovely when I saw her a couple of weeks ago and thought she could definitely help my ME. So we've been in touch via email to try to arrange a date for me to go to the hospital just to see her before my inpatient stay in December. The date hasn't been confirmed yet, but will probably be mid-November. I'm feeling quite optimistic and hopeful about that :)

I've also been in contact with Sarah this week about trying to reschedule my Gifts of Life Photoshoot. She's running behind schedule due to taking some time out from the project to organise the fantastic Save Jess-tival, but needs to find out the deadline and budget and then she'll get back to me once she knows whether she can fit my shoot in or not. I really hope so, so I've got my fingers crossed.

I think I mentioned on my last long blog update that I'd received an email from my donor's other sister, C. I took a while writing my reply because I felt I had to get it just right, but when I was happy with it I sent it. I got a lovely response within a couple of hours. So I sent a reply back to that too. C seems lovely and I'm really glad she emailed me :)

I've not been out much this week, but after my orthodontist appointment on Thursday we popped in to Sophie's mum's house to collect a degu run that she'd ordered off the Internet and asked to be delivered there. The degu run was too small, I think it was designed for hamsters, so the degus would be able to escape from it as it doesn't have a top. While we were there I met Sophie's mum for the first time (even though Sophie and Chris have been together for 18 months now) and she was very nice. She was thinking about getting Sophie's 7 year old sister a Wii for her birthday next month, so I gave her some advice about that :) I also met their 2 very cute little dogs. And then after that rather than taking me straight back home, Sophie asked if I wanted to call in at her and Chris' flat to meet the degus. I said yes of course! They were soooo cute :) I didn't manage to get any photos because they were so fast, but I'll have to raid Chris and Sophie's Facebook profiles to try to find a few photos to show you :)

On Sunday morning me and mum went out to browse round our local carboot sale. It was the first time I'd been in weeks. I set myself a spend limit at £5, but spent £5.20. However I got some real bargains. For just £5.20 I bought 3 DVDs and a necklace and earring set for me, 2 CDs for mum for Christmas and a friend's Christmas present :D Then on the way home mum called in at the Co-op for a bit of shopping, but I stayed in the car and listened to the radio :)

Mum picked up my ESA medical certificate from my GP on Monday morning and I got it posted off that same day. Despite the postal strikes I received a letter from them on Saturday morning saying that they received my certificate so are still paying me my ESA :) I still need to attempt the daunting medical questionnaire though.

Also in the post this week I received my Taylor Swift tickets for her concert next month and the 2 monthly magazines I subscribe to - Official Nintendo Magazine (ONM) and Focus. I loved reading ONM but haven't managed to read much of Focus yet because I've had trouble concentrating and it's content is quite sciencey. I also received a letter from Hospital B about my December admission. I was told on the phone when the date was changed that even though I'd be staying in the hotel I'd be on the ward during the days for my tests, but the letter said instead of being on the ward I'll be on the medical day unit :( I'm not very happy with that because I know everyone on the ward and because I've not been there for nearly 18 months I was looking forward to the familiarity and seeing all the nurses again. I've only been on the medical day unit for 1 day over 3 years ago, so don't know it and don't know the nurses. But I do remember it having no character. So I'll have to see if that's negotiable at all.

Now I'm trying to remember what I've been doing to amuse myself this week. I did a jigsaw on Monday for the first time in ages. I used to enjoy doing jigsaws so found my favourite one (made of wood with odd shaped pieces and picturing jungle animals) and had a go. I quite enjoyed it :)

I've also listened to lots of music. I've been listening to Little Boots' album (Hands) in preparation for her concert on Thursday, both of Taylor Swift's albums (Taylor Swift and Fearless) in preparation for her concert next month and of course some Mika too (Life In Cartoon Motion and The Boy Who Knew Too Much) :D

I was disappointed to discover that Mika's fantastic single Blame it on the Girls won't actually be released in the UK, but instead will only be released in the USA and Japan :( Instead Rain will be his second UK single from The Boy Who Knew Too Much. I like Rain, but not as much as Blame it on the Girls. And I was surprised to hear that Cheryl Cole knocked Alexandra Burke off the top of the singles chart this week. That was unexpected. But Alexandra Burke is number 1 in the albums chart this week. Last year for the first time all of the X Factor contestants released a single together to raise money for charity, which you can see here, and it was a big success. So this year they're doing a charity single again and you can see more details here. I'm not sure about the song choice, but am very glad they're doing it to raise money for a children's hospital :)

I've watched some good music videos on the TV music channels and on Youtube this week :) Laura White was one of my favourites on last year's X Factor and I was shocked when she went out so early in the competition. So I was really glad to hear that she's got a record deal and was looking forward to hearing her first single. She's got an amazing voice, but disappointingly I don't like the song. I've also seen Pink's latest video for I Don't Believe You (I quite like the song, but the video is a bit slow for me), Lily Allen's latest video for Who'd Have Known (love the song and love the originality of the video) and Taylor Swift's latest video for 15 (quite like the song and video). And I've also been watching some videos from Little Boots' Youtube channel which includes some great covers and acoustic versions of songs from her album. Several years ago my uncle used to manage a girl group called Sweet FA. You probably wont know the name because they split up after 1 single, but it was a hit so you might recognise their song Flowers. The official music video for Flowers isn't available on Youtube, so me and mum got a shock when we were flicking through the music channels on Saturday and the video was playing as we'd never seen it before!

I've watched a lot again on TV this week, so won't mention every programme I've seen. I watched the first episode of a new series of a programme called An Island Parish last Monday because it's set on the Isles of Scilly and some of my cousins live there. I've not seen them on any programmes so far though, but it is interesting to watch a documentary set where they live. I also watched another great episode of the David Attenborough series Life and a very interesting Horizon programme. I was bored one evening and was channel flicking when I found a very odd and actually rather disturbing programme about baby models! And I've discovered the time wasting day time TV such as Channel 4's Wife Swap and a Sky 3 documentary called Medical Emergency, lol :P My excuse is that's it's boring being ill and being at home most of the time!

I heard that the BNP were on the BBC's Question Time earlier this week. I didn't watch it but heard loads about it on Facebook and online forums afterwards, so am considering watching it on iPlayer. After hearing various comments about it I couldn't believe it when I read this article on the BBC news website about support for them soaring - 'A YouGov poll in the Daily Telegraph suggests 22% of people questioned would "seriously consider" voting BNP.' That's scary.

I've also watched an episode of the Vicar of Dibley from my DVD boxset and mum talked me into watching a Clocking Off episode (from her DVD) with her. The Clocking Off episode wasn't bad, but it was quite complex and I struggled to keep up with it so got a bit confused! I might watch some more episodes when I'm feeling a bit better, but won't watch any more at the moment.

And I've watched some good DVDs this week too :) I watched Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, which was original and quite funny and Meet the Parents, which was very funny, for the first time. And I rewatched Juno, which is one of my favourite films ever and Coraline, which is great. I also watched some of the special features of both Juno and Coraline and found them really interesting. And excitingly I found a Toy Story 3 trailer on the Internet which you can see here.

This has taken me ages to write up and as I expected it's scarily long :P As if in protest while I've been writing this my laptop screen started to fall apart, but luckily my dad has managed to stop it falling apart any further although he couldn't fix it. That's made me realise that I really do need a new laptop, but I've got my fingers crossed that this one will survive til the Januaury sales. My dad is good at fixing things though as he also demonstrated when I couldn't change the time on my watch. I've not had it for long, so haven't had to change the time before. But when I came to do it when the clocks went back, I couldn't. So dad had a look for me and had to take my whole watch apart and manually move the hands to correct the time! Next time I buy a new watch I'll remember to check that I can adjust the time on it :P