Virus and new laptop! :D

Sorry it's been a little while since my last update, I've not been feeling very well for a few days. I thought I was just taking a while to recover after my busy day on Mon, but on Wed night I think I developed a headache. I rarely get headaches and even if I do they usually go very quickly or after taking some painkillers. But this one lasted for 3 whole days and both Paracetamol and Codeine made no difference :( And for most of the time I had the headache, using screens, such as going on the Internet on my laptop or watching TV made it worse. It got better and worse during those 3 days, but at it's worst I was in tears with it. I was a bit worried as I'd not had a headache that severe since when I was in hospital after my transplant 3 years ago. Then they suspected menigitis, but a lumbar puncture showed it wasn't, so it was just blamed on a reaction to the anaesthetic. And I know headaches can be an ME symptom, so was also concerned that it might just be a sign of my ME getting worse. But after I'd had the headache for about a day my glands became swollen, my throat was sore and I just wanted to sleep. So it looked like I had a virus. For 3 days I did very little and slept for about 12 hours each night and then went back to bed for about 3 hours during the day. But this morning I woke up feeling much better and my headache had finally gone :) My glands have gone down, but my throat is a bit sore, I have a cough and might have a cold coming on. But I'm so happy that my headache has gone :D And I've not slept during the day today either.

And I'd like to thank R for finding out that I was not feeling very well either through Facebook or AYME and sending me some lovely texts :)

Cutting out rice hasn't made my tummy pains stop. I think they might have been a bit better, but I'm still getting them. I'm not sure if that could be because I've been drinking my high calorie drinks too quickly though.

I received a letter in the post on Thur saying that my current ESA medical certificate was about to run out, so I needed a new one from my GP. Luckily my GP is great, so I emailed him on Thur morn and then he replied later saying that it would be ready to pick up on Fri. I didn't feel well enough to go out on Fri, so mum picked it up for me and posted it off. Hopefully after my ESA medical assessment on Wed they wont need medical certificates any more. I'm a bit nervous about that though.

I received an email a few days ago inviting me to a big get-together that most of my friends from sixth form will be attending when they're back from uni at Christmas. I thought it would be in the city for a couple of hours, but it's a 24 hour sleepover type thing at someone's house. So there's no way I'm going to be able to manage that. I did think about maybe just going along for a couple of hours, but it's on Dec 22nd-23rd, so if I did that and it exhausted me, then it could mean I'd feel rubbish over Christmas. So I'm going to have to give it a miss which is disappointing. Catherine (my closest friend from sixth form) wants to meet up with me separately though, so hopefully we'll be able to make that happen. And I've been in touch with another friend from sixth form via text and Facebook over the last few days and we're hoping to meet up sometime soon too.

I've been invited to a couple of AYME meet-ups over the Christmas period though, so might try to attend one or both of them. But my parents wont give me lifts (more persuasion may be needed) and have said if I want to attend either of them I'll have to go on the train. In the car the journeys would take an hour and an hour and half (which are manageable), but both of them will take longer on the train because I'll need to go in to London and then out again.

I think I might have mentioned a while ago that I've applied to become my local regional co-ordinator for AYME because they currently don't have one for my area. I've got as far as being sent the CRB check forms (which I need to do because I'll be handling young people's details), but haven't got past them yet because they look daunting :P

And a couple of days ago I joined AYME's members advisory panel (MAP), so I'll be involved in giving feedback on their bi-monthly magazines and judging competitions :)

A couple of days ago I broke my second lamp in about a week! My bedside touch lamp broke a little while ago and then yesterday I was moving the angle of the light on the lamp on my desk and it snapped, whoops! I need to buy a new touch lamp for next to my bed, but the one I broke more recently was a spare lamp I'd borrowed (because my desk lamp is currently next to my bed), so I don't think that'll need replacing.

Yesterday I started writing my Christmas cards and have now written the majority of them :D I've got a few more to write though and am still waiting for a few addresses that I've requested via Facebook or text. And I have one more Christmas present to buy, but I'm hoping that I might be able to go shopping in the city tomorrow morning before my physio appointment at Hospital A in the afternoon :)

I'd just like to say a huge congratulations to Holly S who won the national vinspired SHOUT award 2009 for all of the work she did to raise awareness of organ donation, yay! :D

This morning I was going to go and visit my nan with my dad, but decided against it when we found out that my nan wasn't feeling very well. She said on the phone to my dad that she kept feeling dizzy and nauseus. She wasn't sure why so will contact the doctor tomorrow. But I don't want to risk catching anything, so dad went to see her on his own. This morning I helped my mum clean our village library instead as I needed a change of scene because I'd not been out of the house since Mon. And then we baked some ginger biscuits, yummy! :)

This afternoon/evening my friend Claire came round and we had a lovely time :) It was about a fortnight since I'd seen her so we had loads of catching up to do. And dad cooked a lovely meal of roast chicken for tea :) Claire reminded me that VAT is rising on the 1st Jan, so that might scupper my plans of getting a laptop in the January sales. So I was surfing the Internet looking at laptops to potentially buy before the Jan sales and I found the perfect one. So I bought it :D I have ordered this, but mine will come with Windows 7 and I paid a little extra (just £5 for a better battery). And I've got free delivery on it :) The real reason I decided on that laptop is because it's available in purple, so Claire offered to pay the extra money for me to have a purple one for my Christmas present. So my laptop will actually look like this :D :D :D Mine will be built to order and so I checked the website for my estimated delivery date. It said Dec 14th, but I'm willing it to come a little bit early, because I'm going into hospital from Dec 13th to 15th, but the hotel I'm staying in has wireless broadband, so I'd love to be able to take it with me :D My current laptop would probably fall apart if I took it with me as it still has cable ties holding the screen together :P

I've not watched any full length DVDs this week, but did finish off watching series 2 of Absolutely Fabulous :)

I didn't think I'd watched much TV because of my headache, but I've got quite a list :P Since my last update I've watched:

• Film 2009 - Me and dad might be going to see Paranormal Activity on Tue night. I'm not sure why I'm so keen to see it though, as I usually hate horror films! :P
  
• The Restaurant - How are the blonde boys still in when one can't even cook!?
• Jess: Britain's Youngest Sleepwalker?
• My Shocking Story: Burnt and Survived - I was bored!
• Megan: Let Me Grow Up
• The Killers Live From The Royal Albert Hall - I was channel flicking late one night and caught it on one of the music channels :) I've only watched the first 10mins so far though, I had to record the rest because my headache was very painful. Looking forward to watching the rest :D
• GMTV - For a Will Young interview and performances for Mum.
• 4music Introduces Erik Hassle - We'd seen him supporting Little Boots and now he's on TV! I still don't like his music though! :P
• 4music World's Greatest Popstars - my favourite Pink came 4th out of the 10 contenders, then I turned it off because I couldn't care less whether Eminem, Britney or Beyonce was number 1!
• 2 episodes of Live From Abbey Road - one episode featured Seal and one featured Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens)
• X Factor and X Factor results show - I think the right person went out :) Joe to win :D I thought Alicia Keys was very good last night too.
  

I thought I'd mentioned how much I loved Pixie Lott's music before, but an email from Emma today made me think that maybe I hadn't. Sorry if I'm repeating myself. I love Pixie Lott's 3 released singles and have been wanting to buy her album (Turn It Up) for ages. But I've been persuading myself to wait til it drops in price. So I was very happy when I downloaded Spotify last week and found that Turn It Up was available to listen to on there. I've been listening to it again and again since then and listened to it 5 times in just one day :P I think she's got a great voice and don't dislike a single song on her album :D I think my favourite song is currently Band Aid. I will still buy her album on CD, probably before I go into hospital next month, so I can listen to it on my iPod :) I'd love to see her live when she tours.

Yesterday I saw Cheryl Cole's new video for her next single '3 Words' for the first time. I thought that the video was awful and didn't like the song either, it just doesn't get going. You can see it here. What do you think?

I taught Dad how to use Spotify on Friday and am already regretting it! His taste in music is not like mine, he listens to artists like Leonard Coen whose music I find really depressing. My dad will be 60 on Thursday - that seems really old! :P Dad can't wait to get his free bus pass, discount at the cinema, free swimming sessions etc. though.