Hopefully this blog update wont be too long, fingers crossed :P
On Tue I received an email from my dietician at Hosp B in response to my weight. She was very happy and has suggested that I now check my weight fortnightly rather than weekly. That seems a bit premature to me as when she suggested that I'd only been off feeds for 3 weeks, so I said that I'll weigh myself as normal next Tue and if my weight is fine then I'll start weighing myself fortnightly. I will end up weighing myself the week after next anyway though before my joint clinic at Hosp A, so they'll have a weight from my scales then.
In the post this week I received a letter about the 21st birthday celebrations of the liver unit at Hosp B (which the small bowel transplant unit is part of) in the summer. It sounds like that might be instead of the small bowel family fun day this year :( We're not sure if we're going to go or not as it sounds like the talks will all be about liver transplants, rather than small bowel transplants, but I sent the form back to reserve us places so we can decide nearer the time. I think the social side of it would probably be good :)
This morning I received a letter from Hosp B asking me to have my bloods done at Hosp H next week. Not sure where we'll fit that in because I have quite a busy week planned, but I'm sure we will. And I'm going to request the more experienced phlebotomist this time :)
I had a headache from Tue morn til Thur morn but it wasn't too bad and Paracetamol helped. It was unusual for me though. ME doesn't seem to affect my walking (which it does for most people), but my legs are usually a bit sore when I climb stairs. Yesterday they hurt each time I climbed the stairs and were also a bit sore when I went out for a walk. Hopefully it's just a one-off thing, as they seem better today. And I'm still nocturnal :P I was up til about 4am last night, eek!
Imogen is now home after her transplant. I think she spent about 8 weeks in hospital. She couldn't wait to get back to her horse riding and is very happy now she's been able to do that :) Hospitals definitely do things differently, my consultant at Hosp B would be horrified if he knew anyone horse riding just 2 months after a small bowel transplant (because of the high immunosuppression involved at that stage)! Obviously her hospital are ok with it though.
On Wed my regional contact list arrived from AYME which contained the contact details of 10 people from AYME who live in my county and are interested in being part of the regional contact group. My job is to put them in touch with each other if they would like and to maybe organise some meet-ups. That day I wrote and sent out an email to each of them introducing myself. I've had a few responses already and was surprised to find that I've already spoken to some of them online, but didn't realise who they were. And I've recruited someone new to the group already :)
On Tue evening me and mum went out to see The Noisettes in concert. Mum drove us there in a horrible sleet/snow blizzard! Mum was a bit worried about finding the carpark because we usually use Park & Ride when we go into the city, so I don't think mum had ever actually driven in the city centre before. We found it ok though. Just outside the carpark we used some public toilets so we wouldn't have to queue for the ones at the venue. When we got into the venue we had a look at the merchandise for sale. I had thought about buying a t-shirt, but I didn't like the design on them as it wasn't clear that they said 'Noisettes' (the 'Noi' was on one line, the 'set' was underneath and the 'tes' was underneath that). Mum and me bought a small picture between us though.
Then we went to find our seats. We were quite far away from the stage (row O) upstairs, but we weren't too far away to see what was happening. The seats weren't very slopey though so we had to lean to see between heads. While we were waiting for the support acts and while they reset up the stage between each one, me and mum did a crossword together :) There were 2 support acts on before the Noisettes. Tinashe was the first support act and he wasn't bad at all. The second support act was a girl called Tiffany Page. Me and mum agreed that she had a good voice, but we didn't like her songs. Mum knitted through both the support acts in the dark! Lots of people kept coming in right up until the Noisettes started performing. I was surprised at how few children there were there, I saw some, but the audience was definitely mostly adults.
The Noisettes were great, much better than I expected. Their performance wasn't very fancy, but it definitely looked like they had fun. Shingai (the lead singer) had an amazing powerful voice and loads of energy. She also had a banana in her hair for part of the performance! And I was quite impressed that she only did one costume change. There were also the other 2 Noisettes (a guitarist and a drummer), an extra guitarist and 2 backing singers. The guitarist from the Noisettes was very impressive with a few guitar solos and even played the guitar with his teeth at one point! They performed 10 songs were from their current album Wild Young Hearts (all of the songs off that album but Beat of My Heart), 3 songs I didn't recognise but I think they might have been from their previous album which I don't have, 1 new song called I'm a Prisoner of Love and 3 covers - When We Were Young by The Killers, Chain Reaction by Diana Ross and a song I didn't know that might have been from a musical. I was surprised that there were so many songs in there that I didn't recognise, but they did do a long set with 17 songs in total. I didn't think it was a good idea for them to finish with one that was probably from the previous album and so nobody knew! For one of the last songs (Atticus) Shingai went into one of the boxes at the side of the stage and sang sitting on the edge of that and leaning out at some points. It was funny because before she leaned out each time a man also in the box grabbed her legs to stop her falling out. The best songs were definitely Don't Upset the Rhythm and Never Forget You because the audience knew them best.
After the concert we went in a nearby cafe so I could use the toilet because I didn't want to join the huge queues at the venue. I spotted someone I'd known from sixth form in there, but I didn't want to speak to her. Luckily she didn't see me. We also had drinks there before heading home. When we drove home there was no sign of the sleet and snow that had fallen earlier, but there was really thick fog! I'm so fed up of sleet and snow now, the novelty has completely worn off. Apparently though March is going to be cold, wet and there will probably be more snow!
I didn't go out on Wed but Chris and Sophie popped round that evening to use our Internet because they still haven't got theirs set up in their new cottage yet.
On Thur me and mum wanted to get out of the house, so decided to go into the city to wander round the shops. Mum drove to Park & Ride and then we got the bus into the city. In the Park & Ride carpark I saw windscreen wipers on the headlights of a posh car, which I thought was a very silly idea :P For some reason when we got on the bus we were told that the city centre was closed so we had to get off at a stop just out of the centre and walk in. Everything was fine by the time we got there though, so I'm not sure what that was all about. It was mostly nice weather while we were out, but it did rain at the end. I wore the supports in my shoes like I do every time I go out, but they're not helping at all. I think on Thur my feet were the most painful they've been with plantar fasciitis. And the balls of my feet were hurting as well as my heels :(
We stopped at 2 cafes while we were there. The first one was very nice and spacious and was in a converted church. I took my own sandwiches with me (because nowhere sells Marmite sandwiches) so sneakily ate them in there. The second cafe was one we'd not been in before. I asked for a drink of cold milk, like I usually do, and received a glass of milk with about 8 ice cubes in it! I can't have ice cubes because they're made from tap water, so mum explained this and the lady serving us removed the ice cubes. But I couldn't drink that milk because the ice cubes would have started to melt in it, so I had a new glass instead. Then mum discovered that her coffee was too strong, so the lady weakened it down for her. And when we paid mum paid with cash, but they only had a machine for cards in the front of the cafe, the till was in the back! So I imagine that the lady serving us must have thought we were very awkward customers! :P
In the city I bought Memoirs of a Geisha on DVD for Claire's birthday in April. I lent her the book to read recently and she really enjoyed that so I thought that she might like the film. I've seen it and thought that it was nearly as good as the book and definitely worth a watch. In a charity shop I found some DVDs that had originally been free with newspapers selling for just 25p each (I think that they shop keepers thought they were CDs). There weren't many but I bought 2 that I've not seen before - The Shawshank Redemption (which is supposed to be very good) and The Odd Couple (which mum thought I'd like). I also bought a great postcard from Oxfam that says "It would be nice if hospitals & schools had all the money they needed & the army had to hold jumble sales to buy guns". I nearly bought a lovely fair trade shirt but I tried it on and it wasn't comfy.
Mum bought some yarn to make a cushion for my uncle and aunt who's anniversary it was last weekend and a phases of the moon postcard. Together we picked a t-shirt for Alf's birthday which says "You're just jealous 'cos the little voices are talking to me".
I'd been thinking of getting Alf an iPod charger for his birthday because I'm fed up of him borrowing mine, but when I looked at the unofficial ones on Amazon I couldn't work out which ones would work with Alf's current iPod (my ancient black and white iPod mini). So I decided to look in the Apple store in the city to get him an official one. I quickly changed my mind when I discovered it would cost me £37 (£15 for a lead plus £22 for a plug)!!! So I'm going to give him an IOU and say that if he finds one on the Internet (for under £10) that will work with his iPod, then I'll buy it for him.
When we got back from the city my desk lamp broke. If only it had broken that morning, then I could have bought myself a new one while we were out. Now I don't currently have a working desk lamp.
Yesterday I helped mum out with a supermarket shop where I bought myself a DVD called No Reservations. And in the evening Claire came round for tea and to play on the Wii with me :) We played on New Super Mario Bros Wii again, but I got quite frustrated with it. You can only save your progress at certain save points (every 4 or 5 levels), so if you get a game over before a save point you then have to repeat everything since the last save point. We were almost at the next save point but then got a game over. Grrrr. So next time we'll have to start from the previous save point and repeat 4 hard levels!
Since my last update I've also played on Super Mario Galaxy on my Wii. I was really pleased to make more progress with that because I thought I was completely stuck. And I've played on Picross DS a bit more too. I also heard release dates for 2 games I'm looking forward to later this year - Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the Wii and WarioWare: DIY for the DS.
Today me and mum were invited to Claire's to meet her parents, but I don't feel up to going as I'm very tired. So I'm just going to stay in today and try to conserve my energy for the Mika concert tomorrow.
Alf was trying to put as little effort into vacuuming as possible one evening this week, so was dragging the vacuum cleaner around by the pipe bit and it broke. Dad was very cross at him.
I'm a bit fed up of Alf at the moment because he keeps downloading huge files off the Internet and when he's downloading the Internet goes frustratingly slow for the other computers in the house. And if I ask him if he can pause the download so I can use the Internet he gets grumpy with me.
On Thur eve I asked my mum a bit about her mum because she died when I was young so I don't remember her at all. It was interesting to find out more about her.
I heard in the news a few days ago that a killer whale in Sea World Florida had killed a trainer. You can see the latest article about it here and there are links to previous articles on the right hand side of the page. It's something that has really got me thinking and I've been talking to my mum a bit about it. When we went to Florida 2 years ago we were given tickets for Sea World but I didn't want to go because I don't think that keeping wild animals in captivity and making them perform for our entertainment is right. I don't think the killer whale is to blame at all for what happened, I think it was just a tragic accident. But I do believe that humans are to blame for keeping the whale in captivity. It must get so bored in such an artificial environment. Apparently killer wales don't kill humans in the wild, but often do in captivity. That doesn't surprise me. What does surprise me is that that specific killer whale had already been responsible for the deaths of 2 people, yet trainers were still interacting with it. I was very glad to hear that the whale isn't going to be killed, but it worries me that it will still be involved in shows. I suspect the same thing will just happen again.
I found this funny article on the BBC news website yesterday. The comments are very interesting too.
I've watched a few DVDs since my last update. I rewatched the Tim Burton version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and for the first time I watched The 40 Year Old Virgin and Music and Lyrics. The 40 Year Old Virgin was a weird film, but very funny in place. Music and Lyrics was a predictable romantic comedy but it was better than I expected and quite original.
Me and Claire have decided that we are going to try to go to the cinema to see The Lovely Bones, despite the mixed reviews, as we want to make our own minds up about it. And with mum we're looking forward to seeing Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland once it's released into cinemas. You can see an interview by Fearne Cotton with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp here and they were both also interviewed on last night's Friday Night With Jonathan Ross which I've not seen yet, but you can watch here.
On TV since my last update I watched an episode of One Born Every Minute and Film 2010. And I watched an episode of Tracy Beaker Returns that I'd recorded. I've recorded quite a bit that I need to catch up on. I've also watched bits on the music channels, including new videos from Robbie Williams - Morning Sun (I like the song more than his last 2, but don't really like the video) and Scouting for Girls - This Aint A Love Song (which I quite like).
Before the Noisettes concert me and mum listened to their latest album a few times in preparation. And since then I've been listening to Mika to get ready for Sun :D On Tue I posted off the 2 Mika tickets that I sold on eBay (postage on PayPal) and have heard that they've been received. I'm currently chasing up someone who said they wanted to buy the final spare ticket from me. I've also listened to Marina and the Diamonds' album more too :)
On Tue I preordered Ellie Goulding's debut album, Lights, from Zavvi. They said they'd dispatch it in time to reach me for the official release date on Mon, but I received it yesterday (3 days early!). I listened to it 4 times yesterday and think it's very good. I think I knew 5 out of the 10 songs already from listening to them on Youtube and seeing her live. I can't decide on my favourite song from her album, it keeps changing. I think my favourite right at this moment is Wish I Stayed, but I also really like Under The Sheets, Starry Eyed (which will hopefully chart well on Sun, fingers crossed) and This Love (Will Be Your Downfall). I heard Ellie Goulding interviewed and performing a couple of songs on Radio 2 on Thur which you can listen to here (sorry I'm not sure how far through it is). And I found some videos with her on Orange - this is an interview and this is behind the scenes of her latest music video, but I've not had chance to watch them yet.
Saturday, 27 February 2010
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Nocturnalism, AYME RC, family meal and music
I've not left it long since my last blog update but from looking at my reminder notes I think this might be quite a lengthy blog, sorry. I'll try not to waffle too much! :P
On Fri I heard from Liver Direct and because my Tac level was high again they wanted me to lower the dose. I need all my bloods repeating soon, either this week or next week I'm not sure exactly when because I haven't received the bloods letter yet. If the rest of my bloods are ok then they can go back to 3 monthly, so fingers crossed. My Tac level might need checking via a fingerprick more regularly though until it stabilises around my target level.
On Fri my dietician also got back to me and confirmed that the clinic at Hosp A on 10th March will be a joint clinic with both of my consultants. I've already started a list of things I want to talk to them about! :P
And on Fri I checked my bank account online and saw that my backdated ESA had gone in :D I I also heard that my friend Rosie has been granted ESA without requiring a medical assessment, yay! :D On Sat I received a letter in the post confirming the date change of my next Pathways to Work interview. That morning I also received a letter asking me if I'd like to trial some new illeostomy supplies! I think a company must still have me on their mailing list despite me having my illeostomy reversed over 18 months ago, lol.
On Sat I heard that my friend Holly C's Give and Let Live Books were ready so I ordered one :) You can find out more here.
I thought my tummy pains were much improved this week because for a good few days I either didn't get any pains or they were much more mild. However yesterday they were bad again, so I'll have to see how they go.
Today is my weight day and my weight was 52.1kg, so almost the same as it was last week. I've emailed my dietician from Hosp B to let her know and am waiting for a response.
I've been very nocturnal again this week. Starting watching a film at 12.30am one night probably wasn't my best idea though! :P And I've really struggled to get up some mornings. Waking up most morning between 9 and 9.30am isn't ideal especially if I didn't get to sleep til 3am, so when that happens I go back to sleep for another hour or so but then really struggle to get up when my alarm goes off at 10.30am.
Before my transplant I had really thick hair, but after my transplant it became really thin as a result of some of the medications I was on. Since then it got a bit thicker but has now gone very thin again :( I think I at least need the split ends trimming so am going to try to get an appt with my favourite hairdresser and ask her advice.
On Sun I received an email from someone from AYME saying that I am now the regional contact for my area :D I couldn't open the file I was emailed with the contact details of the AYMErs who live in my county, so that has been posted to me instead. When I receive that I'll write to them all to introduce myself and I think I might send them a simple questionnaire asking whether they'd like to be in touch with other AYMErs locally and what else I could do for them. I hope to organise a local meet-up at some point in the future, but I'll probably wait til I feel a bit better to do that.
Yesterday me and mum received an email from my nan's carers and they told us that she'd cancelled them because she said she didn't need them any more! She does need them, I think she's just worried about inconveniencing people. So we gave the carers dad's mobile number so they could ring him at work to talk to him about it. Dad told the carers to ring my nan and say that dad had said that she needed to keep the carers for now, but he'd ring later that day and discuss it with her. Dad phoned nan last night, but I'm not sure what the outcome of that was, hopefully he'll have managed to persuade her to keep the carers for now.
I've been out a few times since my last blog update. On Fri I went out with my mum to a local town to pick up a wheelchair from the Red Cross for my nan to borrow. We really struggled to find the Red Cross place in a local town but eventually found it down the end of a tiny road through a cemetery after phoning dad for directions. When we went in the man told us that the wheelchair had been delivered to my nan at home just half an hour earlier. Lack of communication there I think! Me and mum didn't feel like going straight home so we went into town to look round the shops. Mum found a fellow knitter while looking at yarn and despite having never met before they then proceeded to have a 15/20min conversation in the shop. I got bored so wandered off :P I picked up My Big Fat Greek Wedding on DVD from a charity shop for just £1.50 - bargain. I was looking for some slipper boots to replace my current ones which are falling apart, but none of the shoe shops had any in, they seem to have got rid of the winter stock now.
When we got back from the shops Alf was watching an anime film on TV so I asked him which one. He told me the title and I told him that it was made by Studio Ghibli. He checked and was really impressed that I knew that so I felt very smug. Then I turned round and walked straight into the door frame which ruined the effect. And it hurt a bit too. Alf of course found this hilarious!
And later that day I walked round to the post office. I'd been chatting to a sixth form friend, E, on Facebook chat and we'd decided to swap DS games. So I sent her New Super Mario Bros and she sent me Scribblenauts. So I went to the post office to post my game off to her. She got my game yesterday and I got Scribblenauts on Sat :)
Also in the post on Sat me and mum each got a very cute home-made card from M, Lizzy's daughter thanking us for the presents we'd given her last time we saw her :)
And on Fri eve Claire came round for tea and we played on New Super Mario Bros Wii together. We made loads of progress and were almost at a save point but then the Wii froze and we lost all the process we'd made that night! Grrr.
I didn't go out on Sat. But I seemed to have quite a productive day which included helping my dad sort my nan's laptop out and sorting through more old family photos with mum. We did more of that yesterday too and are making great progress with it. I really enjoy looking through old photos :)
On Sun it was the extended family meal to celebrate my uncle and his wife's 45th wedding anniversary. It was realised quite early on that Alf wouldn't be going, he'd gone out to a party the night before and so was very ill and hungover. What a muppet! I was very nervous about it and felt quite tired that morning, but decided to go for it. And it wasn't as bad as I expected. I actually quite enjoyed it :) There were 14 of us there in total, which sounds a lot but is less than I expected because my dad's side of the family is huge. There was me, my mum, my dad, my uncle (dad's older brother) and his wife (who's anniversary it was), their 2 sons and their wives (their daughter couldn't make it but did phone during the meal). One of their sons doesn't have any children, but the other had 3 who were there (and 2 older step children who weren't there) aged 9 (a boy), 11 and 15 (girls). Then there was also my dad's younger sister and my nan.
My uncle didn't mention my ME which was great (he was the one who was funny about it before). He did think I was under 16 though when it came to paying! And my nan looked happier than I've seen her in ages :) I was a bit sociable and everything went well. I even felt like I fitted in which I don't always do amongst my extended family. I managed to find some food that wasn't too spicy too. I did feel a bit odd though when talking to my 15 year old second cousin. She's 3 and a half years younger than me, but seems to have experienced more of being a teenager than I have if that makes sense. Things like her telling me and my nan about her favourite alcoholic drinks is just completely alien to me. I took quite a few photos on my phone which have come out really well, so I've emailed them to someone and printed out a copy to go on a thank you card to my uncle and his wife because the paid for all of us at the restaurant. And I'm going to email some photos to some of the family who weren't there and I'll print out the photos for my nan.
My dad was on call with work at the weekend and he had to go out on Sun night. I think the electricity had gone down at the hostel which caused serious problems because it meant that the tags of the residents who were tagged stopped working. My dad works with housing for the homeless in the city.
I didn't go out yesterday either, but Chris and Sophie came round which was nice :) I chatted to Chris which got me very excited because he'll get a new phone on his contract in Sept and is going to give me his current iPhone! :D Just need to work out if I can afford a contract with it! I think Chris said it costs him £35 a month for unlimited Internet access on it, which is quite a bit more than the £5 or so I currently spend on my phone a month! I should be able to manage it though now I've got granted ESA . Chris dropped his iPhone the other day and the screen has cracked. But rather than getting a new one with the insurance now he's happy to use it with a cracked screen until Aug and he'll get a new one then, so when he passes it on to me in Sept it'll be almost new :D
Someone from the Mika fan club is going to purchase one of my 3 Mika tickets once their Paypal account is verified. But that still left me with 2 to sell that no-one on the Mika fan club wanted. So yesterday evening Chris helped me put the pair of tickets on eBay. I put them up as Buy It Now and someone bought them within 4 hours! ThePaypal payment has already gone through, so I'll post the tickets off later today :)
And yesterday we got a new TV delivered. Dad chooses to rent the family TV and we did have a 27 inch box shaped one. But then dad discovered that he was being vastly overcharged for that so complained. And we now can keep paying the same amount but can rent a 32 inchflatscreen TV that has built in Freeview and is HD ready. It's much nicer than our old TV. It doesn't seem much bigger but has a better picture. It makes the TV in my bedroom seem even smaller though! :P I've worked out how to use it, but dad hasn't sorted out the surround sound speakers yet, so needs to do that soon so we can get better sound from it.
On TV since my last update I've watched the music channels, The Review Show (just the end part because Marina and the Diamonds performed), the first 2 parts of Syrian School, Tracy Beaker Returns, the last episode in the series of Nurse Jackie (I'm really going to miss it until the BBC televise series 2 later in the year) Film 2010 and the BAFTAs. If you missed it but are interested you can read more here or find the list of all the winners here. I was disappointed that Precious only won one award and that Up In The Air won an award! I was pleasantly surprised that The Young Victoria won 2 awards and I was happy that Up also won 2 awards, though I would have preferred Coraline to win animation.
Since my last updated I've watched a few DVDs. I rewatched Up which I love :D Pixar are great :) If you've not seen Up I'd highly recommend it for both children and adults. I watched The History Boys with my parents and although it wasn't a bad film, it just wasn't my kind of film and I got a bit bored at some points in it! :P Another new film I've watched is Ghost, which was very good.Whoopi Goldberg was great in it :D And I started rewatching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but got interrupted so haven't rewatched much of it yet.
As I said earlier in my update, I've made more progress on New Super Mario Bros Wii and have also played more of Picross DS and have started playing Scribblenauts on my DSi too :) And Alf borrowed my other new DS game (Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright) before I had chance to play it. He really enjoyed that though, so now he's finished with it I'm looking forward to giving it a try.
I can't read much at the moment but did flick through the latest Which magazine when mum brought it back from the library. I couldn't believe that the hard disc recorder that the rated the highest is a newer model of ours, that has completed wiped itself of all recorded programmes on a few occasions! I wouldn't buy from that manufacturer (Humax) again! And our broadband provider (Orange) came second to bottom in their ratings, but we've not had many problems with them.
Despite Marina and the Diamonds' debut album, The Family Jewels, not being released til yesterday, I preorded it from Amazon and it arrived on Fri! I wasn't too impressed with the case being cracked though, but luckily I had a spare CD case to put it into and the CD wasn't damaged. The day before that I'd been listening to it online here, but it was great to get a copy of the CD. I think since Thur I must have listened to it about 10 times, I love every song on it and can't get enough of it at the moment :D And it's currently the second best selling album on iTunes :) The top selling album is the Glee album though and I doubt it'll outsell that! It was interesting reading reviews of The Family Jewels online, the reviews either loved or hated it, there were no neutral reviews. I think she must be a bit like Mika, people either love or hate her music!
This week Ellie Goulding's latest single, Starry Eyed, has also been released this week. I've bought it. It's currently the 3rd best selling single on iTunes :) I'm looking forward to her debut album next week but am not sure whether to preorder it or whether to wait for it on Spotify. Ellie Goulding was on Radio 1's Live Lounge this morning and you should be able to listen to it here shortly.
I've also listened to the Noisettes album, Wild Young Hearts, a few times in preparation for the concert tonight! I'm not particularly excited about it, probably because I just like their music rather than love it and I'm more excited about Sun, but it should be good. And because it's only in the local city it shouldn't be too tiring :) I was worried when we had snow yesterday morning, but luckily it all seems to have melted now so it shouldn't disrupt our plans.
And as I'm writing this I'm listening to The Boy Who Knew Too Much by Mika. I'm soooooooooo excited about seeing him in concert for the 3rd time on Sun, yay! :D :D :D I've just emailed my friend H (who I'm going to the concert with as well as my mum) to share my excitement :D
Also this week Claire is coming round on Fri eve and then me and mum might be going to her house on Sat (depending how I feel) to meet her parents for the first time.
On Fri I heard from Liver Direct and because my Tac level was high again they wanted me to lower the dose. I need all my bloods repeating soon, either this week or next week I'm not sure exactly when because I haven't received the bloods letter yet. If the rest of my bloods are ok then they can go back to 3 monthly, so fingers crossed. My Tac level might need checking via a fingerprick more regularly though until it stabilises around my target level.
On Fri my dietician also got back to me and confirmed that the clinic at Hosp A on 10th March will be a joint clinic with both of my consultants. I've already started a list of things I want to talk to them about! :P
And on Fri I checked my bank account online and saw that my backdated ESA had gone in :D I I also heard that my friend Rosie has been granted ESA without requiring a medical assessment, yay! :D On Sat I received a letter in the post confirming the date change of my next Pathways to Work interview. That morning I also received a letter asking me if I'd like to trial some new illeostomy supplies! I think a company must still have me on their mailing list despite me having my illeostomy reversed over 18 months ago, lol.
On Sat I heard that my friend Holly C's Give and Let Live Books were ready so I ordered one :) You can find out more here.
I thought my tummy pains were much improved this week because for a good few days I either didn't get any pains or they were much more mild. However yesterday they were bad again, so I'll have to see how they go.
Today is my weight day and my weight was 52.1kg, so almost the same as it was last week. I've emailed my dietician from Hosp B to let her know and am waiting for a response.
I've been very nocturnal again this week. Starting watching a film at 12.30am one night probably wasn't my best idea though! :P And I've really struggled to get up some mornings. Waking up most morning between 9 and 9.30am isn't ideal especially if I didn't get to sleep til 3am, so when that happens I go back to sleep for another hour or so but then really struggle to get up when my alarm goes off at 10.30am.
Before my transplant I had really thick hair, but after my transplant it became really thin as a result of some of the medications I was on. Since then it got a bit thicker but has now gone very thin again :( I think I at least need the split ends trimming so am going to try to get an appt with my favourite hairdresser and ask her advice.
On Sun I received an email from someone from AYME saying that I am now the regional contact for my area :D I couldn't open the file I was emailed with the contact details of the AYMErs who live in my county, so that has been posted to me instead. When I receive that I'll write to them all to introduce myself and I think I might send them a simple questionnaire asking whether they'd like to be in touch with other AYMErs locally and what else I could do for them. I hope to organise a local meet-up at some point in the future, but I'll probably wait til I feel a bit better to do that.
Yesterday me and mum received an email from my nan's carers and they told us that she'd cancelled them because she said she didn't need them any more! She does need them, I think she's just worried about inconveniencing people. So we gave the carers dad's mobile number so they could ring him at work to talk to him about it. Dad told the carers to ring my nan and say that dad had said that she needed to keep the carers for now, but he'd ring later that day and discuss it with her. Dad phoned nan last night, but I'm not sure what the outcome of that was, hopefully he'll have managed to persuade her to keep the carers for now.
I've been out a few times since my last blog update. On Fri I went out with my mum to a local town to pick up a wheelchair from the Red Cross for my nan to borrow. We really struggled to find the Red Cross place in a local town but eventually found it down the end of a tiny road through a cemetery after phoning dad for directions. When we went in the man told us that the wheelchair had been delivered to my nan at home just half an hour earlier. Lack of communication there I think! Me and mum didn't feel like going straight home so we went into town to look round the shops. Mum found a fellow knitter while looking at yarn and despite having never met before they then proceeded to have a 15/20min conversation in the shop. I got bored so wandered off :P I picked up My Big Fat Greek Wedding on DVD from a charity shop for just £1.50 - bargain. I was looking for some slipper boots to replace my current ones which are falling apart, but none of the shoe shops had any in, they seem to have got rid of the winter stock now.
When we got back from the shops Alf was watching an anime film on TV so I asked him which one. He told me the title and I told him that it was made by Studio Ghibli. He checked and was really impressed that I knew that so I felt very smug. Then I turned round and walked straight into the door frame which ruined the effect. And it hurt a bit too. Alf of course found this hilarious!
And later that day I walked round to the post office. I'd been chatting to a sixth form friend, E, on Facebook chat and we'd decided to swap DS games. So I sent her New Super Mario Bros and she sent me Scribblenauts. So I went to the post office to post my game off to her. She got my game yesterday and I got Scribblenauts on Sat :)
Also in the post on Sat me and mum each got a very cute home-made card from M, Lizzy's daughter thanking us for the presents we'd given her last time we saw her :)
And on Fri eve Claire came round for tea and we played on New Super Mario Bros Wii together. We made loads of progress and were almost at a save point but then the Wii froze and we lost all the process we'd made that night! Grrr.
I didn't go out on Sat. But I seemed to have quite a productive day which included helping my dad sort my nan's laptop out and sorting through more old family photos with mum. We did more of that yesterday too and are making great progress with it. I really enjoy looking through old photos :)
On Sun it was the extended family meal to celebrate my uncle and his wife's 45th wedding anniversary. It was realised quite early on that Alf wouldn't be going, he'd gone out to a party the night before and so was very ill and hungover. What a muppet! I was very nervous about it and felt quite tired that morning, but decided to go for it. And it wasn't as bad as I expected. I actually quite enjoyed it :) There were 14 of us there in total, which sounds a lot but is less than I expected because my dad's side of the family is huge. There was me, my mum, my dad, my uncle (dad's older brother) and his wife (who's anniversary it was), their 2 sons and their wives (their daughter couldn't make it but did phone during the meal). One of their sons doesn't have any children, but the other had 3 who were there (and 2 older step children who weren't there) aged 9 (a boy), 11 and 15 (girls). Then there was also my dad's younger sister and my nan.
My uncle didn't mention my ME which was great (he was the one who was funny about it before). He did think I was under 16 though when it came to paying! And my nan looked happier than I've seen her in ages :) I was a bit sociable and everything went well. I even felt like I fitted in which I don't always do amongst my extended family. I managed to find some food that wasn't too spicy too. I did feel a bit odd though when talking to my 15 year old second cousin. She's 3 and a half years younger than me, but seems to have experienced more of being a teenager than I have if that makes sense. Things like her telling me and my nan about her favourite alcoholic drinks is just completely alien to me. I took quite a few photos on my phone which have come out really well, so I've emailed them to someone and printed out a copy to go on a thank you card to my uncle and his wife because the paid for all of us at the restaurant. And I'm going to email some photos to some of the family who weren't there and I'll print out the photos for my nan.
My dad was on call with work at the weekend and he had to go out on Sun night. I think the electricity had gone down at the hostel which caused serious problems because it meant that the tags of the residents who were tagged stopped working. My dad works with housing for the homeless in the city.
I didn't go out yesterday either, but Chris and Sophie came round which was nice :) I chatted to Chris which got me very excited because he'll get a new phone on his contract in Sept and is going to give me his current iPhone! :D Just need to work out if I can afford a contract with it! I think Chris said it costs him £35 a month for unlimited Internet access on it, which is quite a bit more than the £5 or so I currently spend on my phone a month! I should be able to manage it though now I've got granted ESA . Chris dropped his iPhone the other day and the screen has cracked. But rather than getting a new one with the insurance now he's happy to use it with a cracked screen until Aug and he'll get a new one then, so when he passes it on to me in Sept it'll be almost new :D
Someone from the Mika fan club is going to purchase one of my 3 Mika tickets once their Paypal account is verified. But that still left me with 2 to sell that no-one on the Mika fan club wanted. So yesterday evening Chris helped me put the pair of tickets on eBay. I put them up as Buy It Now and someone bought them within 4 hours! ThePaypal payment has already gone through, so I'll post the tickets off later today :)
And yesterday we got a new TV delivered. Dad chooses to rent the family TV and we did have a 27 inch box shaped one. But then dad discovered that he was being vastly overcharged for that so complained. And we now can keep paying the same amount but can rent a 32 inchflatscreen TV that has built in Freeview and is HD ready. It's much nicer than our old TV. It doesn't seem much bigger but has a better picture. It makes the TV in my bedroom seem even smaller though! :P I've worked out how to use it, but dad hasn't sorted out the surround sound speakers yet, so needs to do that soon so we can get better sound from it.
On TV since my last update I've watched the music channels, The Review Show (just the end part because Marina and the Diamonds performed), the first 2 parts of Syrian School, Tracy Beaker Returns, the last episode in the series of Nurse Jackie (I'm really going to miss it until the BBC televise series 2 later in the year) Film 2010 and the BAFTAs. If you missed it but are interested you can read more here or find the list of all the winners here. I was disappointed that Precious only won one award and that Up In The Air won an award! I was pleasantly surprised that The Young Victoria won 2 awards and I was happy that Up also won 2 awards, though I would have preferred Coraline to win animation.
Since my last updated I've watched a few DVDs. I rewatched Up which I love :D Pixar are great :) If you've not seen Up I'd highly recommend it for both children and adults. I watched The History Boys with my parents and although it wasn't a bad film, it just wasn't my kind of film and I got a bit bored at some points in it! :P Another new film I've watched is Ghost, which was very good.Whoopi Goldberg was great in it :D And I started rewatching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but got interrupted so haven't rewatched much of it yet.
As I said earlier in my update, I've made more progress on New Super Mario Bros Wii and have also played more of Picross DS and have started playing Scribblenauts on my DSi too :) And Alf borrowed my other new DS game (Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright) before I had chance to play it. He really enjoyed that though, so now he's finished with it I'm looking forward to giving it a try.
I can't read much at the moment but did flick through the latest Which magazine when mum brought it back from the library. I couldn't believe that the hard disc recorder that the rated the highest is a newer model of ours, that has completed wiped itself of all recorded programmes on a few occasions! I wouldn't buy from that manufacturer (Humax) again! And our broadband provider (Orange) came second to bottom in their ratings, but we've not had many problems with them.
Despite Marina and the Diamonds' debut album, The Family Jewels, not being released til yesterday, I preorded it from Amazon and it arrived on Fri! I wasn't too impressed with the case being cracked though, but luckily I had a spare CD case to put it into and the CD wasn't damaged. The day before that I'd been listening to it online here, but it was great to get a copy of the CD. I think since Thur I must have listened to it about 10 times, I love every song on it and can't get enough of it at the moment :D And it's currently the second best selling album on iTunes :) The top selling album is the Glee album though and I doubt it'll outsell that! It was interesting reading reviews of The Family Jewels online, the reviews either loved or hated it, there were no neutral reviews. I think she must be a bit like Mika, people either love or hate her music!
This week Ellie Goulding's latest single, Starry Eyed, has also been released this week. I've bought it. It's currently the 3rd best selling single on iTunes :) I'm looking forward to her debut album next week but am not sure whether to preorder it or whether to wait for it on Spotify. Ellie Goulding was on Radio 1's Live Lounge this morning and you should be able to listen to it here shortly.
I've also listened to the Noisettes album, Wild Young Hearts, a few times in preparation for the concert tonight! I'm not particularly excited about it, probably because I just like their music rather than love it and I'm more excited about Sun, but it should be good. And because it's only in the local city it shouldn't be too tiring :) I was worried when we had snow yesterday morning, but luckily it all seems to have melted now so it shouldn't disrupt our plans.
And as I'm writing this I'm listening to The Boy Who Knew Too Much by Mika. I'm soooooooooo excited about seeing him in concert for the 3rd time on Sun, yay! :D :D :D I've just emailed my friend H (who I'm going to the concert with as well as my mum) to share my excitement :D
Also this week Claire is coming round on Fri eve and then me and mum might be going to her house on Sat (depending how I feel) to meet her parents for the first time.
Saturday, 20 February 2010
The Clown's Meme 2
I found this on the Sunday Stealing blog. I did part one of The Clown's Meme last week which you can read here.
34. What do you like about the summer? Lots of daylight and having BBQs with my family.
35. What do you like about spring? The end of the short days and cold weather (hurry up Spring!).
36. How many states provinces have you lived in? I've lived in the same house all my life.
37. What cities/towns have you lived in? See above. I want to live in London in the future though.
38. Do you prefer shoes, socks, or bare feet? Shoes or slippers. I never go around in bare feet or socks.
39. Are you a social person? Sometimes, but not always.
40. What was the last thing you ate? A high calorie strawberry dessert.
41. What is your favorite restaurant? Yo Sushi, followed by Wagamama.
42. What is your favorite ice cream? Vanilla, but I don't really like ice cream.
43. What is your favorite dessert? Rice pudding but I can't eat it at the moment as I think it makes my tummy pains worse.
44. What is your favorite kind of soup? Squash soup.
45. What kind of jelly do you like on your PB & J sandwich? I'm assuming jelly means jam here and PB means peanut butter - I don't like either :P
46. Do you like Chinese food? Yes.
47. Do you like coffee? Nope.
48. How many glasses of water, a day, do you drink on average? I only tend to drink water with my tablets, as I prefer drinking cows milk. I'm currently drinking around a litre a day but could probably do with drinking a bit more.
49. What do you drink in the morning? Water with my tablets, then a glass of cows milk with breakfast.
50. What non-banking related card in your wallet is the most valuable to you? The one I use the most is my CEA card, but the most important is probably my National Insurance card or maybe my ID (I never need to use it at the moment though).
51. Do you sleep on a certain side of the bed? I have a single bed :P
52. Do you know how to play poker? Nope.
53. Do you like to cuddle? Sometimes.
54. Have you ever been to Canada? No, but I'd like to.
55. Do you have an addictive personality? I have no idea what that means :P
56. Do you eat out or at home more often? I rarely eat out.
57. What do you miss about highschool, if anything? Not much about secondary school, but loads about sixth form. The social side and the people, the sense of community and some of the lessons.
58. Do you know anyone with the same birthday as you? My uncle.
59. Do you want kids? Definitely.
60. Do you speak any other languages? Some Japanese.
61. Have you ever gotten stitches? Only after operations.
62. Have you ever ridden in an ambulance? Yup.
63. Do you prefer an ocean or a pool? A pool.
64. Do you prefer a window seat or an aisle seat? Window :D
65. Do you know how to drive stick? I don't drive.
66. What is your favorite thing to spend money on? DVDs :)
34. What do you like about the summer? Lots of daylight and having BBQs with my family.
35. What do you like about spring? The end of the short days and cold weather (hurry up Spring!).
36. How many states provinces have you lived in? I've lived in the same house all my life.
37. What cities/towns have you lived in? See above. I want to live in London in the future though.
38. Do you prefer shoes, socks, or bare feet? Shoes or slippers. I never go around in bare feet or socks.
39. Are you a social person? Sometimes, but not always.
40. What was the last thing you ate? A high calorie strawberry dessert.
41. What is your favorite restaurant? Yo Sushi, followed by Wagamama.
42. What is your favorite ice cream? Vanilla, but I don't really like ice cream.
43. What is your favorite dessert? Rice pudding but I can't eat it at the moment as I think it makes my tummy pains worse.
44. What is your favorite kind of soup? Squash soup.
45. What kind of jelly do you like on your PB & J sandwich? I'm assuming jelly means jam here and PB means peanut butter - I don't like either :P
46. Do you like Chinese food? Yes.
47. Do you like coffee? Nope.
48. How many glasses of water, a day, do you drink on average? I only tend to drink water with my tablets, as I prefer drinking cows milk. I'm currently drinking around a litre a day but could probably do with drinking a bit more.
49. What do you drink in the morning? Water with my tablets, then a glass of cows milk with breakfast.
50. What non-banking related card in your wallet is the most valuable to you? The one I use the most is my CEA card, but the most important is probably my National Insurance card or maybe my ID (I never need to use it at the moment though).
51. Do you sleep on a certain side of the bed? I have a single bed :P
52. Do you know how to play poker? Nope.
53. Do you like to cuddle? Sometimes.
54. Have you ever been to Canada? No, but I'd like to.
55. Do you have an addictive personality? I have no idea what that means :P
56. Do you eat out or at home more often? I rarely eat out.
57. What do you miss about highschool, if anything? Not much about secondary school, but loads about sixth form. The social side and the people, the sense of community and some of the lessons.
58. Do you know anyone with the same birthday as you? My uncle.
59. Do you want kids? Definitely.
60. Do you speak any other languages? Some Japanese.
61. Have you ever gotten stitches? Only after operations.
62. Have you ever ridden in an ambulance? Yup.
63. Do you prefer an ocean or a pool? A pool.
64. Do you prefer a window seat or an aisle seat? Window :D
65. Do you know how to drive stick? I don't drive.
66. What is your favorite thing to spend money on? DVDs :)
Friday, 19 February 2010
Food, films, clinic and town
Thanks to everyone who read my last huge update. I'm really trying to update my blog more regularly now so I wont end up having to split one huge update up into many posts again.
On Tue night I was very nocturnal again, but last night I went to bed at about midnight. And you can probably tell by the time of this update that I'm nocturnal again tonight. So my getting into bed by midnight is not working at the moment :P
Yesterday my shoulder was loads better and has continued to improve though it's still a bit achy and stiff. I was very tired yesterday but haven't felt too bad today, which might have been related to getting to bed at a more sensible time last night.
After I wrote my last update on Tue I heard back from my dietician at Hosp B in response to the email I sent her with my weight that morning. She was very impressed and her reply included lots of exclamation marks :) That day I tried pancakes for Pancake Day and didn't like them at all because they were all rubbery! Today I was also a bit adventurous with my eating, I don't usually like trying new foods. I had a chicken and stuffing sandwich for lunch, which wasn't too bad and tried an anchovy in the evening - yuk! I've got a bit fed up of food and eating today though. Since I came off overnight feeds I've also been making a real effort with my drinking and am now drinking about a litre a day. It's probably still not quite enough, but it's much better than what I had been drinking. And I keep swallowing my elastics from my braces when I'm eating, whoops! :P
This morning I received a letter from Hosp A for a clinic appt with my consultant there (Dr W) for 10th March. When I last saw him last July he said he'd see me again in 3 months, March will be 8 months! This transition isn't going very well :P I emailed my dietician this evening to see if she knew whether this was a joint clinic (where the team from Hosp B are there too) because I'd heard there was one coming up, or just a Hosp A clinic. She said she thinks that there's a joint clinic on 24th March so suggests that I try phoning Dr W's secretary tomorrow to find out what's happening as there's no point me seeing him twice in one month! My next Pathways to Work interview has been rescheduled to the following week because that was on 10th March. And also in the post this morning I received my ESA letter confirming all the details of the changes now I've passed the ESA medical assessment and have been put into the support group.
One morning this week my mum received a fundraising letter from my old hospital, Hosp G. They are trying to raise money to build new cubicles because lots of the current ones are ridiculously small. To illustrate this to the general public, enclosed with the letter was a square of card to represent a cubicle and some stickers (to scale) to represent all the objects that need to be in the cubicle, so that people could try to see how well they all fitted in. Me and mum found this hilarious because we know very well from experience how little room there is in these cubicles after spending so much time in them. We're both going to donate some money.
Today I heard from I's mum that I is now home after her transplant :D
I found this on the Internet the other day, what do you think? I love this logo and it is now my profile photo on Facebook and Twitter :)
Yesterday despite feeling very tired I made it out to the cinema with mum where we saw Valentine's Day. It's not going to win any awards, but we really enjoyed watching it. It was very funny and featured loads of famous actors :) And some of the soundtrack featured Taylor Swift (she also acted in it), so I've downloaded one of her new songs from that, Today Was A Fairytale.
And mum and Alf went to the cinema this evening to see Avatar 3D. Alf saw it with Dad a while ago, but wanted to see it again so persuaded mum to go with him. She wasn't sure about it before she went, but then really enjoyed it. I didn't fancy it, I thought it would be too long for me.
Today I finished watching 2 DVDs which I'd previously started - Notting Hill and The Proposal. I really enjoyed both of them. I wanted to watch The Proposal when my parents were asleep tonight but was worried that I'd disturb them. So Alf suggested that I used the headphones and they worked really well :)
In town this afternoon I bought a DVD called Ghost from Sainsburys. A friend recommended it to me, so I'm looking forward to watching that and seeing what I think.
While I was in town I also bought myself the latest issue of the Radio Times. From that I discovered that series 2 of Nurse Jackie will be televised on BBC 2 later in the year, yay! And that although there wont be any more series of Gavin and Stacey there might be some one off specials. James Corden has promised one if this fan group on Facebook gets 3 million members, it currently has half a million. I also enjoyed reading about how the film An Education (which I've not seen yet but want to see) is based on a true story, but then the Radio Times went and revealed the ending! How stupid.
And the other thing I bought in town was a convector heater from Currys. I'm often very cold so my parents agreed to let me have a portable heater for my bedroom. And it's great, it warms the room up so quickly :D
The reason I went into town was for an eye test. It went well and my eyes haven't changed, so I don't need new glasses. I've been having annual eye tests since I got glasses at the age of 3 and I think this is the first time that my eyesight hasn't deteriorated. Yay! :D I didn't see my normal optician though, but a different one. She wasn't very talkative, but it went ok. She got very confused at one point about the prisms in my glasses, so I told her that I'm never straightforward! :P But it turned out that my usual optician had just written something down in a funny way.
On Tue night my mobile phone started playing up and displayed low battery and kept beeping low battery, but when I plugged it in to charge it it told me the battery was full. I've never had any problems with this phone before, so was quite worried. Luckily turning it off and on again fixed the problem. Phew!
This evening I heard very briefly from from Lizzy on Facebook. She had to go but said she'd phone soon to arrange a date for her and M to come and visit us. I can't wait :D And this afternoon I caught up with all my emails and PMs :)
I received an email from Amazon on Wed saying that my copy of Marina and the Diamonds' debut album, The Family Jewels, had been dispatched and the estimated delivery date is Sat. It's not officially released til Mon, so I should get it before then :) And the price for it on Amazon is now £8 but because I preordered it when it was just £5 I've only had to pay £5 for it. Today I discovered that The Family Jewels had just been put onto Marina's MySpace page so I could listen to it online. I've already listened to it through 3 times and I love it :D If you're interested, you can listen here. And me and mum have also listened to The Noisettes CD because we're seeing them in concert on Tue :D
Since my last update I've played more on New Super Mario Bros Wii and have made some more progress on it. And I've also played on Picross DS some more.
I've not watched much on TV over the last couple of days. I started watching a Horizon programme about geniuses but I couldn't concentrate on it so soon gave up. And I also watched quite an interesting Channel 4 documentary about gypsy/traveller weddings.
Tomorrow Claire is coming round, I've no plans for Sat and then on Sun we're going out for a meal with the extended family. Next Tue I'm seeing The Noisettes in concert and then that Sun I'm seeing Mika in concert again! :D
On Tue night I was very nocturnal again, but last night I went to bed at about midnight. And you can probably tell by the time of this update that I'm nocturnal again tonight. So my getting into bed by midnight is not working at the moment :P
Yesterday my shoulder was loads better and has continued to improve though it's still a bit achy and stiff. I was very tired yesterday but haven't felt too bad today, which might have been related to getting to bed at a more sensible time last night.
After I wrote my last update on Tue I heard back from my dietician at Hosp B in response to the email I sent her with my weight that morning. She was very impressed and her reply included lots of exclamation marks :) That day I tried pancakes for Pancake Day and didn't like them at all because they were all rubbery! Today I was also a bit adventurous with my eating, I don't usually like trying new foods. I had a chicken and stuffing sandwich for lunch, which wasn't too bad and tried an anchovy in the evening - yuk! I've got a bit fed up of food and eating today though. Since I came off overnight feeds I've also been making a real effort with my drinking and am now drinking about a litre a day. It's probably still not quite enough, but it's much better than what I had been drinking. And I keep swallowing my elastics from my braces when I'm eating, whoops! :P
This morning I received a letter from Hosp A for a clinic appt with my consultant there (Dr W) for 10th March. When I last saw him last July he said he'd see me again in 3 months, March will be 8 months! This transition isn't going very well :P I emailed my dietician this evening to see if she knew whether this was a joint clinic (where the team from Hosp B are there too) because I'd heard there was one coming up, or just a Hosp A clinic. She said she thinks that there's a joint clinic on 24th March so suggests that I try phoning Dr W's secretary tomorrow to find out what's happening as there's no point me seeing him twice in one month! My next Pathways to Work interview has been rescheduled to the following week because that was on 10th March. And also in the post this morning I received my ESA letter confirming all the details of the changes now I've passed the ESA medical assessment and have been put into the support group.
One morning this week my mum received a fundraising letter from my old hospital, Hosp G. They are trying to raise money to build new cubicles because lots of the current ones are ridiculously small. To illustrate this to the general public, enclosed with the letter was a square of card to represent a cubicle and some stickers (to scale) to represent all the objects that need to be in the cubicle, so that people could try to see how well they all fitted in. Me and mum found this hilarious because we know very well from experience how little room there is in these cubicles after spending so much time in them. We're both going to donate some money.
Today I heard from I's mum that I is now home after her transplant :D
I found this on the Internet the other day, what do you think? I love this logo and it is now my profile photo on Facebook and Twitter :)
Yesterday despite feeling very tired I made it out to the cinema with mum where we saw Valentine's Day. It's not going to win any awards, but we really enjoyed watching it. It was very funny and featured loads of famous actors :) And some of the soundtrack featured Taylor Swift (she also acted in it), so I've downloaded one of her new songs from that, Today Was A Fairytale.
And mum and Alf went to the cinema this evening to see Avatar 3D. Alf saw it with Dad a while ago, but wanted to see it again so persuaded mum to go with him. She wasn't sure about it before she went, but then really enjoyed it. I didn't fancy it, I thought it would be too long for me.
Today I finished watching 2 DVDs which I'd previously started - Notting Hill and The Proposal. I really enjoyed both of them. I wanted to watch The Proposal when my parents were asleep tonight but was worried that I'd disturb them. So Alf suggested that I used the headphones and they worked really well :)
In town this afternoon I bought a DVD called Ghost from Sainsburys. A friend recommended it to me, so I'm looking forward to watching that and seeing what I think.
While I was in town I also bought myself the latest issue of the Radio Times. From that I discovered that series 2 of Nurse Jackie will be televised on BBC 2 later in the year, yay! And that although there wont be any more series of Gavin and Stacey there might be some one off specials. James Corden has promised one if this fan group on Facebook gets 3 million members, it currently has half a million. I also enjoyed reading about how the film An Education (which I've not seen yet but want to see) is based on a true story, but then the Radio Times went and revealed the ending! How stupid.
And the other thing I bought in town was a convector heater from Currys. I'm often very cold so my parents agreed to let me have a portable heater for my bedroom. And it's great, it warms the room up so quickly :D
The reason I went into town was for an eye test. It went well and my eyes haven't changed, so I don't need new glasses. I've been having annual eye tests since I got glasses at the age of 3 and I think this is the first time that my eyesight hasn't deteriorated. Yay! :D I didn't see my normal optician though, but a different one. She wasn't very talkative, but it went ok. She got very confused at one point about the prisms in my glasses, so I told her that I'm never straightforward! :P But it turned out that my usual optician had just written something down in a funny way.
On Tue night my mobile phone started playing up and displayed low battery and kept beeping low battery, but when I plugged it in to charge it it told me the battery was full. I've never had any problems with this phone before, so was quite worried. Luckily turning it off and on again fixed the problem. Phew!
This evening I heard very briefly from from Lizzy on Facebook. She had to go but said she'd phone soon to arrange a date for her and M to come and visit us. I can't wait :D And this afternoon I caught up with all my emails and PMs :)
I received an email from Amazon on Wed saying that my copy of Marina and the Diamonds' debut album, The Family Jewels, had been dispatched and the estimated delivery date is Sat. It's not officially released til Mon, so I should get it before then :) And the price for it on Amazon is now £8 but because I preordered it when it was just £5 I've only had to pay £5 for it. Today I discovered that The Family Jewels had just been put onto Marina's MySpace page so I could listen to it online. I've already listened to it through 3 times and I love it :D If you're interested, you can listen here. And me and mum have also listened to The Noisettes CD because we're seeing them in concert on Tue :D
Since my last update I've played more on New Super Mario Bros Wii and have made some more progress on it. And I've also played on Picross DS some more.
I've not watched much on TV over the last couple of days. I started watching a Horizon programme about geniuses but I couldn't concentrate on it so soon gave up. And I also watched quite an interesting Channel 4 documentary about gypsy/traveller weddings.
Tomorrow Claire is coming round, I've no plans for Sat and then on Sun we're going out for a meal with the extended family. Next Tue I'm seeing The Noisettes in concert and then that Sun I'm seeing Mika in concert again! :D
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Long overdue update - part 4
This is the final part of my big update and covers everything that I didn't cover in the previous 3 updates. If you missed them you can read part 1 here, part 2 here and part 3 here.
I just wanted to mention that Becky who often reads and comments on my blog is on a school trip in the USA. I hope she's having an amazing time and I can't wait to see her photos when she returns :) On Facebook chat earlier in the week I spoke to Catherine and it was great to catch up with her. And very oddly this week I've had a friend request on Facebook from my best friend from primary school, who I've not spoken to in years! I'm not sure I'm ready to accept her as a friend and let her see all my profile and photos etc, but I've been talking to her via email for now. And on Facebook I was shocked by my cousin J's latest status update, which said that she was very happy because her little boy (who is 3 or 4) is going to start XXX College P
rep in September! He's only little! I heard a little while ago that a friend, R, from AYME had been admitted to hospital. I hope she soon feels a lot better and I've been keeping in touch with her via text for now. A great positive I've heard this week is that M (the little girl from Hosp B who was seriously ill with severe rejection just before Christmas) got home a couple of days ago! :D
Last Wed would have been Will's 17th birthday. His dream was always to be able to drive a car, as he loved cars. He would have been able to achieve his dream last Wed if he was still here. It's so sad that he's not :( I keep in touch with his mum.
I'm not sure how much I've mentioned my dad's swimming before. When me and Alf were little mum used to take us swimming a lot and dad would never come along. He always hated swimming. Just after Christmas he started improver swimming lessons at a local swimming pool once a week because he wanted to get a bit fitter. He used to go to the gym but had to stop due to problems with his achilles tendon. Dad could swim, but these helped him improve his technique. He began to love swimming and started to go more and more each week. Now he's going 5/6 days a week! It was costing him a lot in petrol travelling to the local pools (though he did swim for free because he's over 60 now), so has just joined a local members' only swimming pool which is much closer. Although the membership fees are high it works out about the same price as all the petrol was costing him. And with that and eating less he's lost loads of weight and is feeling loads fitter :)
In the post last week I received a lovely letter from Catherine and a knitted reminder of Japan, which looks just like one of the sweets we made when we were there :) I said in my last blog update that mum was knitting me a monkey. He's now finished, what do you think?
And this is a photo of my monkey with another monkey that mum has knitted for Alf for his birthday:
I've shared these photos on Twitter, Facebook and AYME and everyone who has seen them has been very impressed. Lots of people have suggested that mum should enter The K Factor on Harry Hill, so I think she is considering that :)
I've recently bought part of Rosie's birthday present, even though her birthday isn't til May. I feel very organised! :D I can't say any more here though because I know she'll be reading :) And recently the Dr Who books I ordered from the Radio Times arrived in the post. One for me and one for Claire for her birthday in April. I think I'm a bit disappointed as they're not as readable as I expected, but hopefully Claire will like her copy. And I've been thinking about Alf's birthday which is coming up on March 3rd. I've decided that I'm going to give him an IOU for an iPod charger of his own as he currently has to keep borrowing mine. And I now have to make him use it in my bedroom because otherwise he forgets to give it back and then I don't know where it is when I need it, boys! I've had a look at iPod chargers on the Internet but they look so confusing as apparently different ones work with different models of iPods, so an IOU means that Alf chooses it (so it's not my fault if it doesn't work with his iPod!), but I'll pay for it for him.
This week I have read the entire latest issue of the Official Nintendo Magazine, which I subscribe to. I cancelled my subscription to Focus but am currently still receiving magazines as the last payment I paid via direct debit before I cancelled the subscription was one for 3 months. So I've looked at a couple of bits in the latest issue of that. And one of my 3 issues of the Lonely Planet magazine for just £1 came in the post, so I'll see what of that I can read.
I've bought a new game for my Wii called A Boy And His Blob. I've only played on it once so far, but I like it. The animation is fantastic, everything is handrawn and it looks lovely. The controls aren't properly explained though, so that took a little while to get the hang of. I've played on New Super Mario Bros Wii a lot, both with Claire and on my own. I've made quite a lot of progress on it this week though, getting from World 3 to World 6 (there are 8 worlds in total). I went on Mario Kart Wii briefly to add the codes of some of my friends from AYME and then I had a race against some of them online which was good fun, but very tiring!
On my DSi I've played one of my new games, Picross DS, quite a lot as it's a very good puzzle game and is quite addictive :P I've not tried my other new game yet.
I've recently listened to music from Little Boots, The Noisettes and Marina and the Diamonds. I've also found some good Marina and the Diamonds Youtube videos, including a preview of her upcoming album, which I'm very excited about, which you can hear here. And I found some photos of the Taylor Swift concert which I went to back in Nov here.
My spare standing tickets for the Mika concert on the 28th arrived in the post just over a week ago and I'm now trying to sell them. I advertised them on the Mika fan club website, but have only found a potential buyer for one of the three tickets so far. Hopefully I'll find someone who wants them soon. I can't wait til the concert :D Unfortunately though it has recently been announced that Erik Hassle will be Mika's support act. I saw him supporting Little Boots and wasn't very impressed. I found this video online which goes behind the scenes of a Mika concert. I don't know if it was a one off concert though or part of the tour I'm going to see. But it was interesting to watch anyway :)
On TV I watched Marina and the Diamonds performing on Jonathan Ross and Mika performing on Alan Carr Chatty Man. His latest single, Blame It On The Girls, is out now. I hope it charts well on Sun but I have a feeling that it won't. I've just looked at the iTunes chart and it's currently 130, so it's not going to chart on Sun :( And I saw this Mika programme on Channel 4, which me and mum really enjoyed watching :) I also watched some of a concert on 4 Music (I think it was raising awareness of and money for cervical cancer) and liked Pixie Lott's performance. I was disappointed when she announced that before she does her own tour later in the year, she'll be supporting Rihanna on tour first. I hope it's not too long til she tours on her own as I'd love to see her live, but have no interest in seeing Rihanna in concert. You can see Pixie Lott's new video for Gravity here. And I also saw her performing on Cry Me Out and a cover of the Kings of Leon's Use Somebody on Dancing on Ice. Also on the 4 Music concert was La Roux performing Bulletproof. Mum looked at me really puzzled and said "pudding proof?". Hehe :P A couple of years ago I really liked a young Australian singer called Gabriella Cilmi (you might have heard her most famous track - Sweet About Me) and had her album. I liked her because she didn't seem the same as everyone else. I've just seen her new video and think both it and the song are horrible! I've watched quite a bit on the music channels and me and mum enjoyed watching a chart featuring the best selling single from each of the last 30 years. There were some great 80s songs including Madness, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Culture Club and we loved seeing old Spice Girls videos from the 90s :D
Before I watched the Brits tonight I found this round up of all the nominees on the BBC website and some of the 'We say' parts made me laugh. I enjoyed watching the Brits, but thought some parts weren't so good. There were lots of mess ups and the audio muting got annoying as it was cutting out parts of speeches. Peter Kay was a great host though :D
Lily Allen's opening performance was disappointing, although her vocals were strong I thought it just looked a bit of a mess. I didn't get Lady Gaga's performance and think she would have been better doing a song that people would know. And Cheryl Cole's miming was atrocious! I don't like Jay-Z, but I thought Alicia Keys proved that she had a very powerful voice when they performed Empire State of Mind together. I didn't like Dizzee Rascal and Florence's duet, but I don't like either of them usually when they're alone, so wasn't surprised that I didn't like their collaboration.
I wasn't very impressed by most of the winners - Mika didn't win the award he was nominated for (British Male Solo Artist), Taylor Swift didn't win the award she was nominated for (International Breakthrough Act) and Pixie Lott didn't win any of the 3 awards she was nominated for (British Female Solo Artist, British Breakthrough Act and British Single). But I was very happy that Lily Allen won one of the 3 awards she was nominated for - British Female Solo Artist :D And I'm not a Lady Gaga fan, so wasn't very impressed when she won all the 3 awards she was nominated for (International Breakthrough Act - where she beat Taylor Swift, International Album and International Female Solo Artist) although I did expect it. Oasis winning Brits Album of 30 years was also predictable, but the Gallagher chucking the award into the crowd wasn't! JLS winning British Breakthrough Act and British Single were also predictable. I don't understand how Dizzee Rascal won British Male Solo Artist, Jay-Z won International Male Solo Artist and Kasabian won British Group - I can't stand any of them! I'm also not a Florence and the Machine fan and would have preferred Lily Allen to win British Album rather than her. Never mind though. I was happy that Ellie Goulding won the Critic's Choice award as I think she's great and I loved that the award for the best performance of the last 30 years went to the Spice Girls :D
I'm not sure how Robbie Williams won the Outstanding Contribution to Music award. I thought that award should go to someone who had influenced the music industry or made a difference to it somehow, but now I suspect that it is just who makes the most money for the music industry. He is a good performer though and I liked watching his medley. It looked like he was miming, but apparently he was performing live but it was just out of sync. I don't know.
Despite all my moaning I did actually enjoy watching the Brits! :P
Also on TV since my last update I've watched Ready Steady Cook (because it had the actress Joanna Page - who plays Stacey in Gavin and Stacey on it), 2 episodes of Nurse Jackie, 2 episodes of Film 2010, Horizon: Don't Grow Old, 2 episodes of One Born Every Minute on C4, I Hate My Mum (part of the BBC Being Mum Season), Leaving home at 8 (a documentary about young children going to boarding school) and a BBC documentary called Having A Baby To Save My Child about families trying to have another child via IVF to provide a bone marrow transplant for a child they already had who needed one. It was interesting, but I thought the programme was quite unbalanced. It was all about the positives. The negative aspects of having a child to be a bone marrow donor for a sibling weren't even mentioned.
I've not watched much on DVD since my last update. I've watched some of Notting Hill though, which I enjoyed. I need to finish it though :P Claire thought that I might like a TV programme called Coupling (which apparently is like an English version of Friends, but better) so I've rented that but have only watched the first episode so far. Me and mum weren't sure what we thought so are going to give the second episode a try when we get chance. And the other rental DVD I was sent from Tesco was Club 7 - Party Live, so I watched that too. My latest DVD rental is Pixar's Up which I saw in the cinema last year, so I'm looking forward to rewatching that.
As I said in part 2 of my big update, I was planning to go to the cinema today. I pulled a tendon or something in my shoulder though (which may or may not have been due to playing on the Wii yesterday evening) which was very painful this afternoon so we decided not to go. My shoulder is feeling much better now though and me and mum are hoping to get to the cinema to see Valentine's Day another day this week, maybe tomorrow (Tue) :)
I just wanted to mention that Becky who often reads and comments on my blog is on a school trip in the USA. I hope she's having an amazing time and I can't wait to see her photos when she returns :) On Facebook chat earlier in the week I spoke to Catherine and it was great to catch up with her. And very oddly this week I've had a friend request on Facebook from my best friend from primary school, who I've not spoken to in years! I'm not sure I'm ready to accept her as a friend and let her see all my profile and photos etc, but I've been talking to her via email for now. And on Facebook I was shocked by my cousin J's latest status update, which said that she was very happy because her little boy (who is 3 or 4) is going to start XXX College P
rep in September! He's only little! I heard a little while ago that a friend, R, from AYME had been admitted to hospital. I hope she soon feels a lot better and I've been keeping in touch with her via text for now. A great positive I've heard this week is that M (the little girl from Hosp B who was seriously ill with severe rejection just before Christmas) got home a couple of days ago! :D
Last Wed would have been Will's 17th birthday. His dream was always to be able to drive a car, as he loved cars. He would have been able to achieve his dream last Wed if he was still here. It's so sad that he's not :( I keep in touch with his mum.
I'm not sure how much I've mentioned my dad's swimming before. When me and Alf were little mum used to take us swimming a lot and dad would never come along. He always hated swimming. Just after Christmas he started improver swimming lessons at a local swimming pool once a week because he wanted to get a bit fitter. He used to go to the gym but had to stop due to problems with his achilles tendon. Dad could swim, but these helped him improve his technique. He began to love swimming and started to go more and more each week. Now he's going 5/6 days a week! It was costing him a lot in petrol travelling to the local pools (though he did swim for free because he's over 60 now), so has just joined a local members' only swimming pool which is much closer. Although the membership fees are high it works out about the same price as all the petrol was costing him. And with that and eating less he's lost loads of weight and is feeling loads fitter :)
In the post last week I received a lovely letter from Catherine and a knitted reminder of Japan, which looks just like one of the sweets we made when we were there :) I said in my last blog update that mum was knitting me a monkey. He's now finished, what do you think?
And this is a photo of my monkey with another monkey that mum has knitted for Alf for his birthday:
I've shared these photos on Twitter, Facebook and AYME and everyone who has seen them has been very impressed. Lots of people have suggested that mum should enter The K Factor on Harry Hill, so I think she is considering that :)
I've recently bought part of Rosie's birthday present, even though her birthday isn't til May. I feel very organised! :D I can't say any more here though because I know she'll be reading :) And recently the Dr Who books I ordered from the Radio Times arrived in the post. One for me and one for Claire for her birthday in April. I think I'm a bit disappointed as they're not as readable as I expected, but hopefully Claire will like her copy. And I've been thinking about Alf's birthday which is coming up on March 3rd. I've decided that I'm going to give him an IOU for an iPod charger of his own as he currently has to keep borrowing mine. And I now have to make him use it in my bedroom because otherwise he forgets to give it back and then I don't know where it is when I need it, boys! I've had a look at iPod chargers on the Internet but they look so confusing as apparently different ones work with different models of iPods, so an IOU means that Alf chooses it (so it's not my fault if it doesn't work with his iPod!), but I'll pay for it for him.
This week I have read the entire latest issue of the Official Nintendo Magazine, which I subscribe to. I cancelled my subscription to Focus but am currently still receiving magazines as the last payment I paid via direct debit before I cancelled the subscription was one for 3 months. So I've looked at a couple of bits in the latest issue of that. And one of my 3 issues of the Lonely Planet magazine for just £1 came in the post, so I'll see what of that I can read.
I've bought a new game for my Wii called A Boy And His Blob. I've only played on it once so far, but I like it. The animation is fantastic, everything is handrawn and it looks lovely. The controls aren't properly explained though, so that took a little while to get the hang of. I've played on New Super Mario Bros Wii a lot, both with Claire and on my own. I've made quite a lot of progress on it this week though, getting from World 3 to World 6 (there are 8 worlds in total). I went on Mario Kart Wii briefly to add the codes of some of my friends from AYME and then I had a race against some of them online which was good fun, but very tiring!
On my DSi I've played one of my new games, Picross DS, quite a lot as it's a very good puzzle game and is quite addictive :P I've not tried my other new game yet.
I've recently listened to music from Little Boots, The Noisettes and Marina and the Diamonds. I've also found some good Marina and the Diamonds Youtube videos, including a preview of her upcoming album, which I'm very excited about, which you can hear here. And I found some photos of the Taylor Swift concert which I went to back in Nov here.
My spare standing tickets for the Mika concert on the 28th arrived in the post just over a week ago and I'm now trying to sell them. I advertised them on the Mika fan club website, but have only found a potential buyer for one of the three tickets so far. Hopefully I'll find someone who wants them soon. I can't wait til the concert :D Unfortunately though it has recently been announced that Erik Hassle will be Mika's support act. I saw him supporting Little Boots and wasn't very impressed. I found this video online which goes behind the scenes of a Mika concert. I don't know if it was a one off concert though or part of the tour I'm going to see. But it was interesting to watch anyway :)
On TV I watched Marina and the Diamonds performing on Jonathan Ross and Mika performing on Alan Carr Chatty Man. His latest single, Blame It On The Girls, is out now. I hope it charts well on Sun but I have a feeling that it won't. I've just looked at the iTunes chart and it's currently 130, so it's not going to chart on Sun :( And I saw this Mika programme on Channel 4, which me and mum really enjoyed watching :) I also watched some of a concert on 4 Music (I think it was raising awareness of and money for cervical cancer) and liked Pixie Lott's performance. I was disappointed when she announced that before she does her own tour later in the year, she'll be supporting Rihanna on tour first. I hope it's not too long til she tours on her own as I'd love to see her live, but have no interest in seeing Rihanna in concert. You can see Pixie Lott's new video for Gravity here. And I also saw her performing on Cry Me Out and a cover of the Kings of Leon's Use Somebody on Dancing on Ice. Also on the 4 Music concert was La Roux performing Bulletproof. Mum looked at me really puzzled and said "pudding proof?". Hehe :P A couple of years ago I really liked a young Australian singer called Gabriella Cilmi (you might have heard her most famous track - Sweet About Me) and had her album. I liked her because she didn't seem the same as everyone else. I've just seen her new video and think both it and the song are horrible! I've watched quite a bit on the music channels and me and mum enjoyed watching a chart featuring the best selling single from each of the last 30 years. There were some great 80s songs including Madness, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Culture Club and we loved seeing old Spice Girls videos from the 90s :D
Before I watched the Brits tonight I found this round up of all the nominees on the BBC website and some of the 'We say' parts made me laugh. I enjoyed watching the Brits, but thought some parts weren't so good. There were lots of mess ups and the audio muting got annoying as it was cutting out parts of speeches. Peter Kay was a great host though :D
Lily Allen's opening performance was disappointing, although her vocals were strong I thought it just looked a bit of a mess. I didn't get Lady Gaga's performance and think she would have been better doing a song that people would know. And Cheryl Cole's miming was atrocious! I don't like Jay-Z, but I thought Alicia Keys proved that she had a very powerful voice when they performed Empire State of Mind together. I didn't like Dizzee Rascal and Florence's duet, but I don't like either of them usually when they're alone, so wasn't surprised that I didn't like their collaboration.
I wasn't very impressed by most of the winners - Mika didn't win the award he was nominated for (British Male Solo Artist), Taylor Swift didn't win the award she was nominated for (International Breakthrough Act) and Pixie Lott didn't win any of the 3 awards she was nominated for (British Female Solo Artist, British Breakthrough Act and British Single). But I was very happy that Lily Allen won one of the 3 awards she was nominated for - British Female Solo Artist :D And I'm not a Lady Gaga fan, so wasn't very impressed when she won all the 3 awards she was nominated for (International Breakthrough Act - where she beat Taylor Swift, International Album and International Female Solo Artist) although I did expect it. Oasis winning Brits Album of 30 years was also predictable, but the Gallagher chucking the award into the crowd wasn't! JLS winning British Breakthrough Act and British Single were also predictable. I don't understand how Dizzee Rascal won British Male Solo Artist, Jay-Z won International Male Solo Artist and Kasabian won British Group - I can't stand any of them! I'm also not a Florence and the Machine fan and would have preferred Lily Allen to win British Album rather than her. Never mind though. I was happy that Ellie Goulding won the Critic's Choice award as I think she's great and I loved that the award for the best performance of the last 30 years went to the Spice Girls :D
I'm not sure how Robbie Williams won the Outstanding Contribution to Music award. I thought that award should go to someone who had influenced the music industry or made a difference to it somehow, but now I suspect that it is just who makes the most money for the music industry. He is a good performer though and I liked watching his medley. It looked like he was miming, but apparently he was performing live but it was just out of sync. I don't know.
Despite all my moaning I did actually enjoy watching the Brits! :P
Also on TV since my last update I've watched Ready Steady Cook (because it had the actress Joanna Page - who plays Stacey in Gavin and Stacey on it), 2 episodes of Nurse Jackie, 2 episodes of Film 2010, Horizon: Don't Grow Old, 2 episodes of One Born Every Minute on C4, I Hate My Mum (part of the BBC Being Mum Season), Leaving home at 8 (a documentary about young children going to boarding school) and a BBC documentary called Having A Baby To Save My Child about families trying to have another child via IVF to provide a bone marrow transplant for a child they already had who needed one. It was interesting, but I thought the programme was quite unbalanced. It was all about the positives. The negative aspects of having a child to be a bone marrow donor for a sibling weren't even mentioned.
I've not watched much on DVD since my last update. I've watched some of Notting Hill though, which I enjoyed. I need to finish it though :P Claire thought that I might like a TV programme called Coupling (which apparently is like an English version of Friends, but better) so I've rented that but have only watched the first episode so far. Me and mum weren't sure what we thought so are going to give the second episode a try when we get chance. And the other rental DVD I was sent from Tesco was Club 7 - Party Live, so I watched that too. My latest DVD rental is Pixar's Up which I saw in the cinema last year, so I'm looking forward to rewatching that.
As I said in part 2 of my big update, I was planning to go to the cinema today. I pulled a tendon or something in my shoulder though (which may or may not have been due to playing on the Wii yesterday evening) which was very painful this afternoon so we decided not to go. My shoulder is feeling much better now though and me and mum are hoping to get to the cinema to see Valentine's Day another day this week, maybe tomorrow (Tue) :)
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Long overdue update - part 3
This is the 'medical' part of my long overdue update, part 3. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here. Part 4 (the final part) will be published tonight and then I'll be up to date with my blog :)
On Fri 5th I received the phone call from my dietician to discuss my food and symptom diary and my tummy pains. She told me about the apple high calorie puddings that are just like my strawberry ones, which is why I gave those a try last week. From studying my food and symptom diary she could see that my tummy pains were coming on after eating and in a similar pattern each day, but she couldn't see any link between what I ate and the pains. She was however very impressed with the variety of food and quantities of food that I'm eating and said that after seeing that she was much more confident that stopping my overnight feeds was the right decision :) I asked her whether the pains could be due to IBS (I still have my own colon), but she said she thought that it was much more likely to be something simple that is related to my transplant, but she didn't know what. She also said that if it was IBS then the tablets that my consultant from Hosp A had prescribed to stop the spasms would have helped, but they didn't. I told her how fed up I was and she's going to chase up the letter with the results from my admission in Dec as the scopes I had then showed some inflammation that could be linked to the pains. And she's also going to chase up my next clinic appt. She thought that some a tablet which is used to treat stomach acid might help (I'm not sure why) so said she might discuss that with my consultant. And in the meantime she thought that trying to stop one of my medications called Loperamide might help, but I'm not sure how that would work, so haven't tried it yet. So I'm not really any further with finding out the cause of or treatment for my tummy pains yet. It's getting to the stage now where I don't want to eat lunch because I know it will make my tummy hurt :(
On Tue 9th I got a shock when I weighed myself. In my first week off feeds I'd lost 0.9kg, so my weight had dropped from 51.6kg to 50.7kg! I was really surprised by that because my eating that week had been better than it had ever been before. I hoped it was just my weight settling. I emailed my dietician to let her know and she said she was disappointed, especially as I'd been eating so well. So this week I've upped my eating even more, but I hate it. It seemed to work though because this morning (Tue 16th) my weight was up by 1.3kg to 52kg! :D I've emailed my dietician to let her know. I was very relieved to see an increase as it feels like I've been eating loads over the past week and didn't want to have to go back onto overnight feeds. Not sure if I'll be able to keep this level of eating up though.
I was diagnosed with an ovarian cyst a couple of years ago and then I was put on a version of The Pill to stop the extreme mid-cycle pain I'd been getting every month. And it worked. My periods got worse and more irregular (they weren't ever easy to manage) though, so my GP suggested I doubled the dose of The Pill that I was taking and that stopped my periods :) But I've got a heavy period now and I've no idea why. Grrr.
This last week I've been surprised at how much I've managed to do without feeling completely awful for days afterwards. I'd love to think that I'm getting better, but I think it's just the ups and downs of ME. It's nice though :)
I am almost always cold and have been since I developed ME. Sometimes I can't get warm even when the heating is on. And often when I'm upstairs and everyone else is downstairs my parents will only put the downstairs heating on. So at times like that and at night when I'm still awake but my parents are asleep (they turn the heating off when they go to bed) I can get very cold in my room. I spoke to my parents about this and after lots of persuasion dad said that I could get a portable heater for my bedroom, as long as I'm sensible when using it and am willing to pay a little bit more rent to cover the cost of using it. I've done some research using the Which website and I think a convector heater would be best for me. Dad wants me to get a low efficiency one though and the Which website doesn't mention their efficiency. So I need to investigate that.
My ESA medical assessment took place just over 5 weeks ago and since then I've been waiting to receive a letter about the outcome. I received my monthly bank statement through the post last week but didn't look at it til Fri night. Then I discovered that I'd not been paid any ESA since the end of Dec, so none since my medical assessment. I assumed that this means that they'd decided that I couldn't have ESA as a result of my medical assessment, but for some reason they either hadn't notified me or maybe Royal Mail lost the letter (I wouldn't put it past them, they've already lost 2 parcels to me over the last 4 - 6 weeks!). I hoped that there was going to be another reason for it, but I doubted it. I really didn't want to have to appeal. And it was frustrating to think that although I know I'm not well enough to work, they might not believe me. I get the higher rate of DLA at the moment, so knew I'd be ok without ESA for now, but I suspect that when my DLA comes to be reviewed later in the year I'm either going to have it drastically reduced or lose in completely as I currently claim for post transplant related reasons, but everything there is improved now. I've developed ME since my last claim, but I know from other ME sufferers that it's very hard to get DLA for ME.
All day yesterday I tried to get through to Job Centre Plus on the phone to find out more about my ESA, but I couldn't get through. Today I started trying just after 10am and was shocked when I got through at about 11.45am! After the medical assessement I have been granted ESA and I will be put into the support group (which gets slightly more money and it also means the Pathways to Work interviews I've been attended are no optional rather than compulsary). My letter should be in the post very soon. They're also going to backpay me all the money I missed while it was was stopped. I'm so relieved that they've believed me and given me the benefit. Phew!
Eventually I heard from physio at Hosp A. The physio I saw sent me a letter. He's sorry that I can't make any of his limited appts so said he can either refer me to a colleague who has a wider range of appts or see if he can refer me to some physio locally. He said to let him know what I want, so I left a message with a receptionist in the physio department saying I'd like to be referred to Hosp H.
Up until Tue I was doing really well with my sleep as I was getting into bed around midnight every night. On Wed I was later getting into bed though because I was a bit nocturnal. On Thur I was very tired and not nocturnal, so got into bed at 10.30pm and had between 11 and 12 hours sleep! On Fri night I was nocturnal again and Sat night was just awful because I worked myself up into quite a state about my ESA, so had a very disturbed night. On Sun night I very was nocturnal and was up til late (3.30am ish!) writing this blog update and last night I was nocturnal again. Once I'm in bed though it doesn't mean I sleep straight away, usually it takes between 30mins and an hour for me to fall asleep. It can take longer though. And despite me getting to sleep at different times each night, I've been getting up between 10am and 11am most mornings.
I've found an American website that sell a very wide range of transplant t-shirts and other items of clothing. You can see them here. I was very impressed that they even have a range for people who have had small bowel transplants here! The colour that America use to promote organ donation (green) is different to the UK colours for organ donation (red and blue). This recycling range is my favourite though and I'm considering buying something from it. I don't like to buy clothing without trying it on first though.
On Fri 5th I received the phone call from my dietician to discuss my food and symptom diary and my tummy pains. She told me about the apple high calorie puddings that are just like my strawberry ones, which is why I gave those a try last week. From studying my food and symptom diary she could see that my tummy pains were coming on after eating and in a similar pattern each day, but she couldn't see any link between what I ate and the pains. She was however very impressed with the variety of food and quantities of food that I'm eating and said that after seeing that she was much more confident that stopping my overnight feeds was the right decision :) I asked her whether the pains could be due to IBS (I still have my own colon), but she said she thought that it was much more likely to be something simple that is related to my transplant, but she didn't know what. She also said that if it was IBS then the tablets that my consultant from Hosp A had prescribed to stop the spasms would have helped, but they didn't. I told her how fed up I was and she's going to chase up the letter with the results from my admission in Dec as the scopes I had then showed some inflammation that could be linked to the pains. And she's also going to chase up my next clinic appt. She thought that some a tablet which is used to treat stomach acid might help (I'm not sure why) so said she might discuss that with my consultant. And in the meantime she thought that trying to stop one of my medications called Loperamide might help, but I'm not sure how that would work, so haven't tried it yet. So I'm not really any further with finding out the cause of or treatment for my tummy pains yet. It's getting to the stage now where I don't want to eat lunch because I know it will make my tummy hurt :(
On Tue 9th I got a shock when I weighed myself. In my first week off feeds I'd lost 0.9kg, so my weight had dropped from 51.6kg to 50.7kg! I was really surprised by that because my eating that week had been better than it had ever been before. I hoped it was just my weight settling. I emailed my dietician to let her know and she said she was disappointed, especially as I'd been eating so well. So this week I've upped my eating even more, but I hate it. It seemed to work though because this morning (Tue 16th) my weight was up by 1.3kg to 52kg! :D I've emailed my dietician to let her know. I was very relieved to see an increase as it feels like I've been eating loads over the past week and didn't want to have to go back onto overnight feeds. Not sure if I'll be able to keep this level of eating up though.
I was diagnosed with an ovarian cyst a couple of years ago and then I was put on a version of The Pill to stop the extreme mid-cycle pain I'd been getting every month. And it worked. My periods got worse and more irregular (they weren't ever easy to manage) though, so my GP suggested I doubled the dose of The Pill that I was taking and that stopped my periods :) But I've got a heavy period now and I've no idea why. Grrr.
This last week I've been surprised at how much I've managed to do without feeling completely awful for days afterwards. I'd love to think that I'm getting better, but I think it's just the ups and downs of ME. It's nice though :)
I am almost always cold and have been since I developed ME. Sometimes I can't get warm even when the heating is on. And often when I'm upstairs and everyone else is downstairs my parents will only put the downstairs heating on. So at times like that and at night when I'm still awake but my parents are asleep (they turn the heating off when they go to bed) I can get very cold in my room. I spoke to my parents about this and after lots of persuasion dad said that I could get a portable heater for my bedroom, as long as I'm sensible when using it and am willing to pay a little bit more rent to cover the cost of using it. I've done some research using the Which website and I think a convector heater would be best for me. Dad wants me to get a low efficiency one though and the Which website doesn't mention their efficiency. So I need to investigate that.
My ESA medical assessment took place just over 5 weeks ago and since then I've been waiting to receive a letter about the outcome. I received my monthly bank statement through the post last week but didn't look at it til Fri night. Then I discovered that I'd not been paid any ESA since the end of Dec, so none since my medical assessment. I assumed that this means that they'd decided that I couldn't have ESA as a result of my medical assessment, but for some reason they either hadn't notified me or maybe Royal Mail lost the letter (I wouldn't put it past them, they've already lost 2 parcels to me over the last 4 - 6 weeks!). I hoped that there was going to be another reason for it, but I doubted it. I really didn't want to have to appeal. And it was frustrating to think that although I know I'm not well enough to work, they might not believe me. I get the higher rate of DLA at the moment, so knew I'd be ok without ESA for now, but I suspect that when my DLA comes to be reviewed later in the year I'm either going to have it drastically reduced or lose in completely as I currently claim for post transplant related reasons, but everything there is improved now. I've developed ME since my last claim, but I know from other ME sufferers that it's very hard to get DLA for ME.
All day yesterday I tried to get through to Job Centre Plus on the phone to find out more about my ESA, but I couldn't get through. Today I started trying just after 10am and was shocked when I got through at about 11.45am! After the medical assessement I have been granted ESA and I will be put into the support group (which gets slightly more money and it also means the Pathways to Work interviews I've been attended are no optional rather than compulsary). My letter should be in the post very soon. They're also going to backpay me all the money I missed while it was was stopped. I'm so relieved that they've believed me and given me the benefit. Phew!
Eventually I heard from physio at Hosp A. The physio I saw sent me a letter. He's sorry that I can't make any of his limited appts so said he can either refer me to a colleague who has a wider range of appts or see if he can refer me to some physio locally. He said to let him know what I want, so I left a message with a receptionist in the physio department saying I'd like to be referred to Hosp H.
Up until Tue I was doing really well with my sleep as I was getting into bed around midnight every night. On Wed I was later getting into bed though because I was a bit nocturnal. On Thur I was very tired and not nocturnal, so got into bed at 10.30pm and had between 11 and 12 hours sleep! On Fri night I was nocturnal again and Sat night was just awful because I worked myself up into quite a state about my ESA, so had a very disturbed night. On Sun night I very was nocturnal and was up til late (3.30am ish!) writing this blog update and last night I was nocturnal again. Once I'm in bed though it doesn't mean I sleep straight away, usually it takes between 30mins and an hour for me to fall asleep. It can take longer though. And despite me getting to sleep at different times each night, I've been getting up between 10am and 11am most mornings.
I've found an American website that sell a very wide range of transplant t-shirts and other items of clothing. You can see them here. I was very impressed that they even have a range for people who have had small bowel transplants here! The colour that America use to promote organ donation (green) is different to the UK colours for organ donation (red and blue). This recycling range is my favourite though and I'm considering buying something from it. I don't like to buy clothing without trying it on first though.
Monday, 15 February 2010
Long overdue update - part 2
Here is the second part of the the 'going out' section of my big blog update. You can read the first part here. Parts 3 and 4 will be coming soon (probably tomorrow eve and the following eve). For some reason when I copied and pasted this over from a draft blog, a few of the spaces between my words disappeared. I've put back in all the ones I spotted, but I apologise if I've missed any.
On Wed I received a letter from Hosp B with my last Tac result, a recommendation of what to do with my Tac dose and details of when my bloods next needed doing. My Tac level was quite high (my normal range is 5 to 8 and it was 13) but they didn't want me to change my dose and it said that my bloods needed repeating that week - thanks for the advance warning! :P So I rang the liver nurses to query it. I wasn't surprised that my Tac level was high because it had been slowly creeping up since they doubled my dose a little while ago in response to my Tac level being low, but I was surprised that they didn't want me to alter my dose. They said that they didn't want to change my Tac dose after just one high reading, so wanted my Tac bloods repeating. And for some reason they also wanted everything else repeating too (just a fortnight after I'd had bloods done). I also chased up theTac kits I'd asked them to send out a fortnight before and apparently they had definitely been sent, so I assume they'd been lost in the post (Royal Mail are not in my good books after losing 2 or possibly 3 items of my post in the last 4-6 weeks!). They sent some more out that day though and we received them the next day.
So on the morn of Thur 11th me and mum took my Tac blood at home via a fingerprick and posted the blood sample off to Hosp B. On the way to the post office I bumped into a man called Mr R who lives on our street. His wife is on TPN, like I used to be before my transplant. It was very odd when I was on TPN too and the delivery company used to have to make 2 deliveries in our street. Mr and Mrs R are very nice, but Mr R asked me all about how I was, whether I was at uni, what I'm doing at the moment... And I didn't really feel like explaining everything.
Then me and mum went to visit Nan, but a doctor from the local surgery arrived to see her at the same time as us so we decided to go and do some other things and go back to see my Nan later. So we headed to Hosp H for my bloods. The new phlebotomist was there on her own again and failed twice at getting any blood for me. The first time I didn't bleed and the second time she told me that my vein had moved out of the way at the last minute (which I think is phleb talk for she missed!). So she rang the more experienced phleb who came and got my blood first time from the hand with the worst veins. Think I might put in a special request for her next time :) And while all these attempts were happening mum was showing the phlebs her knitting (which she had in her bag to show my Nan)! The next day I received all my blood results in an email from my GP. Sometimes he sends me them in an email, sometimes he doesn't. I was relieved to see that my liver function tests were all within the normal range. Some of the results in my full blood count were slightly below normal though. I'm sure they're nothing to worry about because Hosp B haven't been in touch about them, but I suspect that they might want my bloods repeating in another fortnight.
Then we went into town where mum picked up her new glasses from the opticians. I browsed shops but didn't buy anything. Then we went into Sainsburys where I saw a Wii game I'd bought online a few days before for £13 on sale for £10, grrr! And in Sainsburys we got some shopping for Nan too. Then we returned to Nan's. For some reason she thinks that I don't like milk straight out of the fridge so had got some out to warm up for me. So I drank lukewarm milk, yuk! We chatted a lot and mum showed Nan all her knitting. We also gave her some battery operated push lamps that dad had bought for her because she'd had a power cut a few days before and wanted some lights in case there was another one. By this point I was quite tired after a busy day so we headed home.
On Fri 12th Claire came round for tea in the evening. We had great fun playing on New Super Mario Bros Wii together and made a lot of progress. And when Claire went to my mum's knitting group I played on it a bit more on my own and got even further :) I think I might have played on my Wii for a bit too long that day as I took a while to get to sleep because I was all buzzy from it :P
On Sat 13th me and mum decided to go out to a nearby town on the train, which was a 30min train journey away. It's not one of our nearest towns, but we wanted to go somewhere different and I'd never been to this town before. When we were on the train mum realised that she'd forgotten the map we'd printed off the Internet of the town centre, a list of the shops we'd found on the Internet that we wanted to look in and some cheques she needed to cash! Hehe :P This town was bigger than our local towns but was very run down and quite depressing. It was interesting to explore somewhere new though. We bought some new cups in a bargain shop (because dad isn't very careful with ours and keeps breaking them when he knocks them around so we were running short) and I bought 2 new DS games (Picross DS and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney) from the preowned section in GAME for very reasonable prices. We also stopped in a cafe for drinks. While we were out I wore the supports I bought to help my feet for the first time. They had arch supports and heel cushions to help the pain I get in my heels from plantar fasciitis. They didn't seem to help though as my heels still got very sore from walking so much.
On the journey home we met a family who I think will stay with me for a long time. We happened to sit across from them on the train. There was a mum with her 3 children - a girl of 2 or 3, a boy of 5 and a girl of 5 or 6. The youngest child kept screaming, crying and running down the train away from her mum. The mum could only look after one child at a time, not all 3. So the 2 older children took an interest in me and my mum and her knitting. I was tired after a long day so put my iPod in. Mum is great with children though, so chatted to them as she knitted. They didn't sit in their seats and talk to mum though, they came onto the seats opposite us and even climbed under the table at points meaning my leg room suddenly disappeared. Their mum had no idea what they were up to because she was trying to keep an eye on the youngest one. I heard bits of mum's conversation with them and she filled me in on more later. They were going to stay with a friend and they told mum that they were never ever going home again. Obviously we don't know the circumstances but we thought that maybe they were running away from the mum's violent partner or something like that. We felt very sorry for them. They got off at the same stop as us, so we helped them off the train. The mum had a big buggy for the youngest and loads of bags - one even still had the tag on like they'd just bought it. The older girl had a suitcase on wheels and the boy had a gigantic backpack on his back that was about the size of him. And the mum had 2 big bags with the buggy. They had to get up the steps to get off the platform with all that, so we gave them a hand. I also stopped the youngest girl running down the wrong steps onto another platform and mum stopped the boy dangling over the edge of the bridge over the railway line! The mum really struggled to get the buggy down the steps, so mum told a member of staff who replied that she couldn't help because then if anything was to happen she'd be liable! What nonsense. They eventually got down and we pointed the mum to the nearest phone box because she had no phone. I've kept thinking about them though.
Yesterday morning we went out to the local carboot sale as it was the first one after they stopped for winter. It was quite small and the weather was very cold (I was cold even with 6 layers of clothing on!), but we enjoyed looking round. I was good with my money and only bought 1 DVD - The Lake House - for £2. After lunch Claire came round and we had a lovely aft and eve together and made more progress on New Super Mario Bros Wii :) Dad had decided to cook a Valentine's Day meal for mum. The previous night he'd asked mum what her best Valentine's Day Meal would be and she said cheese on toast. So she got cheese on toast for tea. The rest of us had duck as last night when dad had asked me what I'd like, that was what I'd said. I didn't expect it quite that overdone and burnt though! :P
Claire went on a first date a couple of weekends ago and my dad, being who he is, is already planning her wedding and his role as main bridesmaid! Hehe :P He actually started before she even had the first date! On the weekend of Claire's first date, Dad sent her an email with a photo of his ideal wedding dress that he'd found on the Internet. So this is providing us all with much amusement. Anway, at the carboot sale yesterday morning mum found a book called How To Be A Bridesmaid, so of course she couldn't resist it. Me, mum and Claire were in fits of giggles looking at it together and then they gave it to dad. Haha, it was hilarious :P
Today I've not been out of the house, but my mum's friend G came round again this morning for a little while.
Tomorrow I am going to go to the cinema with mum to see Valentine's Day. Jonathan Ross didn't give it a very good review on Film 2010, but me and mum want to give it a try anyway. And even if it's not a great film we'll enjoy spotting all the famous actors in it. Last week the opticians rang up and and asked if I would mind changing my eye test from last Thur because I was my optician's only appt that day, so if I rescheduled then she could have the day off. I said that would be fine, so my eye test is coming up on Thur of this week. And on Fri Claire is coming round again. Next Sun we are going out for a meal with the extended family to celebrate my uncle and his wife's wedding anniversary (but I'm not sure how many years). I'm quite nervous about it. I'm not comfortable eating in public (due to lack of cutlery skills, not being very confident with new foods and wearing braces) and although some of my extended family is lovely, some of them are odd. Hopefully it will go ok. My initial reaction on hearing about it was that I wasn't going to go, but I've been talked into it by mum and dad. My Nan will be there, but I'm not sure who else. The uncle who's wedding anniversary this is for is the one who wasn't very understanding about my ME when we met him at my Nan's the other week.
On Wed I received a letter from Hosp B with my last Tac result, a recommendation of what to do with my Tac dose and details of when my bloods next needed doing. My Tac level was quite high (my normal range is 5 to 8 and it was 13) but they didn't want me to change my dose and it said that my bloods needed repeating that week - thanks for the advance warning! :P So I rang the liver nurses to query it. I wasn't surprised that my Tac level was high because it had been slowly creeping up since they doubled my dose a little while ago in response to my Tac level being low, but I was surprised that they didn't want me to alter my dose. They said that they didn't want to change my Tac dose after just one high reading, so wanted my Tac bloods repeating. And for some reason they also wanted everything else repeating too (just a fortnight after I'd had bloods done). I also chased up theTac kits I'd asked them to send out a fortnight before and apparently they had definitely been sent, so I assume they'd been lost in the post (Royal Mail are not in my good books after losing 2 or possibly 3 items of my post in the last 4-6 weeks!). They sent some more out that day though and we received them the next day.
So on the morn of Thur 11th me and mum took my Tac blood at home via a fingerprick and posted the blood sample off to Hosp B. On the way to the post office I bumped into a man called Mr R who lives on our street. His wife is on TPN, like I used to be before my transplant. It was very odd when I was on TPN too and the delivery company used to have to make 2 deliveries in our street. Mr and Mrs R are very nice, but Mr R asked me all about how I was, whether I was at uni, what I'm doing at the moment... And I didn't really feel like explaining everything.
Then me and mum went to visit Nan, but a doctor from the local surgery arrived to see her at the same time as us so we decided to go and do some other things and go back to see my Nan later. So we headed to Hosp H for my bloods. The new phlebotomist was there on her own again and failed twice at getting any blood for me. The first time I didn't bleed and the second time she told me that my vein had moved out of the way at the last minute (which I think is phleb talk for she missed!). So she rang the more experienced phleb who came and got my blood first time from the hand with the worst veins. Think I might put in a special request for her next time :) And while all these attempts were happening mum was showing the phlebs her knitting (which she had in her bag to show my Nan)! The next day I received all my blood results in an email from my GP. Sometimes he sends me them in an email, sometimes he doesn't. I was relieved to see that my liver function tests were all within the normal range. Some of the results in my full blood count were slightly below normal though. I'm sure they're nothing to worry about because Hosp B haven't been in touch about them, but I suspect that they might want my bloods repeating in another fortnight.
Then we went into town where mum picked up her new glasses from the opticians. I browsed shops but didn't buy anything. Then we went into Sainsburys where I saw a Wii game I'd bought online a few days before for £13 on sale for £10, grrr! And in Sainsburys we got some shopping for Nan too. Then we returned to Nan's. For some reason she thinks that I don't like milk straight out of the fridge so had got some out to warm up for me. So I drank lukewarm milk, yuk! We chatted a lot and mum showed Nan all her knitting. We also gave her some battery operated push lamps that dad had bought for her because she'd had a power cut a few days before and wanted some lights in case there was another one. By this point I was quite tired after a busy day so we headed home.
On Fri 12th Claire came round for tea in the evening. We had great fun playing on New Super Mario Bros Wii together and made a lot of progress. And when Claire went to my mum's knitting group I played on it a bit more on my own and got even further :) I think I might have played on my Wii for a bit too long that day as I took a while to get to sleep because I was all buzzy from it :P
On Sat 13th me and mum decided to go out to a nearby town on the train, which was a 30min train journey away. It's not one of our nearest towns, but we wanted to go somewhere different and I'd never been to this town before. When we were on the train mum realised that she'd forgotten the map we'd printed off the Internet of the town centre, a list of the shops we'd found on the Internet that we wanted to look in and some cheques she needed to cash! Hehe :P This town was bigger than our local towns but was very run down and quite depressing. It was interesting to explore somewhere new though. We bought some new cups in a bargain shop (because dad isn't very careful with ours and keeps breaking them when he knocks them around so we were running short) and I bought 2 new DS games (Picross DS and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney) from the preowned section in GAME for very reasonable prices. We also stopped in a cafe for drinks. While we were out I wore the supports I bought to help my feet for the first time. They had arch supports and heel cushions to help the pain I get in my heels from plantar fasciitis. They didn't seem to help though as my heels still got very sore from walking so much.
On the journey home we met a family who I think will stay with me for a long time. We happened to sit across from them on the train. There was a mum with her 3 children - a girl of 2 or 3, a boy of 5 and a girl of 5 or 6. The youngest child kept screaming, crying and running down the train away from her mum. The mum could only look after one child at a time, not all 3. So the 2 older children took an interest in me and my mum and her knitting. I was tired after a long day so put my iPod in. Mum is great with children though, so chatted to them as she knitted. They didn't sit in their seats and talk to mum though, they came onto the seats opposite us and even climbed under the table at points meaning my leg room suddenly disappeared. Their mum had no idea what they were up to because she was trying to keep an eye on the youngest one. I heard bits of mum's conversation with them and she filled me in on more later. They were going to stay with a friend and they told mum that they were never ever going home again. Obviously we don't know the circumstances but we thought that maybe they were running away from the mum's violent partner or something like that. We felt very sorry for them. They got off at the same stop as us, so we helped them off the train. The mum had a big buggy for the youngest and loads of bags - one even still had the tag on like they'd just bought it. The older girl had a suitcase on wheels and the boy had a gigantic backpack on his back that was about the size of him. And the mum had 2 big bags with the buggy. They had to get up the steps to get off the platform with all that, so we gave them a hand. I also stopped the youngest girl running down the wrong steps onto another platform and mum stopped the boy dangling over the edge of the bridge over the railway line! The mum really struggled to get the buggy down the steps, so mum told a member of staff who replied that she couldn't help because then if anything was to happen she'd be liable! What nonsense. They eventually got down and we pointed the mum to the nearest phone box because she had no phone. I've kept thinking about them though.
Yesterday morning we went out to the local carboot sale as it was the first one after they stopped for winter. It was quite small and the weather was very cold (I was cold even with 6 layers of clothing on!), but we enjoyed looking round. I was good with my money and only bought 1 DVD - The Lake House - for £2. After lunch Claire came round and we had a lovely aft and eve together and made more progress on New Super Mario Bros Wii :) Dad had decided to cook a Valentine's Day meal for mum. The previous night he'd asked mum what her best Valentine's Day Meal would be and she said cheese on toast. So she got cheese on toast for tea. The rest of us had duck as last night when dad had asked me what I'd like, that was what I'd said. I didn't expect it quite that overdone and burnt though! :P
Claire went on a first date a couple of weekends ago and my dad, being who he is, is already planning her wedding and his role as main bridesmaid! Hehe :P He actually started before she even had the first date! On the weekend of Claire's first date, Dad sent her an email with a photo of his ideal wedding dress that he'd found on the Internet. So this is providing us all with much amusement. Anway, at the carboot sale yesterday morning mum found a book called How To Be A Bridesmaid, so of course she couldn't resist it. Me, mum and Claire were in fits of giggles looking at it together and then they gave it to dad. Haha, it was hilarious :P
Today I've not been out of the house, but my mum's friend G came round again this morning for a little while.
Tomorrow I am going to go to the cinema with mum to see Valentine's Day. Jonathan Ross didn't give it a very good review on Film 2010, but me and mum want to give it a try anyway. And even if it's not a great film we'll enjoy spotting all the famous actors in it. Last week the opticians rang up and and asked if I would mind changing my eye test from last Thur because I was my optician's only appt that day, so if I rescheduled then she could have the day off. I said that would be fine, so my eye test is coming up on Thur of this week. And on Fri Claire is coming round again. Next Sun we are going out for a meal with the extended family to celebrate my uncle and his wife's wedding anniversary (but I'm not sure how many years). I'm quite nervous about it. I'm not comfortable eating in public (due to lack of cutlery skills, not being very confident with new foods and wearing braces) and although some of my extended family is lovely, some of them are odd. Hopefully it will go ok. My initial reaction on hearing about it was that I wasn't going to go, but I've been talked into it by mum and dad. My Nan will be there, but I'm not sure who else. The uncle who's wedding anniversary this is for is the one who wasn't very understanding about my ME when we met him at my Nan's the other week.
Long overdue update - part 1
I'm sorry I've not updated in a while. Rosie told me off for neglecting my blog, I really will try to update more regularly in future, but I know I keep saying that and not actually doing it! :P I dread to think how long this update is going to be, so please feel free to read part of it, go away and do something and then come back to read a bit more. This is quite daunting for me to write - I've got a list of notes and don't know where to start to make them into a coherent blog! I never know whether to write my blog in a day by day account or whether to try to group similar things together and write it that way. Any suggestions as to which you prefer reading? I think I'm going to try a bit of both this time. I need to try to update regularly because the longer I leave it the more daunting it gets so I just put it off and so it gets even worse :P
I've just finished writing my update and it's much too long to publish as one post - I think it'd scare people away! :P So I'm going to split it up into sections (going out, medical and other) and post them up one at a time til my full update has been published. It makes sense to post 'going out' up first, but it's very long, so I'm going to post up half of it here and the other half tonight.
This is a bit random, but this time 12 months ago I was in Japan! :D Just wanted to share that with you :)
I've been out quite a few times since I last updated my blog. On Fri 5th I attended the first meeting of a new discussion group for teenagers in the village. I was very nervous about it beforehand as it would mean being sociable, probably with some people I'd never met before as well as people I knew, and I'd been feeling exhausted that day - probably still from attending my Pathways to Internet and going to the cinema on the Wed (3rd). I felt better by the evening though so managed to attend. And it wasn't too bad at all, phew! It was much more informal than I expected. There weren't many of us there (probably because it was invitation only) – A (the odd lady from the village) who provided the food (including some weird soup that was wheat free, gluten free and dairy free!), B (who had studied philosophy so guided the discussion), me, V (who I know and get on well with) and a boy called M (who knew V a bit, but I didn't know him. He was a bit odd). We watched a 10min video made by a strongly religious man in Canada and then discussed it using prompts from a booklet. The discussion was very religious, so it was quite interesting with me being the only atheist there! :P I did feel at some points like A might be trying to convert me, but I stood my ground! A and B are strongly Christian, V believes in a God but probably not the God that Christians believe in and M said he wasn't sure, but he attends church regularly. The first discussion was all about suffering and why God makes us suffer etc. I thought they might have been better to start with something slightly less religious - I think they were surprised that I was an atheist! I was asked at one point about why I didn't believe in God, which I'd never really given much thought before, but I think I explained it well. When I was younger my logical brain told me that there couldn't be a God, but I was never sure. I used to attend church every week with Lizzy and her family as they are all Christian. Then I think the thing that made me decide that I definitely didn't believe in God, was seeing so many young children suffering and some dying when I was in hospital for my transplant. If there was a God I don't think that would happen. But that was challenged because B pointed out that as a Christian she believes that there is much more after death, but I don't believe that. Apparently I came over as quite passionate whereas M came over as very laid back about everything. He attends a private school and had obviously had a very easy and sheltered upbringing. I felt like hitting him at one point when he said that if children suffer and die young then it's just their bad luck! What an idiot. It was interesting though and some of it was a laugh. I'm going to give it another try next month.
On Sat 6th I was exhausted so didn't go out of the house. I rarely sleep in the day as it almost always makes me feel worse afterwards, but I gave in and had a nod on Sat. Unsurprisingly I felt rotten when I woke up.
On Sun 7th I had been hoping to go to London to attend an invitation only drinks and nibbles event at Holly C's photography exhibition. I didn't feel too bad when I woke on Sun but couldn't predict how I would feel later. And so because I had a very busy week coming up I decided I would be sensible and not go because I didn't know how I'd feel while out and I had no idea how long it would take me to recover afterwards. I'm really disappointed that I wasn't able to see Holly's exhibition but am going to purchase a copy of the accompanying book. You can find out more about Holly's exhibition on her photography blog here.
On Sun I really felt like I needed to get out of the house though, so me and mum decided to have a look at a new Hobbycraft that had opened locally just the day before. So we found the postcode on the website and put it into our sat nav. Out sat nav couldn't find a match for that postcode so we went with the closest postcode and set off. We ended up in an industrial estate with no sign of a Hobbycraft. And in this industrial estate there were lots of other cars turning round or stopping to look at maps! We rang dad at home who checked we'd got the right postcode. Then he phoned Hobbycraft to ask where their shop actually was. It turned out they'd got the postcode wrong and since they'd opened the day before they'd had more than 500 phone calls about it! So dad directed us over the phone and we found the location of the Hobbycraft in a little area with lots of other new shops. The car park was awfully designed and couldn't cope with the volume of traffic wanting to visit the new shops - the cars coming out couldn't get out because of the cars going in, but the cars going in couldn't get in because of the cars coming out! We eventually parked and headed for the shops.
As well as a Hobbycraft shop there was also a cookware shop, a pet shop, a garden centre, a discount book shop... We went in the discount bookshop first where mum bought a book for Alf for his birthday (coming up on March 3rd) and then went to Hobbycraft. Mum bought some yarn (surprise surprise) and I bought 3 rubber stampers for card making, a little mosaic kit to try and some 3D stickers to send to Kate. Before we left we had something to drink in the cafe in the garden centre there. By the time we left at 4.30pm the car park was almost empty. There were big queues when we got near home though due to a major road being shut for work, so loads of traffic was diverted onto out route. We listened to the chart on the radio though and it didn't take us too long to get home.
On Mon 8th I went to the post office in the morning to post off a parcel to my cousin Tam for her birthday. I made her a birthday card the night before. I hadn't made any cards in ages, but made a simple, but nice one for Tam. The outside looked fine, but then I messed it up when I muddled up my letters writing inside! Some sticky labels covered it ok though. In the parcel I also included a bracelet I'd bought her for her birthday. Tam lives on the Isles of Scilly which are a group of islands just off the tip off Cornwall. What a palaver it was at the post office trying to post it! I've posted her stuff before, I always send her a little something for her birthdays and Christmases, and I've never had any trouble in the past. The more experienced post office lady was busy serving someone else, so I was served by the other one. They're both nice though. She thought that the Isles of Scilly would just be normal postage (which it has been before) but decided to check on her computer. And she even had to ask me where the Isles of Scilly were! She then told me that it would cost 81p (more than normal) and also gave me an airmail sticker to put on it. I thought that was odd as post is usually taken across on the boat. But I went with it. Then I had to fill out a customs sticker (which I've never had to do before) to stick on the parcel. On it I had to write what was in the parcel and the value of it which was frustrating as it is a birthday present and now Tam knows how much it cost and will also know what's in it before she opens it! Grrr. When I looked at the receipt I was given later that afternoon I noticed that it said 'Destination: Sicily'! The next day I went back to the post office to mention that and saw the more experienced lady. She offered to refund me the extra 20p I'd been charged, but I said that was fine. She said that it would probably get there ok as it was addressed correctly and had extra postage on. The customs sticker wasn't necessary though. I heard from Tam since and it has got to her ok. I hope she likes it when she opens it tomorrow on her birthday. Hopefully next time I send her a parcel it'll go more smoothly! :P
When I got back from the post office on Mon morn, my mum's friend G was round. They work together and also both knit, so I just stayed out of their way while they chatted. After lunch me and mum went into town (not the town we usually go to, but another just as local town). My dental check-up went fine and I got to see my dentist before she's goes off on maternity leave :) She recommended fluoride mouthwash to me while I have my braces, but I think I can't have it for medical reasons. I'll have to check that out though. And I took an ESA medical letter with me to prove that I was entitled to free check-ups, but that went fine and they just believed that I get ESA, they didn't even want to see my letter :)
Then me and mum browsed round the charity shops and some other shops. I bought a cross stitch kit to try and picked up free iPod cases in a sale in a shop for Catherine (as they'll fit her Nano). I tried to trade in my Wii Fit game (I don't need it now I've got Wii Fit Plus, but they wouldn't touch it because it's German (I imported a copy because when I wanted a copy there were none in the UK). It plays in English, but they said they wouldn't be able to sell it in German packagine. Never mind. I found all charity shops that were on my list from Pathways To Work to phone, minus one that had closed down. And I decided that when I phone them I'm not going to bother ringing Cats Protection, as that was a tiny claustrophobic shop situated in a position where I doubt anyone will ever find it! And if I'm volunteering my time for charity, I'd prefer it to be for a charity that helps people. We then stoppped off for drinks before doing a Waitrose shop. I was quite tired by the time we finished. On the way home I called in at the surgery. The weather that day was horrible, lots of sleet and snow, yuk! We could shelter inside though, that day Alf was involved in the lambing at college, so was outside all day! He didn't actually get to be involved with the birth of any lambs, but got to bottle feed some. Awwww.
On Tue 9th I only went out the house to the post office to tell them about the muddle with the parcel the day before and to post a letter and the stickers off to Kate. I also picked up a copy of the Radio Times at the shop.
After lunch on Wed 10th me and mum went to see Chris and Sophie (and their degus) in their new cottage. The cottage was lovely, but very cold. It has central heating, but it's not very good. And it's got a big coal fire which I'm sure will heat the cottage when Chris and Sophie work out how to use it! :P Because the cottage is quite old, the doorways are low. When we were having a tour round, me, mum and Sophie had no problems as we're all quite short. But Chris, who is about 6 foot, had to duck to get through every doorway :P They seemed very happy there though, which is the most important thing. They told us the story of how they decided where to place the degus. They originally put the cage next to the stairs, but the degus hated it when the stairs were used and wouldn't stop squeaking. So they moved the cage to next to the window which the degus liked as it meant they could sit in the sun. But the degus pulled the curtain through the bars of the cage and shredded it, lol.
When we got back home on Wed I nipped out to the surgery to pick up my apple high calorie puddings. I've now had a few and although they're not quite as nice as the strawberry ones they're not bad at all, so now I can alternate between the 2 flavours. Then Claire came round :) We chatted for a bit, Claire stayed for tea and we played on New Super Mario Bros Wii together. Then along with mum we went out to the cinema to see Up In The Air. I had a lovely evening, but I thought the film was disappointing. It was predictable and really dragged on in some places. It was also not as funny as I'd expected it to be from the trailer. And at the ending it felt like the main character hadn't changed from the start of the film, which wasn't very satisfying.
I've just finished writing my update and it's much too long to publish as one post - I think it'd scare people away! :P So I'm going to split it up into sections (going out, medical and other) and post them up one at a time til my full update has been published. It makes sense to post 'going out' up first, but it's very long, so I'm going to post up half of it here and the other half tonight.
This is a bit random, but this time 12 months ago I was in Japan! :D Just wanted to share that with you :)
I've been out quite a few times since I last updated my blog. On Fri 5th I attended the first meeting of a new discussion group for teenagers in the village. I was very nervous about it beforehand as it would mean being sociable, probably with some people I'd never met before as well as people I knew, and I'd been feeling exhausted that day - probably still from attending my Pathways to Internet and going to the cinema on the Wed (3rd). I felt better by the evening though so managed to attend. And it wasn't too bad at all, phew! It was much more informal than I expected. There weren't many of us there (probably because it was invitation only) – A (the odd lady from the village) who provided the food (including some weird soup that was wheat free, gluten free and dairy free!), B (who had studied philosophy so guided the discussion), me, V (who I know and get on well with) and a boy called M (who knew V a bit, but I didn't know him. He was a bit odd). We watched a 10min video made by a strongly religious man in Canada and then discussed it using prompts from a booklet. The discussion was very religious, so it was quite interesting with me being the only atheist there! :P I did feel at some points like A might be trying to convert me, but I stood my ground! A and B are strongly Christian, V believes in a God but probably not the God that Christians believe in and M said he wasn't sure, but he attends church regularly. The first discussion was all about suffering and why God makes us suffer etc. I thought they might have been better to start with something slightly less religious - I think they were surprised that I was an atheist! I was asked at one point about why I didn't believe in God, which I'd never really given much thought before, but I think I explained it well. When I was younger my logical brain told me that there couldn't be a God, but I was never sure. I used to attend church every week with Lizzy and her family as they are all Christian. Then I think the thing that made me decide that I definitely didn't believe in God, was seeing so many young children suffering and some dying when I was in hospital for my transplant. If there was a God I don't think that would happen. But that was challenged because B pointed out that as a Christian she believes that there is much more after death, but I don't believe that. Apparently I came over as quite passionate whereas M came over as very laid back about everything. He attends a private school and had obviously had a very easy and sheltered upbringing. I felt like hitting him at one point when he said that if children suffer and die young then it's just their bad luck! What an idiot. It was interesting though and some of it was a laugh. I'm going to give it another try next month.
On Sat 6th I was exhausted so didn't go out of the house. I rarely sleep in the day as it almost always makes me feel worse afterwards, but I gave in and had a nod on Sat. Unsurprisingly I felt rotten when I woke up.
On Sun 7th I had been hoping to go to London to attend an invitation only drinks and nibbles event at Holly C's photography exhibition. I didn't feel too bad when I woke on Sun but couldn't predict how I would feel later. And so because I had a very busy week coming up I decided I would be sensible and not go because I didn't know how I'd feel while out and I had no idea how long it would take me to recover afterwards. I'm really disappointed that I wasn't able to see Holly's exhibition but am going to purchase a copy of the accompanying book. You can find out more about Holly's exhibition on her photography blog here.
On Sun I really felt like I needed to get out of the house though, so me and mum decided to have a look at a new Hobbycraft that had opened locally just the day before. So we found the postcode on the website and put it into our sat nav. Out sat nav couldn't find a match for that postcode so we went with the closest postcode and set off. We ended up in an industrial estate with no sign of a Hobbycraft. And in this industrial estate there were lots of other cars turning round or stopping to look at maps! We rang dad at home who checked we'd got the right postcode. Then he phoned Hobbycraft to ask where their shop actually was. It turned out they'd got the postcode wrong and since they'd opened the day before they'd had more than 500 phone calls about it! So dad directed us over the phone and we found the location of the Hobbycraft in a little area with lots of other new shops. The car park was awfully designed and couldn't cope with the volume of traffic wanting to visit the new shops - the cars coming out couldn't get out because of the cars going in, but the cars going in couldn't get in because of the cars coming out! We eventually parked and headed for the shops.
As well as a Hobbycraft shop there was also a cookware shop, a pet shop, a garden centre, a discount book shop... We went in the discount bookshop first where mum bought a book for Alf for his birthday (coming up on March 3rd) and then went to Hobbycraft. Mum bought some yarn (surprise surprise) and I bought 3 rubber stampers for card making, a little mosaic kit to try and some 3D stickers to send to Kate. Before we left we had something to drink in the cafe in the garden centre there. By the time we left at 4.30pm the car park was almost empty. There were big queues when we got near home though due to a major road being shut for work, so loads of traffic was diverted onto out route. We listened to the chart on the radio though and it didn't take us too long to get home.
On Mon 8th I went to the post office in the morning to post off a parcel to my cousin Tam for her birthday. I made her a birthday card the night before. I hadn't made any cards in ages, but made a simple, but nice one for Tam. The outside looked fine, but then I messed it up when I muddled up my letters writing inside! Some sticky labels covered it ok though. In the parcel I also included a bracelet I'd bought her for her birthday. Tam lives on the Isles of Scilly which are a group of islands just off the tip off Cornwall. What a palaver it was at the post office trying to post it! I've posted her stuff before, I always send her a little something for her birthdays and Christmases, and I've never had any trouble in the past. The more experienced post office lady was busy serving someone else, so I was served by the other one. They're both nice though. She thought that the Isles of Scilly would just be normal postage (which it has been before) but decided to check on her computer. And she even had to ask me where the Isles of Scilly were! She then told me that it would cost 81p (more than normal) and also gave me an airmail sticker to put on it. I thought that was odd as post is usually taken across on the boat. But I went with it. Then I had to fill out a customs sticker (which I've never had to do before) to stick on the parcel. On it I had to write what was in the parcel and the value of it which was frustrating as it is a birthday present and now Tam knows how much it cost and will also know what's in it before she opens it! Grrr. When I looked at the receipt I was given later that afternoon I noticed that it said 'Destination: Sicily'! The next day I went back to the post office to mention that and saw the more experienced lady. She offered to refund me the extra 20p I'd been charged, but I said that was fine. She said that it would probably get there ok as it was addressed correctly and had extra postage on. The customs sticker wasn't necessary though. I heard from Tam since and it has got to her ok. I hope she likes it when she opens it tomorrow on her birthday. Hopefully next time I send her a parcel it'll go more smoothly! :P
When I got back from the post office on Mon morn, my mum's friend G was round. They work together and also both knit, so I just stayed out of their way while they chatted. After lunch me and mum went into town (not the town we usually go to, but another just as local town). My dental check-up went fine and I got to see my dentist before she's goes off on maternity leave :) She recommended fluoride mouthwash to me while I have my braces, but I think I can't have it for medical reasons. I'll have to check that out though. And I took an ESA medical letter with me to prove that I was entitled to free check-ups, but that went fine and they just believed that I get ESA, they didn't even want to see my letter :)
Then me and mum browsed round the charity shops and some other shops. I bought a cross stitch kit to try and picked up free iPod cases in a sale in a shop for Catherine (as they'll fit her Nano). I tried to trade in my Wii Fit game (I don't need it now I've got Wii Fit Plus, but they wouldn't touch it because it's German (I imported a copy because when I wanted a copy there were none in the UK). It plays in English, but they said they wouldn't be able to sell it in German packagine. Never mind. I found all charity shops that were on my list from Pathways To Work to phone, minus one that had closed down. And I decided that when I phone them I'm not going to bother ringing Cats Protection, as that was a tiny claustrophobic shop situated in a position where I doubt anyone will ever find it! And if I'm volunteering my time for charity, I'd prefer it to be for a charity that helps people. We then stoppped off for drinks before doing a Waitrose shop. I was quite tired by the time we finished. On the way home I called in at the surgery. The weather that day was horrible, lots of sleet and snow, yuk! We could shelter inside though, that day Alf was involved in the lambing at college, so was outside all day! He didn't actually get to be involved with the birth of any lambs, but got to bottle feed some. Awwww.
On Tue 9th I only went out the house to the post office to tell them about the muddle with the parcel the day before and to post a letter and the stickers off to Kate. I also picked up a copy of the Radio Times at the shop.
After lunch on Wed 10th me and mum went to see Chris and Sophie (and their degus) in their new cottage. The cottage was lovely, but very cold. It has central heating, but it's not very good. And it's got a big coal fire which I'm sure will heat the cottage when Chris and Sophie work out how to use it! :P Because the cottage is quite old, the doorways are low. When we were having a tour round, me, mum and Sophie had no problems as we're all quite short. But Chris, who is about 6 foot, had to duck to get through every doorway :P They seemed very happy there though, which is the most important thing. They told us the story of how they decided where to place the degus. They originally put the cage next to the stairs, but the degus hated it when the stairs were used and wouldn't stop squeaking. So they moved the cage to next to the window which the degus liked as it meant they could sit in the sun. But the degus pulled the curtain through the bars of the cage and shredded it, lol.
When we got back home on Wed I nipped out to the surgery to pick up my apple high calorie puddings. I've now had a few and although they're not quite as nice as the strawberry ones they're not bad at all, so now I can alternate between the 2 flavours. Then Claire came round :) We chatted for a bit, Claire stayed for tea and we played on New Super Mario Bros Wii together. Then along with mum we went out to the cinema to see Up In The Air. I had a lovely evening, but I thought the film was disappointing. It was predictable and really dragged on in some places. It was also not as funny as I'd expected it to be from the trailer. And at the ending it felt like the main character hadn't changed from the start of the film, which wasn't very satisfying.
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Random Meme
I stole this from Emma :)
1. Where is your cell phone?
1. Where is your cell phone?
Upstairs on my chest of drawers. I'm not expecting any texts at the moment. I'd probably hear it from here though as the text tone is very loud :P
2. Your eyes?
Dark brown. Looking at my laptop monitor while I type this. Occassionally looking at mum and Claire who are also knitting and chatting here.
3. Your mother?
Across the dining room table from me, knitting as usual.
4. Your father?
In the living room watching Top Gear. Now as I finish this he's watching the winter olympics.
5. Your favourite food?
I don't like food at the moment
6. Your dream last night?
Can't remember
7. Your favourite drink?
Milk
8. Your dream/goal?
To be happy and healthy
9. What room are you in?
Dining room
10. Your hobbies?
Listening to music, going to concerts, watching DVDs, surfing the Internet, playing on my Wii and DSi, spending time with friends and family, blogging and raising awareness of organ donation.
11. Your fears?
Death. And I'm claustrophobic.
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years time?
In good health, working in a job I like, in a relationship, maybe have children (I'd love them at somepoint, but I'm not sure when) and have a dog :D
13. Where were you last night?
At home
14. Something you aren't?
Laid back
15. Muffins?
Not very keen
16. Wish list items?
More DVDs I think :P And Wii and DS games are good :) I can't wait for Marina and the Diamonds' debut album to be released a week tomorrow :D
17. Where did you grow up?
The same house I live in now, I've lived here all my life
18. Last thing you did?
Before this I was chatting to my mum and Claire and before that me and Claire were playing on the Wii together :D
19. What are you wearing?
Fluffy slipper boots, leggings under jeans, vest, black poloneck, Little Boots t-shirt and jacket thing. Can you tell that I feel the cold?! :P
20. Your TV?
Is in my bedroom, which is where I spend a lot of time now I've got it just right :)
21. Your pets?
None at the moment. I wish I could have a dog but I'm not allowed while I still live at home. Have had a dog, cats, stick insects and a hamster in the past.
22. Your friends?
I have 4 very close friends who I see in real life. And I've got lots of good friends that I've met through the online transplant and ME communities :)
23. Your life?
Is good, but my health could be better
24. Your mood?
Feel like I should be happy, but am not completely. Stressed about ESA stuff at the moment.
25. Missing someone?
I wish my friend Lizzy lived nearer
26. Vehicle?
I don't drive
27. Something you're not wearing?
Coat, but am often tempted when I'm very cold! :P
28. Your favourite store?
I can't decide. I like HMV, Game, Gamestation, Amazon, Play.com, Zavvi... Places that sell DVDs and/or Wii & DS games :D
29. Your favourite colour?
Purple
30. When was the last time you laughed?
About 30mins ago when I was playing on the Wii with Claire :D
31. Last time you cried?
Last night
32. Your best friend?
Lives too far away but I hope to see her again soon
33. One place you go over and over?
Hospital, unfortunately :(
34. One person who emails regularly?
Rosie
35. Favourite place to eat?
Japanese restaurants like Wagamama and Yo Sushi
2. Your eyes?
Dark brown. Looking at my laptop monitor while I type this. Occassionally looking at mum and Claire who are also knitting and chatting here.
3. Your mother?
Across the dining room table from me, knitting as usual.
4. Your father?
In the living room watching Top Gear. Now as I finish this he's watching the winter olympics.
5. Your favourite food?
I don't like food at the moment
6. Your dream last night?
Can't remember
7. Your favourite drink?
Milk
8. Your dream/goal?
To be happy and healthy
9. What room are you in?
Dining room
10. Your hobbies?
Listening to music, going to concerts, watching DVDs, surfing the Internet, playing on my Wii and DSi, spending time with friends and family, blogging and raising awareness of organ donation.
11. Your fears?
Death. And I'm claustrophobic.
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years time?
In good health, working in a job I like, in a relationship, maybe have children (I'd love them at somepoint, but I'm not sure when) and have a dog :D
13. Where were you last night?
At home
14. Something you aren't?
Laid back
15. Muffins?
Not very keen
16. Wish list items?
More DVDs I think :P And Wii and DS games are good :) I can't wait for Marina and the Diamonds' debut album to be released a week tomorrow :D
17. Where did you grow up?
The same house I live in now, I've lived here all my life
18. Last thing you did?
Before this I was chatting to my mum and Claire and before that me and Claire were playing on the Wii together :D
19. What are you wearing?
Fluffy slipper boots, leggings under jeans, vest, black poloneck, Little Boots t-shirt and jacket thing. Can you tell that I feel the cold?! :P
20. Your TV?
Is in my bedroom, which is where I spend a lot of time now I've got it just right :)
21. Your pets?
None at the moment. I wish I could have a dog but I'm not allowed while I still live at home. Have had a dog, cats, stick insects and a hamster in the past.
22. Your friends?
I have 4 very close friends who I see in real life. And I've got lots of good friends that I've met through the online transplant and ME communities :)
23. Your life?
Is good, but my health could be better
24. Your mood?
Feel like I should be happy, but am not completely. Stressed about ESA stuff at the moment.
25. Missing someone?
I wish my friend Lizzy lived nearer
26. Vehicle?
I don't drive
27. Something you're not wearing?
Coat, but am often tempted when I'm very cold! :P
28. Your favourite store?
I can't decide. I like HMV, Game, Gamestation, Amazon, Play.com, Zavvi... Places that sell DVDs and/or Wii & DS games :D
29. Your favourite colour?
Purple
30. When was the last time you laughed?
About 30mins ago when I was playing on the Wii with Claire :D
31. Last time you cried?
Last night
32. Your best friend?
Lives too far away but I hope to see her again soon
33. One place you go over and over?
Hospital, unfortunately :(
34. One person who emails regularly?
Rosie
35. Favourite place to eat?
Japanese restaurants like Wagamama and Yo Sushi
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