I'm sorry I've left it so long to update, I just seem to have had a really busy couple of weeks. Getting up to date will take a few updates so I've decided that starting from tonight, each evening I'm going to type up some of my notes for a set amount of time and then post up what I've written. This way hopefully it won't be too daunting for me and won't be too long for you to read either. Fingers crossed! So part 2 will hopefully be up tomorrow evening.
I'm not sure where to start, hehe. Think I'll do a bit about my health first :)
After I last emailed my dieticians my weight, as I said in a past blog update they said that I could now start weighing myself monthly. I was a bit concerned about how much weight I could potentially lose in a month, so agreed to that but decided to weigh myself fortnightly at home. On Tue 20th April I weighed myself and my weight had risen 0.4kg in a fortnight up to 53.7kg :) Next Tue (4th May) I'll weigh myself again and email my weight to my dieticians.
I had to chase up Hosp B about my Tac level, but when I did I was told that it was 6.9, which is perfect as my target Tac level is 5 to 8. That'll be rechecked with the rest of my bloods at the start of June. I also received a Tac delivery from the homecare company that supply me with it, so I've got plenty now.
I've still not heard back from S, the tx co-ordinator at Hosp A. I'm meant to be completing my transition on 7th June, which is now just 5 and a half weeks away, and yet nothing more has been sorted since my last clinic (8 and a half weeks ago) and the lack of communication from the team at Hosp A is more of a concern than it's ever been! Following the last transition clinic at the start of March, S asked me to email her about how everything currently works under Hosp B. I sent that email on 22nd March and on 23rd March S replied. She said that everything looked similar to how it'll work at Hosp A so she thought transition would be simple. She then said that she would be away for a week from the following day but would be in touch when she got back. Since then I've heard nothing. I sent S an email on 20th April just saying that I hoped she'd had a nice week off and a lovely Easter. So not really chasing her up, just reminding her that I'm here. She's not replied, so within the next few days I'm going to send her a more specific email asking for a reply to my email from 22nd March. This is not helping my confidence in the transition!
At my transition clinic in March I asked my consultant for another referral to the gynaecologist there. I saw her previously but at that point everything was fine so she said she didn't need to see me again. I'm currently taking a form of the Pill called Cerazette because I was diagnosed with an ovarian cyst (using just an ultrasound scan) in Dec 2007 after being admitted to hospital monthly for a few months with intense pains that I required IV Morphine for. I was started on the Pill after that and haven't had the pains since. After I started on the Pill my periods continued to be very heavy (they always had been) and became more irregular. After talking to my GP about this he recommended doubling my dose of the Pill which he said would stop my periods, so I did this. It has stopped my periods for the most part but in Feb I was on my period for 3 weeks of the month and I've been surprised with one or two more random periods since then. So hopefully the gynaecologist will have some suggestions. I received an appt letter a couple of weeks ago for an appt on a Tue in June. My mum works on Tues' but Chris said him or Sophie will be able to give me a lift.
My tummy pains do seem to have improved since starting on the Spasmonal and Amitriptyline that I was prescribed at my last clinic. I'm still getting them and they're still very painful some days, but I think generally they're slightly less infrequent and slightly less painful. I gave up taking the Spasmonal about a week ago because from accidentally missing a few doses I realised it wasn't doing anything. I'm continuing with the Amitriptyline though and will talk to my consultant at Hosp A about it when I see him again in May. It was also hoped that the Amitriptyline would help my nocturnalism but it hasn't and I'm still as nocturnal as ever. And no matter how late I get to bed I always lie there for an hour or so before falling asleep.
From last night til this afternoon I felt constantly dizzy which is something that's never happened to me before. It was especially bad when I was in bed trying to get to sleep last night, it felt like I was moving. I have no idea why it happened but hopefully it wont come back again, fingers crossed.
My heels have been playing up a lot recently and the heel cushions and arch supports I bought for my shoes don't appear to be making any difference at all. They're often very painful when I've done a little bit of walking, though not always. And sometimes they're painful for no reason at all. But I had a physio appt last week (which I'll write more about later in another update) and the physio I saw said that she'll have a look at my feet when I see her again in a couple of weeks. I really hope she'll have some suggestions.
Although it's lovely to see some sun and not be cold all the time my body doesn't seem to react very well to the heat at all. When I'm out on a warm or hot day I often feel very lethargic, headachy and generally quite ill. But if it's cool or cold I'm constantly freezing. I can't win! :P I wore loads of layers over the winter but over the last few weeks I've gradually lost a few of them. I'm now no longer wearing leggings under my jeans or t-shirts over my polonecks :) I am still in polonecks though and still wearing vests for now :P
I've had my ears pierced for about 8 years now and my piercings have always been fine, I've never had any problems at all - up til now. Over the last couple of months my piercings have got very sore after wearing some earrings - not infected, just sore. I've tried wearing different earrings, including some that I was quite sure were gold, but my ears are still getting sore. I've had no earrings in for the last week or so because it seems that's all I can do at the mo. I'm going to try to find some that I'm certain are gold and see how they go.
My energy levels and levels of exhaustion have been up and down as usual. Surprisingly I coped quite well with my hectic fortnight, but did have some bad days.
I'll blog again tomorrow :)
Friday, 30 April 2010
Friday, 23 April 2010
Quick message
I just wanted to reassure you that I'm ok. Sorry I've not managed to update my blog for a couple of weeks, I've just been really busy as you can see here. Doing so much has been exhausting, but I'm sure I'll be ok after some rest. Tomorrow is the last day in my busy few weeks, so once I've recovered from tomorrow (spending the day with my friend Lizzy and her very energetic almost 4 year old daughter) I'll try to write an update.
Sunday, 18 April 2010
The Meme Time Meme
I've taken this meme from the Sunday Stealing blog.
01. Real First Name: Molly
02. Birthday: 12th Sept 1990
03. Where do you live: I'm not telling you :P
04: What are you studying/What are you working as: I'm not well enough to work or study at the mo :( But I am trying some charity shop volunteering very part time.
05. What makes you happy: Being with my close friends and/or family. Listening to Mika's music, watching his DVDs or seeing him in concert :)
06. What are you listening to now/have listened to last: I last listened to The Family Jewels by Marina and the Diamonds.
07. What is particularly good/bad about your blog: Hmmm. My readers would be able to answer that better than me.
08. An interesting fact about you: I can turn over the pages of a book one handed. It's a skill I taught myself when I was in hospital when I was younger as it enabled me to carry on reading novels when I had a cannula in my left hand ;)
09. Are you in love/have a crush at the moment: I have a crush on Mika <3
10. Favorite place to be: My bedroom, it's perfect
11. Favorite lyric: I don't know about a single lyric but I love the lyrics to Affirmation by Savage Garden. You can listen to the song and see the video on Youtube here and you can read the lyrics here.
12. Best time of the year: I don't know
13. Weirdest food you like: I don't think I like any weird foods, but I do love Marmite, which lots of people hate.
RECOMMEND
01. A film: Little Miss Sunshine
02. A book: My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult, Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden or Before I Die by Jenny Downham
03. A song: Mowgli's Road by Marina and the Diamonds
04: A band: Not sure about a band, but an artist would be Mika ;)
PLUS
01. One thing you like about a blogger that you have not met: How do I choose which blogger to write about?! Ok, I'll go with Lou, I love her optimism :)
02. Two things you like about yourself: I'm a loyal friend and I've tried my best to raise awareness of organ donation.
03. Name three things that you need in a lover: Someone who likes me for who I am - faults and all, someone loyal and they'd have to like or at least not mind Mika's music! :P
01. Real First Name: Molly
02. Birthday: 12th Sept 1990
03. Where do you live: I'm not telling you :P
04: What are you studying/What are you working as: I'm not well enough to work or study at the mo :( But I am trying some charity shop volunteering very part time.
05. What makes you happy: Being with my close friends and/or family. Listening to Mika's music, watching his DVDs or seeing him in concert :)
06. What are you listening to now/have listened to last: I last listened to The Family Jewels by Marina and the Diamonds.
07. What is particularly good/bad about your blog: Hmmm. My readers would be able to answer that better than me.
08. An interesting fact about you: I can turn over the pages of a book one handed. It's a skill I taught myself when I was in hospital when I was younger as it enabled me to carry on reading novels when I had a cannula in my left hand ;)
09. Are you in love/have a crush at the moment: I have a crush on Mika <3
10. Favorite place to be: My bedroom, it's perfect
11. Favorite lyric: I don't know about a single lyric but I love the lyrics to Affirmation by Savage Garden. You can listen to the song and see the video on Youtube here and you can read the lyrics here.
12. Best time of the year: I don't know
13. Weirdest food you like: I don't think I like any weird foods, but I do love Marmite, which lots of people hate.
RECOMMEND
01. A film: Little Miss Sunshine
02. A book: My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult, Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden or Before I Die by Jenny Downham
03. A song: Mowgli's Road by Marina and the Diamonds
04: A band: Not sure about a band, but an artist would be Mika ;)
PLUS
01. One thing you like about a blogger that you have not met: How do I choose which blogger to write about?! Ok, I'll go with Lou, I love her optimism :)
02. Two things you like about yourself: I'm a loyal friend and I've tried my best to raise awareness of organ donation.
03. Name three things that you need in a lover: Someone who likes me for who I am - faults and all, someone loyal and they'd have to like or at least not mind Mika's music! :P
Monday, 12 April 2010
Organ donation in the news, trips out, an AYME meet-up and politics
Whoops for leaving it so long since my last update again. Looking at my notes from this week I think this update shouldn't be too long, but I never know until I've finished writing it, so fingers crossed.
At the end of last week I developed a rash on my hands and face after going in the sun, despite having factor 50 suncream on. At first I assumed it was a reaction to the sun, but after using a different suncream it seems more likely that it was a reaction to the suncream I used.
I forgot to weigh myself last Tue morn, so did it on Wed instead. My weight was 53.3kg, which was 0.3kg more than the previous week but exactly the same as the week before. It was the week I have to email my dieticians so I let them both know. My Hosp B dietician replied promptly and said she was impressed with how stable my weight was so would be happy for me to weigh myself monthly now. My dietician from Hosp A took a bit longer to reply as she was away for Easter, but she was happy with that too, so I don't need to email them my weight again until May. I'm a bit concerned about how much weight I could potentially lose in a month if I was to start losing weight, so I'm going to weigh myself fortnightly at home for the time being.
Last Wed I took some blood at home from a fingerprick and posted it off to Hosp B for them to check my Tac levels from. I also phoned them to let them know that the blood sample was on its way. I've not heard the result yet, so will chase them up about it later this week.
On Tue I got a phone call from the company who currently deliver my Tac asking how much I had in stock so they could decide if I needed another delivery or not. I was out at the time so they said they'd phone back the next day. They rang back on Wed while I was still in bed, so mum took the phone call. They'll deliver some more Tac a week on Wed.
Rachy is still continuing to make steady progress, so don't forget to keep following her updates here. Rachy had an article in her local paper last week which you can see here.
You may have seen that there was a story about organ donation all over the news yesterday. You can see the story on the Telegraph website here. It's a shame that the media seem to have completely blown the story out of proportion, I really hope it doesn't put people off registering to be an organ donor. You can read LLTGL's blog response here and Sarah has also written about it in her latest blog update here.
Once again I seem to have been quite busy since my last update. On Wed I went into Barnardo's for an hour. For the whole time I was there I was hanging clothes up, which got quite boring. It was very busy and noisy because there were lots of volunteers in. I was the only one doing any work though, the rest of them were just chatting. At least I didn't knock over any boxes of size cubes this time! When I'd finished I wandered round the charity shops in town. From Barnardo's I bought a copy of the DVD Nicholas' Gift which I'd rented and watched just a couple of weeks ago. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I get a staff discount of 20%. In another charity shop I picked up Jungle Book on DVD. I saw a PS1 game in a charity shop that I bought on eBay recently for significantly more money, but never mind.
On Thur it was lovely and sunny so me and mum decided not to go to the cinema but instead to wander round a local town that I'd not been to for a while. While we were out we stopped for drinks and found 7 charity shops :) In the charity shops I bought a book called Ten Thousand Sorrows by Elizabeth Kim for 75p, The Weakest Link PS1 game for £1 and 2 DVDs (Maybe Baby and Silkwood) for just 19p each as they'd originally come free with newspapers. In one of the charity shops I saw a woman who was there with her daughter. This lady was quite demanding with the shop assistants and rude to her daughter. When her daughter was talking to her she responded with 'Am I bothered?' just like the Catherine Tate character, but she wasn't doing it as a joke, that was her genuine response! :P While we were out we also bumped into a lovely nurse from Hosp H that we used to know well, so it was nice to have a quick chat to her.
On Fri morn before I got up, mum and dad went out to a fishing shop in a local city to look for a fishing bag to carry mum's giant knitting needles. They found the perfect one. Alf had planned to go to the cinema with his friends that evening, but they decided to go in the afternoon instead. They couldn't contact Alf because his mobile phone battery was flat, so they just turned up at our house at 12.30pm. Of course at this point Alf was still in bed, so there was chaos as he tried to get himself up and ready to go, especially as I was in the shower at this point! He got out eventually though and enjoyed seeing the film Kick Ass with his college friends.
On Fri aft Claire came round. We did lots of chatting, played a great card game called Ligretto, watched the DVD Coraline together and played on New Super Mario Bros Wii. As well as playing on New Super Mario Bros Wii with Claire, I've also played on it a bit on my own this week and am getting closer to completing it :) Claire is coming round again tomorrow and we're going to see if we can finish it, fingers crossed! I've bought myself a new Wii game this week from Amazon called Boom Blox Bash Party, so hopefully that'll be delivered later this week. I've not played on my PS2 for a little while, but am looking forward to playing on it again :)
On Fri night Alf went round to a friend's house in the village and none of us knew what time he'd be home. Usually we lock up and hide a key somewhere where he can find it to let himself in, but on Fri night the spare key seemed to have disappeared, so my parents decided to leave the door unlocked. At about 1am I was ready for bed, my parents were already asleep but Alf wasn't back yet. I didn't feel comfortable for the front door to be unlocked when we were all in bed, so I crept downstairs, found my spare key and put that out for Alf. I'd just locked the door and crept back upstairs and Alf came in!
On Sat I went to Lucy's AYME meet-up. To get there my parents drove me to a train station about 30mins away. I then got the train to Lucy's town, which took 40mins, where I met up with 2 other people and we shared a taxi to Lucy's house. There were 14 people (more than I expected) at the meet-up, so I became very shy and didn't talk much. I was very annoyed and upset at myself afterwards for that. No-one swapped seats either, so I didn't get chance to talk to some of the people I wanted to and one girl I was looking forward to seeing wasn't able to make it. I was quite tired while I was there, but I wasn't too bad. I'd not given my cat allergy a thought, but my eyes soon started watering thanks to Lucy's 4 cats! One part of the conversation that I found really funny was when some people started talking about blood tests. They'd clearly only ever had a couple of bloods tests because they were talking about cannulas blocking and needles missing veins like really unusual, traumatic events! I've experienced too many of them to count! I was quite tired when I got home, but felt ok the next day.
Yesterday morn some spare Glasto tickets went on sale. Dad had managed to get his and Alf's when they originally went on sale, but he'd not managed to get mum one. Luckily he got her one yesterday morning though. So at the end of June my parents and Alf will be going away to Glasto, which means I'll be at home alone for 6 days! That's exciting but a bit scary! If my health was better I might think about going to Glasto, but I'm not well enough to this year and to be honest I'm not too fussed about missing it - the yukky toilets, lack of showers and mud don't really appeal to me. So while the rest of my family are there in the mud I'll be watching the BBC coverage of it at home all cosy on the sofa :)
Yesterday morn we went to the local carboot sale again. It was much better than it's been for a while and I came home with loads. I bought a 500 piece dolphins jigsaw for 50p, a PS2 game (21 Card Games) for £1, a PS1 game (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) for 50p and 14 DVDs, all for £1 each! :D I bought 3 DVDs I've already seen - The Breakfast Club, Music and Lyrics and Rachel Getting Married. I bought 11 DVDs I've not seen before - The Pelican Brief, Brokeback Mountain, Clueless, Signs, The Blair Witch Project, Shakespeare in Love, iRobot, Becoming Jane, The Heartbreak Kid, P.S. I Love You and The Notebook. Mum bought the version of Pride and Prejudice featuring Colin Firth on DVD, some bits and pieces for herself and a book for me about films called Cinematherapy - The Girl's Guide to Movies for Every Mood, which was published in 1999, but still looks like I'll be able to get some DVD suggestions from it.
Yesterday afternoon we went to see my Nan but only stayed for about an hour and a half because dad wanted to get back to watch the football. Yesterday evening mum was listening to her iPod and was singing and dancing to Mika around the house and in the garden, but of course she was the only one who could hear the music! :P
Today my mum has gone to the library in the city to talk to an audience there about her knitting group to inspire them to set up their own. Mum wanted to take loads with her to show the people who come to her talk - her giant needles, lots of different types of yarn, lots of her knitted projects, a cushion she's just knitted etc - she'll be disappointed if only a few people turned up! She didn't have to carry her stuff too far as dad dropped her off as close to the library as he could, just outside the shopping centre that it's situated in, so she only had to walk through the shopping centre and up an escalator. To prevent her having to carry too many bags she put lots of stuff into a backpack. And she's got her giant needles in a fishing rod case. But she looks like a terrorist! Her backpack is one of the camouflage coloured Glasto ones and it's really big in comparison to my mum and the knitting needles in their case look rifle shaped! :P We were worried she might get arrested, but I've spoken to her on the phone and the shopping centre was very empty when she walked through it just before 9am this morning, so there was nobody there to get suspicious.
Last week dad heard that a local bike shop might have a vacancy so after much nagging Alf wrote them a letter to express his interest. Today my dad noticed that Alf had mistyped our phone number in the letter, so Alf phoned them to correct it. I've only been out to the surgery and local shop today. I've been relaxing this afternoon and don't have any plans for this evening. While I was writing this I had to go downstairs to ask Alf to turn his music down as even with my door closed I could hear it and it's horrible! So now he's very grumpy :P
On Wed there was an interesting piece on the local news about what the different political parties want to do about disability benefits. There was a disabled lady asking representatives from the different parties questions about how things will change for her if they get into power. This will be the first election I've been able to vote in, but rather than just copying my parents I wanted to know a bit about what the different parties believe and how their plans differ. However I struggled to find anything on the Internet that told me this in a way I could understand. A couple of days ago someone told me about a guide on the Telegraph website which helps you to find out how the different parties policies match your views. I didn't understand all of the questions in the guide, but I answered as many as I could. It said my views matched the Green Party 75% and matched Lib Dems 69%. My views least matched the Tories, but I didn't bother to include the BNP in my comparison. My parents vote Lib Dem and after looking at their policies in the guide I think I probably will too. The Telegraph guide is definitely worth having a look at, you can find it here.
I've not watched much on TV since my last update. When a programme name is displayed as a link on my blog, that link will take you to the place to watch it online if you're interested. I've watched Embarrassing Bodies: Charlotte's Story, the first episode of series 3 of Outnumbered (which was brilliant) and the second episode of series 3 of Ashes to Ashes twice :) I had to record Dr Who from Sat because I was out, but hope to watch it soon.
One of the DVDs I'm currently renting is the first series of the Catherine Tate Show, so I've watched the first 2 episodes of that. I've not decided what I think of it yet, but am going to persevere. Some of the sketches are funny, but some aren't.
As well as re-watching Coraline on DVD (which I love), I've also watched Sex and the City (which was better than I expected it to be), Little Women (the 1994 version with Winona Ryder, which was very good) and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (a predictable but funny romcom). I also attempted to watch The Pelican Brief, but wasn't able to follow it so I'll have to try it again when my brain is working a bit better.
On Tue night I listened to Taylor Swift through my pillow speaker, but it didn't help me sleep. On Wed I listened to some music from a CD called Temple in the Forest and I fell asleep while listening to that :) I discovered it when I was in hospital after my transplant and it helped me to relax then. A girl I know though AYME is very musical and she's recently released some of her music which is available to buy on iTunes or through Amazon. I'm not sure about her style myself but she is very talented so please have a listen for free on her MySpace page here. A few days ago I discovered that Marina and the Diamonds is performing at a festival that's just down the road from me this summer. I'm not well enough to go, but it's frustrating that she's coming so close yet I'm not going to be able to see her :( I couldn't see her on tour either because all the gigs were standing only. I think I might write to Marina and ask her to include some seated gigs in her next tour ;) Ellie Goulding's latest video has just been uploaded to Youtube today. The song is called Guns and Horses and will be released next month. You can see the video here.
I've also done some crosswords with my mum and some Sudoku.
At the end of last week I developed a rash on my hands and face after going in the sun, despite having factor 50 suncream on. At first I assumed it was a reaction to the sun, but after using a different suncream it seems more likely that it was a reaction to the suncream I used.
I forgot to weigh myself last Tue morn, so did it on Wed instead. My weight was 53.3kg, which was 0.3kg more than the previous week but exactly the same as the week before. It was the week I have to email my dieticians so I let them both know. My Hosp B dietician replied promptly and said she was impressed with how stable my weight was so would be happy for me to weigh myself monthly now. My dietician from Hosp A took a bit longer to reply as she was away for Easter, but she was happy with that too, so I don't need to email them my weight again until May. I'm a bit concerned about how much weight I could potentially lose in a month if I was to start losing weight, so I'm going to weigh myself fortnightly at home for the time being.
Last Wed I took some blood at home from a fingerprick and posted it off to Hosp B for them to check my Tac levels from. I also phoned them to let them know that the blood sample was on its way. I've not heard the result yet, so will chase them up about it later this week.
On Tue I got a phone call from the company who currently deliver my Tac asking how much I had in stock so they could decide if I needed another delivery or not. I was out at the time so they said they'd phone back the next day. They rang back on Wed while I was still in bed, so mum took the phone call. They'll deliver some more Tac a week on Wed.
Rachy is still continuing to make steady progress, so don't forget to keep following her updates here. Rachy had an article in her local paper last week which you can see here.
You may have seen that there was a story about organ donation all over the news yesterday. You can see the story on the Telegraph website here. It's a shame that the media seem to have completely blown the story out of proportion, I really hope it doesn't put people off registering to be an organ donor. You can read LLTGL's blog response here and Sarah has also written about it in her latest blog update here.
Once again I seem to have been quite busy since my last update. On Wed I went into Barnardo's for an hour. For the whole time I was there I was hanging clothes up, which got quite boring. It was very busy and noisy because there were lots of volunteers in. I was the only one doing any work though, the rest of them were just chatting. At least I didn't knock over any boxes of size cubes this time! When I'd finished I wandered round the charity shops in town. From Barnardo's I bought a copy of the DVD Nicholas' Gift which I'd rented and watched just a couple of weeks ago. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I get a staff discount of 20%. In another charity shop I picked up Jungle Book on DVD. I saw a PS1 game in a charity shop that I bought on eBay recently for significantly more money, but never mind.
On Thur it was lovely and sunny so me and mum decided not to go to the cinema but instead to wander round a local town that I'd not been to for a while. While we were out we stopped for drinks and found 7 charity shops :) In the charity shops I bought a book called Ten Thousand Sorrows by Elizabeth Kim for 75p, The Weakest Link PS1 game for £1 and 2 DVDs (Maybe Baby and Silkwood) for just 19p each as they'd originally come free with newspapers. In one of the charity shops I saw a woman who was there with her daughter. This lady was quite demanding with the shop assistants and rude to her daughter. When her daughter was talking to her she responded with 'Am I bothered?' just like the Catherine Tate character, but she wasn't doing it as a joke, that was her genuine response! :P While we were out we also bumped into a lovely nurse from Hosp H that we used to know well, so it was nice to have a quick chat to her.
On Fri morn before I got up, mum and dad went out to a fishing shop in a local city to look for a fishing bag to carry mum's giant knitting needles. They found the perfect one. Alf had planned to go to the cinema with his friends that evening, but they decided to go in the afternoon instead. They couldn't contact Alf because his mobile phone battery was flat, so they just turned up at our house at 12.30pm. Of course at this point Alf was still in bed, so there was chaos as he tried to get himself up and ready to go, especially as I was in the shower at this point! He got out eventually though and enjoyed seeing the film Kick Ass with his college friends.
On Fri aft Claire came round. We did lots of chatting, played a great card game called Ligretto, watched the DVD Coraline together and played on New Super Mario Bros Wii. As well as playing on New Super Mario Bros Wii with Claire, I've also played on it a bit on my own this week and am getting closer to completing it :) Claire is coming round again tomorrow and we're going to see if we can finish it, fingers crossed! I've bought myself a new Wii game this week from Amazon called Boom Blox Bash Party, so hopefully that'll be delivered later this week. I've not played on my PS2 for a little while, but am looking forward to playing on it again :)
On Fri night Alf went round to a friend's house in the village and none of us knew what time he'd be home. Usually we lock up and hide a key somewhere where he can find it to let himself in, but on Fri night the spare key seemed to have disappeared, so my parents decided to leave the door unlocked. At about 1am I was ready for bed, my parents were already asleep but Alf wasn't back yet. I didn't feel comfortable for the front door to be unlocked when we were all in bed, so I crept downstairs, found my spare key and put that out for Alf. I'd just locked the door and crept back upstairs and Alf came in!
On Sat I went to Lucy's AYME meet-up. To get there my parents drove me to a train station about 30mins away. I then got the train to Lucy's town, which took 40mins, where I met up with 2 other people and we shared a taxi to Lucy's house. There were 14 people (more than I expected) at the meet-up, so I became very shy and didn't talk much. I was very annoyed and upset at myself afterwards for that. No-one swapped seats either, so I didn't get chance to talk to some of the people I wanted to and one girl I was looking forward to seeing wasn't able to make it. I was quite tired while I was there, but I wasn't too bad. I'd not given my cat allergy a thought, but my eyes soon started watering thanks to Lucy's 4 cats! One part of the conversation that I found really funny was when some people started talking about blood tests. They'd clearly only ever had a couple of bloods tests because they were talking about cannulas blocking and needles missing veins like really unusual, traumatic events! I've experienced too many of them to count! I was quite tired when I got home, but felt ok the next day.
Yesterday morn some spare Glasto tickets went on sale. Dad had managed to get his and Alf's when they originally went on sale, but he'd not managed to get mum one. Luckily he got her one yesterday morning though. So at the end of June my parents and Alf will be going away to Glasto, which means I'll be at home alone for 6 days! That's exciting but a bit scary! If my health was better I might think about going to Glasto, but I'm not well enough to this year and to be honest I'm not too fussed about missing it - the yukky toilets, lack of showers and mud don't really appeal to me. So while the rest of my family are there in the mud I'll be watching the BBC coverage of it at home all cosy on the sofa :)
Yesterday morn we went to the local carboot sale again. It was much better than it's been for a while and I came home with loads. I bought a 500 piece dolphins jigsaw for 50p, a PS2 game (21 Card Games) for £1, a PS1 game (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) for 50p and 14 DVDs, all for £1 each! :D I bought 3 DVDs I've already seen - The Breakfast Club, Music and Lyrics and Rachel Getting Married. I bought 11 DVDs I've not seen before - The Pelican Brief, Brokeback Mountain, Clueless, Signs, The Blair Witch Project, Shakespeare in Love, iRobot, Becoming Jane, The Heartbreak Kid, P.S. I Love You and The Notebook. Mum bought the version of Pride and Prejudice featuring Colin Firth on DVD, some bits and pieces for herself and a book for me about films called Cinematherapy - The Girl's Guide to Movies for Every Mood, which was published in 1999, but still looks like I'll be able to get some DVD suggestions from it.
Yesterday afternoon we went to see my Nan but only stayed for about an hour and a half because dad wanted to get back to watch the football. Yesterday evening mum was listening to her iPod and was singing and dancing to Mika around the house and in the garden, but of course she was the only one who could hear the music! :P
Today my mum has gone to the library in the city to talk to an audience there about her knitting group to inspire them to set up their own. Mum wanted to take loads with her to show the people who come to her talk - her giant needles, lots of different types of yarn, lots of her knitted projects, a cushion she's just knitted etc - she'll be disappointed if only a few people turned up! She didn't have to carry her stuff too far as dad dropped her off as close to the library as he could, just outside the shopping centre that it's situated in, so she only had to walk through the shopping centre and up an escalator. To prevent her having to carry too many bags she put lots of stuff into a backpack. And she's got her giant needles in a fishing rod case. But she looks like a terrorist! Her backpack is one of the camouflage coloured Glasto ones and it's really big in comparison to my mum and the knitting needles in their case look rifle shaped! :P We were worried she might get arrested, but I've spoken to her on the phone and the shopping centre was very empty when she walked through it just before 9am this morning, so there was nobody there to get suspicious.
Last week dad heard that a local bike shop might have a vacancy so after much nagging Alf wrote them a letter to express his interest. Today my dad noticed that Alf had mistyped our phone number in the letter, so Alf phoned them to correct it. I've only been out to the surgery and local shop today. I've been relaxing this afternoon and don't have any plans for this evening. While I was writing this I had to go downstairs to ask Alf to turn his music down as even with my door closed I could hear it and it's horrible! So now he's very grumpy :P
On Wed there was an interesting piece on the local news about what the different political parties want to do about disability benefits. There was a disabled lady asking representatives from the different parties questions about how things will change for her if they get into power. This will be the first election I've been able to vote in, but rather than just copying my parents I wanted to know a bit about what the different parties believe and how their plans differ. However I struggled to find anything on the Internet that told me this in a way I could understand. A couple of days ago someone told me about a guide on the Telegraph website which helps you to find out how the different parties policies match your views. I didn't understand all of the questions in the guide, but I answered as many as I could. It said my views matched the Green Party 75% and matched Lib Dems 69%. My views least matched the Tories, but I didn't bother to include the BNP in my comparison. My parents vote Lib Dem and after looking at their policies in the guide I think I probably will too. The Telegraph guide is definitely worth having a look at, you can find it here.
I've not watched much on TV since my last update. When a programme name is displayed as a link on my blog, that link will take you to the place to watch it online if you're interested. I've watched Embarrassing Bodies: Charlotte's Story, the first episode of series 3 of Outnumbered (which was brilliant) and the second episode of series 3 of Ashes to Ashes twice :) I had to record Dr Who from Sat because I was out, but hope to watch it soon.
One of the DVDs I'm currently renting is the first series of the Catherine Tate Show, so I've watched the first 2 episodes of that. I've not decided what I think of it yet, but am going to persevere. Some of the sketches are funny, but some aren't.
As well as re-watching Coraline on DVD (which I love), I've also watched Sex and the City (which was better than I expected it to be), Little Women (the 1994 version with Winona Ryder, which was very good) and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (a predictable but funny romcom). I also attempted to watch The Pelican Brief, but wasn't able to follow it so I'll have to try it again when my brain is working a bit better.
On Tue night I listened to Taylor Swift through my pillow speaker, but it didn't help me sleep. On Wed I listened to some music from a CD called Temple in the Forest and I fell asleep while listening to that :) I discovered it when I was in hospital after my transplant and it helped me to relax then. A girl I know though AYME is very musical and she's recently released some of her music which is available to buy on iTunes or through Amazon. I'm not sure about her style myself but she is very talented so please have a listen for free on her MySpace page here. A few days ago I discovered that Marina and the Diamonds is performing at a festival that's just down the road from me this summer. I'm not well enough to go, but it's frustrating that she's coming so close yet I'm not going to be able to see her :( I couldn't see her on tour either because all the gigs were standing only. I think I might write to Marina and ask her to include some seated gigs in her next tour ;) Ellie Goulding's latest video has just been uploaded to Youtube today. The song is called Guns and Horses and will be released next month. You can see the video here.
I've also done some crosswords with my mum and some Sudoku.
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
Plans for a busy few weeks
As I mentioned in a previous update I have a busy few weeks coming up, so I thought I'd let you know what I've got planned from tomorrow.
Thur 8th - cinema with mum in the aft to see Nanny McPhee
Fri 9th - Claire is coming round for the aft and eve
Sat 10th - Lucy's AYME meet-up
Sun 11th - hopefully browse round local carboot sale in the morn
Mon 12th - mum is giving a knitting talk at the library in the city in the aft, so I'll get a lift with her and wander round the shops
Tue 13th - no plans yet
Wed 14th - Pathways to Work appt in town in the aft
Thur 15th - orthodontist appt at Hosp A in the morn
Fri 16th - meeting my friend Catherine and her mum in their local town while Catherine is back from uni for Easter
Sat 17th - PINNT regional meet-up at Hosp A in the aft
Sun 18th - hopefully browse round local carboot sale in the morn
Mon 19th - hygienist appt at Hosp A in the aft
Tue 20th - village teenage discussion group in the eve
Wed 21st - no plans yet
Thur 22nd - physio appt at Hosp H in the aft
Fri 23rd - Claire will be coming round in the eve
Sat 24th - Lizzy and her daughter M are coming to visit
Sun 25th - hopefully browse round local carboot sale in the morn
So I only have 2 completely free days out of the next 18 and I'm sure more things will come up! Some plans will be able to be cancelled or moved though if I need more free days.
Thur 8th - cinema with mum in the aft to see Nanny McPhee
Fri 9th - Claire is coming round for the aft and eve
Sat 10th - Lucy's AYME meet-up
Sun 11th - hopefully browse round local carboot sale in the morn
Mon 12th - mum is giving a knitting talk at the library in the city in the aft, so I'll get a lift with her and wander round the shops
Tue 13th - no plans yet
Wed 14th - Pathways to Work appt in town in the aft
Thur 15th - orthodontist appt at Hosp A in the morn
Fri 16th - meeting my friend Catherine and her mum in their local town while Catherine is back from uni for Easter
Sat 17th - PINNT regional meet-up at Hosp A in the aft
Sun 18th - hopefully browse round local carboot sale in the morn
Mon 19th - hygienist appt at Hosp A in the aft
Tue 20th - village teenage discussion group in the eve
Wed 21st - no plans yet
Thur 22nd - physio appt at Hosp H in the aft
Fri 23rd - Claire will be coming round in the eve
Sat 24th - Lizzy and her daughter M are coming to visit
Sun 25th - hopefully browse round local carboot sale in the morn
So I only have 2 completely free days out of the next 18 and I'm sure more things will come up! Some plans will be able to be cancelled or moved though if I need more free days.
Ashes to Ashes interviews
I've been listening to some interviews with Philip Glenister (who plays Gene Hunt in Ashes to Ashes) this afternoon, so thought I'd give you the links so you can have a listen if you'd like to. Most of them are only available til some point tomorrow though.
You can hear Philip Glenister being interviewed on Steve Wright in the Afternoon here (2hrs 33mins in), the Chris Moyles Show here (2hrs 5mins in) and Richard Bacon's radio programme here. He was also on The One Show, which you can watch here.
Dean Andrews (who plays Ray) and Montserrat Lombard (who plays Shaz) will be on GMTV at about 9.15am tomorrow morning.
You can hear Philip Glenister being interviewed on Steve Wright in the Afternoon here (2hrs 33mins in), the Chris Moyles Show here (2hrs 5mins in) and Richard Bacon's radio programme here. He was also on The One Show, which you can watch here.
Dean Andrews (who plays Ray) and Montserrat Lombard (who plays Shaz) will be on GMTV at about 9.15am tomorrow morning.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Long update part 2
This is part 2 of my update. You can read part 1 here.
On Sat eve Claire came round for tea and brought her new boyfriend John with her. We'd never met John before, but he seemed very nice, much better than Claire's previous boyfriend! We chatted a lot, played on New Super Mario Bros Wii (which we made some good progress on) and all watched Dr Who together. If you missed it you can watch it here. I miss David Tennant, but thought I'd give Matt Smith a chance and he was much better than I expected. I thought the episode was a really good start to the series, although I thought it was much more funny than scary. I was expecting something very scary from Steven Moffat after some of his previous episodes such as The Empty Child, The Doctor Dances and Blink, but I'm sure we'll get some scary episodes as the series progresses. I'm looking forward to next week's episode. Matt Smith looks just like one of Alf's friends, so when he came round later that evening we had fun teasing him about it ;)
On Sunday I went to the carboot sale again with mum and dad. I took the wrong region DVDs with me to try to swap, but I couldn't remember what stalls I'd bought them from 3 weeks ago so I'm going to give up on that now. The carboot sale was much better than the previous couple of weeks and I came home with 6 DVDs (The Butterfly Effect, My Summer of Love, Just Married, The Bicentenial Man, How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days and I Capture The Castle) for £1 each and 2 PS1 games (Monopoly and Theme Park World) for £1 and 50p each. Mum bought some Get Well Soon Me2You bears for me to use as presents for people.
As well as the PS games I've bought from carboot sales I've also bought a few more from eBay - Worms 4 Mayhem which is a PS2 game and Crash Team Racing and Frogger which are PS1 games. I'm going to continue looking in charity shops and at carboot sales for games, but I don't plan to buy any more from eBay for the time being as there aren't any more I specifically want.
On Sun aft Chris and Sophie called round for a little while. I didn't go out yesterday and probably wont today either, as I'm just having a relaxing day at home. My family don't celebrate Easter, so we haven't done anything special this weekend but it was nice having dad at home yesterday (he had to work Good Friday though). Chris' grandma sent us an Easter card with two £5 notes in it - one for me and one for Alf :)
This week I have also helped mum produce some posters for library displays on the computer, done some crosswords from the Independent newspaper with my parents, attempted a few Sudoku puzzles, read my latest Official Nintendo Magazine, sorted through some old postcards that mum was throwing out and rescued some of places we've been to, rang up about an advert in the paper about some DVDs for sale (none I liked the sound of though) and emailed an friend from sixth form who I'd not been in touch with for quite a while. I've also been doing some pet research on the Internet which has led me to decide that ideally I'd like an African pygmy hedgehog or a chinchilla :) I'm now going to wait til I see my Hosp A consultant in June to ask him about the possibility of getting a pet. And this week I've cut my nails!!! They were very long as I'd not cut them for a couple of months, but one broke, so I decided to cut them all. I know they'll grow again but currently it feels very odd having short nails!
6 or 7 years ago my parents bought a 12 foot trampoline for our garden. We said goodbye to it at the weekend. I used to enjoy using it but since my transplant bouncing on it just made me feel ill. Dad never used it and mum only used it occasionally. Alf originally used it a lot but then didn't use it as much. Dad advertised the trampoline on Freecycle last week and 6 people were interested. Dad chose to give it to a family with 4 children under 11 as we thought they'd get the most use out of it. On Sat dad packed it up and it was collected. It's quite sad now it's gone as it had been in our garden for so long. On the lawn under where the trampoline was we have the start of 3 trees, a bramble and lots of other plans growing because birds used to go under there a lot. Mum and dad are glad they've got more room for growing vegetables in the garden now.
As well as playing on New Super Mario Wii with Claire and on my own, I've also enjoyed playing on my PS2 this week and testing some of my new games out now they've all arrived in the post. All of the ones I've bought from eBay and from charity shops have worked faultlessly. Most of the games I've bought from carboot sales have as well, apart from one. The one that doesn't work is Spyro Year of the Dragon but I bought it for only 30p from a carboot and didn't think it would work due to being so scratched. It was worth a gamble though at that price. I also received my PS1 memory card towards the end of last week so I can now save my progress on the PS1 games. Some of the games I've only played on briefly to check that they work, but I've played quite a bit more on Sonic Heroes and a new Sonic game that arrived in the post this week called Sonic Mega Collection, which includes quite a few old style Sonic games, which I prefer to the more modern ones :) I also started playing Canis Canem Edit (aka Bully) and really like what I've seen of it so far so am looking forward to playing on it some more. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas made no sense at all to me though as I couldn't work out what I was supposed to do! I've lent it to Sophie at the moment, but when she returns it I'm going to ask her if she can help me get to grips with it. I've really enjoyed playing on Frogger because it's the same version that we got when we got our first computer 12 years ago so playing that is very nostalgic :)
This week I've listened to The Family Jewels by Marina and the Diamonds 4 times (can you tell I like it a lot?!) and Lights by Ellie Goulding once. I've tested my new pillow speaker with both of those albums too - The Family Jewels when I was resting in bed one day and didn't want to fall asleep and Lights before I went to sleep one night. Ellie Goulding's next single has been announced as being Guns and Horses and will be released on 7th May. Diana Vickers' debut single Once will be out in a week or two. I found a good interview with her here. I was disappointed that Lady Gaga and Beyonce got to number 1 with Telephone last weekend. I think it's a horrible song although I have to admit it is very catchy. I was glad that Scouting for Girls knocked them off the number one spot this Sun with This Aint A Love Song. I love that song and downloaded it to help them get to number one :)
My mum discovered a great group this week called The Baseballs. They're a German group who have released an album called Strike which is made up of really original 50s style rock and roll covers of well known pop songs such as Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis, Umbrella by Rhianna, Angels by Robbie Williams and Hot and Cold by Katy Perry. The album is on Spotify so if you've got that have a listen and see what you think. Or if not have a listen on Youtube using the links above.
After our hard disc recorder not working for weeks I formatted it (which completely wipes it including all the recorded programmes) and it then worked again! The remote was really frustrating because lots of key buttons didn't work, so dad bought a new one online, which works faultlessly. It's great being able to use the hard disc recorder again.
I couldn't believe it when Claudia Winkleman was named as the new host of Film 2010. Why why why?! I can't stand her and can't imagine anyone worse presenting it!
On TV this week as well as watching Ashes to Ashes and Doctor Who, I've also watched Doctor Who Confidential, the last episode of Tracy Beaker Returns, a rubbish programme about helicopter rescues with dad one evening while we were having tea, a couple of episodes of Embarrassing Bodies (I find medical programmes fascinating), Friday Night with Jonathan Ross (disappointingly Sandra Bullock wasn't on it despite the Radio Times saying she would be, but Matt Smith was on it), an episode of Bondi Vet, two episodes of Supernanny (it has been on E4 in the early hours of the morning when I'm nocturnal), the final episode of Married Single Other (what an odd series - the first 3 episodes were light-hearted and funny, the final 3 episodes were very sad), Ultimate Movie Toons (because Mika sang on it), 2 episodes of Children's Hospital, the final episode of One Born Every Minute, an episode of Countdown (because someone from AYME was on it), the first episode of a new BBC series called Great Ormond Street (which was really well made and very powerful, definitely worth watching as it's the best medical programme I've seen in a long time) and odd bits and pieces on the music channels.
I've finished watching some DVD boxsets since my last update. To finish Ashes to Ashes series 2 I watched episodes 4 to 8, the cast 80s quiz and the behind the scenes documentary. I also watched series 2 of Outnumbered on DVD (which I rented) plus the extra features. I've also bought the second series of Jam and Jerusalem on DVD.
This week I've watched quite a few films on DVD. Most were ones I'd not seen before, apart from Pixar's Cars which I rewatched. I enjoyed watching Nicholas' Gift (a moving film about organ donation based on a true story), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (an artistically made and unusual film based on a true story about a French journalist who wrote a book while all his muscles apart from one eyelid had been paralysed due to a stroke), Sliding Doors (an original thought provoking film), Runaway Bride (a very funny Julia Roberts romcom) and Bride and Prejudice (a Bollywood take on Pride and Prejudice). Another film I watched was called The Darjeeling Express, but it was unusual and I don't think I really enjoyed it. And I watched an awful film called Closer. I rarely give up on films but I just couldn't finish this one as it was so bad - don't watch it!
In the post this week I received a letter from Tesco DVD rental with some vouchers for a 2 month free trial for me to give to friends. If anyone is interested in one leave a comment and I'll let you have the code.
I have no firm plans for the next couple of days but might pop into Barnardo's tomorrow if I feel up to it. On Thur eve I'm really looking forward to the return of a great TV series called Outnumbered. On Fri Claire is coming round and we're going to watch a DVD, play on the Wii (New Super Mario Bros Wii) and the PS2 (Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup) and have tea before mum and Claire go to mum's fortnightly knitting group. Mum's group is called Knit Lit and a couple of months ago a journalist attended one of their meetings. This month there is an article all about them in a local magazine!
On Sat I hope to attend an AYME meet-up, which is being organised by the same girl who's meet-up I went to before Christmas. That'll depend on how I feel though because to get there involves a 30min car journey, a 40min train ride and then a taxi journey. And hopefully on Sun we'll browse round the carboot sale again. Next week and the following week are full of medical appts and other commitments, so that'll be hectic! I'll blog about that nearer the time though.
On Sat eve Claire came round for tea and brought her new boyfriend John with her. We'd never met John before, but he seemed very nice, much better than Claire's previous boyfriend! We chatted a lot, played on New Super Mario Bros Wii (which we made some good progress on) and all watched Dr Who together. If you missed it you can watch it here. I miss David Tennant, but thought I'd give Matt Smith a chance and he was much better than I expected. I thought the episode was a really good start to the series, although I thought it was much more funny than scary. I was expecting something very scary from Steven Moffat after some of his previous episodes such as The Empty Child, The Doctor Dances and Blink, but I'm sure we'll get some scary episodes as the series progresses. I'm looking forward to next week's episode. Matt Smith looks just like one of Alf's friends, so when he came round later that evening we had fun teasing him about it ;)
On Sunday I went to the carboot sale again with mum and dad. I took the wrong region DVDs with me to try to swap, but I couldn't remember what stalls I'd bought them from 3 weeks ago so I'm going to give up on that now. The carboot sale was much better than the previous couple of weeks and I came home with 6 DVDs (The Butterfly Effect, My Summer of Love, Just Married, The Bicentenial Man, How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days and I Capture The Castle) for £1 each and 2 PS1 games (Monopoly and Theme Park World) for £1 and 50p each. Mum bought some Get Well Soon Me2You bears for me to use as presents for people.
As well as the PS games I've bought from carboot sales I've also bought a few more from eBay - Worms 4 Mayhem which is a PS2 game and Crash Team Racing and Frogger which are PS1 games. I'm going to continue looking in charity shops and at carboot sales for games, but I don't plan to buy any more from eBay for the time being as there aren't any more I specifically want.
On Sun aft Chris and Sophie called round for a little while. I didn't go out yesterday and probably wont today either, as I'm just having a relaxing day at home. My family don't celebrate Easter, so we haven't done anything special this weekend but it was nice having dad at home yesterday (he had to work Good Friday though). Chris' grandma sent us an Easter card with two £5 notes in it - one for me and one for Alf :)
This week I have also helped mum produce some posters for library displays on the computer, done some crosswords from the Independent newspaper with my parents, attempted a few Sudoku puzzles, read my latest Official Nintendo Magazine, sorted through some old postcards that mum was throwing out and rescued some of places we've been to, rang up about an advert in the paper about some DVDs for sale (none I liked the sound of though) and emailed an friend from sixth form who I'd not been in touch with for quite a while. I've also been doing some pet research on the Internet which has led me to decide that ideally I'd like an African pygmy hedgehog or a chinchilla :) I'm now going to wait til I see my Hosp A consultant in June to ask him about the possibility of getting a pet. And this week I've cut my nails!!! They were very long as I'd not cut them for a couple of months, but one broke, so I decided to cut them all. I know they'll grow again but currently it feels very odd having short nails!
6 or 7 years ago my parents bought a 12 foot trampoline for our garden. We said goodbye to it at the weekend. I used to enjoy using it but since my transplant bouncing on it just made me feel ill. Dad never used it and mum only used it occasionally. Alf originally used it a lot but then didn't use it as much. Dad advertised the trampoline on Freecycle last week and 6 people were interested. Dad chose to give it to a family with 4 children under 11 as we thought they'd get the most use out of it. On Sat dad packed it up and it was collected. It's quite sad now it's gone as it had been in our garden for so long. On the lawn under where the trampoline was we have the start of 3 trees, a bramble and lots of other plans growing because birds used to go under there a lot. Mum and dad are glad they've got more room for growing vegetables in the garden now.
As well as playing on New Super Mario Wii with Claire and on my own, I've also enjoyed playing on my PS2 this week and testing some of my new games out now they've all arrived in the post. All of the ones I've bought from eBay and from charity shops have worked faultlessly. Most of the games I've bought from carboot sales have as well, apart from one. The one that doesn't work is Spyro Year of the Dragon but I bought it for only 30p from a carboot and didn't think it would work due to being so scratched. It was worth a gamble though at that price. I also received my PS1 memory card towards the end of last week so I can now save my progress on the PS1 games. Some of the games I've only played on briefly to check that they work, but I've played quite a bit more on Sonic Heroes and a new Sonic game that arrived in the post this week called Sonic Mega Collection, which includes quite a few old style Sonic games, which I prefer to the more modern ones :) I also started playing Canis Canem Edit (aka Bully) and really like what I've seen of it so far so am looking forward to playing on it some more. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas made no sense at all to me though as I couldn't work out what I was supposed to do! I've lent it to Sophie at the moment, but when she returns it I'm going to ask her if she can help me get to grips with it. I've really enjoyed playing on Frogger because it's the same version that we got when we got our first computer 12 years ago so playing that is very nostalgic :)
This week I've listened to The Family Jewels by Marina and the Diamonds 4 times (can you tell I like it a lot?!) and Lights by Ellie Goulding once. I've tested my new pillow speaker with both of those albums too - The Family Jewels when I was resting in bed one day and didn't want to fall asleep and Lights before I went to sleep one night. Ellie Goulding's next single has been announced as being Guns and Horses and will be released on 7th May. Diana Vickers' debut single Once will be out in a week or two. I found a good interview with her here. I was disappointed that Lady Gaga and Beyonce got to number 1 with Telephone last weekend. I think it's a horrible song although I have to admit it is very catchy. I was glad that Scouting for Girls knocked them off the number one spot this Sun with This Aint A Love Song. I love that song and downloaded it to help them get to number one :)
My mum discovered a great group this week called The Baseballs. They're a German group who have released an album called Strike which is made up of really original 50s style rock and roll covers of well known pop songs such as Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis, Umbrella by Rhianna, Angels by Robbie Williams and Hot and Cold by Katy Perry. The album is on Spotify so if you've got that have a listen and see what you think. Or if not have a listen on Youtube using the links above.
After our hard disc recorder not working for weeks I formatted it (which completely wipes it including all the recorded programmes) and it then worked again! The remote was really frustrating because lots of key buttons didn't work, so dad bought a new one online, which works faultlessly. It's great being able to use the hard disc recorder again.
I couldn't believe it when Claudia Winkleman was named as the new host of Film 2010. Why why why?! I can't stand her and can't imagine anyone worse presenting it!
On TV this week as well as watching Ashes to Ashes and Doctor Who, I've also watched Doctor Who Confidential, the last episode of Tracy Beaker Returns, a rubbish programme about helicopter rescues with dad one evening while we were having tea, a couple of episodes of Embarrassing Bodies (I find medical programmes fascinating), Friday Night with Jonathan Ross (disappointingly Sandra Bullock wasn't on it despite the Radio Times saying she would be, but Matt Smith was on it), an episode of Bondi Vet, two episodes of Supernanny (it has been on E4 in the early hours of the morning when I'm nocturnal), the final episode of Married Single Other (what an odd series - the first 3 episodes were light-hearted and funny, the final 3 episodes were very sad), Ultimate Movie Toons (because Mika sang on it), 2 episodes of Children's Hospital, the final episode of One Born Every Minute, an episode of Countdown (because someone from AYME was on it), the first episode of a new BBC series called Great Ormond Street (which was really well made and very powerful, definitely worth watching as it's the best medical programme I've seen in a long time) and odd bits and pieces on the music channels.
I've finished watching some DVD boxsets since my last update. To finish Ashes to Ashes series 2 I watched episodes 4 to 8, the cast 80s quiz and the behind the scenes documentary. I also watched series 2 of Outnumbered on DVD (which I rented) plus the extra features. I've also bought the second series of Jam and Jerusalem on DVD.
This week I've watched quite a few films on DVD. Most were ones I'd not seen before, apart from Pixar's Cars which I rewatched. I enjoyed watching Nicholas' Gift (a moving film about organ donation based on a true story), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (an artistically made and unusual film based on a true story about a French journalist who wrote a book while all his muscles apart from one eyelid had been paralysed due to a stroke), Sliding Doors (an original thought provoking film), Runaway Bride (a very funny Julia Roberts romcom) and Bride and Prejudice (a Bollywood take on Pride and Prejudice). Another film I watched was called The Darjeeling Express, but it was unusual and I don't think I really enjoyed it. And I watched an awful film called Closer. I rarely give up on films but I just couldn't finish this one as it was so bad - don't watch it!
In the post this week I received a letter from Tesco DVD rental with some vouchers for a 2 month free trial for me to give to friends. If anyone is interested in one leave a comment and I'll let you have the code.
I have no firm plans for the next couple of days but might pop into Barnardo's tomorrow if I feel up to it. On Thur eve I'm really looking forward to the return of a great TV series called Outnumbered. On Fri Claire is coming round and we're going to watch a DVD, play on the Wii (New Super Mario Bros Wii) and the PS2 (Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup) and have tea before mum and Claire go to mum's fortnightly knitting group. Mum's group is called Knit Lit and a couple of months ago a journalist attended one of their meetings. This month there is an article all about them in a local magazine!
On Sat I hope to attend an AYME meet-up, which is being organised by the same girl who's meet-up I went to before Christmas. That'll depend on how I feel though because to get there involves a 30min car journey, a 40min train ride and then a taxi journey. And hopefully on Sun we'll browse round the carboot sale again. Next week and the following week are full of medical appts and other commitments, so that'll be hectic! I'll blog about that nearer the time though.
Long update part 1
Sorry that I've not managed to update my blog for a little while. The update I've written is too long to post as one, so I've just split it in half and will publish it as 2 posts. Part 2 will be posted up tonight. So here's part 1...
My health has been quite up and down since my last update. I'm used to good weeks and bad weeks or good days and bad days, but this week I seem to have been going between feeling great and feeling awful within the same day. I'm finding this really frustrating, at least if I used to wake up feeling good I'd know I'd feel like that all day, but now I don't even know that. It's making it very hard to plan anything too. When I say I feel awful I often have a headache and/or a tummy ache and feel exhausted, just too tired to do anything. Last Mon morn I felt awful, I was worried about a few different things, I felt down and completely exhausted. I felt better that afternoon though after going back to sleep for an hour and a half. Tue was generally a good day but I became very exhausted at one point. This Sat just gone I felt ok in the morning, completely exhausted in the afternoon (which resting in bed for an hour listening to music didn't help at all) and fantastic in the evening! The rest of the days have been more stable though.
My tummy pains have been very bad some days, so I don't think the Amitriptyline is working. I tried the Spasmonal first for one week and then the Amitriptyline for a fortnight. A couple of days ago I started back on the Spasmonal again but am going to continue the Amitriptyline and see if taking them both together helps. Hopefully it will.
My nocturnalism seems to have been as bad as ever despite the Amitriptyline, I've had a few earlier nights but the late nights have been 3am ish. My younger brother Alf has stayed up through the night twice this week. This isn't when he goes out, this is when he's at home, but he just doesn't sleep all night. Think it's because he's bored and it seems a good idea to a teenage boy! His sleep pattern is now even more messed up than mine!
My weight last Tue was down a little bit from 53.3kg to 53.0kg, but that small decrease is nothing to worry about. I forgot to weigh myself this morning to email my weight to my dieticians, so I'll do that tomorrow morning instead.
My Hosp B consultant said at my joint clinic last month that my bloods can go back to 3 monthly now as all of the previous results were within the normal range. That means my next blood tests should be in June. However a couple of weeks before my last set of bloods were taken (at the start of March), my Tac dose was lowered from 2mg twice a day to 1.5mg twice a day because my last Tac level had been 13. My normal range is 5 to 8, so luckily when my bloods were last done my Tac level was about 5. However because it dropped from 13 to 5 in just a couple of weeks on the new dosage I'm worried that since then it could potentially have dropped more (making it too low) and that wouldn't be picked up til June. So I've decided I'm going to take some blood via a fingerprick this week (probably tomorrow) and post it to Hosp B for them to process for my Tac level.
Rachy is still making good progress since her transplant. You can keep up to date with her news here.
Recently there has been an announcement about a slight change in the way organ donation will now work in the UK. You can read more about it here, but put simply it means that under some rare circumstances organ donors or their families will be able to request to donate organs to loved ones. I was quite against this change when I first heard about it, but Emily wrote a great explanation of it which has reassured me:
On Sat (27th March), me and mum went to the cinema to see The Blind Side. I think maybe I'd been expecting too much from the film after Sandra Bullock won an Oscar for her performance in it, but it was a very good film, if a little long. It's quite an American film, I didn't understand the American football stuff at all, but luckily that didn't seem to matter too much. Some of the lines were very funny too and made me and mum laugh.
On Sun (28th March) me and mum went to browse round the local weekly carboot sale. It was better than the previous week, but wasn't great. I did get some bargains though - a PS2 game (Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup - to convert Claire, who loves HP, into a PS fan because she currently hates them due to her ex spending more time playing on his PS than with her), 2 PS1 games (Tomb Raider and Spyro Year of the Dragon) and 3 DVDs (Sliding Doors, the first Pirates of the Caribbean film and Mickey Blue Eyes) totalled me just £5.20 :D I spotted one of the stalls that I'd previously bought a wrong region DVD from, but I didn't have it with me to ask to swap.
That evening Claire and her mum came round because they'd not made it round the previous Friday. They could only stay for a couple of hours before Claire's mum had to head home, but it was really nice to meet her for the first time.
Last Tue (29th March) I only went out to the local shop to buy a Radio Times. That afternoon I really enjoyed chatting to Lou on MSN and my older brother Chris popped round briefly to borrow my USB memory stick
On Wed me and mum had been planning to go out to a local city, but after seeing that the weather forecast predicted low temperatures and rain we decided to go to the other nearby city instead because it has an indoor shopping centre where we could shelter. We thought we might go on the train but ended up going in the car instead. While we were out we stopped at W H Smiths for drinks and to eat our lunch, but I was told off for eating my own sandwiches in there! My tummy was very painful while we were wandering round the shops :( I bought a Meryl Streep DVD called First Do No Harm in a charity shop for just 25p - bargain! I also bought a pillow speaker from Maplins to replace my pathetic pillow speaker. The new one is much better - to hear the music from my old one I had to put my ear in a specific position on the pillow, but with my new one I can hear the music when my head is anywhere on the pillow :) You can see it here (and it does work with an iPod). The only other thing I bought was 2 copies of the Pick Me Up Spring Special. This isn't a magazine I'd usually buy, but Holly S has her story in it (and it's not completely over the top like stories in these magazines usually are)! I'm in one of the photos she's included :) If you can find a copy in a shop, Holly's article is on page 57. At the end of the day my heels were sore and I was quite tired, but I had a lovely time. The other day my dad picked me up some memory foam shoe inserts, so I'm going to try them for my heels. My dad also got me a lockable cash tin this week (he had it at work, but it wasn't being used), so I can safely lock my money away again.
Thur was April Fool's Day. Two of the best April Fools I found on the Internet were Google's which can be seen here and the Guardian's which can be seen here.
On Thur I went to Barnardo's in town. On the way I called in at a games shop and traded in 3 out of 5 of my unwanted PS2 games (they didn't want 2 of them) for £8 in-store credit and bought some very pretty reduced greetings cards in Oxfam. I got to Barnardo's for 11am like I'd said and was met by the manager who I gave in my application form to. Firstly I was shown how to steam the clothes and left to steam a rail of clothes. Then the manager went through all the health and safety stuff with me before showing me how to hang the clothes (which hangers to use for which clothes and where to find the cubes with the sizes on to put on the hangers...) and I then hung lots of clothes. It was ok, but a bit monotonous. And it was tiring because it was a new environment and I was on my feet for the whole time (just over an hour). I did have a little accident when I tipped a box of a few hundred little black size cubes off the surface and all over a pile of clothes on the floor. So when my mum came to collect me (because I was very tired) I was on my hands and knees trying to pick all these little cubes up! :P Apparently I wasn't the first to do that though, hehe. All the other volunteers were really nice and the girl out the front looked about my age so I'm hoping to chat to her a bit more next time I see her.
On Fri me and my mum went to visit my Nan. She's lovely but hard work! After having her current TV for 2 years she'd just discovered that it has built-in Freeview so she asked me to teach her how to use that and I also showed her how to access the radio channels on that. Then I taught her to use her DVD player/recorder to play DVDs and CDs. While I was doing this she wanted to know what every button on each remote did! She also asked me to teach her how to record on her DVD recorder, but I said that would have to wait til next time! I'm not sure how much she'll remember but I did write some key points down, so hopefully that'll help her. When I was writing the notes my hand went very shaky (I suspect that was because of my Tac or maybe just because I was tired), so I hope she can read them ok. I also showed my Nan my iPod (Classic) because she'd never seen an MP3 player before. She couldn't understand how the sound quality on it would be any good, so I said she could have a listen. When I offered her the earphones she had no idea how to fit them in her ears because she'd never used them before! Once we got it sorted she loved listening to my iPod. I played Love Story by Taylor Swift on it and her feet were tapping along and she was shouting excitedly to us :D
Very excitingly, Fri night marked the return of Ashes to Ashes. I've watched both series of Life on Mars and both previous series of Ashes to Ashes and have them all on DVD. I think Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes are definitely my favourite TV programmes ever. I can't decide which I like best though - I liked the freshness and originality of Life on Mars but I really like that the main character in Ashes to Ashes is female. I'd been eagerly anticipating the first episode of series 3 (the final series) of Ashes to Ashes on Fri and luckily it didn't disappoint, I thought it was a great episode and a very strong start to the series. If you've not yet watched it but would like to, you can see it on iPlayer here. Now don't read any further if you're a fan and haven't yet seen the first episode because the remainder of this paragraph will contain spoilers. Episode 1 raised lots more questions, my parents were completely baffled. Hopefully things will become clearer as the series progresses but I know yet more questions will be raised before we get answers. I can't wait to find out more about where the series is going to go and how Sam Tyler is going to fit into it. I think in that episode they were trying to make us think that Gene killed Sam, but I'm sure he wouldn't have done. I suspect he knows more about Sam's death though. I also wonder if maybe Sam isn't really dead, because his body was never found. Who knows! I'm not sure how the man that kept appearing to Alex was, that wasn't Sam. I assume that was the body that was discovered on the TV too but I'm not sure where that fits yet. Maybe Gene killed him. I was really disappointed that Chris and Shaz had split up :( From the clip of next week's episode it looks like Shaz is going to leave, I really hope not. I loved the use of music again, Sweet Dreams when the Quattro was unveiled was great. And the lines seem to be as sharp and funny as ever, I loved Gene's suggestion to Ray about hazelnuts and squirrels, hehe.
Continued here.
My health has been quite up and down since my last update. I'm used to good weeks and bad weeks or good days and bad days, but this week I seem to have been going between feeling great and feeling awful within the same day. I'm finding this really frustrating, at least if I used to wake up feeling good I'd know I'd feel like that all day, but now I don't even know that. It's making it very hard to plan anything too. When I say I feel awful I often have a headache and/or a tummy ache and feel exhausted, just too tired to do anything. Last Mon morn I felt awful, I was worried about a few different things, I felt down and completely exhausted. I felt better that afternoon though after going back to sleep for an hour and a half. Tue was generally a good day but I became very exhausted at one point. This Sat just gone I felt ok in the morning, completely exhausted in the afternoon (which resting in bed for an hour listening to music didn't help at all) and fantastic in the evening! The rest of the days have been more stable though.
My tummy pains have been very bad some days, so I don't think the Amitriptyline is working. I tried the Spasmonal first for one week and then the Amitriptyline for a fortnight. A couple of days ago I started back on the Spasmonal again but am going to continue the Amitriptyline and see if taking them both together helps. Hopefully it will.
My nocturnalism seems to have been as bad as ever despite the Amitriptyline, I've had a few earlier nights but the late nights have been 3am ish. My younger brother Alf has stayed up through the night twice this week. This isn't when he goes out, this is when he's at home, but he just doesn't sleep all night. Think it's because he's bored and it seems a good idea to a teenage boy! His sleep pattern is now even more messed up than mine!
My weight last Tue was down a little bit from 53.3kg to 53.0kg, but that small decrease is nothing to worry about. I forgot to weigh myself this morning to email my weight to my dieticians, so I'll do that tomorrow morning instead.
My Hosp B consultant said at my joint clinic last month that my bloods can go back to 3 monthly now as all of the previous results were within the normal range. That means my next blood tests should be in June. However a couple of weeks before my last set of bloods were taken (at the start of March), my Tac dose was lowered from 2mg twice a day to 1.5mg twice a day because my last Tac level had been 13. My normal range is 5 to 8, so luckily when my bloods were last done my Tac level was about 5. However because it dropped from 13 to 5 in just a couple of weeks on the new dosage I'm worried that since then it could potentially have dropped more (making it too low) and that wouldn't be picked up til June. So I've decided I'm going to take some blood via a fingerprick this week (probably tomorrow) and post it to Hosp B for them to process for my Tac level.
Rachy is still making good progress since her transplant. You can keep up to date with her news here.
Recently there has been an announcement about a slight change in the way organ donation will now work in the UK. You can read more about it here, but put simply it means that under some rare circumstances organ donors or their families will be able to request to donate organs to loved ones. I was quite against this change when I first heard about it, but Emily wrote a great explanation of it which has reassured me:
"For those concerned about requested allocation...
Here's what the announcement means as far as I understand it:
Scenario: a woman dies in a car-crash. Her daughter is in need of a new liver. Previously, this would have absolutely no bearing on the organ allocation, despite the obvious wishes of the deceased being to save her daughter, as well as it being of psychological benefit for the donor family.
What has happened is that they have created a clause to allow medical professionals to acknowledge this exceptional circumstance. It's extremely rare, but similar scenarios have happened. It is not a change in the system, it is to legally allow some flexibility in highly specific cases.
Sally Johnston says: "This guidance will enable us to consider, as we always do, what the donor wanted but also to take into account the health and wellbeing of a sick patient who is known to them."
It is another minor adjustment in the laws surrounding organ donation to try and acknowledge the complexity and individuality of each and every case.
I hope that makes more sense - I was somewhat alarmed when the journalist first explained it to me but on reading what it actually entails I don't see any problem with it."
Scenario: a woman dies in a car-crash. Her daughter is in need of a new liver. Previously, this would have absolutely no bearing on the organ allocation, despite the obvious wishes of the deceased being to save her daughter, as well as it being of psychological benefit for the donor family.
What has happened is that they have created a clause to allow medical professionals to acknowledge this exceptional circumstance. It's extremely rare, but similar scenarios have happened. It is not a change in the system, it is to legally allow some flexibility in highly specific cases.
Sally Johnston says: "This guidance will enable us to consider, as we always do, what the donor wanted but also to take into account the health and wellbeing of a sick patient who is known to them."
It is another minor adjustment in the laws surrounding organ donation to try and acknowledge the complexity and individuality of each and every case.
I hope that makes more sense - I was somewhat alarmed when the journalist first explained it to me but on reading what it actually entails I don't see any problem with it."
On Sat (27th March), me and mum went to the cinema to see The Blind Side. I think maybe I'd been expecting too much from the film after Sandra Bullock won an Oscar for her performance in it, but it was a very good film, if a little long. It's quite an American film, I didn't understand the American football stuff at all, but luckily that didn't seem to matter too much. Some of the lines were very funny too and made me and mum laugh.
On Sun (28th March) me and mum went to browse round the local weekly carboot sale. It was better than the previous week, but wasn't great. I did get some bargains though - a PS2 game (Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup - to convert Claire, who loves HP, into a PS fan because she currently hates them due to her ex spending more time playing on his PS than with her), 2 PS1 games (Tomb Raider and Spyro Year of the Dragon) and 3 DVDs (Sliding Doors, the first Pirates of the Caribbean film and Mickey Blue Eyes) totalled me just £5.20 :D I spotted one of the stalls that I'd previously bought a wrong region DVD from, but I didn't have it with me to ask to swap.
That evening Claire and her mum came round because they'd not made it round the previous Friday. They could only stay for a couple of hours before Claire's mum had to head home, but it was really nice to meet her for the first time.
Last Tue (29th March) I only went out to the local shop to buy a Radio Times. That afternoon I really enjoyed chatting to Lou on MSN and my older brother Chris popped round briefly to borrow my USB memory stick
On Wed me and mum had been planning to go out to a local city, but after seeing that the weather forecast predicted low temperatures and rain we decided to go to the other nearby city instead because it has an indoor shopping centre where we could shelter. We thought we might go on the train but ended up going in the car instead. While we were out we stopped at W H Smiths for drinks and to eat our lunch, but I was told off for eating my own sandwiches in there! My tummy was very painful while we were wandering round the shops :( I bought a Meryl Streep DVD called First Do No Harm in a charity shop for just 25p - bargain! I also bought a pillow speaker from Maplins to replace my pathetic pillow speaker. The new one is much better - to hear the music from my old one I had to put my ear in a specific position on the pillow, but with my new one I can hear the music when my head is anywhere on the pillow :) You can see it here (and it does work with an iPod). The only other thing I bought was 2 copies of the Pick Me Up Spring Special. This isn't a magazine I'd usually buy, but Holly S has her story in it (and it's not completely over the top like stories in these magazines usually are)! I'm in one of the photos she's included :) If you can find a copy in a shop, Holly's article is on page 57. At the end of the day my heels were sore and I was quite tired, but I had a lovely time. The other day my dad picked me up some memory foam shoe inserts, so I'm going to try them for my heels. My dad also got me a lockable cash tin this week (he had it at work, but it wasn't being used), so I can safely lock my money away again.
Thur was April Fool's Day. Two of the best April Fools I found on the Internet were Google's which can be seen here and the Guardian's which can be seen here.
On Thur I went to Barnardo's in town. On the way I called in at a games shop and traded in 3 out of 5 of my unwanted PS2 games (they didn't want 2 of them) for £8 in-store credit and bought some very pretty reduced greetings cards in Oxfam. I got to Barnardo's for 11am like I'd said and was met by the manager who I gave in my application form to. Firstly I was shown how to steam the clothes and left to steam a rail of clothes. Then the manager went through all the health and safety stuff with me before showing me how to hang the clothes (which hangers to use for which clothes and where to find the cubes with the sizes on to put on the hangers...) and I then hung lots of clothes. It was ok, but a bit monotonous. And it was tiring because it was a new environment and I was on my feet for the whole time (just over an hour). I did have a little accident when I tipped a box of a few hundred little black size cubes off the surface and all over a pile of clothes on the floor. So when my mum came to collect me (because I was very tired) I was on my hands and knees trying to pick all these little cubes up! :P Apparently I wasn't the first to do that though, hehe. All the other volunteers were really nice and the girl out the front looked about my age so I'm hoping to chat to her a bit more next time I see her.
On Fri me and my mum went to visit my Nan. She's lovely but hard work! After having her current TV for 2 years she'd just discovered that it has built-in Freeview so she asked me to teach her how to use that and I also showed her how to access the radio channels on that. Then I taught her to use her DVD player/recorder to play DVDs and CDs. While I was doing this she wanted to know what every button on each remote did! She also asked me to teach her how to record on her DVD recorder, but I said that would have to wait til next time! I'm not sure how much she'll remember but I did write some key points down, so hopefully that'll help her. When I was writing the notes my hand went very shaky (I suspect that was because of my Tac or maybe just because I was tired), so I hope she can read them ok. I also showed my Nan my iPod (Classic) because she'd never seen an MP3 player before. She couldn't understand how the sound quality on it would be any good, so I said she could have a listen. When I offered her the earphones she had no idea how to fit them in her ears because she'd never used them before! Once we got it sorted she loved listening to my iPod. I played Love Story by Taylor Swift on it and her feet were tapping along and she was shouting excitedly to us :D
Very excitingly, Fri night marked the return of Ashes to Ashes. I've watched both series of Life on Mars and both previous series of Ashes to Ashes and have them all on DVD. I think Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes are definitely my favourite TV programmes ever. I can't decide which I like best though - I liked the freshness and originality of Life on Mars but I really like that the main character in Ashes to Ashes is female. I'd been eagerly anticipating the first episode of series 3 (the final series) of Ashes to Ashes on Fri and luckily it didn't disappoint, I thought it was a great episode and a very strong start to the series. If you've not yet watched it but would like to, you can see it on iPlayer here. Now don't read any further if you're a fan and haven't yet seen the first episode because the remainder of this paragraph will contain spoilers. Episode 1 raised lots more questions, my parents were completely baffled. Hopefully things will become clearer as the series progresses but I know yet more questions will be raised before we get answers. I can't wait to find out more about where the series is going to go and how Sam Tyler is going to fit into it. I think in that episode they were trying to make us think that Gene killed Sam, but I'm sure he wouldn't have done. I suspect he knows more about Sam's death though. I also wonder if maybe Sam isn't really dead, because his body was never found. Who knows! I'm not sure how the man that kept appearing to Alex was, that wasn't Sam. I assume that was the body that was discovered on the TV too but I'm not sure where that fits yet. Maybe Gene killed him. I was really disappointed that Chris and Shaz had split up :( From the clip of next week's episode it looks like Shaz is going to leave, I really hope not. I loved the use of music again, Sweet Dreams when the Quattro was unveiled was great. And the lines seem to be as sharp and funny as ever, I loved Gene's suggestion to Ray about hazelnuts and squirrels, hehe.
Continued here.
Sunday, 4 April 2010
Short post
I just wanted to say sorry for not updating my blog for a little while and reassure you that I'm fine, so please don't worry. I hope to do a full blog update within the next few days.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
