Thursday, 3 December 2009
Please watch, vote and forward
My friend Emily posted a fantastic video up on Facebook this morning. She's just blogged about it, so please pop over to her blog and check out her latest post. Please watch her video, rate it and forward it on to other people you know. Thanks.
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Cancelled ESA medical and weight
I think the biggest news since my last update is that my ESA medical assessment was cancelled at the last minute this morning by them, not me! Grrrr. I wasn't looking forward to it and had been feeling quite nervous, but I felt I was as ready as I could be and just wanted to get it over and done with. And I'd got all organised with getting all my recent medical letters together, printing out a list of my tablets, asking for tips on the ME forums I used and printing out the most useful ones... They were very apologetic about cancelling it, but gave no reason for it. And they'll send me out another appointment via post.
Yesterday I weighed myself like I do every week. Because I'd not been feeling very well for the last week I suspected I might have lost a little bit of weight, but I'd lost 1.3kg in a week (my weight dropped from 51.1kg to 49.8kg)! I think that's more weight than I even lost in a week when I had a tummy bug! I'd had all the high calorie drinks I should have done and I don't think I'd skipped any meals, but I might have had smaller portions than normal, so was surprised by that. Although it was my first week with just 3 nights a week of feed. I wonder if it was a fluid thing because I know I'd not been drinking enough (although I've been really making more of an effort with that today). I was worried about emailing my dietician, but she was lovely as always :) She said she was sorry I'd been ill, said well done for continuing to manage the high calorie drinks and hoped that I was soon feeling better. She wasn't worried about my weight and said to stay on the same plan (3 nights of feed per week) and see how my weight is next Tue. And she'll see me when I'm in Hosp B in a week and a half. So if she's not worried, I'm not worried :)
I had a bad night's sleep on Sun night as I woke every couple of hours for various reasons (overheating, pump alarming because I lay on the tube, needing the toilet, not being able to breathe properly because of my cold...) and each time it took me a little while to get back to sleep. As a result of that I was very tired on Mon and because my cold, sore throat and cough were bad too I cancelled my physio appointment at Hosp A for that afternoon (they'll post me out a new appt). I've felt better in myself yesterday and today, but am not back to normal (how I was before the virus) just yet. And I'm still quite nocturnal :P
On Mon I went into town for a few hours with mum and completed my Christmas shopping, yay! :D I also bought a new bedside lamp too. It is a touch lamp and has 3 brightness settings like my last one, but it's white. I'm going to try to find a purple shade for it though :) Mum didn't have any luck finding Dad a birthday present, so is going to give him an IOU. She wanted to get him some swimming trunks as he has said he's going to take swimming lessons to improve his swimming skills and get fit. But the only big baggy swimming trunks in his size in town were either red and white or black with yellow monkeys on them! And dad would appreciate black or dark blue ones best.
We got back to the car in the supermarket car park and discovered a parking ticket on the windscreen. We had payed and displayed, but our ticket must have blown off the dashboard and onto the floor of the car when we got out! So mum went to find the ticket man who we'd just walked past, but he said he couldn't do anything there and then. So mum had to send off a photocopy of our ticket, the parking ticket and a covering letter and she shouldn't have to pay the £35 or £50 fine!
Mon eve and Tue I was quite productive and caught up with lots of emails and sent another letter to my AYME buddy Katie. A lovely AYME friend sent me some paper snowflakes she'd made, so I included some with my letter to Katie (as well as some of my photos) and kept 2 for myself. Another lovely AYME friend sent me some bracelets she'd made, so again I'm going to send a few to Katie in my next letter and might keep a couple for myself :) Unfortunately the friend who sent the bracelets hadn't put the right amount of stamps on the envelope so there was a bit of difficulty sorting that out and we had to pay a small amount of money, but we did get it sorted eventually in the end.
Tomorrow lots of things seem to be happening at once. It'll be my dad's 60th birthday so we'll be having a birthday tea for him, our new tumble dryer will be delivered in the morning, mum is giving a 2 hour talk about knitting at a local library in the afternoon, Alf might be going to a party at his college if he can sort lifts out... It may all go fine, but I can imagine tomorrow being a bit of a disjointed day especially with everyone coming and going.
Mum received a phone call from Alf's tutor this evening. Apparently Alf is very disruptive in lessons and messes around a lot. And he doesn't meet deadlines with his work. But Alf has always been like that and I'm sure he always will be. Fingers crossed he'll manage to complete college as he does enjoy it and wants to be there.
This evening my Aunt's partner brought round a present for dad's birthday tomorrow - 4 dead pheasants!! So they're in the garage and mum will give them to dad tomorrow. It sounds an odd gift, but my dad will love them. He'll prepare them in the garage (like he does with pheasants, pigeons, rabbits etc that neighbours and friends give him) and then mum will cook something nice with them :) My family are unusual, but I like it :P
I checked the status of my laptop order yet again today and its status has now changed from 'in production' to 'shipping', so that sounds promising. There is a link I should be able to click on to find out more about its delivery, but when I click the link I just get an error message. However I have found out through the website that I will receive a phone call or email within 4 business days of the status changing to 'shipping' to let me know when it'll be delivered! :D So hopefully it'll arrive before the 14th, fingers crossed. I'll keep you updated.
Yesterday evening I went to the cinema with my dad to see Paranormal Activity. I thought it'd terrify me, but it didn't. It wasn't too scary, but it was very well made and me and dad both really enjoyed it :D Today I had a relaxing day because I didn't have to go out after my ESA medical was cancelled, so this morning me and mum watched one of my rental DVDs called The Santa Clause, which was good :)
On TV since my last update I've skimmed through a recorded This Morning to see The Noisettes, but despite the Radio Times saying they'd be performing on it, they weren't. I've also watched T4's Stars of 2009, JLS at 1Xtra Live, some of The Killers Live at the Royal Albert Hall (and I'm looking forward to watching more of it), various things on the music channels and a programme where modern music acts performed The Carpenters songs (most of the performances were great and performed live to the studio audience, especially The Feeling and The Noisettes, but The Saturdays mimed!). And I've watched An Island Parish, Tonight: Who Wants to be a Teacher (interesting subject but boring presentation), The Gadget Show (well I watched some of it til I lost interest), Film 2009 and Mark Lawson talks to Jane Horrocks. And I'm looking forward to watching Never Mind the Buzzcocks tonight :)
I've been using Spotify loads and have recently listened to Pixie Lott's album a few more times, Robbie Williams' latest album, JLS' album, both of The Saturdays albums and The Feeling's second album, which I love :D
On Facebook today I've been given links to 2 great YouTube interviews about organ donation. This is by Holly and this is by Rachael. Please have a look and forward onto others to raise awareness of the need for organ donation. Thanks.
Yesterday I weighed myself like I do every week. Because I'd not been feeling very well for the last week I suspected I might have lost a little bit of weight, but I'd lost 1.3kg in a week (my weight dropped from 51.1kg to 49.8kg)! I think that's more weight than I even lost in a week when I had a tummy bug! I'd had all the high calorie drinks I should have done and I don't think I'd skipped any meals, but I might have had smaller portions than normal, so was surprised by that. Although it was my first week with just 3 nights a week of feed. I wonder if it was a fluid thing because I know I'd not been drinking enough (although I've been really making more of an effort with that today). I was worried about emailing my dietician, but she was lovely as always :) She said she was sorry I'd been ill, said well done for continuing to manage the high calorie drinks and hoped that I was soon feeling better. She wasn't worried about my weight and said to stay on the same plan (3 nights of feed per week) and see how my weight is next Tue. And she'll see me when I'm in Hosp B in a week and a half. So if she's not worried, I'm not worried :)
I had a bad night's sleep on Sun night as I woke every couple of hours for various reasons (overheating, pump alarming because I lay on the tube, needing the toilet, not being able to breathe properly because of my cold...) and each time it took me a little while to get back to sleep. As a result of that I was very tired on Mon and because my cold, sore throat and cough were bad too I cancelled my physio appointment at Hosp A for that afternoon (they'll post me out a new appt). I've felt better in myself yesterday and today, but am not back to normal (how I was before the virus) just yet. And I'm still quite nocturnal :P
On Mon I went into town for a few hours with mum and completed my Christmas shopping, yay! :D I also bought a new bedside lamp too. It is a touch lamp and has 3 brightness settings like my last one, but it's white. I'm going to try to find a purple shade for it though :) Mum didn't have any luck finding Dad a birthday present, so is going to give him an IOU. She wanted to get him some swimming trunks as he has said he's going to take swimming lessons to improve his swimming skills and get fit. But the only big baggy swimming trunks in his size in town were either red and white or black with yellow monkeys on them! And dad would appreciate black or dark blue ones best.
We got back to the car in the supermarket car park and discovered a parking ticket on the windscreen. We had payed and displayed, but our ticket must have blown off the dashboard and onto the floor of the car when we got out! So mum went to find the ticket man who we'd just walked past, but he said he couldn't do anything there and then. So mum had to send off a photocopy of our ticket, the parking ticket and a covering letter and she shouldn't have to pay the £35 or £50 fine!
Mon eve and Tue I was quite productive and caught up with lots of emails and sent another letter to my AYME buddy Katie. A lovely AYME friend sent me some paper snowflakes she'd made, so I included some with my letter to Katie (as well as some of my photos) and kept 2 for myself. Another lovely AYME friend sent me some bracelets she'd made, so again I'm going to send a few to Katie in my next letter and might keep a couple for myself :) Unfortunately the friend who sent the bracelets hadn't put the right amount of stamps on the envelope so there was a bit of difficulty sorting that out and we had to pay a small amount of money, but we did get it sorted eventually in the end.
Tomorrow lots of things seem to be happening at once. It'll be my dad's 60th birthday so we'll be having a birthday tea for him, our new tumble dryer will be delivered in the morning, mum is giving a 2 hour talk about knitting at a local library in the afternoon, Alf might be going to a party at his college if he can sort lifts out... It may all go fine, but I can imagine tomorrow being a bit of a disjointed day especially with everyone coming and going.
Mum received a phone call from Alf's tutor this evening. Apparently Alf is very disruptive in lessons and messes around a lot. And he doesn't meet deadlines with his work. But Alf has always been like that and I'm sure he always will be. Fingers crossed he'll manage to complete college as he does enjoy it and wants to be there.
This evening my Aunt's partner brought round a present for dad's birthday tomorrow - 4 dead pheasants!! So they're in the garage and mum will give them to dad tomorrow. It sounds an odd gift, but my dad will love them. He'll prepare them in the garage (like he does with pheasants, pigeons, rabbits etc that neighbours and friends give him) and then mum will cook something nice with them :) My family are unusual, but I like it :P
I checked the status of my laptop order yet again today and its status has now changed from 'in production' to 'shipping', so that sounds promising. There is a link I should be able to click on to find out more about its delivery, but when I click the link I just get an error message. However I have found out through the website that I will receive a phone call or email within 4 business days of the status changing to 'shipping' to let me know when it'll be delivered! :D So hopefully it'll arrive before the 14th, fingers crossed. I'll keep you updated.
Yesterday evening I went to the cinema with my dad to see Paranormal Activity. I thought it'd terrify me, but it didn't. It wasn't too scary, but it was very well made and me and dad both really enjoyed it :D Today I had a relaxing day because I didn't have to go out after my ESA medical was cancelled, so this morning me and mum watched one of my rental DVDs called The Santa Clause, which was good :)
On TV since my last update I've skimmed through a recorded This Morning to see The Noisettes, but despite the Radio Times saying they'd be performing on it, they weren't. I've also watched T4's Stars of 2009, JLS at 1Xtra Live, some of The Killers Live at the Royal Albert Hall (and I'm looking forward to watching more of it), various things on the music channels and a programme where modern music acts performed The Carpenters songs (most of the performances were great and performed live to the studio audience, especially The Feeling and The Noisettes, but The Saturdays mimed!). And I've watched An Island Parish, Tonight: Who Wants to be a Teacher (interesting subject but boring presentation), The Gadget Show (well I watched some of it til I lost interest), Film 2009 and Mark Lawson talks to Jane Horrocks. And I'm looking forward to watching Never Mind the Buzzcocks tonight :)
I've been using Spotify loads and have recently listened to Pixie Lott's album a few more times, Robbie Williams' latest album, JLS' album, both of The Saturdays albums and The Feeling's second album, which I love :D
On Facebook today I've been given links to 2 great YouTube interviews about organ donation. This is by Holly and this is by Rachael. Please have a look and forward onto others to raise awareness of the need for organ donation. Thanks.
Sunday, 29 November 2009
Virus and new laptop! :D
Sorry it's been a little while since my last update, I've not been feeling very well for a few days. I thought I was just taking a while to recover after my busy day on Mon, but on Wed night I think I developed a headache. I rarely get headaches and even if I do they usually go very quickly or after taking some painkillers. But this one lasted for 3 whole days and both Paracetamol and Codeine made no difference :( And for most of the time I had the headache, using screens, such as going on the Internet on my laptop or watching TV made it worse. It got better and worse during those 3 days, but at it's worst I was in tears with it. I was a bit worried as I'd not had a headache that severe since when I was in hospital after my transplant 3 years ago. Then they suspected menigitis, but a lumbar puncture showed it wasn't, so it was just blamed on a reaction to the anaesthetic. And I know headaches can be an ME symptom, so was also concerned that it might just be a sign of my ME getting worse. But after I'd had the headache for about a day my glands became swollen, my throat was sore and I just wanted to sleep. So it looked like I had a virus. For 3 days I did very little and slept for about 12 hours each night and then went back to bed for about 3 hours during the day. But this morning I woke up feeling much better and my headache had finally gone :) My glands have gone down, but my throat is a bit sore, I have a cough and might have a cold coming on. But I'm so happy that my headache has gone :D And I've not slept during the day today either.
And I'd like to thank R for finding out that I was not feeling very well either through Facebook or AYME and sending me some lovely texts :)
Cutting out rice hasn't made my tummy pains stop. I think they might have been a bit better, but I'm still getting them. I'm not sure if that could be because I've been drinking my high calorie drinks too quickly though.
I received a letter in the post on Thur saying that my current ESA medical certificate was about to run out, so I needed a new one from my GP. Luckily my GP is great, so I emailed him on Thur morn and then he replied later saying that it would be ready to pick up on Fri. I didn't feel well enough to go out on Fri, so mum picked it up for me and posted it off. Hopefully after my ESA medical assessment on Wed they wont need medical certificates any more. I'm a bit nervous about that though.
I received an email a few days ago inviting me to a big get-together that most of my friends from sixth form will be attending when they're back from uni at Christmas. I thought it would be in the city for a couple of hours, but it's a 24 hour sleepover type thing at someone's house. So there's no way I'm going to be able to manage that. I did think about maybe just going along for a couple of hours, but it's on Dec 22nd-23rd, so if I did that and it exhausted me, then it could mean I'd feel rubbish over Christmas. So I'm going to have to give it a miss which is disappointing. Catherine (my closest friend from sixth form) wants to meet up with me separately though, so hopefully we'll be able to make that happen. And I've been in touch with another friend from sixth form via text and Facebook over the last few days and we're hoping to meet up sometime soon too.
I've been invited to a couple of AYME meet-ups over the Christmas period though, so might try to attend one or both of them. But my parents wont give me lifts (more persuasion may be needed) and have said if I want to attend either of them I'll have to go on the train. In the car the journeys would take an hour and an hour and half (which are manageable), but both of them will take longer on the train because I'll need to go in to London and then out again.
I think I might have mentioned a while ago that I've applied to become my local regional co-ordinator for AYME because they currently don't have one for my area. I've got as far as being sent the CRB check forms (which I need to do because I'll be handling young people's details), but haven't got past them yet because they look daunting :P
And a couple of days ago I joined AYME's members advisory panel (MAP), so I'll be involved in giving feedback on their bi-monthly magazines and judging competitions :)
A couple of days ago I broke my second lamp in about a week! My bedside touch lamp broke a little while ago and then yesterday I was moving the angle of the light on the lamp on my desk and it snapped, whoops! I need to buy a new touch lamp for next to my bed, but the one I broke more recently was a spare lamp I'd borrowed (because my desk lamp is currently next to my bed), so I don't think that'll need replacing.
Yesterday I started writing my Christmas cards and have now written the majority of them :D I've got a few more to write though and am still waiting for a few addresses that I've requested via Facebook or text. And I have one more Christmas present to buy, but I'm hoping that I might be able to go shopping in the city tomorrow morning before my physio appointment at Hospital A in the afternoon :)
I'd just like to say a huge congratulations to Holly S who won the national vinspired SHOUT award 2009 for all of the work she did to raise awareness of organ donation, yay! :D
This morning I was going to go and visit my nan with my dad, but decided against it when we found out that my nan wasn't feeling very well. She said on the phone to my dad that she kept feeling dizzy and nauseus. She wasn't sure why so will contact the doctor tomorrow. But I don't want to risk catching anything, so dad went to see her on his own. This morning I helped my mum clean our village library instead as I needed a change of scene because I'd not been out of the house since Mon. And then we baked some ginger biscuits, yummy! :)
This afternoon/evening my friend Claire came round and we had a lovely time :) It was about a fortnight since I'd seen her so we had loads of catching up to do. And dad cooked a lovely meal of roast chicken for tea :) Claire reminded me that VAT is rising on the 1st Jan, so that might scupper my plans of getting a laptop in the January sales. So I was surfing the Internet looking at laptops to potentially buy before the Jan sales and I found the perfect one. So I bought it :D I have ordered this, but mine will come with Windows 7 and I paid a little extra (just £5 for a better battery). And I've got free delivery on it :) The real reason I decided on that laptop is because it's available in purple, so Claire offered to pay the extra money for me to have a purple one for my Christmas present. So my laptop will actually look like this :D :D :D Mine will be built to order and so I checked the website for my estimated delivery date. It said Dec 14th, but I'm willing it to come a little bit early, because I'm going into hospital from Dec 13th to 15th, but the hotel I'm staying in has wireless broadband, so I'd love to be able to take it with me :D My current laptop would probably fall apart if I took it with me as it still has cable ties holding the screen together :P
I've not watched any full length DVDs this week, but did finish off watching series 2 of Absolutely Fabulous :)
I didn't think I'd watched much TV because of my headache, but I've got quite a list :P Since my last update I've watched:
Yesterday I saw Cheryl Cole's new video for her next single '3 Words' for the first time. I thought that the video was awful and didn't like the song either, it just doesn't get going. You can see it here. What do you think?
I taught Dad how to use Spotify on Friday and am already regretting it! His taste in music is not like mine, he listens to artists like Leonard Coen whose music I find really depressing. My dad will be 60 on Thursday - that seems really old! :P Dad can't wait to get his free bus pass, discount at the cinema, free swimming sessions etc. though.
And I'd like to thank R for finding out that I was not feeling very well either through Facebook or AYME and sending me some lovely texts :)
Cutting out rice hasn't made my tummy pains stop. I think they might have been a bit better, but I'm still getting them. I'm not sure if that could be because I've been drinking my high calorie drinks too quickly though.
I received a letter in the post on Thur saying that my current ESA medical certificate was about to run out, so I needed a new one from my GP. Luckily my GP is great, so I emailed him on Thur morn and then he replied later saying that it would be ready to pick up on Fri. I didn't feel well enough to go out on Fri, so mum picked it up for me and posted it off. Hopefully after my ESA medical assessment on Wed they wont need medical certificates any more. I'm a bit nervous about that though.
I received an email a few days ago inviting me to a big get-together that most of my friends from sixth form will be attending when they're back from uni at Christmas. I thought it would be in the city for a couple of hours, but it's a 24 hour sleepover type thing at someone's house. So there's no way I'm going to be able to manage that. I did think about maybe just going along for a couple of hours, but it's on Dec 22nd-23rd, so if I did that and it exhausted me, then it could mean I'd feel rubbish over Christmas. So I'm going to have to give it a miss which is disappointing. Catherine (my closest friend from sixth form) wants to meet up with me separately though, so hopefully we'll be able to make that happen. And I've been in touch with another friend from sixth form via text and Facebook over the last few days and we're hoping to meet up sometime soon too.
I've been invited to a couple of AYME meet-ups over the Christmas period though, so might try to attend one or both of them. But my parents wont give me lifts (more persuasion may be needed) and have said if I want to attend either of them I'll have to go on the train. In the car the journeys would take an hour and an hour and half (which are manageable), but both of them will take longer on the train because I'll need to go in to London and then out again.
I think I might have mentioned a while ago that I've applied to become my local regional co-ordinator for AYME because they currently don't have one for my area. I've got as far as being sent the CRB check forms (which I need to do because I'll be handling young people's details), but haven't got past them yet because they look daunting :P
And a couple of days ago I joined AYME's members advisory panel (MAP), so I'll be involved in giving feedback on their bi-monthly magazines and judging competitions :)
A couple of days ago I broke my second lamp in about a week! My bedside touch lamp broke a little while ago and then yesterday I was moving the angle of the light on the lamp on my desk and it snapped, whoops! I need to buy a new touch lamp for next to my bed, but the one I broke more recently was a spare lamp I'd borrowed (because my desk lamp is currently next to my bed), so I don't think that'll need replacing.
Yesterday I started writing my Christmas cards and have now written the majority of them :D I've got a few more to write though and am still waiting for a few addresses that I've requested via Facebook or text. And I have one more Christmas present to buy, but I'm hoping that I might be able to go shopping in the city tomorrow morning before my physio appointment at Hospital A in the afternoon :)
I'd just like to say a huge congratulations to Holly S who won the national vinspired SHOUT award 2009 for all of the work she did to raise awareness of organ donation, yay! :D
This morning I was going to go and visit my nan with my dad, but decided against it when we found out that my nan wasn't feeling very well. She said on the phone to my dad that she kept feeling dizzy and nauseus. She wasn't sure why so will contact the doctor tomorrow. But I don't want to risk catching anything, so dad went to see her on his own. This morning I helped my mum clean our village library instead as I needed a change of scene because I'd not been out of the house since Mon. And then we baked some ginger biscuits, yummy! :)
This afternoon/evening my friend Claire came round and we had a lovely time :) It was about a fortnight since I'd seen her so we had loads of catching up to do. And dad cooked a lovely meal of roast chicken for tea :) Claire reminded me that VAT is rising on the 1st Jan, so that might scupper my plans of getting a laptop in the January sales. So I was surfing the Internet looking at laptops to potentially buy before the Jan sales and I found the perfect one. So I bought it :D I have ordered this, but mine will come with Windows 7 and I paid a little extra (just £5 for a better battery). And I've got free delivery on it :) The real reason I decided on that laptop is because it's available in purple, so Claire offered to pay the extra money for me to have a purple one for my Christmas present. So my laptop will actually look like this :D :D :D Mine will be built to order and so I checked the website for my estimated delivery date. It said Dec 14th, but I'm willing it to come a little bit early, because I'm going into hospital from Dec 13th to 15th, but the hotel I'm staying in has wireless broadband, so I'd love to be able to take it with me :D My current laptop would probably fall apart if I took it with me as it still has cable ties holding the screen together :P
I've not watched any full length DVDs this week, but did finish off watching series 2 of Absolutely Fabulous :)
I didn't think I'd watched much TV because of my headache, but I've got quite a list :P Since my last update I've watched:
- Film 2009 - Me and dad might be going to see Paranormal Activity on Tue night. I'm not sure why I'm so keen to see it though, as I usually hate horror films! :P
- The Restaurant - How are the blonde boys still in when one can't even cook!?
- Jess: Britain's Youngest Sleepwalker?
- My Shocking Story: Burnt and Survived - I was bored!
- Megan: Let Me Grow Up
- The Killers Live From The Royal Albert Hall - I was channel flicking late one night and caught it on one of the music channels :) I've only watched the first 10mins so far though, I had to record the rest because my headache was very painful. Looking forward to watching the rest :D
- GMTV - For a Will Young interview and performances for Mum.
- 4music Introduces Erik Hassle - We'd seen him supporting Little Boots and now he's on TV! I still don't like his music though! :P
- 4music World's Greatest Popstars - my favourite Pink came 4th out of the 10 contenders, then I turned it off because I couldn't care less whether Eminem, Britney or Beyonce was number 1!
- 2 episodes of Live From Abbey Road - one episode featured Seal and one featured Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens)
- X Factor and X Factor results show - I think the right person went out :) Joe to win :D I thought Alicia Keys was very good last night too.
Yesterday I saw Cheryl Cole's new video for her next single '3 Words' for the first time. I thought that the video was awful and didn't like the song either, it just doesn't get going. You can see it here. What do you think?
I taught Dad how to use Spotify on Friday and am already regretting it! His taste in music is not like mine, he listens to artists like Leonard Coen whose music I find really depressing. My dad will be 60 on Thursday - that seems really old! :P Dad can't wait to get his free bus pass, discount at the cinema, free swimming sessions etc. though.
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Music, tummy aches and media
This is an odd update made up of lots of bits and pieces, so I'm sorry if it doesn't flow very well.
On TV since my last update I stumbled across Pink's Funhouse concert again and watched it, despite already having seen it twice recently and having the DVD :) And I watched an interesting Wonderland documentary about a couple with Downs Syndrome on iPlayer. I've also watched a couple of episodes of Absolutely Fabulous on the DVD of series 2 that I've currently borrowed from the library. Yesterday I went to request series 3 on DVD to discover that the library don't have it, despite having series 1,2,4 and 5, lol :P So I've added it to my Tesco DVD rental list at high priority, so hopefully I'll get series 3 soon as I'll finish series 2 within the next few days. I watched one of the DVDs I'd rented the other day, a very funny Christmas film called Elf. I'd definitely recommend it :) And I caught the end of a Hollyoaks music programme on C4 where Pixie Lott was performing. At the bottom of the screen facts about Pixie Lott were scrolling across and one said that 2 years ago she was a dancer in Mika's Love Today video! So I had to have a watch of that video (which is on one of my Mika DVDs) to see if I could spot her, but I couldn't. I'd give you a Youtube link so you could have a look, but unfortunately all the Youtube Love Today videos are really poor quality, so you'd never be able to spot her.
I used iPlayer to listen to an interview with Diana Vickers (my favourite from last year's X Factor and who I saw in The Rise and Fall Little Voice last month). And I read a good article about Mika in Monday's Independent newspaper, but it's not available on their website. I also found this link to download the audio files of all of my current X Factor favourite's (Joe) performances from the live shows, so have put them onto my iPod :) And I used an offer in this week's Radio Times to download a free Doctor Who episode from iTunes this evening. If you're interested, click here and then when iTunes loads click on the free link in the top right hand corner :) It took me ages to download on my dying laptop though as it insisted that I downloaded and installed the most recent version of iTunes first (which took ages), before downloading the episode and transferring it to my iPod (which also took ages). The whole thing took about 2 hours!
I've been using Spotify lots, I love it :D I've listened to Pixie Lott's album countless times, I think it's great. Has anyone else got/listened to her album? I've also listened to Alexandra Burke's album and Shakira's latest album which were both a bit disappointing, so I'm glad I didn't buy them. I also set Spotify up on the downstairs computer so mum could listen to The Noisettes' latest album, Lily Allen's second album (which is hilarious when they bleep out all the swear words) and then her special request - Elvis Costello! My laptop speakers are rubbish, so I listen to music through my stereo when I can, but I can't do that with music on Spotify. My stereo is nowhere near my desk, so using my stereo speakers for my laptop music wasn't a very practical idea. Luckily though my dad lent me some small-ish, but decent speakers that he doesn't use, so I've fixed them up to my laptop and they're a huge improvement :) And Dad said if I like them then I can have them for Christmas :D
Me and mum have bought some more concert tickets :D The only concert we'd got lined up was Mika in February, but on Tuesday we bought tickets to see The Noisettes (who mum loves and I quite like) in concert in Feb too :D Yay, looking forward to both of those concerts, just hope that I cope ok as they're only 5 days apart!
I mentioned a little while ago that I was attempting to read a book called Coraline, my first book in a while. I've not got any further with it since then, but will definitely have another go with it soon.
My mum has a friend who is a nanny and she used to look after Michael Bond's (the author of the Paddington Bear books) grandchildren I think. And she's still in touch with the family. Mum asked if she could get us some books signed, so me, mum and Alf now each have a signed Paddington Bear book :D And mum also got one signed for Lizzy's daughter, M :)
Mum made me laugh on Tuesday when I asked her if she knew how long it was til Christmas. Mum said "3 weeks and 10 days", lol! :P She has dyscalculia (number dyslexia) so I know I shouldn't laugh, but when mum eventually realised what she'd said we both found it funny :D
My tummy aches have been quite bad on a few occassions recently and I'm getting fed up of them, so I'm going to have another go at trying to work out what food(s) is triggering them. I suspect it might be rice, so I'm going to try not eating that for a while and I'll see if that makes a difference. If avoiding rice doesn't help then I'll try not eating white bread next as mum thought that might be a trigger. I'm a bit nervous about excluding foods from my diet because I don't eat a huge variety of foods, but hopefully I wont lose any weight while doing this.
Earlier this week I received a letter about my first Pathways to Work interview which is on Jan 6th. This is the path I'll go down if the outcome of my ESA medical assessment (which is next Wed, eeek!) goes one way. Hopefully I'll find out the result of my ESA medical assessment sometime in Dec, so I'll know whether I need to go to the interview in Jan or not.
On Tuesday I felt better than I expected after Mon, just a bit tired. I've felt awful today though :( But I did expect that after such a busy and tiring day on Monday. Hopefully I'll soon start to feel a bit better. I don't have any plans til Sun, so can just relax :) As you'll probably notice from the time of this post, I'm very nocturnal tonight, lol :P I really ought to try to get that sorted again ASAP.
I mentioned in this blog update that K isn't doing so well at the moment. A few days ago I heard that another little girl I know in the transplant community is currently very ill. M is 4 and I met her in Hospital B after my transplant when she was in for her assessment (also for a small bowel and liver transplant). She received her transplant relatively quickly, recovered really well and had been doing fantastically. Then suddenly and very unexpectedly last week she developed moderate to severe rejection and is currently very ill in Hospital B. I've spoken to her mum and she knows that M's recovery will take a while, so I'll catch up with them when I'm in for my annual tests in a few weeks.
Sarah, who did the Gifts of Life photography project, is running LLTGL's Christmas Media campaign. She has asked if I'd like my story to be used and I said I'd have a think and get back to her. But I don't know what to do. I've always said no to publicity before because I'm quite a private person and I'd be worried that my story could be twisted or spread without my permission (although I do know that LLGTL have lots of experience). And I think I'd be ok with doing just one thing, but know that one thing often leads to many more. And mum thinks it might cause me stress and worry at the moment, and my health isn't great. BUT it might encourage more organ donors.
On TV since my last update I stumbled across Pink's Funhouse concert again and watched it, despite already having seen it twice recently and having the DVD :) And I watched an interesting Wonderland documentary about a couple with Downs Syndrome on iPlayer. I've also watched a couple of episodes of Absolutely Fabulous on the DVD of series 2 that I've currently borrowed from the library. Yesterday I went to request series 3 on DVD to discover that the library don't have it, despite having series 1,2,4 and 5, lol :P So I've added it to my Tesco DVD rental list at high priority, so hopefully I'll get series 3 soon as I'll finish series 2 within the next few days. I watched one of the DVDs I'd rented the other day, a very funny Christmas film called Elf. I'd definitely recommend it :) And I caught the end of a Hollyoaks music programme on C4 where Pixie Lott was performing. At the bottom of the screen facts about Pixie Lott were scrolling across and one said that 2 years ago she was a dancer in Mika's Love Today video! So I had to have a watch of that video (which is on one of my Mika DVDs) to see if I could spot her, but I couldn't. I'd give you a Youtube link so you could have a look, but unfortunately all the Youtube Love Today videos are really poor quality, so you'd never be able to spot her.
I used iPlayer to listen to an interview with Diana Vickers (my favourite from last year's X Factor and who I saw in The Rise and Fall Little Voice last month). And I read a good article about Mika in Monday's Independent newspaper, but it's not available on their website. I also found this link to download the audio files of all of my current X Factor favourite's (Joe) performances from the live shows, so have put them onto my iPod :) And I used an offer in this week's Radio Times to download a free Doctor Who episode from iTunes this evening. If you're interested, click here and then when iTunes loads click on the free link in the top right hand corner :) It took me ages to download on my dying laptop though as it insisted that I downloaded and installed the most recent version of iTunes first (which took ages), before downloading the episode and transferring it to my iPod (which also took ages). The whole thing took about 2 hours!
I've been using Spotify lots, I love it :D I've listened to Pixie Lott's album countless times, I think it's great. Has anyone else got/listened to her album? I've also listened to Alexandra Burke's album and Shakira's latest album which were both a bit disappointing, so I'm glad I didn't buy them. I also set Spotify up on the downstairs computer so mum could listen to The Noisettes' latest album, Lily Allen's second album (which is hilarious when they bleep out all the swear words) and then her special request - Elvis Costello! My laptop speakers are rubbish, so I listen to music through my stereo when I can, but I can't do that with music on Spotify. My stereo is nowhere near my desk, so using my stereo speakers for my laptop music wasn't a very practical idea. Luckily though my dad lent me some small-ish, but decent speakers that he doesn't use, so I've fixed them up to my laptop and they're a huge improvement :) And Dad said if I like them then I can have them for Christmas :D
Me and mum have bought some more concert tickets :D The only concert we'd got lined up was Mika in February, but on Tuesday we bought tickets to see The Noisettes (who mum loves and I quite like) in concert in Feb too :D Yay, looking forward to both of those concerts, just hope that I cope ok as they're only 5 days apart!
I mentioned a little while ago that I was attempting to read a book called Coraline, my first book in a while. I've not got any further with it since then, but will definitely have another go with it soon.
My mum has a friend who is a nanny and she used to look after Michael Bond's (the author of the Paddington Bear books) grandchildren I think. And she's still in touch with the family. Mum asked if she could get us some books signed, so me, mum and Alf now each have a signed Paddington Bear book :D And mum also got one signed for Lizzy's daughter, M :)
Mum made me laugh on Tuesday when I asked her if she knew how long it was til Christmas. Mum said "3 weeks and 10 days", lol! :P She has dyscalculia (number dyslexia) so I know I shouldn't laugh, but when mum eventually realised what she'd said we both found it funny :D
My tummy aches have been quite bad on a few occassions recently and I'm getting fed up of them, so I'm going to have another go at trying to work out what food(s) is triggering them. I suspect it might be rice, so I'm going to try not eating that for a while and I'll see if that makes a difference. If avoiding rice doesn't help then I'll try not eating white bread next as mum thought that might be a trigger. I'm a bit nervous about excluding foods from my diet because I don't eat a huge variety of foods, but hopefully I wont lose any weight while doing this.
Earlier this week I received a letter about my first Pathways to Work interview which is on Jan 6th. This is the path I'll go down if the outcome of my ESA medical assessment (which is next Wed, eeek!) goes one way. Hopefully I'll find out the result of my ESA medical assessment sometime in Dec, so I'll know whether I need to go to the interview in Jan or not.
On Tuesday I felt better than I expected after Mon, just a bit tired. I've felt awful today though :( But I did expect that after such a busy and tiring day on Monday. Hopefully I'll soon start to feel a bit better. I don't have any plans til Sun, so can just relax :) As you'll probably notice from the time of this post, I'm very nocturnal tonight, lol :P I really ought to try to get that sorted again ASAP.
I mentioned in this blog update that K isn't doing so well at the moment. A few days ago I heard that another little girl I know in the transplant community is currently very ill. M is 4 and I met her in Hospital B after my transplant when she was in for her assessment (also for a small bowel and liver transplant). She received her transplant relatively quickly, recovered really well and had been doing fantastically. Then suddenly and very unexpectedly last week she developed moderate to severe rejection and is currently very ill in Hospital B. I've spoken to her mum and she knows that M's recovery will take a while, so I'll catch up with them when I'm in for my annual tests in a few weeks.
Sarah, who did the Gifts of Life photography project, is running LLTGL's Christmas Media campaign. She has asked if I'd like my story to be used and I said I'd have a think and get back to her. But I don't know what to do. I've always said no to publicity before because I'm quite a private person and I'd be worried that my story could be twisted or spread without my permission (although I do know that LLGTL have lots of experience). And I think I'd be ok with doing just one thing, but know that one thing often leads to many more. And mum thinks it might cause me stress and worry at the moment, and my health isn't great. BUT it might encourage more organ donors.
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
London! :D And weight
Yesterday me and my mum headed to London at about midday. It's just less than an hour on the train, so isn't too far. We spent the afternoon browsing round Harrods which was fun. I only bought one little Christmas present for a friend though as most of their stock is much too expensive for me! Mum bought a very pretty little Christmas tree decoration too. And we had some very expensive drinks (£3.95 for a coffee and £2 for a glass of milk!) in a cafe there. Mum made one of the doormen laugh when she asked what he would recommend looking at, but said she wasn't interested in posh bags or dresses. Then she said that what she most wanted was a cup of tea :D
When we'd finished at Harrods we headed to Wembley Arena. As we entered the arena we had to have our bags searched. The man who searched my bag told me I needed to take the lid off my bottle of water. I expected him to ask me to have a sip to prove that it was only water, but he confiscated my lid!!! Mum explained to him that I needed the lid back as it was sterile water and he eventually said he'd make an exception for me and handed the lid back, but not before he'd been turning it round and round in his grubby hands, yuk! We arrived there a bit early so sat in the cafe for a while and I also bought some merchandise. I bought a big programme full of photos and a tour t-shirt. I wasn't impressed that they charged for debit card transactions though, but as I didn't have any cash with me I had to pay an extra £3 (it was £1.50 per transaction and stupidly I didn't buy both my things together). And when I wanted to go to the toilet I had to join the longest toilet queue I'd ever seen! But queueing for the toilet wasn't too boring as there was a Band Hero game set up nearby so I could listen and laugh at the people attempting Taylor Swift karaoke!
The doors to the seating opened about 1 hour before the concert started, so we made our way in to find our seats. We had seats in quite a good position - if you click here to view the seating chart, we were in block N11 about 2/3 of the way back. Our view would have been brilliant if we didn't have 4 'gorilla' boys as my mum called them, directly in our line of vision. They were in the row in front of us and along a little bit, so in our view of the stage. They were all over 6ft tall! And me and my mum are both just 5ft 4"! We had seats, but I had to stand for most of it (which hurt) as the gorilla boys were standing, so if I sat down I couldn't see a thing. Mum asked them to sit down so I could see and that lasted for 1/2 a song! And even standing I struggled a bit to to try to see between/around them. Then behind us there were some young girls with really high pitched screams and to the right of us there were 2 older girls who had a bit too much to drink! The arena was completely sold out and the crowd was amazing. Taylor Swift was so shocked when for about 5mins solid the whole arena was cheering, clapping and stamping their feet for her!
During Taylor Swift's introduction part my Mum got very excited and somehow managed to flick her glasses off, lol! It was dark, so we had to get everyone seated around us to look for her glasses. They were found quite quickly though so then we could go back to watching the concert :D
The support act was an American boy called Justin Bieber. He looked about 11, but apparently he was 15. He wasn't bad at all, but not really my kind of music. He only did about 4/5 songs though. And near the end of his set he fell over something on stage and broke his foot! I'd never heard of him before, but lots of the crowd seemed to have.
Then Taylor Swift came on and she must have been on stage for almost 2 hours. She was really good :D She performed 16 songs - 10 out of 13 tracks from Fearless (she didn't do Breathe, which I don't really like, but also didn't do The Best Day or Change, which are two of my three favourite tracks from Fearless), 5 tracks from Taylor Swift (Tim McGraw, Teardrops on my Guitar, Picture to Burn, Our Song and Should've Said No) and a Justin Timberlake cover too.
The set was clever as it created lots of different scenes for her different songs and turrets even popped up to turn it into a castle for 'Love Story'! And they had rain coming down from the ceiling for her to dance in during the finale. The back of the set was a screen that they used to show different things for each song. And there was a video screen on one side of the stage too which showed a close up of the action on stage. As well as singing Taylor played the guitar and the piano too. And at one point she walked through some of the audience, but that was down on the ground, so nowhere near me. She also performed a few songs on a little stage that popped out of the floor in the the middle of the audience! She did a few costume changes including one on stage in about 10secs, I have no idea how she did that! You can read a bit about her concert and see some photos of her costumes here. And you can see some more photos if you scroll down to the bottom of this page.
The journey home was relatively uneventful, apart from our tube being held up at the station for a bit due to signaling problems, and we got home at 12.30am. Me and mum have been talking about the concert since as we both really enjoyed it. Mum did say that she wished she'd listened to Taylor Swift's albums a bit more before the concert though as she only knew 2 songs! She couldn't believe I knew all of them ;)
I'm not feeling as bad as I expected today, just tired. I expect it'll hit me later or tomorrow though! So I've just been relaxing today. I've watched some of Taylor Swift's DVD from Fearless: Platinum edition, watched the music channels a bit (and was shocked by Lady GaGa's videos still getting even odder - what is the video to Bad Romance about?!) and listened to some music on Spotify.
This morning I weighed myself and my weight was up a little bit on last week (51.1kg compared to last week's 50.9kg) and that was after a night off feed! So I've emailed my dietician and am going to drop my feeds down to 3 nights this week :D
When we'd finished at Harrods we headed to Wembley Arena. As we entered the arena we had to have our bags searched. The man who searched my bag told me I needed to take the lid off my bottle of water. I expected him to ask me to have a sip to prove that it was only water, but he confiscated my lid!!! Mum explained to him that I needed the lid back as it was sterile water and he eventually said he'd make an exception for me and handed the lid back, but not before he'd been turning it round and round in his grubby hands, yuk! We arrived there a bit early so sat in the cafe for a while and I also bought some merchandise. I bought a big programme full of photos and a tour t-shirt. I wasn't impressed that they charged for debit card transactions though, but as I didn't have any cash with me I had to pay an extra £3 (it was £1.50 per transaction and stupidly I didn't buy both my things together). And when I wanted to go to the toilet I had to join the longest toilet queue I'd ever seen! But queueing for the toilet wasn't too boring as there was a Band Hero game set up nearby so I could listen and laugh at the people attempting Taylor Swift karaoke!
The doors to the seating opened about 1 hour before the concert started, so we made our way in to find our seats. We had seats in quite a good position - if you click here to view the seating chart, we were in block N11 about 2/3 of the way back. Our view would have been brilliant if we didn't have 4 'gorilla' boys as my mum called them, directly in our line of vision. They were in the row in front of us and along a little bit, so in our view of the stage. They were all over 6ft tall! And me and my mum are both just 5ft 4"! We had seats, but I had to stand for most of it (which hurt) as the gorilla boys were standing, so if I sat down I couldn't see a thing. Mum asked them to sit down so I could see and that lasted for 1/2 a song! And even standing I struggled a bit to to try to see between/around them. Then behind us there were some young girls with really high pitched screams and to the right of us there were 2 older girls who had a bit too much to drink! The arena was completely sold out and the crowd was amazing. Taylor Swift was so shocked when for about 5mins solid the whole arena was cheering, clapping and stamping their feet for her!
During Taylor Swift's introduction part my Mum got very excited and somehow managed to flick her glasses off, lol! It was dark, so we had to get everyone seated around us to look for her glasses. They were found quite quickly though so then we could go back to watching the concert :D
The support act was an American boy called Justin Bieber. He looked about 11, but apparently he was 15. He wasn't bad at all, but not really my kind of music. He only did about 4/5 songs though. And near the end of his set he fell over something on stage and broke his foot! I'd never heard of him before, but lots of the crowd seemed to have.
Then Taylor Swift came on and she must have been on stage for almost 2 hours. She was really good :D She performed 16 songs - 10 out of 13 tracks from Fearless (she didn't do Breathe, which I don't really like, but also didn't do The Best Day or Change, which are two of my three favourite tracks from Fearless), 5 tracks from Taylor Swift (Tim McGraw, Teardrops on my Guitar, Picture to Burn, Our Song and Should've Said No) and a Justin Timberlake cover too.
The set was clever as it created lots of different scenes for her different songs and turrets even popped up to turn it into a castle for 'Love Story'! And they had rain coming down from the ceiling for her to dance in during the finale. The back of the set was a screen that they used to show different things for each song. And there was a video screen on one side of the stage too which showed a close up of the action on stage. As well as singing Taylor played the guitar and the piano too. And at one point she walked through some of the audience, but that was down on the ground, so nowhere near me. She also performed a few songs on a little stage that popped out of the floor in the the middle of the audience! She did a few costume changes including one on stage in about 10secs, I have no idea how she did that! You can read a bit about her concert and see some photos of her costumes here. And you can see some more photos if you scroll down to the bottom of this page.
The journey home was relatively uneventful, apart from our tube being held up at the station for a bit due to signaling problems, and we got home at 12.30am. Me and mum have been talking about the concert since as we both really enjoyed it. Mum did say that she wished she'd listened to Taylor Swift's albums a bit more before the concert though as she only knew 2 songs! She couldn't believe I knew all of them ;)
I'm not feeling as bad as I expected today, just tired. I expect it'll hit me later or tomorrow though! So I've just been relaxing today. I've watched some of Taylor Swift's DVD from Fearless: Platinum edition, watched the music channels a bit (and was shocked by Lady GaGa's videos still getting even odder - what is the video to Bad Romance about?!) and listened to some music on Spotify.
This morning I weighed myself and my weight was up a little bit on last week (51.1kg compared to last week's 50.9kg) and that was after a night off feed! So I've emailed my dietician and am going to drop my feeds down to 3 nights this week :D
Monday, 23 November 2009
Off to London
I'm feeling ok today so am just about to head to London. We'll have a little wander before the concert tonight. I'm so excited :D :D :D
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Short (hopefully) update
Last night I went to bed at 1.15am because I felt a bit nocturnal and so wrote my previous blog update. I woke up earlier than my alarm this morning, so got up at 9am. I've been very tired today though, more tired than yesterday. I was planning to browse round the local carboot sale this morning, but decided against it because I didn't have the energy. So my parents went and I just stayed home and had a shower and stuff instead. I'm glad I didn't go to the carboot sale though because my parents got caught in a downpour while they were out and had to get changed when they got back because they were so wet! Mum hadn't taken a coat with her :P They managed a quick look round the carboot sale in the rain though and because of the downpour, stall owners were almost giving things away, so they picked up a couple of great bargains including a kitchen knife for just 10p and a DVD for me for just 50p :D
I've watched lots of TV today because I've been so tired. I watched a programme about Pink on C4 this morning (but the presenter really annoyed me), an interview with Taylor Swift on Something for the Weekend, The Restaurant which I recorded from last Thur and I attempted to watch a Horizon programme all about talking and language on iPlayer, but just couldn't concentrate on it so had to give up. And I also used iPlayer to listen to Pixie Lott on the Radio 1's Live Lounge from Thur :) I also watched the X Factor and most of the Xtra Factor tonight - I'm so glad that the twins are out at last! I wasn't very impressed with the performances tonight though - I'm not keen on Susan Boyle and I can't stand Mariah Carey!
I've wanted to use Spotify for a while, but was really disappointed that I'd missed the free sign up period and that now you need an invite from someone who pays for it to get a free account. But tonight on one of the ME forums I use, someone told me how to get around that and get Spotify without an invite. If anyone is interested, just click here. So I signed up and downloaded Spotify and I love it :D Now I just need some decent speakers for my laptop and then I'm sorted! Because you can only access music from Spotify on your computer, I'll still buy CDs so I can put them on my iPod, but I'm hoping now I'll be able to wait til they drop in price as I'll be able to listen to them on Spotify in the meantime. The first thing I used Spotify for was to listen to Pixie Lott's album and it's brilliant :D But I'm not in such a rush to buy it now I can listen to it on my laptop :)
My dad looked at my bedside lamp today and he managed to mend the broken fuse which had stopped it working, but somehow in the process he made it so that the lamp works, but wont turn on or off, lol :P So I'll have to have a look for a new one.
As I've mentioned before I've just started writing to my new AYME buddy who is called Katie. Last week I wrote to her mum asking for advice on what to buy Katie for Christmas as I want to get her a little something, but as I've never been severely affected by ME myself I didn't want to buy her something that she couldn't use. Today I received a lovely email in response from her younger sister and now I've got some good ideas about what to get her for Christmas :)
Today I heard from K's mum. I've not mentioned K for a while, but she's a little girl I met in hospital who had a transplant like mine. K is 5 and has been having lots of health problems this last year which mean she'll probably need a second transplant. And she had very severe swine flu a few months ago. I'd not heard from K's mum for a month or two, but contacted her today. K is still in hospital and not doing very well. And K's mum and dad have just split up :(
Today me and mum have been planning tomorrow. I've been quite worried that I might not be well enough to go, but I'm going to make every effort to get to the concert tomorrow as I really don't want to miss it. Hopefully I'll feel a bit better tomorrow morning than I have done today, fingers crossed. If I'm feeling well then we're probably going to go to Harrods first then go on to the concert. If I'm not feeling so well then we'll just go to the concert. I've not really allowed myself to get excited today, but if I wake up tomorrow morning feeling ok, then I'll get excited. I'll try to update tomorrow to let you know whether I've made it out or not.
I've watched lots of TV today because I've been so tired. I watched a programme about Pink on C4 this morning (but the presenter really annoyed me), an interview with Taylor Swift on Something for the Weekend, The Restaurant which I recorded from last Thur and I attempted to watch a Horizon programme all about talking and language on iPlayer, but just couldn't concentrate on it so had to give up. And I also used iPlayer to listen to Pixie Lott on the Radio 1's Live Lounge from Thur :) I also watched the X Factor and most of the Xtra Factor tonight - I'm so glad that the twins are out at last! I wasn't very impressed with the performances tonight though - I'm not keen on Susan Boyle and I can't stand Mariah Carey!
I've wanted to use Spotify for a while, but was really disappointed that I'd missed the free sign up period and that now you need an invite from someone who pays for it to get a free account. But tonight on one of the ME forums I use, someone told me how to get around that and get Spotify without an invite. If anyone is interested, just click here. So I signed up and downloaded Spotify and I love it :D Now I just need some decent speakers for my laptop and then I'm sorted! Because you can only access music from Spotify on your computer, I'll still buy CDs so I can put them on my iPod, but I'm hoping now I'll be able to wait til they drop in price as I'll be able to listen to them on Spotify in the meantime. The first thing I used Spotify for was to listen to Pixie Lott's album and it's brilliant :D But I'm not in such a rush to buy it now I can listen to it on my laptop :)
My dad looked at my bedside lamp today and he managed to mend the broken fuse which had stopped it working, but somehow in the process he made it so that the lamp works, but wont turn on or off, lol :P So I'll have to have a look for a new one.
As I've mentioned before I've just started writing to my new AYME buddy who is called Katie. Last week I wrote to her mum asking for advice on what to buy Katie for Christmas as I want to get her a little something, but as I've never been severely affected by ME myself I didn't want to buy her something that she couldn't use. Today I received a lovely email in response from her younger sister and now I've got some good ideas about what to get her for Christmas :)
Today I heard from K's mum. I've not mentioned K for a while, but she's a little girl I met in hospital who had a transplant like mine. K is 5 and has been having lots of health problems this last year which mean she'll probably need a second transplant. And she had very severe swine flu a few months ago. I'd not heard from K's mum for a month or two, but contacted her today. K is still in hospital and not doing very well. And K's mum and dad have just split up :(
Today me and mum have been planning tomorrow. I've been quite worried that I might not be well enough to go, but I'm going to make every effort to get to the concert tomorrow as I really don't want to miss it. Hopefully I'll feel a bit better tomorrow morning than I have done today, fingers crossed. If I'm feeling well then we're probably going to go to Harrods first then go on to the concert. If I'm not feeling so well then we'll just go to the concert. I've not really allowed myself to get excited today, but if I wake up tomorrow morning feeling ok, then I'll get excited. I'll try to update tomorrow to let you know whether I've made it out or not.
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