Monday 22nd November 2021
Kickstart
Hi everyone, how is everyone keeping? I was a bit surprised that it’s been a month since I last wrote a blog. It seems to have flown in way too fast. The week after writing it I had to move all my stuff into my parents’ garage, a few things up to my sis and I end sleeping in my parents for a while as I hadn’t been able to find anywhere to move to. It was quite irritating, as soon as they heard I was on Universal Credit I was pretty much blanked. But this sort of worked out for me.
I was pretty much viewing and applying for houses each day, Belfast, Newcastle, Newtownards, Banbridge, Ballyclare. Pretty much anywhere. I was wanting out of Belfast, Co Down or Co Antrim, decent phone signal, small town/village life. The house I wasn’t overly picky about, as long as it had the basics like you would expect in a house, kitchen, bathroom, a room to sleep in and a room to sit/work in. I’m not that fussy, I sit reading or watching tv most of the time and have my treadmill and bike and as long as there’s somewhere to get food each week or two.
So one day I had a viewing in Banbridge, the house itself was nice enough a fair bit of greenery around but was out of the way from the town and any shops and the phone signal was non-existent so was pretty much ruled out straight away. I stopped into Dromore to view another property, it was decent enough but was oddly shaped, parking was poor and just didn’t feel right.
By chance I was told about another property in Dromore and to view it, it pretty much ticked all the boxed I was after and was in great condition, all pretty much newly done up. I had another property to view a couple days after, but the following day before that viewing I knew I wanted the one I seen and so cancelled the other viewing and agreed to the one in Dromore (Co Down), or at least I thought I had. I went down on the Saturday with a car full of stuff to get the key. Although they thought I was just viewing it again. But I got the key and started moving some stuff in.
A few days later I started staying over there and gradually moving more of my stuff in, a few of the things I wasn’t able to bring myself but have been lucky enough to have some people that were able to help me. Now that I have everything here, it feels very homely and I feel at home, I really like it. It will take a bit to get used to the Eco7 heating but getting the hang of it.
On to other things now, the next day after writing the last blog I went for a walk and rather than cutting through the schools and back home I went on up round the carriageway and down the main road, it was the longest walk I had taken in over a year, it felt really good to do it, not just physically, but mentally too. Little to my knowledge that wouldn’t last long, the next day my hip was sore, I don’t remember any time the night before, during or after the walk when I hurt it or it being sore so I was surprised about it. I did try a few walks after that and it didn’t help with it at all and if anything, it was getting worse.
Moving my stuff didn’t help with things either and it wasn’t until I pretty much took a week of doing next to nothing that it finally eased, I can still feel a weakness in it and won’t be pushing my luck and aggravating it again.
I got a call about getting an appointment for getting the skin thing on my head removed, I needed to get the platelets checked prior to make sure they were high enough to go ahead with it, thankfully I was up at hospital the day before it was due to get done and the counts were good enough to go ahead with it. Since the biopsy it has been scabbing up a lot quicker and been a struggle to not pick at it so I was glad and surprised to get it done so quickly.
They were initially going to do a skin graft for it but after their poking and prodding they were happy that my scalp was stretchy enough that it wouldn’t be needed and could just stich it closed although would feel a bit tight for a while. It was sore when I raised my eyebrows and was tender to touch. This made me try to lie on my side which I was able to do in small doses and so it didn’t aggravate the head too much. It’s still annoying but it is improving, still tender to touch and healing up but slowly. Still a bit of a mess though with a proper blood scab.
When I was up at hospital they were happy enough with most things, on the grand scheme of things everything was good, just a lot of small niggly things like the hip which they think is muscular, the back still has a weakness in it too and the stomach pains too.
During last week I was able to manage a few days without any extra pain relief and on Saturday night I tried without any pain relief, didn’t work out too great and won’t be trying it again for a while, just felt horrible most of the night and didn’t sleep right. Was glad when the next morning’s pain relief kicked in and started to feel a bit human again.
I got my flu jab and my second covid vaccine, with the first one I had a sore arm the next day but nothing with the second one. Considering all the crap that’s been pumped into me the last couple of years this is like a wee glass of water. I don’t believe there’s some wild conspiracy going on, people are dying, but there are plenty of other people that are going undiagnosed and not getting treatment and help they require.
People should be allowed to choose whether they want to get the jab or not and not be forced to. A lot of people are not getting it for stupid reasons though. It’s a vaccine, not a cure, like chemo, it doesn’t always stop it but it does help in the majority of cases and helps stop the spread and it can stop it. It worked for me 6 years ago and yet my cancer came back, if I had decided not to get chemo then I may not be here, it might have cleared up itself, I don’t know but it was more likely that things would work out better getting it than not.
The government certainly aren’t doing themselves any favours by scratching their mates backs and lining their pockets but to think that all these countries have come up with some masterplan is ridiculous, the Americans don’t even like each other never mind working with China or Russia and some super elite crap. And the name calling from whatever view you have just belittles any argument and comparing it to a certain dictator is pathetic, our politicians aren’t smart enough for that.
In all honesty, it really makes little to no difference to me, I don’t spend much time with people and with being immunosuppressed for 20 odd years there’s a lot of things I do and have done that more people are now doing too.
Anyway, back to me, I’m not saying things aren’t great or anything like that and I know I’m making good progress, but I thought by this stage I would have felt “normal” again. I still feel pretty crap in the mornings, chest is sore, stomach is sore, back is sore, legs are sore, lungs are bunged up and I just can’t get enough breath in me if I’m doing anything and I feel it’s more than just lack of fitness, I know I got a fair whack of lung taken out for the biopsy but I didn’t think it would have such a dramatic effect. I guess this is what normal is now for me and I guess I’ll adapt to it. I miss my long walks though and I know there’s a lot of things I enjoyed that I’ll no longer be able to do, but I’ll find new things that I’ll enjoy just as much if not more.
Today my broadband goes live so I’m off to set that up… plug in a couple of cables and maybe even set up my smart home again…
Until next time.