Tuesday, 31 December 2013
2013 stability, safety and calm.
2013
What a year it has been, but as crap as it may have seemed it has been one of the best years of my life, there were some very dark moments and times when there has been hope brought from where there seemed to be no hope but most importantly, for me there was stability, safety and calm.
One thing about this year and having the Lymphoma was that I KNEW my enemy, the previous years with the ITP, I was trying to make sense of the randomness that it brought about, I didn't know if I woke up in the morning and felt fine if an hour later I was going to feel fine, maybe my stomach would rip open, maybe I would get a cut and have to go to hospital, maybe I would come out in my blood blisters, maybe my headaches would be back. I didn't have to worry about when I was on the chemo, if I woke up fine, I stayed fine for the rest of the day, STABILITY, and I knew I was going to be OK.
Next is the people that have helped me through this year. I have always been incredibly lucky (or had good taste in friends) and been blessed with how fantastic and understanding they are, this year I have made more friends, and friends that now mean a lot to me and I feel that I am never going to be able to repay anyone for what they have done for me over the years and especially over the last year. I keep wanting to say they have been distractions but it feels to put the wrong tone on the relationships, but they have given me hope and guidance and made me feel SAFE.
Which brings me onto the next part, feelings, I've always guided myself with the quote "always be happy, never be satisfied" and I have always been happy, happy was the only emotion I was good at (and still is) but over the last year I felt so much more than happy, I have been sad, I have felt cared for, I have felt fear and I have felt love. It makes me think I was a bit of a robot before and sometimes I wish I could go back to being that way. But it has been incredibly nice at times. But throughout it all I have remained CALM.
Thank you EVERYONE for EVERYTHING you have done, it may seem like nothing to you, but to me... :)
Happy New Year.
Tuesday, 31 December 2013
Last one of the year
(uh oh, looks like i'll have to upload the pics another time)
So Thursday came along and I decided today I would nip into town to watch a film and to hand in my Secret Santa pressie while I was at it. I went to watch Catching Fire after finishing the book a couple days ago, was disappointed in it, not because I felt it missed out on a couple of key moments but just generally wasn't as good as it could have been, or maybe it was because I was looking forward to it. But while I was in the cinema I took a few minutes to rip tickets and direct people to their seats, it was surprisingly fun after not doing it for so long. Did get a few funny looks as I was wearing my normal clothes. That night I decided to watch After Earth in the Insyplex, it was good, not what I was quite expecting but enjoyable all the same.
Friday came along and it is the last day of getting chemo, the last planned one anyway. Finally got results back from the scan I had four weeks ago and all the swollen glands had either disappeared or where miniscule and this will be my second chemo from getting the scan, so the miniscule ones are probably now even smaller. I thought I would be happier to hear this. I quickly read down the review of what their findings were from the scan and after all the stuff about the chemo I noticed there was a part on lesions on my left abdomen wall, I asked him where that would be and pointed towards where I get the pain in my stomach so that could explain that bit and he said he would refer it to the X-ray committee to see if they can find anything from it.
During the break of the hospital I went to the cinema to go and see Anchorman 2, it was much longer than I thought it would be but very enjoyable, while I was leaving there and about to go for lunch, I got a call from the hospital to come back and get the chemo and so I went to the shop on the way and got some snacks and headed up to get the stuff. They took me into one of the side rooms this time and after getting the chemo I just went to sleep. That evening I basically ate and ate and when I stopped eating I felt nauseous so I just kept eating, watched Tower Heist and went to sleep.
Next morning I felt pretty good, no nausea and didn't seem too tired, so I had a couple things I wanted to get done today but I don't know if I'll do them or leave them till Monday, in the end I got them done and out of the way, in the evening had a nice burger from the chippy round the corner and in the evening watched Love Actually as it's supposed to be a Christmas film.
Sunday was a fairly quiet day, only main thing of note was watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, it isn't Christmas till that's watched, and then had an early night.
Monday came along again and I decided that I would go and watch the Hobbit and pick up my Secret Santa pressie, the film is good if you completely ignore any story from the book, and basically they have bought the name and decided to do whatever they like with it. I went to see it in the High Frame Rate as I did with the first one but this one seemed to be so much better and wasn't as disjointed in the fast moving scenes. That night went up to a friend's house for a Christmas party.
Tuesday... Christmas FestivitEves, felt a little tired today after the party last night but was still lots to do, the ISS was going over and there was and Iridium flare as well, got some shots of the ISS and a video of the flare, turned out better than I thought they would and then headed out for the Christmas FestivitEves in town, it's always a good night. Christmas day I got woken up by my mum to exchange presents and later went to my brother's and sister's houses to give them their presents and home to have our own Christmas dinner. It was a nice day and was great seeing the kids' faces, they were so excited. On Boxing Day we had everyone round at the house for dinner and in the evening went to a friends' house, on the way home there was a lot of damage to fences and houses around the place with the strong winds.
The next morning I got a call from a friend who is back from China for a while and he wanted to head out into town tonight with others that are back in Belfast too for a while and to be honest I could have seen it far enough as I will be heading out tomorrow night as well, but it's not often I am well and not working when they're back, so I couldn't miss the opportunity. It was a great night and really enjoyed it, it's been a few years since we had all got together like that and will probably be a few more until it happens again unfortunately.
By Saturday morning I was truly and utterly done out, but only one more night left of boozing then a bit of a break until New Years, went round to Victoria's for a few drinks then headed into the Empire the watch Ages of Rock, they were very good and really enjoyed it. Next morning I didn't even bother surfacing till near lunch time. One thing about the week, I never had a really bad hangover, no sore heads or anything which I was surprised about as well I haven't drank like that in a very, very long time, but it's not every week you and your friends all get the time to go out. Was a great week but I don't think I could have taken much more of it. Sunday and Monday were spent watching TV and football, and playing on the PS4 and so onto Tuesday the last day of the year, started off by doing this as the rain had woke me up and I was thinking about the last year the same things over and over so I thought, why think about it when you could just write about it and that's what I'll do.
Wednesday, 18 December 2013
Merry Christmas
So I'm just going to keep this one brief as well, to be honest haven't really done very much over the last two weeks hence why I haven't updated this much. Thursday... nothing, couple of films, but at least on the Friday the PS4 arrived and as soon as I had it set up downstairs was told to turn it off, so it will be kept up in my room, just need to get a converter to link it up to the projector, but one of my monitors is HDMI so I'm using that for it at the moment so far. Saturday and Sunday were basically watching football, playing the PS4 and watching TV.
Monday came along though and tonight it is the work Christmas dinner/party so after a relaxing day went to that in Lavery's, was great to see everyone from work again and some that no longer work there which is a pity, but as the prizes were being handed out (none I was expecting as I haven't been there for six months) up came "Employee of the year" and well.. I won it! so got up and got my certificate and a champagne party popper, which didn't work and also a gift from everyone for being unwell, wasn't expecting very much but when I opened it was a very, very, very generous gift voucher for Amazon, I was well chuffed with it and well got quite drunk to celebrate.
Tuesday I deserved to feel so much worse than I was, but you win some... but it was a waste of a day and lay around watching TV and films most of it and that evening got the invite to the beta testing of Hearthstone, better than having to wait till the release date.
Pretty much the rest of the week was just spent killing time watching TV computer films etc until Friday night when I had a Christmas party to go to at Cat's flat, was a good night and was nice meeting a load of people I hadn't met before, was fun. Until the next morning again when the hangover kicks in, but to be fair it wasn't that bad and was worth it once again, just one more drinking night until The Christmas Festiviteves, can't wait. So the next thing to be done was on Monday to go to the last quiz of the year, in which we came second in and won a goody bag full of Jaeger things and a selection box and because we are regulars they gave us a tube of milky bar buttons. There was a good crowd at it.
But basically the last month has been atrociously quiet and done very little apart from going out drinking from time to time, haven't been going out for my walks or been doing very much of any interest at all. This has had a bit of an effect on my sleeping and I can't get to sleep at and night and find it impossible to get up in the mornings as well. Haven't been getting any aches and pains but my cough has been coming back too, my parents are blaming it on the smoking, which I'm sure isn't helping but it wouldn't explain the runny nose from time to time, I think this has been working on me for a couple weeks and the draft in my room is making things much worse, like this morning I woke up and my neck was spasming and it felt really cold. It's mostly caused by the wind as on cold days, but not windy there is no draft.
Also today I've been really tired and head was sore, but seems to have settled now. Hope everything clears up by Friday so that I can get my final chemo and then find out what is going to happen after with the ITP. It will be an interesting couple of months ahead. But there are a few things to look forward to and one I thought I would never think and that is getting back to work again and getting a bit of normality and routine back into my life again.
I should maybe get out a while tomorrow and get some "exercise" and "fresh air" or just get up off my lazy ass. But hopefully the chemo will have worn off by Saturday and I can get out for a walk then and each day after as well.
I will probably not be doing the blog until after Christmas so have a Happy Christmas in advance and enjoy.
Wednesday, 4 December 2013
Is it Christmas yet?
Friday, chemo day has came along once again and also, a new coat arrived for me yesterday, and as has been customary for the day after getting a new coat, it is raining. That is four new coats in a row at least this has happened with. Today though could be an interesting day, obviously with getting the chemo a bit later but also with the trip into town to see if there is anywhere doing the black Friday deals in store. First off though I had to get my bloods done in hospital, they all came back well with the counts being up nice and high and everything being ok to go ahead with the chemo, I also got my ESA forms back again so I will get them sent off when I'm in town.
Once out of hospital I walked down into town and had a look around different shops and nowhere seemed to be doing anything for black Friday at all, Game had a queue outside it but I'm guessing that was to pick up their PS4s, so I walked on past and into other shops. At this stage I posted my ESA forms and thought "I've got a lot of time to kill now" and decided to go to City Side to ASDA up there as I had heard that they were going to be doing black Friday things. But by the time I got there everything was gone and there was no sign that they even had anything on for it in the first place, so went right back into town a few minutes later. For lunch today I had a Subway melt, this was not half as nice as any other Subway that I've ever had, but then again every other Subway that I ever had, I had been drinking beforehand, which has obviously made them taste a lot better.
After lunch I had another bit of a look around town and then back up to hospital to get another lunch and to get my chemo and do a bit of reading. Everything seemed to go very smoothly today and got out early compared to normal too. When I got home I had dinner and then went up and stuck on Argo for a while and fell asleep. Saturday morning came and I wasn't feeling too bad at all, a little tired but not much nausea and haven't been taking my anti sickness tablets, a little tired as well but nothing too extreme, everything seems to be going very smoothly this time around thankfully. Most of today was spent lying around and nothing much was done. Sleeping and reading. End of Movember.
Sunday morning and I got up and the usual watching random sports on TV until the Spurs v United game came on, it was a good game too and another good result. But that was basically a highlight of today, most of it was spent sleeping and reading again. In the evening I seen a deal from Tesco which was a lot of beer going cheap but there was no way that I would get it all for myself and said to my dad who didn't have much interest in it either. But then Tucker said about splitting it, so we organised which ones we where after and got it ordered and should be arriving on Tuesday, as should the PS4 that I ordered yesterday. Tuesday should be a good day!!
Monday morning and afternoon was a bit of a waste, I did shave but I was killing time before going to go and see my new GP and that also seemed a bit of a waste of time too, although I did get the prescription for my eye drop that I need to continue for the next couple of weeks. After there I went into work to pick my secret Santa and to pay for the Christmas dinner next week, looking forward to it. Monday night I went round to the quiz and there was a good crowd of us and Tim was able to go too, first time I've seen him out in about eight weeks, was good to see him again. We ended up winning the quiz again this week very comfortably. After the quiz I went back to Cobbes for a while to drink the winnings and stumbled home at some point, no idea.
Next morning I woke up and was still drunk, a bit of a mixture between drinking so much and having the chemo on Friday, it always seems to linger around for a lot longer after getting the chemo. Had breakfast and ended up going back to bed. The PS4 order is still saying that it is "unshipped" so it looks like it won't be arriving today, but the beer will be here between three and four...
Although four came along and it still wasn't here!! But at about quarter past it finally did arrive. If I wasn't as hung over it would be such a beautiful sight but I don't think I could handle it today. I watched a couple of films today, the first was Eyeborgs quite a good, silly film, if it had a better budget it would make a fantastic film, enjoyable all the same. The next one I watched was the Green Lantern, which after checking how many shows I've watched on Lovefilm this was the 1000th, that's a lot of films and that evening just sat on the computer, but at least my PS4 has finally been shipped, so maybe... maybe it will arrive tomorrow I hope it does cause I will be up at hospital on Thursday about my eye and to make sure it's healing up the way it should be.
Wednesday has came and I am really hoping the PS4 arrives but with it being shipped so late last night I think it may be wishful but fingers crossed anyway that it does. Today was spent just watching TV and writing up the blog, very little else. But now that it is half four I have lost all hope that the PS4 will arrive today so will have to think of something to do tonight, was hoping it would be playing about with that, but doesn't seem likely anymore.
Wednesday, 4 December 2013
Black Friday deals...
So the next main thing that came up was going for my CT scan on the Thursday. The eye has settled a little bit but I still find it hard to adjust to the change of light and indoor/outdoor looking, it will take a while but will hopefully settle soon enough. I dropped my ESA forms into my doctor to get them filled in and will pick them up next week when I'm in to get my next chemo. The scan went ok, nothing out of the normal, sat around waiting while I took the drink and then in to get it and didn't take long. I decided to walk home as, with the traffic it would take longer to get the bus and the germs too there. It was so nice, the eyesight, being able to look into the distance and instead of things in the distance being blurs they were so clear and sharp and even looking up into the sky seeing the stars as points rather than blobs of lights. It has really added to it, so beautiful.
That evening I just ended up watching a couple of films and doing a bit of reading. But my diary is clear until next Friday for the chemo, which is good timing as the Black Friday deals are all going around next week so I'm sure I'll get a few bargains, best week of the year and I don't plan to do anything over the weekend with the eye just getting done, not going to take any chances.
Friday was another quiet day, just sat around reading and on the computer and went out with the telescope with my dad and Lewis for a bit to have a look at Venus, got some nice shots, not great ones but you can see that it looks like a very distant moon crescent shape. After watched the Ulster game and watched G.I. Joe Retaliation, was a good no brainer film with action, just what I was after.
Saturday morning I came down and had breakfast and was watching different sports on the sports channels including the basketball, American football and volleyball, they were all quite enjoyable and it fascinates me that the American college football get such a big crowd! Lewis seemed to enjoy it as well and then the Everton Liverpool game was on after, was a good game and the result worked out well for Arsenal again and right after that I put on the rugby league and seen the enthralling finish to the England New Zealand semi final, which New Zealand got a try to even the scores with the last play and got the conversion to win and get into the final against Australia. Went for a sleep in the afternoon. In the evening I was in the kitchen taking my tablets and heard a bit of a ruckus outside so went and had a look and there where a load of youths looking as if they were about to kick off, which they did and one kid got a bit of a hiding and then they all ran off different directions, yesterday I seen a load of school kids standing up in the park in a circle which looked like there was going to be a fight then, so it must be a bit of a thing at the moment. As long as they don't make a mess outside my house or keep me awake or do anything to bug me, I'll be happy enough but I'm sure it's just a phase and will pass.
Sunday was something similar to Saturday when I watched some random sports on TV starting off with American football, some NHL and then the Ireland match in the rugby union against New Zealand, Ireland were incredibly unlucky not to win it, but they did seem to get the run of the green in the first half, was still a bit heart breaking when it came to the end and they lost in the last minute. That evening I started organising things for the black Friday deals next week, having a look around to see if I could find different sites that are going to be taking part in it. But there was very little about it on most places, so I will just have to keep a better eye out during the week. Getting very excited about it and I'm sure it's going to cost me a bucket load. But at least I will save a massive amount, if I get in fast enough. And sure enough that evening a deal came up that was a £10 Amazon voucher for £5 so that was a good start even before the Monday came and got a pressie for my mum and dad to have before Christmas, half price and free delivery.
Monday morning and I had a look on the Amazon lightning deals to see which ones I would be interested in and the time that they would be up at, there were a few things and some I'd quite like so I made a note of how much I would be willing to spend and if they were below that I'd jump, which I did for a few things, can't mention some as they're Christmas pressies for people. One thing I had planned to do today was to go into town and see the Coca Cola lorry and to get my mum's watched fixed up, so that's exactly what I did, I didn't have any other deals coming up for a while so I should be back home in time for them. Got down to the lorry and the queue wasn't too long so hung around got a free tin of coke and got my picture taken with the lorry, felt like a big kid, was great and then went round a few shops to get the prices checked out to get the watch fixed up and ended up going back to the first place I went and got it sorted in a few minutes and headed home, ended up walking in and home, the eye wasn't too bad but still felt "wobbly" and hard to focus on things especially going in and out of shops. Got home just in time to get the deal I was after and was cheaper than I had expected it to be, good stuff. Further to note on the youths, there was a police car attacked by kids throwing bottles on Grand Parade, this might get things sorted a little and get them away for a while and tonight is also the last night that I have to wear my mask when sleeping, the glue hasn't been doing my skin any favours and has been drying it out, the heavy rubbing in the morning getting it all off is the main problem I guess, but can't wait till I can sleep a little more comfortably.
Tuesday morning I checked the total of how much I spent/saved so far on different deals and it's worked out at a saving of over 60% not too bad, hopefully that will increase as the week goes on. But the rest of the day was spent looking for deals and in the evening watched the Arsenal game, wasn't exactly a good game, but the result was what I was after, another 3 points.
Wednesday the first pile of stuff arrived, so it was like an early Christmas, getting to open all the stuff, always fun, most days this week will be like this and once again the only thing that was done today was looking for some good deals and a bit of reading, rechecking the saving from today added to the previous ones, it has now went up to 68.8% saved, going well. Thursday was basically the same as Wednesday with the opening of items delivered keeping an eye out for more deals some reading and trying to keep up to date with how ISON is coping near the sun, but it turns out that it's just a bit of dust now.