There was some light mist earlier, and now the road looks damp as if we have already had some light rain. Both forecasters only show rain starting to fall from 11am this morning. The BBC predict light rain through the afternoon, and up to 8pm tonight. The Met Office say heavy rain  for a couple of hours, followed by an hour of light rain, and then just a a dull grey sky for the rest of the day.  It is going to be a cool day. The BBC say just 17° C, and the Met Office suggest just 16° C. Tomorrow should be warmer with either 20 or 21° C, and The BBC say most of the day will either feature sunshine of sunny spells. The Met Office only predict a few sunny spells, and the rest of the day will be dull, but dry.

   Yesterday was an eventful day - some events were good, and others turned out to be not so good. My early start paid off. I finished writing early, and had plenty of time to have a good shower before I got ready to go out. The unexpected need for an additional poo slowed me down a bit, but I still managed to get out in time to not be late at the hospital.

  As I walked through the park I tried to keep mental notes of how I felt, and I also had my walk tracker on, and took a screenshot to show the distance and time before the growing angina pain forced me to stop very briefly first time, and a bit longer as I reached the hospital. I noted it was almost 1km walk from my front door to the entrance of the hospital (actually 1.018km).

   It was obvious my heart was going fairly fast when I got to the hospital, and I had some low level angina pains, but I still decided to go up the stairs to the cardiology area. It was fortunate there was almost a 15 minute wait before I was called in for my preliminary ECG. Even then, the nurse scrapped the first ECG, and did another to allow another 5 minutes for my heart to settle down.

  Then it was off to the Cardiology department which was down a corridor, round a corner, and through a couple of swing doors. I didn't think I recognised it until I got inside. I may have approached it fro a different direction before on the occasion I had a very bad "chat" with the Cardiac rehabilitation nurse. I later learned that there were two of them, and that one was know to be a bit of a sour puss.

  Once again I had a bit of a wait before a few more preliminaries by a nurse. First I was weighed, I took my keys off, and left my mobile phone on the side. It was not the same as when I weigh myself at home, usually only wearing underpants, but I was happy to see that all my clothes only seemed to add a kg to my weight, and that was still less than the last time I was weighed by the nurse at the group practice.

  The next thing was to have my blood pressure, blood oxygenation amount, and body temperature. Despite a lot of resting time, I still felt my heart beating harder, or faster than usual after my walk in the park. On top of that was a variation on "white coat syndrome", but in this case it was because I felt I was just a product moving through a production line. My first blood pressure test send the needle (digital display) up to 200mmhg. That is dangerously high ! The nurse (a man, and so not even pretty) allowed me a few minutes to try and relax, and the second time gave a systolic pressure of 186mmhg. That fairly large drop satisfied him.

  After another wait of maybe 10 minutes I was called into one of the consulting rooms to see a junior Cardiologist. He went through the usual interrogation sequence - asking about when, and how long ago was it when I started getting angina pains. I said it was really only when I had walked far and fast enough, and that it had started off as a mild irritation, maybe 6 to 9 months ago, but had got a lot worse a couple of months ago. The trouble is that until it got sufficiently bad I did not really remember any prior stuff. I experienced it, and then forgot it.

  The Junior cardiologist didn't comment on the blood pressure reading I had earlier, but he did say how wonderful, and useful it was that I took in my printouts of the last 3 months of morning and evening blood pressure readings, Unfortunately I didn't get a gold star because I had accidently forgotten to change the year from 2023 to 2024 when I started recording my readings  on the spreadsheet.

  Once he had enough information he went to fetch the Senior Cardiologist who would explain what my MRI scan had revealed. That meant another 5 minute wait, then the results of my MRI scan were revealed and explained. It seems that some parts of my heart are not getting enough oxygen because of reduced blood flow to the heart muscles. This was basically the problem that lead to my heart bypass operation in 2013, but this time they think it is some more minor blood vessels, and that the grafts of the bypass operation are still working OK.

  I was told that in the interim they would try and treat the symptoms rather than the cause. The anti angina drug I started taking after my couple of days in hospital back in March, do seem to have helped a very little bit, and so the dose is to be doubled, and also the dose of another of the drugs I take is to be doubled as well. That will be all for now, and I'll be called back for another consultation in about 3 months.

  In the interim I will probably be called in to have a 24 hour blood pressure monitor fitted so they can see how my blood pressure changes through a 24 hour period. I may also be called in for a CT scan. This is the baby brother of the MRI scan I had, and this time they will be imaging all the blood vessels feeding the heart, to see if they can identify a particular blocked or restricted artery. One possible outcome is another angiogram where they can fit a stent or two to open up a blockage.

  For now I just hope that the increase in drug dosage helps me get a few more, or more minutes of walking before I have to slow down, and usually rest for a minute or less. The last bit of diagnostic evidence will be a blood test. After seeing the cardiologist I was told to go down to "the purple zone" which, among other things, has the phlebotomy department. It was easier to find than I expected, even though it was in one of the older hospital buildings I had never been in before. It meant another 15 minutes wait, but I was then called through, and they took two tubes of blood from me. One thing about those phlebotomists is that they do seem to know their craft exceedingly well, and 99 times out of 100 it is about as painless as can be when they stick that needle in to draw blood. These days I only ever fear a ward nurse trying to stick a needle in!

  The picture on the left is a notice in the "bleeding room". I thought it was amusing enough that I asked the woman who had just taken my blood samples if she would mind if I took a snap of it, and that she could make sure I didn't include any members of staff, or patients in the picture. There were posters up all over the place saying not to use cameras in the hospital, but she was happy for me to take this snap.

  Once my blood had been taken, and I had taken my photo, I went straight to the Jolly Farmers for my usual Wednesday couple of pints of Guinness. I was not sure if they opened before midday, but fortunately it was open, although if it wasn't it would probably have only been less than 15 minutes wait. This was obviously earlier than my usual time, and that was quite handy.

  I had done all of the quick crossword in The Metro while waiting in the hospital. I had also managed to do nearly half the cryptic crossword as well - which is a bit of a record for me this year. I think I managed one more clue in the pub, but the light was not good enough where I was sitting, and I decided that for a change I would try and read some news. I can't say I enjoyed that, and curiously enough, almost none of it seemed important to me enough to even try and remember any of it.

   I left the pub, and headed for the path behind St Mary's church to get into the park. There was shorter routes I could take, but I thought a bit of extra exercise and fresh air would be nice - it was also warm and sunny, which was another point in it's favour. I started off at a moderately brisk walking pace - fast enough to overtake several dawdlers - but it was only for about 5 minutes before the angina pains started. I tried to balance things a bit by slowing down a bit, but I still find that hard to do. I think I had two very brief stops, and one longer one, before I got home.

   I was most definitely feeling the strain/pain when I got home. There was one good thing beyond getting home where I could rest, and that was finding my Amazon parcel tucked behind the wheelie bins. There were three items in the ox - two packs of Duracel "Optimum" super high power AAA batteries, a new keyboard, and a new wrist mounted blood pressure meter. I may, or may not have moaned about my current wrist blood pressure meter. It seems to have a poor connection inside it, and I occasionally have to bash it to stop it complaining the batteries have gone flat when I know that are almost new and fresh.

  The new blood pressure meter is terrible Chinese crap. It is obvious from the LCD display it should do a lot more than I know how to do on it. One simple thing is that it can be used by two persons, and retain separate memories of each of their readings. The so called user manual doesn't even show how to set the time and date. I managed to work that  out for
myself. That put it in a usable condition, but all my first readings seemed to be very high. I later realised it was just all the frustration that was making my blood pressure rise. later in the evening, after eating dinner, I tried again.

 I tested all three of my blood pressure meters against each other (but not all at the exact same time). The Salter meter, seemingly made by the same company that make good quality weighing scales, is my current meter of choice. It is for use on the wrist, and is the one that occasionally says the battery is flat unless I thump the thing. The three months of blood pressure readings I showed to the cardiologist were all taken on this meter.

  The Oxipro meter is for an upper arm cuff - the way most meters doctors use. It is tricky getting the cuff on one handed, and that is the reason I decided to try, and now rely on a wrist mounted cuff. It seemed to agree very closely with my Omron M7 meter, as used by most doctors at the group practice, but whole bladder developed a leak, and a new mketer was cheaper than just a new cuff.

  The final meter I have called the BK-607 because it's makers name seems to be string of about 5 Chinese sounding names. It seems all three meters agree my pulse rate was 61 beats per minute. That is one very good thing. While I was nice and relaxed, the new BK-607 meter agreed very closely to the Salter meter about my systolic pressure. Just a single 1mmhg pressure difference is almost nothing. It seemed odd that the diastolic pressure agreed exactly with the Oxipro meter, and not the Salter. On the whole, I now believe that maybe this new wrist blood pressure meter can be trusted, but I will be using both wrist meters for a while to make sure they continue to roughly agree.

  I felt weird yesterday afternoon, and I didn't know if I felt happy, sad, annoyed, relieved, or something else completely different. One thought I had been mulling over from the night before, and it was that I wanted to reward myself for the day's medical efforts by having a tasty takeaway. I had been considering even a Chinese or Indian takeaway. Both are a very rare treat these days because either can contain a lot of sugar. Chinese tends to be worse in that respect, but it all depends on the restaurant. If only I could remember what they were, I have had both Indian and Chinese takeaways that have little effect on my blood glucose, and some that have sent it soaring sky high !

  With probable food madness happening in the evening I should have been able to resisted completely pigging out on a large packet of crisps in the afternoon. I guess the amount of drool thinking about what I would have later somehow overrode any sensible thinking about what I was doing when I decided to break open a large bag of spicy prawn flavour crisps. I just could not stop shovelling them in.

  It was only a few hours later that I ordered an Indian takeaway, and another 30 to 40 minutes before I was eating some of it. After the crisps I knew I was heading for a disaster, and last night I just ate a chicken Vindaloo with plain boiled rice. I have to admit it was very enjoyable, and it was very tempting to have one oof the two vegetable side dishes I had ordered. One was originally to go with the Vindaloo, and the other was to go with a chicken Dhansak that I intend to have tonight. I have a horrible fear that I chose a takeaway that was very liberal with the sugar in it's cooking - unless it was just the crisps, and the Indian was actually safe. I'll find out tomorrow morning.

  Last night I had a call from Kieth, whose calls can also go on for hours. He talked through the second half of Secrets Of The London Underground, but when I mentioned I wanted to watch The Avengers, and told him it was on Great TV!, a channel he had never heard of, he decided he wanted to watch the Avengers as well - plus several other old TV shows they listed - and we ended the call then.

  Despite an obvious very spicy dinner, I had no trouble with any acid reflux/heartburn last night, but I did have trouble with the temperature. A hot dinner had still left me slightly warmed when I went to bed at 10pm. I laid down, mostly uncovered, and was soon fast asleep. An hour or two later I woke up feeling chilly, and turned the heater on low. I seemed to sleep quite solidly after that, and only woke again once or twice for a pee. This morning I feel sure I had some dreams, and for some reason I seem to think one was very enjoyable, and probably involved a pretty woman, but for the life of me I can't seem to recall a single detail about any dream.

  I had apparently slept well enough that some annoying bit of my brain thought that 5.50am might be a good time to get up. The rest of my brain thought otherwise, and I did my best to sleep more. I still ended up getting up at 6.15am. Despite all my excesses yesterday, I seemed to be only 100gm heavier than yesterday morning, but yesterday I weighed myself after having several poos. I didn't actually have a poo until after I had eaten my breakfast, and drunk a glass of Diet Coke. That made it look like I had put on 300gm since yesterday. That is not a lot provided it is just part of the usual day to day fluctuations, and not a trend (although with what I'll be eating today, it might be a hopefully brief trend).

  This morning my blood glucose readings were a disaster. All three readings were past the pink zone and into the red, and the worst thing is how all three meters roughly agreed with each other. The Contour meter read 10.9mmol/l, and that is almost into the dark red zone ! The GlucoRX meter read 10.5mmol/l, and while not quite a bad, it is still an utter disaster. The Sinocare meter just rubbed it all in with a reading of 10.8mmol/l. The worst thing is if most of the blame lies of on the Indian takeaway, I can expect similar terrible readings tomorrow after eating the rest of the takeaway.

  In an ideal world I would be going for a long walk today, but sadly we don''t live in an ideal world - it is a world where it is currently drizzling, by the look of it, and I ain't going out in that ! The benefits of a long walk would be twofold. One, it would help reduce my syrupy blood a bit faster, and second, it would be an interesting test to see if doubling the dose of the anti-angina drug has helped.

  The reality today is that I have written so much that it is only half an hour until midday. Sooner or later I have to prepare me, and the kitchen and dining room for a beer tasting session with Jodie this afternoon. Some good beers, or maybe enough beer, should make my dinner of Chicken Dhansak extra tasty, and it will also be with tasty pilau rice instead of plain boiled rice. Maybe I'll save the vegetable side dishes for tomorrow.

  A few paragraphs up I stopped for a moment to check my blood pressure. My usual wrist blood pressure meter, the one made by Salter, gave a very nice reading without trying. It was 100/44 with a pulse rate of 51.  The new cheapo Chinese meter gave a first reading of 128/62, but once again a pulse rate of 51. That pressure is perfectly safe, but a fair bit higher than the other meter. I tried relaxing a bit more, and instead of going down, the systolic reading went up to 130, but the diastolic went down to 56. The pulse rate seemed to still be 51. I then tried the meter with the cuff on the upper arm. It read 113/56, and that was OK. So without taking the cuff off, which was on my right arm, I tried the cheapo Chinese meter again, and it now read 141/68. To confirm that was really stupid I used the Oxipro meter, again with the cuff still in place on my arm. The stress of the readings of on the cheapo meter had an effect, and the Oxipro meter now read 127/58 - which is only a bit higher than before, and still far less than the cheapo Chinese meter. I think I have lost faith in that meter again.

      







3442 words today