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Friday 26th
July 2024
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08:40
BST
The forecast said
yesterday would see
almost non stop rain,
although it would all be
light rain or drizzle.
in reality many hours
were dry, and I'm sure I
can remember 2 minutes
of sunshine at some time
yesterday. It was not a
warm day, although
around midday it was
comfortable to go out in
just a t-shirt, and not
get wet (although I did
feel a few drips of rain
as I neared home). The
temperature was forecast
to reach just 20° C, but
Once again it may have
been a degree or two
higher.
The weather has turned
around again, and today
should be bright and dry,
and warm. It seems it will
be mostly sunny spells
rather than full sunshine,
but it may be building up
to that in a day or two.
This afternoon we can
expect 23° C. Tomorrow may
see the same temperature,
but the morning will
possibly feature
hours of non stop
sunshine. The following
days may be even better !
Yesterday was one of those
days that had some good
bits and bad bits until
the evening when it became
progressively bad. It was
all to do with the cold I
have been suffering from.
The symptoms were changing
- some for the better, and
some for the worst.
Even
after some fairly good
sleep the night before, I
still felt something like
tired, but maybe not tired
as in sleepy. I suppose it
is how you are supposed to
feel in the middle of a
cold, but I was doing my
best to pretend that the
cold was not bad at all,
and could be over in an
hour or two. In some
respects, or I suppose it
was only in respect of my
drippy nose, it did get
better, and although I
needed to blow my nose a
bit more frequently than
usual, it seemed trivial
compared to the day
before.
I had
been hoping to do two
things yesterday morning,
or slightly into the
afternoon. One was to go
shopping in Tesco. That
seemed important because I
was almost down to my last
bottle of Diet Coke. In
fact I still have one
unopened bottle in the
fridge this morning (that
I shall soon be opening),
and so it seems there was
no real urgency to go to
Tesco yesterday, although
there will be today.
The
other thing I did do, and
it was to go to the
pharmacy and collect my
latest repeat
prescription. Apart from
the two drugs that at one
time were supposed to have
their dosage increased, on
order of the Hospital
Cardiologists, had not
been increased, there is
little to say about it all
except that everything was
in the bag - checked
outside the pharmacy so I
could dash back in if
anything was missing.
What
was more interesting was
the walk to and from the
pharmacy. The last time I
went to the surgery, in
the same building as the
pharmacy, I tried to limit
my walking speed a little,
but still arrived with
some chest/angina pain.
Yesterday I didn't try to
slow down, and arrived at
the pharmacy with no pain,
although the cold seemed
to provide enough
congestion to leave me
just slightly short of
breath.
I was
not so lucky walking home
again. I was only in the
pharmacy for about 60
seconds, and so didn't get
much of a chance to test.
Walking home did start off
some mild angina pains. It
also got me hot and a bit
sweaty. I don't think that
had anything to do with
this cold because the
highest temperature I have
measured was just 36.8° C,
and that is still a degree
under even the start of a
fever.
After putting all
my pills away I had some
lunch. It was another pair
of small quiches from
Icelands 3 for a fiver
shelf. I don't think I
bothered with any coleslaw
with them. Maybe it was
because I was sure I would
have some other snack or
so before I started
drinking. After that I did
a little bit of washing
up, and then rested on my
bed. I think I did no more
than read, but I might
have had a short snooze.
Jodie arrived for
our afternoon beer tasting
session at about 3.30pm,
and despite having had two
beer deliveries here in
the last week or two, and
only 2 cans drank from the
first of those two orders,
she brought another three
cans with her of foul
"beer" of the hazy, sour
and fruity type. She
nearly had a fit when I
opened one of my latest
orders and poured the
whole lot into my glass
because I was only having
about a shot glass of her
horrible beers. She
demanded to know why I was
drinking one of my
beers without her
permission, and where was
her taste of it ???? I did
give her a taste, but if
she was less rude about it
I could have opened a
second identical bottle!
I think I only sort
of enjoyed one of her
beers, just a bit, and so
I had a few beers of my
own. I had a very good
excuse to keep drinking
instead of waiting for her
to sip her way through her
beer. I was having a bit
of a tickly throat time,
and I wanted to keep it
wet so I was not coughing
all the time. I still had
a few times when I coughed
quite a few times for a
minute or so.
Jodie left to get
here usual train at
6.30pm, and as soon as I
knew she would be leaving
then I put my dinner into
the microwave to cook. It
was, as pictured above,
Iceland's "My Protein"
Singapore Noodles. It was
supposed to be low
calories, and low sugar.
At the time the low sugar
was not such a great
attraction, but it would
turn out to be very
useful. I'll explain that
further down the page. The
dinner itself was not very
nice.....not actually
horrible, but very
unexciting.
I guess I had that
dinner with a few other
things like a little tub
of Coronation Chicken
flavoured pasta, at about
7pm. I felt tired, and I
knew I would probably be
reading in bed before 9pm,
and trying for sleep very
soon after 9pm. That did
not give a lot of time for
the food to settle down.
At first it didn't seem to
matter, and I did go to
sleep at around 9pm, but
an hour later I woke up
again, and I had bad
heartburn on top of an
increasingly chesty cough.
It seems the Esomeprazole
tablets I have started
taking may have helped,
but only to the extent
that the heartburn was not
as bad as usual, but it
was still a strong
distraction. Once again I
had to spend lots of long
periods of time sitting at
my desk waiting for the
pains to subside. That
happened a few times, and
I think I did get some
small periods of sleep,
but I was often woken up
coughing.
It seems that when
laying down my cough could
get very bad, and it was a
chesty cough with added
mucus. As I write this,
and just had a cough after
thinking about it, my
cough is now dry again,
but I suspect if I laid
down, as I will for a
while once I finish
writing this, more mucus
will surface. It is, or
course, pure delusion that
I keep thinking that I
seem to be improving all
the time, and I will be
fine to go out for the
whole of tomorrow and the
day after.
During the
night, and maybe before I
first got to sleep, I
resorted to taking some
doses of cough syrup. Of
course that stuff often
doesn't work very well,
and is almost pure sugar.
That is why my dinner
being fairly low sugar
became very important
before I knew it. Maybe
some of the cough syrups
(I think I tried two
different ones) did help a
bit, but it was still a
pretty miserable night. I
lost loads of sleep from
all that coughing, and
earlier, from the
heartburn, but that, like
many times before,
mysteriously goes away at
around 3am.
I think it was at
about 4am that it was
starting to feel too cold
to sleep easily. I had
been hot and sweaty at
some times in the night,
when I know my bedroom was
a few degrees hotter, and
that made the idea of
using the duvet feel bad.
Despite being in what
should be one of the
hottest months of the
year, I turned the heater
on low, and soon I was
sleeping almost
well. I managed to
sleep almost OK until
about 7am, but I did wake
up at least once to clear
my throat.
This morning my
weight has gone up a lot,
but since I took it I have
had a couple of poos, and
had a few pees. I've had
breaakfast now and so
there is no point
re-weighing myself now. At
least my blood pressure is
staying very much the same
as most mornings now. It
is in the "Optimum" area
according to the meter,
and the actual reading was
106/47.
All the syrup in
the cough mixtures, plus
maybe one or two of the
beers I had, and the fact
I am ill, have all played
havoc with my blood
glucose measurements. For
the first time in ages I
had one reading in the
danger zone. I am not
worried about it for just
once, and particularly so
when I have good reasons
for it. The Contour meter
read 9.8mmol/l - which is
bad. The GlucoRX meter
read 9.7mmol/l, and that
is slightly less awful.
The Sinocare meter really
went for it with a reading
of 10.5mmol/l, and that is
firmly in the danger zone.
It is possible my
blood glucose is going to
be high again tomorrow,
and there are two possible
reasons for it. One is for
the simple reason I might
be tempted to use more
cough mixture. My cough is
quite well behaved at the
moment, but once I lie
down again..... The second
reason is that today I
really must get to Tesco
to but more Diet Coke, and
also some food. There are
often temptations which
are not always good for me
when I go food shopping.
There is some special food
I need to buy, and I have
no idea what that will be
yet.
Tomorrow, and
Sunday I could be out all
day, and I'll want
something satisfying for
when I get home, but I
don't want anything that
might give me heartburn
because I will be eating
it maybe within and hour
of going to bed. I could
opt for something unusual
like a can of rice
pudding, but I'll make my
choices when I get there.
At least for tonight's
dinner I have another from
Iceland's "My Protein"
range. It is the same as
the first I ever tried
some weeks ago now - the
"firecracker chilli meat
balls".
There were a few
times in the night when it
did seem my lungs, or
airpipes had a lot of
mucus in them - enough to
bubble when breathing.
That is the sort of thing
that happened to Covid
sufferers, but I was
confident it was just a
short duration thing, and
besides that, I didn't
have any other symptoms
except for a drippy nose
at first. I had no 'flu
like symptoms, no
aching limb or joints, and
as I said further up the
page, I have had not
noticeable fever....or at
least I never managed to
catch it when taking my
temperature.
I could have
thought very different if
I had had the good (or
bad) fortune to see Angela
in the last couple of
days. as the clipping from
yesterday's Metro says,
there has been a 44% rise
in Covid cases in Greece,
and 26 deaths. I think
Angela came home from a
holiday in Greece just a
couple of days ago. I am
unsure if it was in
mainland Greece or one of
the islands, or even
possibly the Greek end of
Cyprus. I expect it must
have been a worry for her
when she first read about
it. Oddly enough, one of
the last pictures I saw
from her, posted on social
media, had her looking
either very pissed off, or
poorly. I am unsure why
she chose it as a banner
picture for he profile.
2116 words
today
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