08:37 GMT

  Like most days this february (or so it seems at the moment) yesterday was a wet day with mostly light rain all day long. It was also quite a cold seeming day. The morning was just 7° C. There was a brief peak of 10° C mid afternoon, but the rest of the day was just 9° C.   The (BBC) weather forecast for today has changed a few times. Last night it gave two different hours when there might be some thunder and lightning. The very latest revision shows no thunder at all, just light rain from early morning until 8pm. After that it may be dry. The afternoon may reach 11° C after a 9° C start to the day. After the afternoon the temperature will sink to maybe 8° C by midnight. The current forecast for tomorrow shows rain from the start to the end of the day. It will be light rain until 8pm, and then just drizzle. The temperature may be almost the same as today.

  Yesterday was a good day, but not as good as hoped. For instance it would have been better if I had managed the shopping trip to Tesco that I would have liked to have done. I didn't go out mostly on account of the rain, but some of the reason was doubts about how I would feel as I "run in" my new heart valve. It is too early to forget about it, and I can't seem to stop thinking about it, and analysing how it feels.

  Maybe it was a good thing I didn't go out to Tesco yesterday. The reasons will be better explained further down the page, but for the moment I will just say it would have brought too many temptations at a time when it seems they are the last things I need.

  One thing I did do yesterday, after an earlier than mid morning snooze, was to have a good wash. It still feels too early to have a shower while I have a big wodge of bandage taped over the main "wound" - the big hole into a full pressure artery where my new heart valve entered my body on it's way to my heart. I feel very nervous about that wound. In theory it has a very slow dissolving stopper in the wound, but I am not sure I trust that. If that hole should open up I could lose my entire blood supply in minutes, maybe 10 or 15 of them. I am leaving that dressing on until the last moment, because it is not an easy area for me to see and work on.

  I had a flannel wash yesterday, and although not pleasant like a good shower, I think I dragged that soapy flannel over all parts that needed washing, and then again a couple of time with the flannel dampened with plain water to remove the soap. I felt clean enough for visitors, or to go shopping if I had a last minute change of mind - which I didn't. At the end of my wash I filled up one of my big buckets with detergent and some Dettol. so I could wash the flannel, and also wash a towel that I had been meaning to wash since before this year started.

  Unfortunately I made a silly mistake. The towel I wanted to wash was more or less identical to the one I had just dried myself with. I put the wrong towel in the bucket. Upon realising my mistake I put the right towel in. Probably today I am going to have to do all that laundry, and two medium sized bath towels is really going to test my stamina, and probably my new heart valve too. I am not looking forward to it, but I know it has to be tried sooner or later.

  I can't remember, but I think I had another snooze once I had finished in the bathroom. I forgot to mention that while I was washing myself I had a single disposable Nitrile (not rubber) glove on to try and keep the dressing on my left hand, where I had had a cannula fitted, dry. I know from actual experience that it could leak copious amounts of blood before plenty of pressure and a thick wad of dressing over it staunched the flow of blood. If the hot water soaked that dressing off, and melted the scab, I could easily start leaking a lot of blood. Fortunately it is easy to re-dress the wound by myself.

  I kept the disposable glove on when I went down to the kitchen to wash the glasses up for a later beer tasting session. With the glasses washed, and the dining table cleared of the worst detritus - several unpaid bills*, and lots of paperwork from the hospital - I went back up to my bedroom and PC to try something that I hate doing - phoning the Group Practice to try and make an appointment.

* The bills, both in the same envelope were from EDF energy, and were for my gas and electricity consumed. I was quite worried about the electric bill because I have been using electric heating extremely freely this winter. I did increase my standing order to quite an obscene amount before winter started. To my great relief that part of the bill is still in credit, and I don't have to do anything. My gas bill, always much smaller, maybe a tenth of the electricity bill, is now in arrears, and I must top it up, but I think I can leave the standing order alone.

  Once up in my bedroom, with my PC in front of me showing my diary of events, I dared to phone the group practice to see if I could get an appointment with the nurse. I got through, and was asked if it was for a diabetic check up. They know how important those are, and that eased things a bit. What I wanted to do was to get back to my Mounjaro injections because of the brilliant way they control my blood glucose. It is getting badly out of control recently.  I managed to get an appointment on the 16th - a bit later than hoped for, but adequate for my needs.

  As well as getting back on Mounjaro (stopped along with almost all my medications on the orders of the Cardiology team so they could see my base readings - and my underlying Hypertension !), I am also hoping the nurse will change that big dressing over the hole in my "groinal area" (aka as where my leg meets the rest of my body). It is going to be a long wait for that, and I may have to try it for myself.

  A little after 3pm Jodie arrived to start the beer tasting session. She said we would be joined by Alan a bit later. Before Alan arrived we were joined by Fluffy cat. He has not been invited in during all the time I have been back and forth to Hospital starting on the 15th December.
  Fluffy cat declined the offer to sleep in his once favourite box, and decided he was happier on a chair that was nearer the centre of the action.
  The only trouble with the chair he was on is that if he stretched out too far is was easy to fall off the back, and on one occasion it was only the sudden deployment of his sharp claws that saved him falling off again. He was evidently pleased to join us again, and was in a fairly tolerant mood. I was able to stroke his side, dangerously near his belly, without being bitten ! One thing that Alan observed was that he has a double layer of fur. Beneath the tabby like top layer there is some short but dense black fur. This is another indication that he is fully equipped for very cold weather. If he is, as we think, a Norwegian Forest Cat, his ancestors lived and hunted with thick snow on the ground.

  The only trouble with yesterday's beer tasting is that I found I didn't like many of the beers. None were the fruit sour type beers that Jodie likes (and I don't) but supposedly "normal" beers. I don't know if my time in hospital, and all that was done to me, has changed the way I taste things.....although I just remembered I did have the proven infection of Covid while in Lewisham Hospital, and that can change the sense of taste. Fortunately even Alan remarked that a few beers that should have been good were either thin, or a bit bitter.

  Jodie and Alan left to get the 7pm train from Catford Bridge. While coats were being put on I opened the back door so Fluffycat could go out again. He was, unsurprisingly, very reluctant at first. He stood sniffing the air for a few minutes before evidently smelling, or maybe hearing something, and then took off like a rocket. I wondered if he heard his true owners calling or putting food out for him.

  After everyone had gone I prepared my dinner. It was reheated, and with some added melted Cheddar cheese, left over Pizza. It was rather nice. It is a shame I followed it up with two Penguin bars - potent sources of sugar - probably.  I still have one or two more slices of Pizza that I'll probably have for lunch today. After last nights dinner I watched some TV, but I was in bed modestly early to see if I could get another good night's sleep - I did !

  I think I did wake several times in the night for a pee, but it is a sort of dreamy memory, and I might just be imagining it based upon my terrible blood glucose readings this morning. I don't seem to remember any dreams, although I did have a sort of idea in my head when I woke up, and it was about the idea of giving a nurse a physical examination. I think I must have been seriously corrupted by so many of the wonderful nurses that have looked after me for the last month or more. I hope I treated them as just wonderful people, but the mind wanders.....

  This morning my weight was up again, and I am not sure the blame lies with all the pizza I have eaten, or the beers I drank yesterday evening. I seem to have put on 1.5kg overnight. That seems to be almost impossible if it were not for one fact. I don't recall having a poo for quite a few days now, and this morning I am feeling uncomfortable. Last night I took two laxative pills, but they haven't seemed to work. I took two different types recently. They normally say take them in the evening, but I think that rule can be relaxed when I am unlikely to be far from my toilet today - plus it is starting to feel like I may not need the last couple of pills. It is feeling like it might not be too long now before something shifts.

  Along with the weight gain, I have had a big gain in my blood glucose level. Two readings have passed the red line ! The newest meter, The GlucoFix Sensor gave a truly terrible reading of 10.6mmol/l, and the Nexus GlucoRX meter read 10.5 mmol/l. The Bayer Contour meter read a slightly better 9.9mmol/l. It is a shame that I have to wait a week and a half before I see the nurse, and hopefully restart my Mounjaro injections. They are supposed to be for weight loss, but they control my blood glucose really well even if they do little for my weight.

  It is brightening up now, and that is some temptation to go shopping. While my constipation is getting more uncomfortable I am feeling even less like going out to get any shopping. There is nothing I actually need for today, and maybe not even tomorrow, and so I don't need to go shopping yet, and maybe not having the temptation to buy unsuaitable food is a good thing. Today I shall mostly do more resting, although I have got laundry in soak, and that needs dealing with today.


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