09:42 GMT

  Yesterday was another wet day, but there did seem to be an hour or so when it was not raining and it was brighter out, although that is not shown on the forecast for the day. The early morning version of the forecast showed two hours when thunder might be expected. That was reduced to one hour, and in reality there was no thunder at all. The afternoon temperature reached a still rather cool feeling 11° C.   Yet another day when the forecast says rain all day, and it has certainly been raining since I first opened the curtains this morning. The afternoon may reach a cool 10° C. It might possible be dry after 7pm. Much of tomorrow may be dry, but it will stay very dull. The afternoon may reach 11° C. Rain is forecast to start again at about 7pm, and initially it may be just drizzle.

  Yesterday started out quite unpleasant. I was very uncomfortably constipated, and I spent a lot of time sitting on the toilet. I think it was just before midday when things finally moved, and I felt so much better for it - even if my bottom still felt sore. The rest of the day was pretty fair, and maybe even slightly good.

  I don't think I "opened my bowels" the day before I started my two days in hospital for my procedure, and I definitely didn't during those two days. Neither did I on my first day home, and so yesterday I was well and truly bunged up. It was quite a painful experience when I finally went, but the relief was priceless.

  One good thing I did was to cautiously peek under the wad of dressing over where I had a Cannula in hospital. When the Cannula was taken out, as I was being prepared for discharge, it was pissing blood everywhere. I was ordered to keep a lot of pressure on a wad of dressing, but I took the pressure off too soon, and once again it was pissing blood. The nurse put another wad of dressing on, and this time I kept the pressure up until my fingers were turning blue. That did the trick.

  When I looked under the wad of dressing yesterday morning I saw it looked  dry. I took all the dressing and sticky tape off, and applied a simple transparent plaster. That was all that was needed to protect the scab, and it was also waterproof, so I didn't have to worry about getting my hand wet.

  It was a very simple thing, but I think it marked some definite progress towards my full recovery. The tricky thing is the dressing over the big hole at the top of my right leg where the new heart valve entered into my body. I can't easily see it without a mirror, and I find it very hard to do stuff with a mirror image. I am inclined to wait until I see the Nurse at the group practice, but that is on the 16th - rather a long wait. I might dare to change the dressing before that. I know the "wound" has a self dissolving sealing device in it, but I am still very wary about disturbing the hole with a high pressure artery behind it.

  One thing I did yesterday was stress testing my whole body - otherwise known as doing laundry by hand. Two of the three items I was washing were medium sized bath towels. The third item was a face flannel, and that was easy to do. Picking up the soggy towels, and wringing them out was most definitely hard work. I wrung them out twice, and stopped for a long break to recover.

  I later did two more rinses and wring out, and once again I stopped to recover. I could have carried on, but it felt safer to rest before anything possibly bad happened. The only trouble was that after the second time I never did get back to those towels. I will hopefully be finished the job before this morning is over.

  The rest of yesterday I spent resting - and where resting included one or two snoozes. More of the resting included watching TV. It was while resting enough that my mind could wander, that I realised I had mild itching over a fair bit of my body. The itching didn't need scratching, and just a light rub with my hand provided enough relief. It was similar, albeit much milder, than the itching I had after my second Angiogram some years ago now (6 to 10 years ago at a guess). That was probably an allergy to the iodine based X-Ray contrast dye. One of my drugs I am back to taking, Amiodarone Hydrochloride, is based on Iodine, and the pharmacist in Lewisham Hospital, a very helpful chap, warned me that it might cause more itching. Until now it hasn't, but maybe it is now. I haven't taken any today, and I'll maybe not take any for a few more days to see what happens. I know it is supposed to prevent Tachycardia (unusually fast heart beat) - something I have only had once in any very noticeable way. Looking at the Wikipedia page I linked to, it seems Amiodarone is a pretty toxic drug with numerous side effects. I think I may conveniently forget to take it unless I become aware of any unusually fast heartbeat.

  After seeing how high my blood glucose was when I checked it yesterday morning, I knew I had to take corrective action. The best thing would have been to fast until dinner time yesterday, but I was not in the right mood to fast. However, I did have a fairly safe lunch of rice crackers with cheese and either some sliced jalapeños or some pickled onions. My dinner was roast Mediterranean vegetables with a sprinkle of grated cheese on them, and also some "skins on" oven chips. For a dessert I had a banana that I had brought home from hospital, and a few ginger ring biscuits. The dessert was not ideal for being very low sugar, but it didn't seem that bad.

  As usual I watch some TV last night, but by 9pm it felt like time for bed. I think I was actually in bed by 9pm, but I did read in bed for a half hour or possibly more. Once I had put the book down, and turned out the light, I think I went to sleep pretty quickly. I remember having a dream, but all details of the dream have evaporated away now. I think I know for sure that I got up to pee a few times in the night.

  I was not intending to have a long lie in, but after taking screen shots of the weather forecasts at about 6am, I went back to bad, and I think I slept for another hour, and maybe two. I definitely had to pee each time I woke up, and after actually getting up I went for a poo. After what my poor bottom went through the day before, it felt slightly sore when I passed quite a big poo this morning. Thanks to the laxatives I took yesterday I had two more poos after the first, and those other two may have been smaller, but still quite significant !

  It is a shame that I had eaten breakfast before my final (probably) clear out or maybe my weight would have been a bit lower. My "official" weight, as recorded in my spreadsheet, showed that I lost 700gm since yesterday morning. That actual figure may have been a couple of hundred grams less if I had not had my breakfast when I did. I seem to be 2kg heavier than what I was during my hospital stay. I guess I have been celebrating.

  My celebrations of being home after such a long time in hospital have not been kind to my blood glucose readings. Yesterday's readings were appallingly bad, but this morning they are merely bad. The worst was the Gluco Nexus meter with a reading of 10.7mmol/l - over the red line of 10mmol/l, but fortunately not by much. The other two meter say I was just under the red line. The Bayer Contour meter read 9.3mmol/l - which is high, but not a disaster. The Glucofix Sensor meter read slightly better at 9.2mmol/l. That is only just over the amount that is almost acceptable.

  One thing I have to do today is to finish washing those two towels. A few more rinses and wringing out should be enough to be ready to hang up to dry on the small clothes horse. After that I am free to do as I please. That might include the long awaited shopping trip to Tesco. It is now getting to the point where some extra food in the freezer would be helpful, but maybe the rain is the deciding factor. If I don't get to Tesco I still have plenty to eat in the freezer, but I might feel tempted to order another takeaway. Itb is bad for my bank balance to get takeaways, but my bank balance is modestly healthy at the moment, and anyway, it is ages since I last ordered a shish kebab or two. Hopefully I will get to Tesco, but first of all It is time for a snooze !


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