13:46 GMT

  I could almost repeat what I repeated yesterday - yesterday was another rather wet day with the rain lasting from dawn to dusk. It was generally light rain. The afternoon temperature reached 12° C for a couple of hours. By midnight it was still 10° C.   The weather forecast for today has not actually been very accurate. It is true that the morning was around 11° C, and the afternoon (or now as I write this) is around 12 or 13° C. There was less rain than shown for this morning, and as I type this we are having quite a lengthy sunny spell. It is hard to tell if it is raining at the moment. The road is definitely wet, but I haven't experienced any rain apart from a minute or two of light rain around 11am. 4pm is definitely shown as dry with sunny spells, but light rain may start again at 5pm. By midnight it could be just 9° C - which doesn't seem that bad. Tomorrow morning may start and end at 7° C. It may start dry, but from 10am there could be light rain for the rest of the day. The afternoon temperature may be just 10° C - which seems a bit poor after today, but seems typical recently.

  Yesterday was not a great day. I think I only did one thing of note, and that I'll describe a bit further down the page. Much of yesterday was to do with fasting after lunch, and only drinking plain water from later in the afternoon. This was all to do with the headline feature today - my endoscopy.

  The other thing about yesterday was taking delivery of the present from my younger sister in Devon. It was three bottles of beers from her local brewery, The Otter Brewery in Devon. Jodie tells me she has had two of them in a Wetherspoons pub. That may be why the name feels familiar.

  I couldn't try any of the beers because I was fasting after my lunch, and more importantly it is difficult to open any beer without Jodie's approval or risk mega sulking. I later learned that one of the beers, I think she said the one with the green label, she had never tried before, and starting that without her would have caused major grief.

  I am trying to think what I had for lunch yesterday. I know I intended it to be fairly substantial, and yet not so substantial. In other words, I knew it would be the last thing I ate for 24 hours because of today's hospital visit - more of which later. On the other hand I did not want something that would clog me up and give me constipation this morning. It may have just been two packets of "Nissin Demae Instant Noodles Ramen" that had been delivered the day before.

  After lunch I just rested/was lazy/read/snoozed until early evening. I couldn't have any dinner, and after about 6pm I couldn't drink anything but water. I can't say I was very happy about it, but orders is orders !
  The thing I did mid yesterday evening was to wash my hair, and have a shower. Washing my hair was no novelty, but having an shower was. Until yesterday I was reluctant to get under the shower for fear of getting the dressing on the big hole in my thigh (where the new heart valve started it's journey towards my heart) wet. It seemed to be, and indeed was covered by a waterproof, see through, adhesive dressing. The hot water didn't seem to loosen it, and it was great to have a good wash and scrub except around that dressing. The reason was so I would not have to rush this morning.

  I watched some TV last night, but I think that even with an empty feeling stomach, I managed to get to sleep by 10pm. I awoke to pee more times than I liked, but I guess I was maybe drinking too much plain, but initially chilled tap water - the one thing I was allowed to drink. I thought I managed to sleep well, but I did feel rather tired when I got up. I had to leave by 8.30am at the latest to walk to the hospital, and unless I got up super early, I did not have much time to do anything.

  I did have time to weigh myself, and the fasting and plenty of peeing, meant my weight was rather good I was 700gm light this morning compared to the previous day. It is a shame I can't do that every day. My blood glucose was rather good with readings of 7.0, 7.3, and 7.8mmol/l - the sort of figures I can only get when I am taking Mounjaro, or doing a big fasting session. I didn't seem to feel relaxed enough to check my blood pressure, but I knew it would be at least a bit high on such a morning.
  It was a very murky morning as I walked through the park to the hospital. Fortunately it didn't feel too cold, although it was not quite warm. The walk to the hospital was the longest walk I have done for ages. It is at least two and a half times the walk to Tesco - the only walk I have done lately. After spending so much time in hospital beds, and generally not doing any exercise, it was not long before my legs were really complaining.

  I had left in time so I could take a few breaks walking to the hospital. I had hoped to take a few pictures along the way for more short stops, but I only had my spare mobile phone with me for taking pictures, rather than a real camera, but it was so dull that I only bothered to take a couple of pictures - and the one above says all that needs to be said about the murkiness of the sky.

  After crossing the river, and entering the hospital grounds, I entered a new adventure - find the endoscopy department. I knew approximately where it was, but I passed the entrance, which seemed to have no sign on it. Just a bit further and I saw a sign pointing back the way I had come. I walked back half a dozen paces, and opened the unmarked door. I had no idea what I would find behind it, but I saw it was a waiting area with chairs in it. I waited until my name was called.

  It was a male nurse (sadly) but he was OK. He did a typical pre-assessment with some emphasis on when I had last eaten or drunk. He was happy with my answers. One thing that doesn't appear in the rules is why you can't eat, and why you can drink water. I can't remember where I read it, or maybe it was another nurse who told me that when looking in the stomach they don't want bits of food getting in the way of the camera, but clear liquid like water is no problem.

  One "test" was to check my blood pressure. Of course I was in a very stressed situation, and the first reading showed my systolic pressure was 205 !!! The nurse wisely decided to skip over that for a while, and checked it a bit later once I was becoming accustomed to where I was. This time the systolic pressure was 169 - still rather high, but acceptable. He also checked my blood glucose level. It was higher than my three readings I had taken after getting up. I am now fully convinced that blood glucose is controlled by the brain as much as anything else. The stress had raised it from (an average of) 7.37mmol/l to 9.4mmol/l.

  Then there was some waiting around, and also a bit of confusion about whether, or how much I had been sedated when I had my endoscopy in early January. Apparently I had been quite sedated, but without a suitable adult to take me home and look after me, I could not have any sedation for the procedure. It was a lot easier when I was a patient at the hospital and there were adults (nurses) all over the place to care for me - although my memory is that I felt fine.

  I also felt fine having the procedure done under sedation. No sedation meant no more than a 10 minute recovery rest, but it meant having that thick tube down my throat, and my worst fears come true. It was uncomfortable and I was gagging and retching a lot of the time. I don't think I fully believed the nice (female) nurse looking after me during the procedure, when she said I was doing fine, and I think she was implying I was doing better than many. It felt pretty awful to me, and a lot of the awfulness was not being able to control how I was reacting to it.

  The good news is that though it felt forever, it was all over in 10 or 15 minutes, and they had all the images they needed. The prime thing was to check that the bleeding ulcer that was found the last time was at least substantially, and possibly fully healed. One polyp was found where the stomach empties into the intestines. One a different occasion they may want to take a biopsy from it, and on another occasion they feel that a Colonoscopy (camera up the bottom) may be a good idea too, but for now everything seems to be good enough.

  The bad news was that even with a 10 minute sit down after the procedure, it was much too early to go next door to the pub. I must admit I thought everything would take longer - mostly sitting around just waiting. In the paper work handed to me was written advice not to eat or drink before 11:05am. That was OK because by the time I managed to get home it was just before 11am, and by the time I had made up some instant noodles it was past that 11:05am deadline.
  I didn't actually ask for them, but I did say it was a shame that I was facing away from the big PC screen showing the camera output of the endoscope.....but in the paperwork I was given were a load of pictures of inside my stomach. I think they were really meant for my GP, and what I was given was a copy of that sent to my GP. The pictures are sort of fascinating, but the truth is I cannot really say what is what about them. I doubt my GP will be able to either because these pictures are tiny compared to the high definition original images (or video), but I guess my GP can get electronic copies of the orginals.

  It was nice to be outside again, but the walk home was once again hard work with my legs complaining a lot. Sometimes it seemed brighter out, but at one time it also rained on me for a few minutes. It was a relief to put my key in the lock and let myself in to my house. One of the first things I did was to go to the toilet. I definitely needed a pee, and although it was not urgent, I also seemed to need, and indeed did a poo - a poo I had hoped to do before I went out in the morning.

  There didn't seem to be any reason why I should not have a glass of water 5 minutes early, and to start to prepare some instant noodles for lunch. One of my original idea was to go to Tesco yesterday, and have some sandwiches in the fridge ready to be munched on, but the instant noodles were pretty good. I had a pack of shrimp flavour, and a pack of duck flavour. The shrimp was tasty in a spicy sort of way, and the duck actually did remind me of duck.

  After that instant noodle lunch I did a few more things (mostly preparing the pictures I've used today) and then laid down to read until I was ready for a nice snooze. I was just dropping off when my lovely older sister chose that time to message me to ask how I was doing. I really should learn my lesson and turn off all my messaging, but I dutifully woke up and gave he the quickest answer I could that included the major details.

  I tried to get back to sleep again, but I couldn't. Maybe I was just too keen to write all this down here. Before I started I had a sort of snack, or maybe it was a delayed dessert of some Madeira cake with cherries along with some plain vanilla ice cream. I should have felt guilty about having such a thing while my blood glucose is not being properly controlled, but after the fasting yesterday I just didn't care. Tonight I am am going to scoff a whole packet of ready to cook BBQ flavour spare ribs (already mostly cooked, and only needing half an hour or so in the mini oven). I should have some vegetables with it, but unless it is sweet potato chips, I doubt I will.

   2,246 words today.