The home-owner is back…and health update…

The people who moved in late December last year turn out to be the owners of the property. He has blatantly ignored me, which, until I realised who he is, bothered me a little. His son is pleasant though and so is his friend who came when my smoke detector went off. Kate was pleasant to me but I rarely saw her.

All week I have been feeling that my lungs are smaller. I can’t describe it any other way. Today, I shopped for a couple of items and found that carrying a candle in a jar, and one other item, exhausted me. I was fine once I put them down.

The hypoxia has caused a lot of cognitive problems this week too. The keyboard on my laptop has bewildered me many times and a few emails I was writing disappeared. They reappear in drafts.

Other symptoms have been worse too. The water on my kidneys and heart has manifested. It is so inconvenient and dictates my time.

I feel like my home has been a sub-station for the police due to M.’s ex- girlfriend. Seems they can’t retain information. There is worse, but I won’t write it here, except to say some police are idiots.

I received a group email from SWAST. Only nine months since I resigned. I guess they need a long time to update or remove email addresses. I am glad that I resigned. Being sent to seminars I shouldn’t be at, and have my boss respond differently to the same thing and not do what we agreed was painful. Not to mention the shoddy use of English.

I went to the enquiry about the proposed monstrosity that has been refused planning permission a few yards away. So glad I did. I got to represent the residents in my neighbourhood. What a slick so and so their barrister is.

My garden is a dream. So many flowers but also so many unwanted ones. The blue flower that attracts bees and looks so pretty had gone rampant. M. sliced them at ground level and laid paving slabs over. I hope to make a pond later in the year.

A trying 24 hours…

Photo by Martin Coward

The photo above is near where I live. During my school years, I learned to ride horses just where this happens twice a day.

I once drove some colleagues from the US around my area, and this happened during the drive. They were in complete disbelief despite the very apparent evidence.

I broke my own rule with my title today. I used 24 instead of writing the words. It is poor writing practice and I don’t like it. But I am weary from trying to stay well. On Sunday night I called for paramedics as I was struggling to breathe. Around 10pm. Eventually, I went to bed leaving lights on, and my packed bag in case I should be taken to hospital.

I woke at almost 8am and found a missed call from SWAST at 06.21am. I was puzzled as crews have entered my home at 3am before.

I made my way to hospital to be nebbed, but found the ED to be hostile to my physiology. I left and went home. Half an hour later paramedics arrived. Thirteen hours after my call. This is how busy they are. They were great and fixed me.

My inhalers ran out yesterday. The pharmacy has none until Thursday. My lungs were screaming at me, so I went to my surgery. I did not get a warm welcome. Despite their ability to neb me they consider it a job for SWAST or ED. That SWAST is in a critical incident does not matter. That ED is hostile to my illness is irrelevant. My previous GP nebulised me there.

In the end, I was nebbed. It has helped me through the day. I have had to rest more.

I am in touch with an old friend again. I’ve known him since I was 18. He was a reliable friend to me, and helped me when I was in schtuk. Once, I phoned him as I was lost in Wiltshire, and asked him to get a window that was ajar at the back of my place further open and climb in to get a phone number from my address book by my phone. ( Remember those days?). He once also jimmied open my car when I locked my car keys in. AND HE was the one that noticed when I sat on his brother’s motorbike and burned my calf through the muscle. I felt nothing, but was in shock and he noticed my white face.

A carful of us headed to ED, me still not feeling anything, That burn took months to granulate.

Living With Respiratory Failure

About five years ago I was diagnosed with an asthma-like condition. It was treated with Salbutamol. This was not really effective but my problem was not serious at that time.

About three years ago, a friend lent me his pink inhaler Fostair. It was far more efficacious so I asked for Salbutamol to be removed from my prescription.

Soon after this I began needing paramedics to make interventions due to seemingly asthma attacks — when the respiratory system tightens and air cannot get in. These were fairly few but mainly in damp, cold, weather. This year I have needed more interventions than I can count.

All these vapors going through my mouth and throat mean I must drink after using my inhalers and after nebulizing by paramedics.

Now, I use so many inhalers that my sense of taste is almost gone. In May I was diagnosed as A Carbon Dioxide Retainer . This means I do not exhale all the carbon dioxide my body converts from oxygen. It is very dangerous.

I retain not just carbon dioxide but fluids. There is fluid on my heart and other organs. My blood oxygen hovers around 90, but may drop to 83 or be a high as 97. These are percentages. A healthy person’s blood oxygen is 100.

I have started buying sour sweets. The kind that are chewy and jelly like. They make my mouth water and I can taste them. Brushing my teeth with toothpaste does not help, so I use salt, or a flavorful leaf on my toothbrush.

I eat honey by the spoonful. It soothes my throat which is always sore. Honey soothes the skin of my throat as well as my mouth.

I am now Living With Hypoxia as a result of respiratory failure. It means my home needs prompts to remind me to do things and I keep my everyday things in the same place — my glasses, for example.

All this means I can make mistakes without realising. It also means I could go into a coma or die at anytime. I am very vulnerable. I am 5 on the New Scale, and sometimes 6 but I refuse to go hospital.

The police only term “vulnerable”, which is 3 on the New Scale. I find that shocking.

I have written articles to help new writers on Medium. Use them and you may get chosen for Further Distribution. I get a fair income from that. You may find -buy-a-coffee-or-ko-fi very handy too.

Published in Coffee Times

Lung physio…

No, it is not what you think. No one is thumping my back with cupped hands to loosen phlegm. I wish someone was.

I acquired a contraption that is like a whistle but much bigger. I blow into it and a ball lifts and vibrates. It is the vibration that I inhale that loosens phlegm. The only problem is that I am unable to cough it away.

The thing is though, my breathing has improved. At the same time though, I have started drinking ginger, turmeric, honey, and lemon as a tea. I feel this helps too. They are all decogestants. I didn’t think to start them at different times as I’m a bear of little brain. I’m just happy that my breathing is improved.

Tomorrow, I have a zoom meeting with my boss to be at SWASFT. Another phoned me earlier today to reassure me that messages with links to other articles are the products of the unintelligent. He didn’t say it quite that way though…

At times I’m suffocating…

My breathing has not got worse since the paramedics came, at least I don’t think so. But I just opened a package that had staples, got a drink, and came upstairs, and my chest felt like it needed to explode in order to let oxygen in.

It is two-three minutes of absolute inactivity, a gasping while no air actually gets in with the gasping. (When the paramedics were nebulising me, I realised I was exhaling with every inhalation. I watched the gas being blown out far more than I took it in.)

No one would have blamed me if I had calledfor paramedics on 999, as I did last time.

I am terrified of being taken to hospital though. I don’t want to be exposed to the bugs in hospital. And my neurological disease gets overlooked.

I am OK now. I could go down and get a drink and come back up, and only be slightly fast in my breathing with some wheezing. It was the fighting with the package that wiped me out.

It’s been chilly here, so last night I felt my bedroom was cold enough when I went to bed. I woke in the night for quite a while. I need my window open at night, no matter how chilly the air.

I don’t have Netflix at present, but I’ve seen photos of Emily Cronin. It really freaks me out and she is my double when I was aged 19/20. It is so uncanny. So startling. I really can’t believe the likeness.

I’m enjoying chatting with my daughter. She is ‘different’ now that she is single. The first 18 months with her boyfriend were ok, but then he totally became rude. I realised very quickly that he had not been taught manners. But it went far beyond that.

I’m just grateful for this time and my upcoming birthday with my daughter. I adore her.

I don’t know if this episode with my lungs is just another infection as I’ve had for the last 18 months, if it’s a winter thing, or deterioration.

I do know that I want to die and go to God. But I’ll miss my daughter.

Mike I thought you didn’t want meto die alone?

Blue lights and paramedics…

So, I was going to bed when I started to feel wheezy and tight in my chest. My inhaler was not where I always put it in my bedroom, and the searching got me unsettled. I knew I had taken it downstairs when I had guests, but surely I had used it earlier in my bedroom. When I stopped searching, I found it.

It’s funny how things are always in the last place you look.

So I unlocked the front door and dialled 999. While I waited I played a game on my phone which distracts and keeps me calm. So when the paramedics arrived, I actually felt a little better. The paramedics were alarmed. I felt like an imposter. So my breathing was very bad, my blood pressure raised and my heart rate high. They gave me the usual steroid to inhale and then they gave me another steroid that I’ve never had before. I am shaking as a result.

They made me sign a disclaimer, as I refused to go to hospital. Even so, my breathing was slowed significantly and my heart rate was slowed more than on other paramedic visits.

While I was being treated, the lead paramedic who was supervising started commenting on what good taste I had in my home. He said my dining room lights were ‘lush’. And he liked the art I’ve hung, and my furniture. My friend Geoff will be pleased as he put up the lights with no charge. I chose them of course.

So I brought some TripleSec up to my room to try to dull the effects of the steroids – my mind pinging around, and my body shaking. I will be awake for sometime. Hey ho.

I just got a message from a dear friend who is my former bosses wife. We have grown close through facebook and messaging. I used to be in awe of her. She is so kind and generous in spirit. I’m going to send her the cake recipe I posted yesterday.

I have been in touch with my cousin all day. We communicate almost every day. I am hoping to go there for Christmas, but as they had already arranged to go to her son’s, so she is working on it.

Chest Infection…

Yesterday I mentioned that I felt congested and put it down to the weather. I should have known better. When I opened my bedroom window last night before going to bed, the effort caused me to feel hot and prick with cold perspiration. I sat on my bed with my ceiling fan on for a while and fell asleep to the gentle noise it makes.

This morning I wakened at six and could feel the cold air on my face. I stayed like that for a while and then closed the window. I tested my breathing – that isn’t a thing, it’s seeing if I feel congested. I decided I wasn’t and looked through my emails, and listened to some radio. I fell asleep some time after noon and slept until 3pm. I felt cold and hot to touch, so I’ve started a course of antibiotics. I’m drinking lots and managed a smaller dinner than usual. I’ve opened window and turned the heating off to help reduce my temperature.

It’s a bit of a blow as I have a poetry performance on Tuesday and a medical later in the week. My head is spinning. I should feel better in a couple of days. I will ask my doctor for a course of steroids.

I have to stop minimising my lung’s problems. I need to act as soon as I feel congested so that I don’t get pneumonia. I’ve had that twice after I broke a rib a long time ago and it wasn’t nice at all. At least I feel in charge of my body now, which is definitely a good thing.

Check out the meme at the top of this post. It is very wise.

Instagram: @purbeckpoet