Mike's Journey

It’s been a week since the last visit to the Doctor’s, and the time to get my results of the blood tests and to have the rest of my 40+ check up is due, so off I popped to the surgery at the appointed time. When the machine flashed up my name off I toddled.

The upshot of all this is that my blood showed no signs of liver, kidney or cholestorol trouble, nor did it show any signs of diabetes. After torturing my arm, my blood pressure was also deemed to be normal. I was also weighed and found to be of average weight (not over!!!!) yipee!

After answering some questions about family medical history, diet and excercise ( I noted she updated my notes to now say I’m now a non smoker!) she predicted (via the computer) that I had a possible 5% chance of having a heart attack in the next 10 years. Which appartently is sufficiently low enough for me and her not to worry and give me anypreventative medication or statins.

So I guess I’m now low risk and healthy as I can be without being a gym bunny! All good news.

On the smoking front, if you’re interested, the way that the drug (Champix) works is by blocking the nicotine receptors in the brain thus starving the brain of its fix.

The upshot of the medication is that you stop craving or thinking about smoking. I’d be lying if I said it stopped it 100%, it doesn’t, but it stops it enough for you to be able to brush it off easily without getting all bad tempered and crabby!

My friends and family have all reported that my moods have not changed at all since giving up the weed. I feel different somehow, nothing physical I can put my finger on, just a sense of change, but nothing tangible. I have noticed however that I have much more money in my pocket and bank account, even after 3 weeks! My father estimated that I’d saved approx £135.00 in 3 weeks. It’ll go towards the Miami holiday spending fund!

I’m having a day off, in fact we’re both having a day off! It’s such an unusual event that I just had to blog about it. It’s the 1st time in nearly 3 years when we’ve both decided that we want to attend the same event, so we’ve decide to have a day off to do it.

So today we’re going to The Luxury Antiques & Fine Art Fair at Harewood House. I will be looking for Japanese antique netsuke and he will be on the look out for Art Deco bookends or small figurines. Can’t wait!

For those that don’t know Harewood House, Harewood is the family seat of the Earl and Countess of Harewood (the Queen’s cousin) and was home to Princess Mary until her death in 1965.

Also for Emmerdale fans, it’s where Yorkshire TV have the outside set of the village of Emmerdale! You can read more about Harewood House here.

Post Script to the above….We should have stayed at home!

Giving up smoking has been an eye opener. Especially with the new medication, I’ve found it much easier than I ever thought it would be. The effects of the pills are somewhat bizarre in that in most cases I’ve actually forgotten to smoke. The pills don’t induce some kind of nicotine amnesia, you literally stop thinking about lighting up. I’m very grateful….and I haven’t missed it.. Yet!

Anyhoo, while I was the Doctor’s signing up for the Champix, he mentioned to me that the computer system was indicating that I hadn’t had my 40+ health check….and that after 3yrs of avoidance, I ought to get it over with. I reluctantly agreed and he booked me in to see the Nurse the following week.

On my departure from the surgery I was handed a plastic bottle and was told to bring a urine sample (mid flow preferably) to the appointment. How nice! and to fast for at least 12 hrs before, so no food or drink (except water) after 9pm the night before. Bang goes the midnight fridge raid!

So, one week later, I drag myself out of bed, have nothing for breakfast except a glass of water and my morning tablet, visit the bathroom to ablute and fill up the sample bottle, comb my hair and head for the surgery.

I sit in the waiting room surrounded by sick people and dole malingerers waiting for my name to flash up on the electronic screen directing me to the right exam room.

When it happens I push myself out of my seat, take a deep breath, knock and enter the exam room to find a pleasant looking woman sitting behind a computer in a dark blue uniform looking more like a bank clerk than a nurse. She directs me to a seat and begins the pleasantries that precede me handing over my pee sample for her to test. She does so immediately by dropping a piece of litmus type paper into it, after a second or two the paper turns a multitude of different colours and she consults a colour chart for reference. She smiles and tells me it’s all clear and there are no traces of anything to worry about. This makes me happy!

She then rolls up my sleeve and shoves a needle into a vein on the crook of my arm and removes three large doses of blood. This doesn’t make me happy. I know I’ll bruise..I always do!

I now have to wait another 7 days for the samples to be tested for diabetes, thyroid problems, cell counts, liver and kidney defects etc, the usual stuff that goes wrong as you reach middle age..

I’ll let you know what happens…

I’ve just had a text from “the girl with the broken smile” which reads:

“Friday the 13th has to be “good luck” for somebody right?…Well, that somebody is ME! As of 10am this morning I am officially a free, single DIVORCED lady!

Whoopee! Off to buy a lottery ticket now!”

It’s nice that a little piece of paper can put a smile back on her face!

Tomorrow I’m saying goodbye to one of my most trusted friends who has been with me since I was 15. This friend has helped me in times of stress and trouble, has never complained, has never offered me advice, but has remained a silent rock that I have depended on since being a teenager.

Tomorrow I will turn my back on this friend. From tomorrow I will never again answer his call.From tomorrow, no matter how strong his pleading becomes, I must never again seek his company.

Who is this sad figure I’m quite clinically detaching myself from.

His name is Nic, “Nicotiana Tabacum” to be precise.

Yes, I’ve been to the Doctor’s tonight and had him prescribe me a course of Champix.

Champix - The Liberator!

This new wonder drug is supposed to suppress all cravings for the dreaded weed. I’ll keep you posted, but don’t worry I won’t bore you to death with a running total of days without cigs! Just keep your fingers crossed for me that this time the drugs will work!

So Christmas and new year have come and gone and the majority of the country is back at work .There’s been no snow to speak of and I have a mountain of chocolate and sweets that will last me until May!

Santa was good to me and brought me quite a lot of what I asked for and quite a bit that I didn’t, including the extra weight from all the food that I consumed over the two-week period!

I’m lucky in that any excess baggage that I have put on will come off again within a month, so I’m not too upset by the fact I can hardly get my favourite jeans on!

“The Loved Ones” had a great time at “The Beloved’s” house and “The Beloved’s” father seemed to have a good time too, given the circumstances, so much so that he decided to stay with us throughout the new year celebrations too. At least he’s where we can keep an eye on him!

I went into work today and packaged up all the outstanding orders from the website and got them all off in the post, we did brisk business over the festive period and even had a couple of website orders on Christmas day! I can’t believe that it’s been a full year since I went self-employed, where has the time gone!

I don’t know what 2012 has in store, I know it’s will be a struggle with all the shows and events we’re booked in to, and we’ll have to juggle looking after “The Beloved’s” father with our work schedule, but I’m sure we’ll sort something out.

So the year begins again, take a deep breath, put on a big smile and as Winnie Churchill once said “Just Keep Buggering On!”

The tree is up, most of the presents are wrapped and stuffed under said tree, the fridge and cupboards are bulging with food we’re never going to eat and there’s so much alcohol in the house you just wouldn’t believe!

All this, and “The Beloved’s” father is securely ensconced in the spare room. I saw him tonight for the firt time ever without his teeth in and it’s quite a shock as it makes him look so old. We cooked a lovely meal when he arrived, but he just wasn’t hungry. The medication he’s taking is making him feel nauseous so he really isn’t eating as he should. He has been prescribed anti sickness pills but they don’t work that good. He settled on soup and a bread roll, but didn’t quite managed to eat even half. He was quite happy to sit and watch us both wrapping up presents with ribbons and bows and lots of sparkle!

As tomorrow is Christmas Eve, I’ll be doing my traditional saunter around the shops. Not really looking for anything, I just love people watching. I do it every year on my own, and it gives me chance to pick up a few last minute stocking fillers if I see anything that someone might like and I’ll have my iPod stacked with traditional carols to listen to while I’m wandering aimlessly between the shops.

Around 6pm I’ll drive through to Penistone and pick up “The Loved Ones” as they’re coming to stay over Christmas too! It’s the first time ever we’ll have guests on Christmas day, it’ll definitely be a Christmas to remember! We just hope that “The Beloved’s” father has the best one that he can and I hope that you too have a very Merry Christmas and a great new year!

Earlier in the year, around August time, “The Beloved” lost his mother to cancer. She’d had cancer three times before and had beaten it, but this last time it had come back with a vengence, it started as breast cancer, then spread to her bones and then finally to her brain. She was 84. She’s missed, every day.

The sad news today, is that “The Beloved’s” father has been diagnosed with lung cancer and there is nothing that they can do, it’s too far gone. The specialists say that he has a few short months left. To lose one parent is bad enough, but to lose the other in such a short space of time is just heartbreaking. “The Beloved” is an only child.

At times like this, there is nothing that you can say to someone who is about to lose a parent, there is nothing that you can say to make things better, there’s nothing that you can do, but stand by their side and just be there.

“The Beloved’s” father is coming to stay for Christmas, “The Loved Ones” are also coming to stay for Christmas and I can tell you, we’ll all make sure that “The Beloved’s” father has the best bloody Christmas that he can.

Click here to see a video message I got from Santa! I know I’ve been good, what about you!!!

(Artists impression of Kepler 22b)

On December 5th this year NASA announced that they had discovered a planet out in the depths of space around 600 light years away that sits nicely in what they call the Goldilocks Zone around its star. This means that if water exists on this planet, that it would be liquid and that the temperature on the surface of the planet would be a pleasant 70 degrees (approx). As the planet is closer to its sun than we are to ours, its year only lasts around 290 days, but because its star is weaker than ours, it’s not too hot.

The planet which NASA  have imaginatively called Kepler 22b is 2.4 times the size of Earth, although until they do a thorough infra red scan, they won’t know exactly what the planet’s composition is. It could be very much like Earth and have land, seas and vegetation, it could have animal life and intelligent life too, but we just won’t know. Because the planet is so far away, it takes light 600 years to get to us, so the image that the Kepler telescope found is actually 600 years old. If the new planet’s inhabitants were looking at us too, they’d see an Earth in the 12th Century with very primitive technology.

Radio signals also travel at the speed of light and any broadcasts that we make would also take 600 years to reach the new planet, which means that we have to wait at least 600 years for them to hear our existing broadcasts, then for them to respond which would take another 600 years. A tad bit too much time to wait to start a meaningful conversation!

To get to the planet via space travel would take slightly longer with our current technology, as we don’t have captain Kirk’s warp speed just yet, any travel would take a great deal longer.

So what would happen if we did get there and found a planet with rich vegetation and no higher sentient intelligent life? Would we try to colonze Kepler 22b? I can just imagine the strip mining and deforrestation that would soon happen. How long would it take us to reduce this untouched Eden into a slag heap!