Wednesday 29 June 2016

4 weeks on nearly...

And after my TIA, if that's what it was, I am driving again.  Nice, but I really did enjoy being ferried around. It was so nice to be able to look at stuff, rather than just vaguely see it rushing by.  There is a kind of trance-like turning in on oneself about occupying somebody's back seat while they mutter to their partner in the front and the world trundles by outside.
But, nightwork for the son-in-law and repairs to the daughter's Jeep forced my hand. Drive or starve.

Medically, I have a checkup on Monday about the TIA, I've had a checkup of no great conclusion, about the heart attack and I had a 48 hour ECG strap on me.
But I still have a slightly numb left leg that goes hot and cold and although my right arm is working fine again, my left arm is a little numb and gets coldfingers.  All things I will have to report on Monday.  My long term back ache problems are now more severe if I bend unsupported, but that can be dealt with.  I am finding the 30 minute exercise regime very difficult to keep up as walking round here will kill you with boredom!  I might get a pushbike again.

On Monday also, I am meeting a chap who I haven't seen since we were 17.  We first met as we both walked into Parklands school on out first ever day of what passed for education in those days.He was 5. I was 4 1/2. We're both now 63.  Amazingly he lives where we were for our 5 day break recently.  And used to live where we also visited. his Mum lives near us on the coast and he's combining visits.  It will be very odd to meet him again. Hehas had the most conventional of lives and I....have not.
No doubt his kids will have been to university and gone on to allegedly good jobs.

We shall see.

I have been doing frames and a building form for making a 152VO model boat. http://152vo.de/ I have even ordered an outboard, sans brushless motor.  No point in buying one of those till the boat is made.  Have also made a Group 44 Spitfire for a friend and am now doing a hardtop for a Mk1 version of the car.  So, keeping busy, but not exactly busting a gut over it.

Monday 6 June 2016

What did I do, boss?...

As one or two of my regular chums-cum-followers will already know, on Thursday, I woke up only to fall over the furniture and get carted off to the hospital in an ambulance.  The nice Irish doctor reckoned the unsteadiness was down to my having a large, hard deposit of wax in my right ear and sent me away.  Back home I had a doze and woke to the right side of my face going numb and my left leg feeling strangely warm.  GP's called the ambulance this time and off I went again with twos and blues going at every roundabout. In for tests.  I had a CT scan in the late afternoon and was asked to stay overnight to have an MRI scan the next day, which I duly did.  Woken every hour (except one never sleeps in hospital until basically wrecked!
But, although all I could get were brown sandwiches on Thursday, my Friday was peppered with the usual excellent food from The Queen Elizabeth's own kitchens, until, at 1 o'clock I got an MRI scan.
Ye Gods what a weird experience that is.  It's like being inside the works bit of Doctor Who's TARDIS.  The noises are truly strange, the proximity of well, pretty much everything is frightening, but I shut my eyes and went into a semi-trance.  It lasted for maybe 25 minutes and the report was that what they thought the CT showed as a clot was, in fact, clear.  A discharge letter was typed and off home again.  None the wiser, really.  The general concensus was that I'd had a TIA, what some call a mini-stroke.
I'm left with the same numbness, slightly reduced and a right arm that sometimes goes a bit lazy and silly, restored by pulling it around and tensing it against itself.  Today, my ears were syringed and I'm waiting for that to ease the some time dizziness and instability.
I have today done some work on my model of Vanity, the Victorian cutter I once lived on, so I've used my bandsaw, having installed its new blade and glued new sections of keel in to the frames and the structure is now rigid.  But, I remain tired and my back easily aches these days.
I went to the no-nonsense quack at our practice and he confirmed that any remaining effects of a TIA can last for 4-6 weeks before going. He confirmed that my new non-smoking status (well, 6 months actually) is excellent, as is the attempt to eat healthily and remain active and that my current meds. are all suitable.  So "carry on Hoskins" seems to be the phrase of moment.