I expect people will be wondering why there have been no blog posts for a couple of weeks. I have been ill and I just haven't had the stamina to do much more than deal with the daily essentials. The killer cough has continued with no sign of improvement and then about ten days ago the nagging pain under my right arm in the side and back of my chest got a lot worse and I decided that it was time to take myself back to the doctor, because I just couldn't cope. So on the Friday morning I found myself sitting in the waiting room trying my hardest not to cough and hoping that the doctor would understand just how bad I was feeling.
After about five minutes a woman (aged about 70) came into the waiting room and parked herself next to me, we exchanged smiles, I wasn't really in the mood for small talk but the woman had other ideas. She was the sort of person that my mum would describe as 'vaccinated with a gramophone needle' she lacked an 'off button' and she chatted happily without stopping for breath. Within minutes I she had told me about he career as a nurse, her (now ex) husband's insatiable sexual appetite, his misbehaviour with an implausibly large number of women and his even more implausible excuses. She paused for breath and I was just wondering how I could possibly respond without encouraging further conversation when she turned to me and asked if I was ready to meet my maker. I opened my mouth to respond but she didn't give me a chance, she went on to warn me about the evils of America and the signs that suggest to her that the end of the world and the second coming will happen sooner than people expect. She said that she goes to church every day to make sure that she will be ready when the time comes and she warned me to ensure that I didn't not spend eternity in a cold grave. This was my chance to get a word in, I said that I intend to be cremated when the times comes, so I don't anticipate any problems with feeling cold! I knew instantly that I should have stayed quiet, the woman took a huge breath and opened her mouth to respond, but at that moment the doctor opened her door and called my name so I was able to escape.
The doctor said that my chest was clear but because I'd been struggling with the cough for 9 weeks she put me on steroids and a course of antibiotics and sent me for a chest x-ray. So after queueing at the chemist I took myself to the hospital to have an x-ray. Thankfully the other people in the waiting room were not very talkative and after sitting quietly for five minutes I was called in for my x-ray. It was all over very quickly and I could head home and curl up in the chair for a little while.
The 7 day course of steroids and antibiotics helped a little bit, but the symptoms got worse again as soon as I stopped taking the tablets. The pain under my arm on the right side of my chest has been steadily getting worse too so I when I went back to the doctor I was desperate for some answers. My x-ray had revealed a rather confusing picture, there was a shadow or something hard to identify on my right lung and something is pushing or pulling my diaphragm up which in turn is restricting the capacity of my right lung. So I am now awaiting an appointment with a consultant to try to work out what is going on and it looks as if I am going to have to put up with this cough for a few more weeks at least.
Well this must be the longest gap in writing since I started writing the blog. Partly it is because I have been involved with an interesting little project which I should be able to write more about in a day or two. Mostly it is because I have been feeling absolutely dire for weeks. It sounds so pathetic to be moaning about having a cough, but this really is a hell of a cough. I have had it for at least four weeks this time and I only had a gap of about four weeks free of the previous cough which lasted for twelve weeks. The doctor says that my lungs are clear the problem seems to be higher up, but we are still investigating the exact cause. It always seems to happen when I get a cold and then I just can't get rid of it. Maybe I have to accept it as a very annoying symptom of my asthma, but to cough to the point of passing out or actually making yourself sick from coughing tends to limit your social life as well as scaring people who witness it. Anyway that is quite enough moaning for today, in fact I have probably used up a whole months ration of moans!
Robbie has been at home for three weeks or so and it has been frustrating that we haven't been able to enjoy doing more things together, but coping with the 'killer cough' and the fact that I still had to go to work got in the way of Robbie's plans. It is a bit of an exaggeration to say that he has been at home, Robbie gets withdrawal symptoms after one day without trains and I start to feel exhausted after a couple of days with Robbie, so when he asks for a lift to the station I am always ready to oblige! He has spent a lot of time on trains in the last few weeks and lots of numbers / routes have been ticked off in his little book!
This is his last week of freedom and he intends to make the most of it. On Sunday he had an HST day travelling to the South West and back. I love the sea wall, but I don't love HSTs so I decided that I would be happier at home. That turned out to be an inspired decision because when Robbie got on the train he discovered that one of the cats had vandalised his best Sennheiser headphones. When exasperated with the cats he always resorts to alliteration, when Oreo upsets him he is a 'furry, blank, fatherless, feline; but this time Bernard was under suspicion so we had a rant on the theme of 'B'.
He managed a whole day without trains yesterday but he will be heading off on a train later today and he will probably fit several in several more trips during the week. On Friday we are going to York then at the weekend Robbie is off to a special event at the Bodmin and Wenford Railway.
I had such a horrible day yesterday, I have been struggling with a bad cough for weeks and it caused me to have an asthma attack at work. It left me feeling dreadful, struggling to breathe and very shaky and scared. When I got home it was clear that Robbie was in so much pain that he was struggling to cope, it make me feel so useless because I can't make it better for him. I think we both had a bad night and I was less than enthusiastic this morning when the alarm clock insisted that it was time to face another day. When I walked out to the car, I noticed that our roses are out, there is a mass of yellow buds on the rose bush near the front door and there are deep pink flowers on the climbing rose at the side of the garage. They must have been in flower for several days but I hadn't noticed. I expect today will still be challenging but taking a few moments to enjoy the roses really brightened my morning.
I went to the doctors in mid November for my annual review and made the mistake of commenting that I was feeling well and that my breathing was good (I have asthma). The very next day I had a sore throat and started sneezing - typical! I have now had a cold, sore throat and horrible chesty cough for three weeks and I am struggling to breathe. It is just a cold and it is annoying rather than serious, but it turns ordinary life into a real effort because I have no energy.
Putting up with a cold is really not such a big deal in comparison with Robbie who has to cope with more or less constant leg and back pain because of his spina bifida. I know he can be challenging at home sometimes but I think he does remarkably well to remain cheerful, determined and positive most of the time. I feel really sorry for him this week because his legs are misbehaving and he has got my cold, he was burning up last night but he was determined not to miss work, he has some important deadlines looming and he has his Christmas meal today - I hope he is well enough to enjoy it
I went back to the doctors yesterday because this cough/breathing problem just will not get better. I am not impressed, I have to have a week off work and I have been given a third inhaler and steroids. Oh well, if it makes me better it will be worth it.
Do you remember Robbie's promise about me having his undivided attention until next February? It seems we have a different interpretation of 'undivided attention' because Robbie is off to a gig tonight and he will not be home until midnight and tomorrow morning he will be leaving early to go on a rail tour! He hasn't been around to help with the shopping for weeks, so I hope he will be OK with beans on toast for Christmas dinner!!!
I have been suffering (not exactly in silence) with a chest infection that refuses to get better, it hurts to breathe and my cough is so bad that I end up choking. I have struggled to keep up with even the simple tasks like feeding Robbie, so I was annoyed on Tuesday evening when he arrived home late and then went to bed in a huff because he didn't want what I had cooked. I left him to it and got on with my evening, but when I went to bed he had managed to occupy the entire bed and my efforts to shift him proved futile. I gave up and took up residence on the sofa with a whole duvet to myself – luxury! My cough makes it hard to sleep, but I was warm and comfortable and I must have drifted off to sleep in the end. I woke again to the gradual realisation that I couldn't breathe and it felt as if there was a crushing weight on my chest. My thoughts seemed to be in slow motion, I wondered briefly if I was dead, or perhaps it was the start of a heart attack. Finally I was sufficiently awake to work out that the cat was asleep on my chest!!
It's official Robbie is ill! I just want to make sure that everyone knows that, because every time he has spoken to me today he has informed me that he is 'not very well' and then he has gone on to accuse me of not caring. Of course I care, I know how rough he is feeling because I have had the cold/flu or whatever it is for a week and I still feel rough. He has an evil sore throat, a high temperature, a heavy cold, a nasty cough and he feels like death warmed up. I am not unsympathetic, but honestly we need to get a sense of proportion about this! I went out and bought him two giant boxes of tissues, some maximum strength cold relief tablets and some stuff to stick up his nose to help him breathe. He is sitting in the corner sniffing and sighing surrounded by a mountain of tissues looking like misery personified. I hope he gets better quickly because I'm not sure how long I can cope with this!
This morning Robbie listened to The Archers while I tried to get on with my writing work. Despite his sore throat he couldn't be quiet and he fired a series of questions at me about storylines in the Archers. I answered each question and tried to get on with what I was doing, but then he began to ask about another character and we had a slightly confusing conversation for a few minutes. Suddenly I realised that he now talking about a family member who by coincidence shares a name with the character I thought he was talking about. I moaned at him for not giving me any clue that he had leapt from one subject to another, but he just grinned and said 'they don't call me Random Robbie for nothing'.
