The Internet is indeed a wonderful and strange place where many odd things can be found and people connect with each other through shared interests all over the world. Indeed, when I was looking for scoliosis support I found 3 forums and more sites than I could possibly imagine. Some of the people I met online I felt so close to since they were going through the same as me and our shared experiences in turn helped us and others to get through a difficult time. This all brings me to now...
...now, I have been diagnosed with something else horrible. It has no cure and any treatment serves only to alleviate the symptoms. It affects me every day, every time I eat and most times when I drink but it’s not like suddenly discovering I have coeliac disease or diabetes where I have to change my diet. It doesn’t really matter what I try to eat –in theory I can tolerate any food I want – if only I could get it inside me!
So, I did a little digging on the internet and came up with some very good informative sites (like here, here and here,) but really very little in the way of support. Now I know that this is something that only affects 1 in 100,000 people, but there are a lot of people on the planet – so I was a bit surprised. Now, before all you achalasia support people out there get annoyed at me, I know that you are all posting on places like the Gastroenterology forums but then you have to sift through all sorts of other conditions (some of them quite ‘eew’ as well), before finding anyone else who is just the same as you.
So, without the support of hundreds of random people, I have had to make up my own mind and after all the testing (endoscopy, barium swallow and manometry – which shows I am a textbook case!) I have decided to go back under the knife. I just want to be able to eat and I hope that they can get me reasonably well fixed as soon as possible. All I have to do now is wait for a date to go in – it’s all rather a shame really – I had thought I’d left all my surgery behind me....
So, as you may be able to tell from my tone, I am finding this all rather depressing and I am just in a bit of a funk generally. Poor old hubby is bearing all this with great stoicism as usual and Clumsy is trying to help by dribbling in my ear when I am in bed. What do you think....should I go out and spend lots of money???
I know I mentioned my swallowing thing before, but I have finally got a diagnosis. Apparently I have Achalasia (which I have been told is said Achalasia as in Aphid, not achalasia as in apple....!) anyway, I digress...
It basically means that the nerves supplying the lower part of my oesophagus have decided to pack it all up as a bad idea and my peristalsis just twitters occasionally (on a good day) without actually doing anything useful. Of more concern to me (and the main stuff of all my difficulties) is the fact that this nerve thing means that my stomach valve doesn’t open to let food into my tummy so it just kind of stacks up in my gullet until eventually it manages to squeeze its way through the tiny little hole left at the bottom.
I thought I’d post my x-ray (very odd eh?):
– my valve is the bit just below the level of those two screws and my problem started (in some kind of haphazard way) after my surgery happened. First I had occasional problems with toast and then it was bread, then meat and then gradually over time I found I was having some issues with every meal. Now...I had nerve damage through my surgery (remember the numb abdomen and the leg thing) so I asked my surgeon if it might be connected to my spine.
“...Um, no, I’m sure it isn’t”, he said – “but we don’t really know why this kind of thing happens...”
Now, I’ve heard that people who have broken their thoracic spine get a higher incidence of achalasia so I think they may indeed be connected. Having said that, in such litigious times, I think no doctor or surgeon would suggest that another’s work might lead to any kind of related medical complication just in case you decide to rush out and sue them!
For me, I’m not interested in litigation, I was simply curious. My spine surgeon once said to me that you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs and I’m pretty glad to have been a pretty good omelette, rather than a box of broken eggs that would have to be thrown away.
Anyway, as I get more details, I’ll let you know more on the acka-what story later
Did you know that modern cars have some kind of sensor on the electric windows so that you can’t use them to slice small children’s fingers off? I did! What I did not know was that my 25 year old car (which has electric windows) has no such sensor and safety cut out. With mine, you press the button and the window goes up, if you put a carrot in the way, it slices it in half (I am sure of this but have not yet gone to the trouble of wasting a carrot*1). I know this because someone left a note under my windscreen wiper...
Now before you wonder what anyone was doing leaving me a note about my electric windows under the windscreen wiper, let me explain that the note had nothing to do with anything (apart from the fact that I had parked in a staff space without a badge, late at night when all the staff had gone home). I know it was naughty, but it seemed to me that at 9 pm outside a school there really wouldn’t be too many teachers around (sadly there was an overzealous caretaker, hence the note).
Anyway, that’s just dragging out the story so I will try and give you the short version! It went like this:
- I got in my car before I saw the note
- I started to drive across the car park
- I then spotted the note
- I wound down window to collect note
- I had to lean a long way out to reach the note and ended up leaning on the ‘window close’ button with my other hand by mistake as I stretched to reach the note
- At that point the window started to go up
- I pulled arm into car - quickly - but caught a ring on my finger in top of window
- My finger got trapped by the rising window which had no sensor to stop the rising glass when it encountered a foreign object (such as my finger)
- In the dark and in a major panic I mashed all the buttons on my door - opening the windows on the far side of the car (very helpful...not!) in the process before finally getting the button to open my window.
- Result, a very squashed ring and a pretty bruised finger....
Mmmmm – don’t try this one at home...
*1I am waiting for the ones in the fridge to get past even soup making before I have a go.....
So, I didn't like any of the templates but I don't know quite enough html to tinker with them....so, the only thing to do was to learn a bit more html!
The only problem with this is that you do a bit..then check to see if its all gone horribly wrong, find out that it hasn't, but its the wrong colour, change the colour and - guess what...yep, it all goes horribly wrong!
Anyway, in the end I am quite happy with the result - any complaints, let me know and I will take them all under
advisement - I may even print out your comments and file them in the round filing cabinet under my desk along with the discarded sweet wrappers and stuff....
Proper blogging will resume in a day or so....
As you can see, there have been a few changes to the blog...I'm not happy with all of them but at least it seems to be working OK.
Rest assured, I will have another go at it and get it all sorted soon, but for now my back is starting to ache and I need a cuppa!
I have been quite aware for a while that some of the links on my blog no longer work. I'd like to do something about this but everytime I try to Blogger gives me rude messages suggesting I update my template. Now, all that is fine and dandy, but I like this one....and I like it even more because when I started blogging as far as I was concerned, html might have stood for 'Have ten more lattes'. PTV did his best to put me right, throwing a few snips my way and numerous links to 'teach yourself html' and 'so you think you can write a blog eh...dummy?' and in time I designed most of this page from the bottom up, complete with all those weird characters (which I can't show you here or my page will look all funny) and a few other bits which I still don't understand them as I just stole them from someone else's site!
So, I think the time has come for some kind of redesign ...and I shall save this one just in case it all goes t*ts up. I suspect though that Blogger might never let me get out of their namby pamby babying world of the new easier template. I am sure that they are like Microsoft, who feel that they know what is easy for you. It's that kind of easy that Vista now asks you several times (instead of just once) if you wish to install new software by asking whether you actually want to do it or if you are actually allowed to do so....well, duh, sorry.....even if I wasn't allowed to do it do you think I would click the button 'No, cancel this installation, I'm not allowed!'
Bring back the good old days when computers thought you knew what you were doing even when you didn't and we all had so much fun staring at a big blue screen an wondering what to do next!
Speaking of big blue screens, hubby's laptop went phut recently and I just bought a new hard drive, fixed it and reinstalled everything - no mean feat when hubby has lost the driver disc and I had no idea what components were installed. I only tell you this because I feel pleased with myself ....and also so you know that when I am offline for ages whilst designing my new template, that it is not because I am complete idiot...!
We have the best behaved cats in the world. I am absolutely sure of this now even though I have not always been convinced in the past.
A week or so ago we went away for a cottage holiday and took the cats with us. We also got to see PTV and HLW which was brilliant...it’s been too long! Anyway, the cats...
We had our week away and then put the cats in the basket to bring them home. Now, we are lucky, with our cats this is quite a simple process and goes something like this:
- Open basket
- Pick cat up off windowsill
- Put cat in basket (leave door of basket open ready for second cat)
- Pick cat up off windowsill
- Put second cat in basket
- Close door.
Now I know you’re all thinking that that’s all wrong and where’s the gauntlets, the shredded curtains and the claws embedded in the outside of the basket? Nope, that’s just the way it is with us and if you can believe it, it gets better...
On the way home (it’s about 4 hours) we stopped for a drink at the services and opened the basket for the cats to stretch their legs and also have a drink. After 20 minutes or so we came back to the car to find them both sitting up on the back seat. Now Grace (being the more nervy) then tried to make a break for ‘under the seat’ when we opened the door but this may have been because she wasn’t certain who was about to open the door. For all she knew it was some mad cat-napper who was going to steal her away and cut her ear off to prove that it really was her whilst asking for a huge ransom (she has quite an imagination - my cat!). Anyway, as soon as she realised it was us she resumed her post on the seat and we got in.
It was at that point that Clumsy climbed in to the basket completely unbidden and Grace followed him. I swear they would have shut the door behind themselves if only they could have reached the latch....!
