Intellectual Bohemian

We have moved house!

We have moved from a 1 bedroom flat, in Raynes Park, South West London, to a 3 bedroom flat in Coulsdon which is south of Croydon in South London. We no longer have a London phone number, we no longer have a six lane road outside our front door! We now live on a quiet residential street, we wake up to a view of horses on the opposite hill from us and have already been visited by a badger!

In short, a new and exciting stage in our lives. We have two new kittens and are happy.

You will get more info on the house, the area, and the cats in the coming days.

James the Doorman, originally uploaded by NeilD.

It’s been a busy week and a half. I’ve had a couple of parents evenings in school along with numerous other meetings and events, added to this I’ve been under the weather and also sleep deprived due to the superbowl.

Okay, most of those I could do something about and is no excuse not to blog, indeed it’s almost the exact opposite to the February Challenge by Chris. But I now vow to belatedly take up the challenge.

We had another snowy day in London this week; unfortunately, our school was one of the few that were open yesterday. The majority of high schools in the area had closed for the day, so all we had all day was pupils moaning that they wanted to go home. Snow falls so infrequently here that it is an event and most things stop rather than persevere. This was such a problem that a Government Minister wanted a parliamentary debate on why the county seems to ground to a stop anytime there is snow!

One of the flaws of my new classroom has made itself evident now. The room is so well insulated and sound proofed that with the door closed you cannot here the school bells or fire alarms, also the doors are fire doors and automatically close rather than stay open. As a result I recently bought the RE department as set of doorstops. They are rather funky and go by the name of “James the Doorman”, they have proved quite a hit with the pupils and other staff are getting jealous of them

I was off school for the latter half of this week in order to have a scan in hospital. It was a colonoscopy, to check on why I have been having some gastro-intestinal bleeds. The tests needed me to come off some of my meds and take a few days of off from school. The first day was to take some meds to prepare my body for the tests, and then I spent half a day in hospital, followed by the last few days recovering.

The colonoscopy itself wasn’t the worst hospital test I have had, but the preparation for it and the recovery afterwards have proved to be very draining. I am still, three days later, experiencing highs and lows in my moods and my energy as my body tries to stabilise itself after the tests.

The good news was that they found nothing serious wrong, except for some polyps, which have now been removed and sent away for testing. I should get the results of these in due course, but for now back to the marking for today, and back to school on Monday.

In the last week I have got details through of the next stages in the investigations for my asthma.

In the first week of August I am to admitted into hospital for 4 days of tests under the “serious asthma clinic.” This will involve complex breathing tests, blood tests, bone scans, X-rays as well as consultation with my asthma docs, an ENT specialist as well as a couple of others that I don’t remember.

While I am in hospital Hazel’s parents have arranged to come down and stay with her. This will mean she gets the company and the looking after that she needs while I am not there.

Will keep you posted as to any other news that comes our way.

My Echo went well and it turns out that I do indeed have a heart! The technician that did the echo said that everything seems normal, and whilst my heart is big, she felt that was normal for someone of my size. But we’ll see what my specialist says.

I ended up having flu over the weekend, really tired and achy, hot and cold flushes. I managed to sleep it off fairly well and am feeling a lot better today.

In between the naps I took Topsy to the vets. She was due to have some of her vaccines, and we felt this was important as we were going to be having more cats around fairly soon. She was excellent, she didn’t misbehave, she was quiet and in very good health. We were so proud of her.

And now that I’m over the flu … its back to school!

I am off this afternoon for an Echo on my heart. It seems that in my last few chest x-rays for my asthma my heart has come up as enlarged. This is unusual, especially for someone of my age with no history of blood pressure problems. So my chest specialists are doing an Echo, (something like an ultrasound,) to see if they can spot any irregularities. I’ll probably get my results when I go for my hospitalisation.

Even before then, I’m pretty sure I can tell then what’s up. I mean it’s obviously coz I have so much love to give! *g*

I went back to the osteopath this week and unfortunately its taking longer for my muscles to heal than normal. He thinks that this is due to the steroids I am on making my muscles softer so they aren’t staying in place. He hopes that within a week or two I will be back to normal.

Hazel hasn’t been good for a while now. She has been steadily getting worse over the last few weeks; she is even more fatigued, with more joint pain and temperatures, worsening asthma, rashes and an even worse state of mental stability. Our GP is worried that she has developed an underlying infection that may be making things worse, so he has put her on an old antibiotic, tetracycline, one that should hopefully treat most things. His worry, and a valid one at that, is that if she continues to worsen she may not be able to make it to her next neurologist appointment, which is next week.

So hopefully things will start to pick up a bit for both of us over the weekend. Fingers crossed!

Thank you to all of you who wished me happy birthday. My regular readers have my apologies for not telling you about it, I am one of those people who try not to make a big deal of their birthdays. But seeing as Hazel posted about it on her blog, I had people wishing me about it here.

I had a lovely birthday; the main event was a take away dinner at my parents with them, Hazel and my Gran. This was nice and relaxing. On Saturday Hazel and myself had dinner at TGI Fridays in Kingston which was lovely and relaxing, and good to get out.

My bestest present has to be a T-Shirt Hazel bought for me, it has a picture of Darth Vader from Empire Strikes Back and the words “Come to Papa”. It’s dead cool, I intend to wear it on Friday when I see Revenge of the Sith in Leicester Square.

On Friday, my birthday, and also 13th of May, I had my appointment with the chest specialists in London. The last few times I have gone, I have had my asthma under control, with high medication, but under control. And due to this the specialists have been very keen to discharge me. It was different this time, I explained that I really wanted help to get off my high medication and that I was not happy using this medication as a means of controlling my asthma. The doctor was really good about it, he said that whilst my asthma was under control, a person of my age should not be having to control it this was nor should it be so susceptible to infections and worsening.

So he is arranging for me to have a whole host of tests. The ones I remember include a bone scan, chest scan, echo, ecg, at least a dozen blood tests, referral to an ENT specialist who will probably look down my throat, possibly a bronchoscopy, and a one and a half hour lung function test. There are others that I have probably forgotten but those are the big ones. These will take place on a three day stay in hospital which will probably happen sometime in June. We have already spoken to Hazel’s parents and her mother will probably come down and stay with her while I am in hospital as she will need someone to look after her.

So all in all a very productive few days. Hopefully this will mean that my asthma will be brought under better control by the end of the summer! Its kinda weird thinking that, my asthma has been so bad for so long that I had just accepted that I wouldn’t get to do sports or pubs and stuff again. There’s a chance that may prove to be a premature assumption.

Ooh I just got another birthday present. Hazel just bought me a Star Wars tie, good start to a very important Star Wars week.