Labour Has A Good Idea
Jon Cruddas is reported as saying in several papers, like here in the Mail, that parents will lose benefits if their children don’t have the MMR vaccination.
I’m all for this, as I know a few people, who were born before vaccination was possible, who after measles have developed problems.
It’ll also help to generate a lot of jobs in the PR and legal areas, as the legislation is fought. So it could be very good for the economy!
A Rubbish Bag Failure
I had a rare rubbish bag failure this morning.
A Rubbish Bag Failure
Despite my stroke, I seem to drop things rarely, but this was caused by a carton of chicken stock, that wasn’t fit for purpose.
Do We Put Our Heating On At The Right Time?
I have been puzzled, why after C died, I started to develop hay fever like symptoms. I blogged about it first here in April 2010, which was before I had the serious stroke.
I have just read this thoughtful article on the BBC entitled “Is It Too Early To Put The Central Heating On?”.
i asked someone who knew us well, and they said that the house was always very cold.
Now both C and myself, were brought up in cold houses, with perhaps hers a little bit warmer than mine because she was down in the valley at East Barnet and I was on top of the hill at Cockfosters.
When I met her, she had the worst chilblains I’ve ever seen. They disappeared fairly soon afterwards and she always put it down to wearing Scholl sandals. She incidentally wore those virtually until the day she died. I suspect there was not one day in the forty years we were together she didn’t put a pair on. She even drove in them. She always said, I should, as they would keep my feet warm.
But could the death of her chilblains be put down to her not living in her parents’ house any more? She was in a warm Hall of Residence in Liverpool and afterwards we lived generally in warmer housing, until we moved to Suffolk.
My house as a child was very cold and I was always having time off with a hat fever like runny nose. In fact one of my memories is my mother boiling up handkerchiefs on the gas stove for my father and I. He suffered terrible catarrh and was always sucking on dreadful menthol sweets. I remember, he used to keep his garage very warm and I would often go there to talk to him and listen to football on the Light Programme. Did I go because it was warm?
But everything changed when my grandmother died, as my parents could now afford more electric fires and perhaps more importantly, I got the big sunny bedroom at the back of the house. I was also about twelve and could spend more time in the fresh air, when it wasn’t cold.
Over the years in Suffolk, C and I developed our own ways of living with cold weather.
She always wrapped up well, did a lot of exercise and I usually had a fan heater playing on my feet.
I did keep my car hotter than she did. I seem to remember, she adjusted her Porsche to 22.5°C. I liked it warmer.
I can also remember staying in hotels in London several times when C complained very much about the high temperature.
When she died in 2007, I did a lot of things to warm the house up, like putting in extra radiators and buying the thickest duvet I could find. I have since bought a thinner one.
It does seem strange that my rhinitis started about that time.
So it does seem that temperature and humidity, has a lot of effect on my rhinitis.
One thing I’m going to do, is make sure my heating and ventilation is completely and precisely controllable.
A Coaguchek Failure
I get on well with my Coaguchek, but I did have a failure in Sweden.
The batteries chose to run out and I then had to reset the device.
Unfortunately, it is not an easy process to do without the manual, which I deliberately had not taken.
An ideal device would have a quick setup, where it took defaults for everything. After all, you always write down all your results and don’t rely on things like the date set into the device.
Everything should be simple and intuitive. It isn’t and the manual is needed too often. It also just gives you error numbers, rather than a proper error message.
The outcome was that I missed one of daily tests. Not important for me, as I just took the average Warfarin dose of 4 mg.
Will It Be Engineers And Scientists Who Cure Back Pain?
BBC Radio 5 had a discussion this lunchtime about back pain. The most amazing part was a statement by Brian Saunders of the School of Materials at Manchester University. He talked of how they were developing a jelly-like polymer, which could be injected into the body. Things are apparently going well!
Couple this with work, I know of at Liverpool University, where engineers have been analysing the gait of humans, dogs and horses, to get greater insight into problems and I get the feeling that over the next decades engineers and physical scientists will make great process in helping us to live longer and better. These two examples are probably just two of many similar ones.
My INR For August 2013
As August is now finished, I can show a graph of my daily INR tests for August 2013.
My INR For August 2013
The average INR for the month was 2.5 with a standard deviation of 0.3. This is well within the range of 2 to 3 and the average was spot-on the target of 2.5.
Having once been told by an eminent cardiologist, that if I got the Warfarin level right, I probably wouldn’t have another stroke, I try to make sure I get it right.
What is interesting is that my average Warfarin dose for month is exactly 4 mg. a day.
The more I look at these results, the more I believe that daily self-testing is the best way to control INR.
It’s All Dropping Into Place
If I look at my father, he had breathing problems and I suspect so did his father as he suffered from asthma and died of pneumonia and other complications in his forties. Both were pretty heavy smokers and my grandfather was a heavy drinker too. My father used to tell stories of picking his father up late at night from various clubs in a very bad state and that’s probably why my father was a sensible drinker and why he brought me up to be the same. I never for instance ever saw my father drunk. My father’s only addiction other than his pipe, was industrial strength menthol catarrh tablets, which he consumed virtually all day, to try to get his throat clear.
As a child, I suffered similarly with my breathing and throat at times, but then we lived in a cold house, heated by electric fires, which must have made the air exceptionally dry. From about the age of eight, I had a south-facing room with big picture windows, which was very warm at times. I regularly, lost a term, usually the spring one, in my schooling. My doctor had no idea, about what was the problem, so they took my tonsils out, which was an all-purpose remedy in those days.
Things improved when I got to about twelve or so, and my parents just felt, I’d grown out of it. It could be that we were spending increasing time at Felixstowe, where my parents had bought a house to retire to, or it could be that I spent more and more time at my father’s print works in Wood Green. Who knows why? I don’t even have any medical records from that period, as my medical records restarted some time about 1969. So you can see why I’m all in favour of computerised medical records, which the patient can access when and where they want through the Internet!
I can remember my late teens very well and can’t ever remember going to the doctor or feeling unwell, especially at University in Liverpool, whilst working at Enfield Rolling Mills or in The Merryhills, or generally riding about on my bicycle.
I certainly didn’t feel ill, either in the early years of my marriage to C, either in Liverpool or in Melbourn near Cambridge. The first entry on my medical record, is a visit to the doctor in Melbourn about excessive diarrhoea, which looks like a classic glutening.
However things got a lot worse, when we moved to Shannon Place in St. John’s Wood. The flat was damp and cold and I can remember going to the doctor with lots of knee and arm pains. He recommended knee surgery, which I didn’t accept.
But then when we moved to the eleventh floor in Cromwell Tower, everything got better and in the three or four years we lived there, I never saw the doctor on my own behalf. But the flat was comfortably warm and the air was very fresh.
We then lived in Suffolk for forty years and only at odd occasions did my breathing problems come back.
That is until Celia died and I think in certain ways I reverted to my childhood habits; like wrapping myself in the bedclothes, keeping the house as warm as I could and avoiding going out. I started getting what looked like hay fever soon after C died in 2007.
Since my stroke and also since moving to London it has got a lot worse, but I’m now in a particularly airless house with little ventilation.
It might need to have heat recovery ventilation. Wikipedia says these are the benefits.
As building efficiency is improved with insulation and weather stripping, buildings are intentionally made more airtight, and consequently less well ventilated. Since all buildings require a source of fresh air, the need for HRVs has become obvious. While opening a window does provide ventilation, the building’s heat and humidity will then be lost in the winter and gained in the summer, both of which are undesirable for the indoor climate and for energy efficiency, since the building’s HVAC systems must compensate. HRV introduces fresh air to a building and improves climate control, whilst promoting efficient energy use.
Certainly, a proper system will be better than I’ve got now.
I’m Finally Feeling Better
The rain yesterday seemed to get into my body and for the first time since probably last September, I’m starting to feel better and my nose has almost stopped running with its chronic rhinitis. My gut, which hasn’t been of the best since my stroke, has now returned to good health and any gastro-enterologist would hate all his patients to have such a healthy one.
So my left hand is still a bit gammy, but then it always has been since my arm was broken by the school bully. I can use it for the shift key as I type, but in most instances, I just span with my right. The only thing, I have done a lot with the left is fly an aircraft and ride a bike. Perhaps I should do both of these again?
My skin still itches and my scalp is tight from getting too dry over the winter, but a few days in the rain without a hat will help to cure that. Thinking about it, I’ve always liked being in the rain and rarely used to carry an umbrella. C used to think I was mad sometimes. I once joked to her, that I was short because I spent too much time in the rain.
But I’m getting there and I think more and more, that a lot of my troubles were caused by changes I made on the death of C, like the duvet and extra radiators I put in at the previous house, and the very dry atmosphere I have lived in since the stroke. In Hong Kong, the hospital had large picture windows, where the sun streamed through and guess what, it is the same in this house. The air has been particularly dry outside all last winter and only now is it getting more humid.
Quite a few of my eye problems have gone away too, although I still have the left lower vision loss from the stroke. My eyes are at last getting wetter more of the time. i think I could probably get my driving licence back! But why bother?
I shall make sure I don’t repeat drying myself out!
The Anonymous Widower 