Got A Migraine, Have Sex!
Research from the the University of Munster in Germany has shown that sex may be a better cure for migraine than painkillers. It’s all here in Her Majesty’s Daily Telegraph.
I wonder what Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells thinks of this?
Incidentally, I used to get the odd migraine, until I was diagnosed as a coeliac and went gluten-free.
The Biggest Mistakes I’ve Made
These are some of the biggest mistakes I’ve made.
Not Selling Up And Returning To London Sooner
After C died in 2007, I had a phone call from an agent, who made me an offer, he thought I wouldn’t refuse for the house and stud.
Although C and I had talked about moving back to London, in a couple of years, I said that, I’d stay put.
I just wonder how my life would have turned out, if I’d accepted that offer.
Not Carrying Camera For A Large Part Of My Life
From probably the mid-1970s until perhaps the mid-1990s, I rarely had a camera with me and much of the things I did is unrecorded. C also had the habit of throwing away negatives, so a lot of the pictures I took, have now been lost.
Not Giving Up Driving Earlier
Admittedly, I had the stroke, but I actually regret not giving up driving earlier. I obviously couldn’t until I moved to London, but then you don’t realise what a tyranny and a chore driving is, until you abandon it. After all, with the money I save, I could afford a chauffeur-driven limousine when I need one. Although, these days, like in Blackburn, the bus is probably sufficient.
Not Cooking Enough When C Was Alive
I rarely cooked, when C was alive, as if she was busy and couldn’t find time, we would drive down the pub or go to the local Indian restaurant.
When she died, I learned to cook again quick enough and these days I thoroughly enjoy it, with one of my friends being very complimentary about my fish pie.
Not Pushing C To Take Longer Holidays
C was a barrister and I’ve never met one yet, who wasn’t a workaholic, who was always worried that if you took time off, your colleagues in Chambers would take your best work.
I never pushed her to take more holidays, despite the fact that some we took like flying round Australia and driving around South Africa were perhaps ten days too short.
In some ways she did take more holidays in the last couple of years of her life, so did she know that something was awry with her health.
Not Having More Children
This is very much a mistake with hindsight, after the death of our youngest son and now, I would never entertain being a father again.
After we sold out of Metier and Artemis, C and myself, seriously thought about having another child, as we were only around forty. We could have afforded it and C was fit and well. These days, that is an age, where people start families.
The only fly in the ointment was my vasectomy, which could probably have been reversed. After all, the doctor, who did it in Hackney Hospital in the 1970s, assured me, that it could be reversed.
We did think hard about it, as although C said, she didn’t want a girl, I probably did. Even if we never had a name for a girl and what she’d have been called, I know not.
We did flirt with the name Tyche or perhaps more correctly I did. Tyche is the Greek goddess of luck. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so, I’ve never seen the name used. But given the connotations, I think this is surprising.
Not Buying A Flat In Barrier Point
In about 2000 or so, C and I looked seriously at buying a buy-to-let flat in Barrier Point close to the Thames Barrier.
Barrier Point
In the end we didn’t, but it is one of the biggest regrets of my life.
I suspect, if we had, I’d have moved there soon after C died and some of my medical problems may have been caught earlier.
This Is Getting Beyond A Joke
After trying to boil me last year, this house is now trying to freeze me to death. I can just about get the heat up to 18.5°C, by having the boiler on full and controlling the valves manually upstairs.
As to having a bath, that is impossible. As we decided to take it out last week. But only on condition, I had a working shower. Guess what both showers are not working. Now they have done this before, so I suspect that could be down to the cold weather too! I just tried the shower again and took this picture.
My Stone-Cold Leaking Shower
Note how the water is leaking everywhere. The water was absolutely stone cold.
I suppose the shower isn’t too important, as I know that I can get one at my physio tomorrow.
But what did I do to deserve to be frozen to death? Or am I drowning, as my nose just never stops running with this rhinitis? But then, I had this chronic rhinitis for some years as a child, so I know despite it’s worst intents, it doesn’t appear to be fatal.
In some ways the worst pain I have is in my left humerus, where the school bully broke it. But that isn’t at all funny.
I suppose I could always move to somewhere like Mali, where I’m told it’s a bit warmer.
The Danger Of Religious Fraud
This story is running on BBC’s London News. This is the first part.
TV shows made in London that encourage viewers to believe they are cured of life-threatening illnesses by prayer have been condemned by charities.
Charities criticised an episode of the Miracle Hour show, on Faith World TV, during which a diabetic caller was told he was “set free” from the disease.
“It is particularly dangerous and puts his life at risk,” said African Health Policy Network head Francis Kaikumba.
It strikes me that when people like these make dangerous television programs like this, that the law should get involved.
At least they should be charged with fraud, as that is what it is!
Feeling Better In The Fog
It was really funny yesterday in that in the foggy air, I felt a bit better. Could it be that the damp air was getting into my lungs and doing me good?
Am I Finally Solving My Childhood Health Problems?
I wasn’t the healthiest of children. We lived in a very cold part of London a few hundred metres from Oakwood station and to say our house was cold would be an understatement.
I seemed to spend at least one term of each school year off sick with a problem that my doctor had no idea about. I’m not particularly sure which term I had off, but I do know in my first year at Minchenden it was the Spring term, as no-one could understand why after a good first term, I deteriorated in the next.
Other memories of the time, are saucepans of cotton handkerchiefs boiling on the gas stove. As after all there weren’t any tissues in those days.
I can also remember panicking at times and having fights with my mother as she struggled to clean my ears out, as they were rather full of wax.
But it all seemed to disappear, when I was thirteen or so, and I can’t remember any problems after my first year at Minchenden. Perhaps that was after, my grandmother died and I got to have the big sunny room at the back of the house, which was much warmer. This death may be more significant than I think, as it finally gave my father control of the business and finances in the family were much better and we started to have longer and more holidays. Soon after we bought the house in Felixstowe, where of course the air was fresher and it wasn’t quite as cold.
Going to Liverpool was probably a good move, as it faces to the west and for a city in the 1960s, the air was probably pretty good.
I met C in 1966 and really since then I didn’t have too many health problems until after she died in 2007. When I was diagnosed with coeliac disease in 2003, i thought that would be the explanation of my my childhood health problems.
I should also say that I’ve always said that I liked being at altitude and seemed to feel better in places like Denver. I also flew light aircraft a lot and loved going up high.
But it wasn’t as after C died, the runny nose started to return and I put it down to hay fever. But tests have shown it is nothing of the case, but just rhinitis and a very runny nose.
So are there any other factors that might come into it.
My grandfather died of asthma and pneumonia in his forties and I suspect he carried the coeliac gene, like my father probably did. I have no proof of that except that none of the women in that line of my family have ever given birth and undiagnosed coeliac disease is a cause of failing to conceive. My father definitely had breathing problems and suffered badly from catarrh He was always taking menthol tablets and he used to give them to me, but they made little difference to my problems. So perhaps, what my father and I had were different, but the older I get, the more I think our problems were similar. But of course, he was never diagnosed with coeliac disease and he smoked a pipe.
When I met C I was just 19, so for forty years of my life I lived with her and it was if she warded off the rhinitis. That is really a silly idea to even think it. But last week my GP suggested I get a Sinus Rinse to wash the muck out of my nose.
It got me thinking. C was a great lover of deep hot baths and usually had one every day. To save hot water, she’d always leave it for me afterwards and I would get in and often wash my hair. Now she laid back into the water to wash hers, but I knelt and put my head forward under the water. Afer she dued one of my first actions was to put a proper shower into the bedroom.
So did this daily bath to keep my sinuses clear? And did the shower make it all worse?
I don’t know, but I have certainly felt a bit better since I’ve had a morning bath.
The bath seems to have helped another of my childhood problems that has returned. As a child I used to suffer badly from cramp, when I was asleep. I used to get out of bed and put my foot on the cold lino. This symptom started again, when I moved here.
This post is very much a ramble, but underneath everything there seems to be a pattern emerging.
But at least nothing seems to be life-threatening. And of course I grew out of it once.
When Did We First Test For Horse DNA In Beef?
This may seem to be an obvious question, but I can’t seem to be able to find the answer on the Internet.
There is also the related question of when were we able to test for equine DNA in beef?
After all, if we’ve been able to do this for some years, could we have detected the fact that crooks were putting horse in beef earlier? And then there’s how long has it all been going on?
Perhaps, we should ask people if they find a Findus beef lasagne or any of the other suspect products in the freezer with a date of last year, they should take it to get tested.
A Squamous Cell Carcinoma Of The Heart
Perhaps because yesterday was St. Valentine’s Day and it was my sixth without her, I think I should say more about the cancer that killed C.
Not to elicit sympathy for myself, as I’ve had enough of that in the past few years, but to put the true record on the Internet, so that it can be found.
It’s not pleasant reading, and there may be a cure by now, but typing “squamous cell carcinoma of the heart” into Google, just gives a couple of references other than the few in this blog or where I have posted in other forums.
C started to become short of breath in about July and in September, she went into Papworth Hospital to find out the cause, as it looked like it was something wrong with her heart.
In late October, they found the problem which was a squamous cell carcinoma actually growing inside the heart. So it was actually behaving like a valve shutting off the blood flow around the rest of her body.
They did try an experimental chemotherapy using a drug called Tarceva, but all this did was destroy her gut and make her mouth incredibly sore. It had no effect on the cancer.
The pain was so bad, she refused to see any of her friends and effectively withdrew into herself, just seeing her carers, and the immediate family. The pain was so bad at one point, that she asked me to take her to Switzerland, but by then, she would probably have found it impossible to travel. When I said no, she realised she hadn’t got long to live.
She died on December 11th, 2007, just a couple of months after the terrible diagnosis.
I said earlier, that I hope treatment is now possible. However do bear in mind, that C’s cancer was the only one of its type in 2011 in the UK and she was a very fit, non-smoker and light drinker, who’d hardly been ill in her near sixty years. She had had breast cancer, which was unrelated to the one that killed her, and had made a complete recovery.
A squamous cell carcinoma of the heart, must be one of the worst cancers you can get.
Someone’s Feeding the McFoxes
I took this picture at the scruffy end of Oxford Street, whilst waiting for the bus home.
Someone’s Feeding the McFoxes
No wonder we have foxes everywhere, with customers of McDonalds putting their litter everywhere!
Call To Scrap Gluten-Free Food Prescriptions
This article on the BBC’s web site, talks about a call in a learned journal for gluten-free prescriptions to be stopped on the NHS.
I have had gluten-free prescriptions in the past, but quite frankly, living where I do now, to take them would be a waste of my time and the NHS’s money.
So what specific gluten-free foods do I buy?
1. A few ginger cakes from Waitrose, as I find they help my dry throat. I can’t make cakes any more and to be fair, I haven’t got any cake tins.
2. I usually have one loaf of Genius bread a week, which I can buy from any number of outlets locally, like Waitrose, Sainsbury or the Co-op.
3. I’m not much of a biscuit person, but I probably eat one pack a fortnight. I actually prefer genius toast with Benecol and jam.
4. As you see from this blog, I do buy the odd ready-meal like the venison from Marks and Spencer. But these are the standard product.
5. I buy some of the EatNatural gluten-free breakfast cereal. I get through about a packet a week.
6. I do buy a specialist gluten-free beer called Celia over the Internet.
If I take out the beers, which are £2.10 each, I probably spend under ten pounds a week on specific gluten-free food. Although of course, I do spend quite a bit more on quality fish, meat, vegetables and fruit.
If I had to get gluten free food on prescription, it would mean going to the surgery and back. Probably I’d walk, which would be good for me, but I have better things to do with my time. I’d then have to go to the pharmacy to collect it.
So for people like me, this would be no inconvenience at all.
Obviously, for those on a very limited income, it might be more of a problem.
But the real key to a successful gluten-free diet is to eat lots of natural foods like meat, fish, fruit and vegetables. None of these cost more if you are a coeliac, as they’re all naturally gluten free.
The expensive gluten-free items to buy are bread, biscuits, cakes, sandwiches and beer. But it could be argued that most people eat too much of these anyway.
If gluten-free food was stopped on the NHS, the only people who would complain, would be the chattering classes, who are probably allergic to nuclear power, HS2, fracking, the Supersewer, the Congestion Charge and using public transport. Many though, like me, will probably have their lunches in upmarket cafes like Carluccio’s.
I would apply the money saved in the NHS, by using it to subsidise the cost of quality gluten-free bread, pasta and perhaps some cakes and biscuits. So for example a gluten-free loaf would then cost very much the same as a quality gluten-rich one.
That way all coeliacs would benefit.
It would also create jobs. Just think of the quality sandwich shop, where the owner makes his own sandwiches to order. So you want gluten-free bread? – No problem!
We don’t have a coeliac health problem over diet in this country. We have a health problem over diet. So let’s solve them all together with a proper integrated policy to get everybody eating well.
You won’t get everyone to eat better, but at least you’ll get some avoiding the problems of a bad diet.
The Anonymous Widower 