Is Coeliac Disease Hindering My Recovery from the Stroke?
Over the last few days, I have been getting out to London and Cambridge and today I will try to get to Ipswich. It all depends whether the taxis are running to get me into Haverhill to catch the bus to get me there for the 10:15 coach to the home match against Swansea.
I saw the stroke doctor at Addenbrooke’s yesterday and he suggested that I stop taking the Amitriptyline, as the Keppra was obviously doing its good work. But by nine o’clock last night, I was having a lot of discomfort in my face and in a tooth, so before I went to bed, I decided to take the 20 mg. I should also say that yesterday evening, I was choking slightly on some sort of muck that was getting to the back of my throat. I also had a nose bleed, for a few minutes before I retired. But it was just one of the usual ones that have plagued me all my life, from where I had a wart removed from my nose. But I do worry because of the Warfarin I’m on! But in the end, I slept very well and had about eight and a half hours of good sleep. I was only woken by the lady who organises the Ipswich coaches just after seven calling me on the phone.
My ENT doctor on Monday had given me an all-clear on my sinuses and he had advised me to keep going.
But I can’t get it out of my mind, that something due to the coeliac disease is not helping me recovery as quickly as I should.
But then I’m an engineer and a scientist and all my life I’ve been solving problems. This is probably the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced in my life and I’m determined to beat it. I owe it to my late wife and son to win.
Or it could just be the cold? The basset has decided that she’ll sleep the weather out in the warmest place she can find, only waking for her lunch.
As I write this piece, I’m being watching by the stallion, who has his head over the fence guarding the gate. As I said in an earlier post he’s twenty eight on January the first which is a very good age for a horse. He’ll probably outlive us all!
Recession! What Recession?
Or is it just that some people have more money than sense!
But why are people paying £129 for one of Heston Blumental’s christmas puddings, that he created for Waitrose? The story is here in the Daily Mail.
I don’t care and I suspect it’s not gluten free!
My Gluten-Free Diet
I think it is true to say that as time has gone on, I’ve cut out more and more manufactured gluten-free foods.
Take tonight after a trip to London to look over my new house, I needed a quick supper, so I warmed through a Moroccan chicken casserole and cooked some rice. None of the ingredients are specifically processed to be gluten-free and most of the basic ingredients can be obtained in most good food stores. So I did use rice. chicken and apricots that were organic from Waitrose, but that has nothing to do with being a coeliac.
I got to thinking today, about obtaining my gluten-free supplies, when I move. The nearest shops to where I will be living are in Kingsland Road in Dalston.
So what specific gluten-free food do I buy?
- Genius bread
- Greens gluten-free beer.
- Doves farm pasta and flour.
- Waitrose gluten-free cakes and biscuits.
- Life free-from Worcester sauce.
I suppose you can include St. Helen’s Farm goats milk and yoghurt, Wilkins jams, marmalades and tomato sauce, and Aspall cyder, but these are a matter of personal taste rather than a strict diet.
In a quick recce of Sainsburys in the Kingsland Road, I found that they had a free-from section, that was even selling the Greens beer, which is something my local one in Haverhill doesn’t. So for some products, I may need to go on an expedition to Waitrose in the Holloway Road or at the Angel, but it will be nice to have some basic products within ten minutes walk. I haven’t lived close to a supermarket, since we lived in St. John’s Wood in the early 1970s. Although we were close to Whitecross Street Market when we lived in the Barbican.
Carliuccio’s Gluten-Free Offering Gets Wider
I had to go to Addenbrooke’s today and as no-one could bring me home as it was a late appointment, I decided to go to Carluccio’s in Cambridge before and have a decent lunch.
They have added some good soups to the menu, by making the standard ones gluten-free and deleting the bread. In other words they hit both markets. I followed it with veal with a caper and tuna mayonnaise. It wasn’t on the gluten-free menu but it was on the specials and gluten-free. Veal may not be to everyone’s taste, but it was very good.
So they seem to be making a statement about how to serve coeliacs.
Tiptree Tomato Sauce
I found this sauce from Wilkin and Sons, the jam makers in Waitrose. It isn’t cheap, but you wouldn’t expect that from a quality company.
On the other hand it is rather addictive and goes well with the potato-topped pies I have in the freezer.
It doesn’t say it’s gluten-free on the bottle, but then it doesn’t say that on the jams or marmalade. But none of the ingredients contain gluten.
Sheffield United 1 Ipswich 2
Yesterday, I went to see Ipswich play at Sheffield United and they duly obligued with a reasonably tidy win, that puts them sixth in the Championship.
It was a good trip as I went up by train from St. Pancras with a friend and his son, who support the Blades. It took just over two hours to get up and we had a sensible lunch in a Greek cafe called Hellas close to the ground.
I had a ra
Hellas Cafe near Bramall Lane, Sheffield
ther nice bean soup with some salami and home-made humous. I wouldn’t recommend the cafe to super-sensitive coeliacs, but I had no reaction at all. The toliets were also very smart and had that important accessory of a coat hook. Why should I try to prop my coat on the door handle or put it on the floor.
I’ve been to Bramall Lane three times now and it seems to get better every time, which is something you can’t say about all stadia in the Championship.
Bramall Lane
As I’ve said in other posts, at some places the security is rather over top, but it is best to say that at Bramall Lane, it was sensible and fair, which can’t be said for every ground.
It was a short walk back to the station from the ground and then another two hour train ride back to London. We were in one of the Meridians and I managed an hour’s sleep or so. i’ll be glad when I finally move to London, as I’ll be able to do more trips like these without the inconvenience of going cross-country from Suffolk.
Lorenzo’s Ristorante in Crystal Palace
On Friday night, I went out with friends to this restaurant in South London. They were very friendly, the owner checked everything and all in all it was a good meal.
So if you’re in that area, it’s worth trying out. They have a web site at www.lorenzo.uk.com. I think they’re within walking distance of the train station at Crystal Palace, which is now on the London Overground.
One In and One Out!
I had a bone density scan some weeks ago and as I’ve not heard anything, I asked the nurse to see if there was anything on their computer, when she did my Warfarin blood test and gave me a shot of B12 today.
There wasn’t any news and judging by how I feel, my bones may not be tip-top, but they certainly aren’t in falling apart mode, as I would have hoped that I would have been called in for the bad news.
It strikes me that there could be a big increase in efficiency here, with possible cost savings!
If you have a test that can be quantified accurately and you are well on the right side of the problem level, surely, you can be told the results either by a more or less standard e-mail and/or letter.
With my bone scan, it might say that I’m reasonably fine, but I should come back for another scan in say six months. A copy could also go to my GP, so she would know as well. I have a feeling, that a lot of communications from hospitals to GPs are actually letters not e-mails and are scanned in the surgery. If I’m wrong, which I hope I am, about these letters please correct me!
There must be hundreds of instances in the NHS, where a sensible bit of automation could save money and redeploy staff to more important duties, than writing lots of similar letters.
We are seeing instances of automation, like appointments systems that text you reminders, but we need to see more. I personally would like to see a better system for anti-coagulant testing.
A Slow Bus from Cambridge to Ipswich
After the film, I did a bit of window shopping in Cambridge and then had lunch in Carluccio’s before catching the four o’clock bus to Haverhill, where I was going to get the coach at six o’clock to Ipswich for the football.
The weather was atrocious and it was almost pleasant to be at the front on the top of a warm 13 bus, as it meandered its way through the villages to Haverhill. At least, I had a little shelf in front of me, which allowed me to do the Sudoku.
Haverhill though is not the place to spend an hour at five ‘oclock on a very wet Tuesday afternoon. There was no cafe open and the one or two pubs that were looked very much like the places I would only visit in direst need. The rain looked friendlier! I walked up to Tesco’s as I needed a banana and a juice with which to take my Warfarin. They did have single bananas, but I couldn’t find any small drinks of juice or smoothies. As everything was in litre bottles or larger, I decided that it would be better to try elsewhere. I got what I wanted in the Co-op. But they didn’t have a gluten-free section, so my thought of buying a packet of suitable biscuits went out the window. Tesco’s did have a gluten-free section, but it was rather poor, with no nice biscuits. I did ask in the Co-op about gluten-free and they said it had been successful, so they stopped it.
So supper consisted of some sandwiches, I’d made before I left, some chocolate, a smoothie, a banana and a 5mg. Warfarin tablet.
The coach from Haverhill to Ipswich was probably the fastest part of the journey as the weather seemed to have kept the crowd very much below what I would have expected.
The Corner House, Newmarket Road, Cambridge
After the CT Scan, I was dropped at the Park and Ride in Cambridge and took the bus into the city centre. I had the intention of seeing the film, Made in Dagenham before going to see Ipswich play Northampton in the evening.
This pub caught my eye from the bus and you can see why in the picture.
The Corner House Pub, Cambridge
You probably can’t see it in this small photo, but under the “Home Cooked Food” banner, it also says “Including Gluten Free”.
Now I’ve never seen any establishment, broadcast that fact in so large letters. Certainly, if you were looking for a gluten-free meal and you were driving past, you’d take notice and might try it. They do have a web site.
Perhaps, the message is getting through.
The Anonymous Widower 