The Anonymous Widower

Can A Broken Humerus Affect Your Hand And Wrist Long Term?

Sixty-four years ago, my left humerus was broken at school and I don’t think the local hospital fixed it too well. I also don’t think I had the best of physiotherapy, after some of my experiences with physios since my stroke, which have been of a generally very high-quality, from both the NHS and private physiotherapists.

The wrist has not been misbehaving itself recently, so I asked Google AI, the question in the title of this post and received this reply.

Yes, a broken humerus can affect your hand and wrist long-term, especially if a nerve like the radial nerve is injured during the fracture or surgery. This can cause temporary issues like wrist drop, which is the inability to extend the wrist and fingers, often improving with therapy. In rare cases, if nerve recovery is incomplete, surgical procedures may be necessary to restore function, though most fractures have an excellent long-term outlook with proper rehabilitation.

Note.

  1. I certainly didn’t have proper rehabilitation in 1961 at Highlands Hospital in Winchmore Hill.
  2. I wonder if I have actually suffered from wrist drop in recent years.
  3. I suspect that now there are better treatments available.

Google seem to have scraped the article from the respectable Cleveland Clinic.

Why Has My Left Humerus Got Worse In The Last Few Months?

I wonder, if it is new BYD buses on route 141.

  • I always sit or stand downstairs, as at 78, I don’t want too risk climbing the stairs.
  • The buses are more pokey and the seats are narrower than say a Routemaster or other British bus.
  • On Routemasters and other British buses, I usually sit on the far-right seat to protect the humerus.
  • It is getting increasingly knocked if I sit in the left-hand seat of a right-sided pair, by peoples’ backpacks.
  • The seats are narrow on the BYD buses, and if sitting in a left-hand seat of a left-sided pair, my left humerus rubs  against the outside wall of the bus. This is worse with a large person in the right seat.
  • If I sit in the right-hand seat of a left-sided pair, it’s usually better, but if there’s a large person in the left seat, because of the narrow seats, the arm get knocked.
  • On the BYD buses, there are no forward facing seats downstairs on the right side.
  • There are some forward facing seats at the right side at the back, but they are difficult for me to climb into.
  • The corridor from the front to the back in the bus is narrow and I sometimes bump the left humerus.
  • I met a lady with a pram, who finds the corridor narrow for her pram.
  • The step-up and down into the bus is higher and puts strain on my knees, unless I get it right.

I do wonder if the BYD buses were designed around smaller oriental people.

I certainly never had these problems, when I was riding on on Routemasters and other British-designed buses.

For the next few works, I will avoid travelling on the BYD buses unless I can sit in the right-hand seat of a pair, by myself.

I can also stand, if the bus isn’t too full. Looking back, I feel, I don’t mind standing on the buses.

I will now be forwarding this post to those that know me well.

November 15, 2025 Posted by | Artificial Intelligence, Design, Health | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Can A Glass Of Orange Juice Act As A Laxative?

I’ve just had a dramatic demonstration that it does work, so I asked Google AI, the question in the title of this post and I received the following answer.

Yes, a glass of orange juice can act as a mild laxative due to its fiber content (especially with pulp) and the flavonoid naringenin, which may have a laxative effect. It also provides hydration, which is crucial for soft, regular bowel movements.

As, in this weather with low pressure, I seem to be suffering from constipation more than usual, I’ll make sure I always have orange juice in the fridge.

Orange juice is also a good alternative, as in Can You Take A Dulcolax With Uncomplicated Pancolonic Diverticular Disease?, I found I couldn’t take my usual laxative, as I have been diagnosed with uncomplicated pancolonic diverticular disease.

October 26, 2025 Posted by | Food, Health | , , , , | Leave a comment

Does Dropping Barometric Pressure Make Your Nose Run?

I’m asking this question as my nose is running and the pressure is dropping for tomorrow’s rain.

Google AI told me this.

Yes, a drop in barometric pressure can make your nose run, as it can cause sensitive nerve endings in your nasal passages to react, leading to swelling of the blood vessels. This can result in congestion, a runny nose, and post-nasal drip.

How it happens: When the atmospheric pressure changes, the pressure in your sinuses no longer matches the pressure outside your body. This difference can trigger a reaction in the nasal passages.

Nasal response: The nasal tissues may swell and sinus drainage ducts can become blocked in an attempt to equalize the pressure. This irritation can lead to symptoms like a runny or stuffy nose.

Other factors: This reaction is often more pronounced when barometric pressure changes are sudden or combined with other weather changes, such as rapid shifts in temperature or humidity.

My left eye is also painful.

I also should note, that a very experiences eye surgeon once told me, that I had the driest eyes he’d ever seen.

October 18, 2025 Posted by | Health | , , , | Leave a comment

Do Vitamin B12 Injections Make You Drowsy?

For the last couple of days I’ve been feeling a bit drowsy.

  • The physio at my fitness class possibly noticed it on Friday.
  • I certainly had a good siesta on Friday afternoon.
  • This morning I went back to bed after the Ocado delivery at 06:30 and slept for an hour.

Google AI gave this answer to my question.

Cyanocobalamin is a form of vitamin B12 that is used to increase vitamin B12 levels. It is available in a variety of forms over the counter as a supplement and by prescription as an injection or nasal spray. Some common side effects may include headache, feeling weak or tired, and nausea.

I certainly didn’t have any headache or nausea. But then I rarely have the first and only have the second, when I see Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin on the television.

According to the BBC, we have been having unusually low atmospheric pressure for this time of year.

So I also asked Google AI if low atmospheric pressure can make you drowsy.

Google AI gave this answer to my question.

Yes, low atmospheric pressure can make you drowsy. This is because low pressure systems, often associated with stormy or cloudy weather, can lead to decreased sunlight exposure, which can disrupt the body’s natural sleep-wake cycle (circadian rhythm) and increase melatonin production, the hormone that promotes sleep. Additionally, low pressure can reduce oxygen saturation, potentially causing fatigue.

As my now-retired GP felt I was badly affected by low atmospheric pressure, I’ll go along with that!

As that GP and myself felt that low atmospheric pressure drew water out of my body and made me dehydrated, I asked Google a supplementary question – Does dehydration make you drowsy?

Google AI gave this answer to my question.

Yes, dehydration can definitely make you feel drowsy. When your body is dehydrated, it doesn’t have enough fluids to function optimally, which can lead to fatigue and drowsiness. Dehydration can also cause a drop in blood pressure, which can reduce blood flow to the brain, further contributing to feelings of tiredness and sleepiness, according to A.Vogel UK.

I’ll go along with that.

Conclusion

Did the combination of the B12 injection and the low atmospheric pressure combine to make me unusually drowsy?

It’s certainly a possibility.

The more I ask Dr. Google questions, that he passes to his computerised assistant, the more I like and trust the system.

 

 

August 2, 2025 Posted by | Computing, Health | , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The Story Of An O-Ring

I have a very unusual skin, as is partly shown by these pictures.

Note.

  1. There is a scar on the back of my left hand, where I cut it on the glass bathroom door in my bedroom.
  2. But with skillful gluing at the Royal London hospital and TLC and stern words from the practice nurse at my GP’s it healed perfectly.
  3. If I give blood samples or have an injection, I don’t need a plaster.
  4. My left foot is a deeper shade of red to the right. No-one has given me a reason for this.
  5. My previous now-retired GP, always took his own blood samples, when he needed them and had smiles all over his face. Perhaps, he was proving to himself, that it was happening?
  6. I wrote about my skin before in My Strange Skin, in 2020.
  7. One therapist said unusually for someone, who had a left-sided stroke, that my left leg is the stronger.

As my ancestry is part-Jewish and part-Huguenot could it just be that only the strongest genes survived from their poor living conditions my ancestors endured in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries?

My Cardiologist And His Wife, Have Suggested I Use An Emollient In My Bath

I am now adding Oilatum Emollient to my bath water, which I get delivered by Ocado.

It is not cheap, but my feet are now more made for walking.

I put three cap-fulls in a bath and lie in it for about 10-20 minutes.

An O-Ring Failure On Bad Friday

A rubber O-ring sitting in a groove on the plug, should keep the water in the bath, but as this picture shows the O-ring had seen better days.

The picture of the new O-ring shows how it should look on the plug.

On Bad Friday, the O-ring finally gave up and any water put in the bath, went straight down the drain.

A Fruitless Bad Friday

Internet searches proved fruitless in my search for a shop that was open on Bad Friday.

So I vowed to try again today.

Searching For cp Hart At Waterloo

cp Hart, from whom I bought the original bath, appeared to be open at Waterloo, so after breakfast on Moorgate, I made my way to look for the branch of cp Hart at Waterloo.

Note.

  1. Why does South London and its trains have to be covered in graffiti?
  2. Most of  it, is not even good graffiti.
  3. In my view, the Bakerloo Line should not get new trains, until the graffiti has stopped.
  4. I wandered round Waterloo for about ninety minutes before I found cp Hart, with the help of two police constables.
  5. And when I finally found cp Hart, they didn’t do spares.
  6. I tripped over the uneven pavement in the last picture. But as I usually do, I retained my balance and didn’t fall. Is that all the B12 I take for coeliac disease?

My mother always used to say, that you shouldn’t go to South London without a posse.

Eventually, I had a coffee in Costa and took the 76 bus home.

Success At Last!

To get home on a 76 bus, I have to change in De Beauvoir Town and whilst I waited for the 141 bus to take me home, I checked out the local builders merchants.

The owner was his usual self and fitted my plug with a free new O-ring.

I was now able to have a bath.

And watch the snooker.

I can certainly recommend a television in your bathroom.

Note the vertical handrail, that allows me to step easily in and out of the bath.

April 19, 2025 Posted by | Design, Health, Sport | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Eyes Full Of Sleep

I can remember my mother telling my wife a; C,  about myself, when I was a baby. She said that my eyes got terribly bunged up with muck, what she called sleep. She also said she’d spend time cleaning out my eyes and ears.

Last night, I was finding, that my eyes were so full of muck, that I couldn’t type, with one in about five letters wrong.

I thought it just could be be my eyes full of sleep, so I ran a deep bath and gave my eyes a thorough flush.

After that I could see and type properly.

I slept well.

In fact I slept so well, that I overslept until nine. Which is very unlike me.

I also wasn’t sure of the day, when I woke up. But at least, I got my drugs right.

An Incident As A Child

In one incident as a child, when I was about five, I can remember my mother picking me up, taking me upstairs, running a bath and then undressing me quickly and putting me in it. I also remember that I was very red.

Any ideas about what she was doing?

February 25, 2025 Posted by | Health | , , , | 3 Comments

Drinking And Me

Today, I got up at five and was able to drink my morning cup of tea very quickly.

In fact, I’ve been drinking cups of tea all day at a fast speed.

I’ve also drunk two bottles of Adnams 2.5 % alcohol Ghost Ship beer at a fast pace.

But on other days, I pour a lot away, as I just can’t force it down.

Is it the weather, as it is rather unusual today?

November 23, 2024 Posted by | Food, Health | , , , | Leave a comment

Was I One Of The First To Have My Temperature Measured By A Thermometer Reading The Radiation From My Ear?

Last week, a doctor read my body temperature, by using an electronic thermometer, that read the temperature inside my ear.

But it wasn’t the first time!

That must have been in 1968 or 1969, when I was working at ICI in Runcorn.

ICI had a problem, in that they needed to read the temperature of chemical reaction vessels.

  • Temperatures could be higher, than 1,000 °C.
  • Some mixtures could be highly corrosive.
  • Safety needed to be as high as possible.

My colleague; John Baxendale was assigned the problem.

John came up with a solution based on black bodies and their unique black body radiation.

These two paragraphs, from the Wikipedia entry for black body, explain the principle.

A black body or is an idealised physical body that absorbs all incident electromagnetic radiation, regardless of frequency or angle of incidence. The radiation emitted by a black body in thermal equilibrium with its environment is called black-body radiation. The name “black body” is given because it absorbs all colours of light. In contrast, a white body is one with a “rough surface that reflects all incident rays completely and uniformly in all directions.”

A black body in thermal equilibrium (that is, at a constant temperature) emits electromagnetic black-body radiation. The radiation is emitted according to Planck’s law, meaning that it has a spectrum that is determined by the temperature alone, not by the body’s shape or composition.

Note, that I have very mildly edited, what Wikipedia says, to the King’s English.

John had developed some clever electronics, that read the spectrum of the radiation and by decoding the spectrum, he was able to calculate the temperature.

Early on in the testing, John found that nearly all of us, have two black bodies on the side of our heads; our ears, so he could measure the temperature inside them.

August 21, 2024 Posted by | Health | , , , , | 1 Comment

A Very Bad Night’s Sleep

Last night, I must have woke several times in the night, before I finally gave up at about three-thirty and got up and started doing the puzzles on the Internet, and having some mugs of tea.

At four I went back to bed and was able to grab perhaps thirty minutes of sleep.

But my body hurt all over with a vengeance.

  • There was pain in the back of my left hand.
  • My toes hurt badly.
  • My right hip was painful.
  • All my skin felt very dry.

So at five,  I decided to get up and have the cure-all remedy, which is a deep hot bath.

It certainly worked and I felt a lot better,

After the bath, I got back in bed, and although I didn’t sleep, I rose and  left the house soon after nine to get my gluten-free breakfast in Leon on Moorgate, with added tea and orange juice.

As I left the house, I noticed that one of the upstairs windows was open, so I had to go back and shut it.

 

As I never open this window, I thought it must have been the cleaners, who’d left it open. Especially, as it had happened before, a couple of weeks ago.

But then, I realised what had happened.

  • The window hadn’t been properly secured.
  • Last night, a storm with a low-pressure area had gone through..
  • The pressure had just been low enough to pop the window open.
  • The low-pressure had then just sucked the water out of my body.

My hot bath had put the water back in, the way, that it had come out.

After breakfast and picking up a prescription from Boots, I took a bus home.

On arriving home, I needed to have a poo, but was unable to go, as I was just too constipated.

After a laxative and several drinks, that problem was cured.

Conclusion

Were all my problems today, down to the fact that the weather stole my body’s water and I didn’t drink enough to put it all back?

July 16, 2024 Posted by | Computing, Health | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Can I Please Have A Good Night’s Sleep?

In all my seventy-six years, I’ve never had trouble getting to sleep. I can sleep on trains and in planes and like my father, I have no trouble going to sleep in a hard upright chair.

But everything changed two weeks ago. I would go to bed at my usual 23:00 and perhaps drop off for a quarter if an hour and then start to lie there fully awake.

Normally, I now get up at about two-thirty and do the puzzles in The Times.

Welcome to the chewed-string lifestyle.

I’ve tried herbal sleeping tables, but they don’t help!

I went to see my GP and she made no suggestions.

Can I Please Have A Good Night’s Sleep?

June 7, 2024 Posted by | Health | , , | 4 Comments