Up The Farway Tree

I think I will live..

I will kick of with CF clinic - had all bloods checked and since no one has phoned to say otherwise I am assuming they were all fine. The doctor felt the tiredness was related to my steroid reduction regime - I was on 10mg/5mg on alternate days (and was due to drop to 5mg today) which is an easy programme to follow but can cause problems for some people as there probably is not a steady state of steroid release. So I am now on a regime where I take the same dose daily and drop by 1mg every 2 weeks. I start on 8mg tomorrow and take it from there - by the time I am back at transplant clinic I will be down to 5mg as they expected :-) Otherwise chest sounded fine and I have put on 5kg since I saw them 3 months ago!! This is the heaviest I have been in my entire life (49kg) and gives me a normal BMI of 20. The weight seems to have gone on since I started the gabapentin so I better watch it doesn't run away with me! Also I heard that the MRI of my hip showed mild degeneration but no avascular necrosis (which is what they were worried about). The orthopaedic doc is going to discuss with hip surgeon to see if I need appointment or if it can be left alone and assume this was largely an overuse injury.

Work was so so on wednesday - I had a temporary room to sit in so at least I knew where I was for the day. Quite a few patients didn't turn up and I had forgotten how common (and annoying) this is in general adult psychiatry. Most have to be chased up because I can't just discharge someone who is potentially very ill. I am sure when my clinics fill up (which they are doing fast) I will be praying people don't turn up! I felt better about everything on Thursday once I had gone over a couple of queries with my supervisor. I think I just have that natural anxiety about a new job, but also about the patients I see - most of them are a lot more worrying than I found in old age and I tend to bring that home with me and go over things in my mind about whether I have made the right decisions. I am sure this will settle down with time and I will be able to chill out more.

My friend Lee came over for coffee yesterday so had a good catch up and we took Seb a wee walk. He was hilarious -he refused to walk unless Lee was holding the lead!!! He gets really excited when she comes over but this really was on another level. I mean what other dog actually notices, never mind cares, who is holding the lead?! Weird little thing.

Today I had an appointment with the advisor at the gym who runs the programme my physio referred me to. I explained that I had given up on the gym - initially because of the foot and surgery but then just because I realised I didn't miss it and didn't particularly enjoy it. There are a couple of classes I might try out as I think I would be more motivated if other people are there and also Andrew said he would play badminton with me so I am going to try and book a court for that. I have not played badminton since I left school over 10 years ago so it could be rather interesting!! I do have a racket in the cupboard though, which is a good start and I will try not to pick up any other joint/bone injuries ;-)