Up The Farway Tree

I am Alive!

As predicted in my blog the last 2 weeks have been super busy and this week has so far continued on a similar thread. I had a conference on Bipolar disorder a couple of weeks ago, which was really interesting although took up my days off - need to try and get some time back.  Then last week I had a 2 day course on suicide prevention which actually wasn't very helpful because it was covering things I already do in every day practice.  It has been rolled out as an initiative to meet government targets of reducing suicide rates by 20%.  It is a great target and we should work towards this - but the course wasn't really aimed at people working on the front line with mental health.  Anyway, I did attend for the full course and got my lovely certificate and I wont say any more on the matter!

The last weekend was rather hectic as it was Johns (my father in law) 60th birthday party.  There was a bit of a Beatles theme going on with an amazing Beatles cake (made by mums cousin's daughter - see her website) and myself and Andrew had made The Beatles themed invites with John's head photo shopped on the Abbey Road album cover.  We wanted to do a comedy sized head but he wouldn't let us ;-)   He also had CD coasters with The Beatles album covers (although people would be sadly disappointed if they took them home thinking they actually had The Beatles music on them haha).    The party was a big success and everyone had a great night.  I danced away, despite stupidly high heels, and had a fab time.  John of course had an even better time :-)

Birthday boy speech - with banner looking like a giant arrow pointing him out!

It was a 1am finish so we were pretty tired the next day, especially after I didn't sleep too well.  But then I got a text from my friend offering myself and Andrew spare Paul McCartney tickets for the Sunday night at Hampden!!  I couldn't really turn down such an offer so we headed back home asap (not so subtledly hurrying up poor Andrews gran as we were giving her a lift home) got organised and managed to work out a train route to avoid trying to park.  The train was mobbed and some guy wearing a waterproof jacket (it was about 21c!) was completely stuck to my back as we stood just beside the doors - I had to literally peel myself off - euggggh!  Anyway, the concert was fantastic and a great experience.  He played for over 2.5 hours solid and covered all his most popular work, including a lot of earlier Beatles songs that he had written.  Given what I said above about John's love of The Beatles we did feel a bit guilty, especially in his 60th birthday year.  Guilty enough to send some picture texts telling him how truly awful it was ;-)

This week was off to a bad start with what I think was food poisoning on Monday.  I thought I was dying!!  I had been fine all Sunday but about an hour after going to bed I woke up absolutely freezing cold and shaking violently and couldn't stop.  I knew I had a fever but couldn't move to get paracetamol so instead took the sensible decision of crying quietly to myself (and then gradually getting louder) until Andrew woke up.  I don't know why I didn't just wake him - this didn't seem to occur to me at the time.  My temp was nearly 39 which is really high for me (even in my pre transplant days) so I was quite worried.  I was telling Andrew to look for a rash in case I had meningitis (I am a complete drama queen) but then was shouting at him for pulling back the covers because I was so cold.  I am a nightmare ;-)  Clearly I did not have meningitis but did feel lousy for the next 24 hours with bit of dodgy stomach and ongoing temperature, but then equally as quickly as it started, it then stopped and I woke up on Tuesday feeling fine!!  Just as well because I had an 8.30am appointment with the diabetic nurse..sigh. 

I have since been feeling fine other than being more tired this week.  The appointment with diabetic nurse went ok and she thought my sugars weren't too bad.  We are having another joint appointment with the dietician tomorrow to work out my insulin to carbohydrate ratio.  Fun fun.  She did give me another two blood monitors though because my one was being dodgy, and then I phoned to report the dodgy one to the company and they are sending me another two as well!  I suppose I could have told them I had extra but thought I could maybe leave one at work and one in the car.

So this weekend I need to finish making my uncles birthday invites and also make some power point slides for audit presentations next week.  And maybe get some sunshine too :-)