On the way down

My lungs are failing me. They've been on the way down for several days and I don't think it'll be too long now till the big splat happens and I end up in hospital. I have to be thankful that I had a good time away without any health crises, but it's a bit pants that it's all going pear-shaped now. Mind you, this does sometimes happen - I get through something that I've been looking forward to for a while and then end up splatting.

I emailed the ward's Charge Nurse this afternoon to let him know where things are up to and warn him that I may be making my way to the ward before long. I've no idea if he's on shift today, or even if he is if it's an office day for him, but I know that he'll get back to me when he can. Sometimes this has been when I've actually been on the ward though and we've ended up emailing each other from opposite ends of the ward ;o)

So as things stand at the moment, my prednisolone (steroids) are at 60mg, my pre neb peak flows are around 80 and post neb peak flows have been up as high as 150. It's this post nebuliser figure that's keeping me from going in just yet, because although it's rubbish, it could be worse, and most usually is by the time I end up in hospital. I can survive at 150. Not so much at 80 though, which is why I feel a bit stuck between a rock and a hard place. I'm sure I'm going to end up in hospital, and it probably won't be too far in the future, but as ever, there's nothing that can be done until I hit crisis so for now I have to sit and wait ... and conserve my energy for the fight for my life that lies ahead. It's not a great position to be in, and to be honest it doesn't help much that I've been here so many times before. You never get used to waiting for a battle with your mortality.

The second half

As the holiday progressed we settled into a vague routine of alternating a day of activity (albeit sometimes limited) with a day of lounging at the cottage. This suited us quite well, and made for a relaxed time with a nice balance of doing things with lazing.

On one of our 'active' days we drove north, first of all stopping at Villedieu-les-Poeles. Villediue is famous for its manufacture of copper pans, and my mother had decided that she wanted to buy one ... until she saw the price of them. There were some lovely pans (if you appreciate the aesthetic appeal of a shiny, vaguely orange pan), but for anything bigger than something suited to a dolls' house you're looking at paying at least a couple of hundred Euros. We came away from the various shops without a shiny new pan, but with a new appreciation of the price of copper.

Although we'd stopped at Villedieu, we were actually on our way to Cerisy-la-Salle to visit V and her husband J. V is the wonderful woman who read my blog before I went to France, contacted me through my OU email (she's a fellow OU student who recently studied the same creative writing course as me) and offered to translate all my medical letters, medications list and allergies. To add to her wonderfulness, when we arrived we found that she'd used my allergy info to make some Becky-friendly scones and home-made Jam, followed by very lovely fruit salad. She'd even managed to find some decaf tea for me (I can't have caffeine as it interacts with some of my meds and makes me feel ill - like the worst bits of being drunk and hungover all at once). As we sat and had afternoon tea on the patio we chatted and enjoyed the wonderful view over the valley, but as we sat there we could see dark clouds building and rumbles of thunder in the distance. The distance decreased and soon enough the thunder was overhead and the view had disappeared. In fact we could barely see the end of the garden. The storm was spectacular (if a little disconcerting in its proximity), with rain that wasn't rain but hail - pebbles of hail that bounced back off the ground and looked like suddenly sprouting clover on the lawn. Here's a pic ...

After being forced inside by the weather we were shown around V and J's lovely home and shown some of their amazing craft work. J does beautiful embroidery that he designs himself using pictures from books and photos, and he displays the finished pieces of art on the walls downstairs. V has the walls upstairs, on which she displays the most amazing pieces of patchwork/quilting that I've ever seen. They are truly breathtaking and I wish I had some pictures of them to show you, but unfortunately I don't. Not only does V do wall hangings, but also bed-spreads, cushions and was working on an amazing kimono. She is an incredibly talented woman, although far too modest about it when I said so to her. It was a great pleasure to meet V and J, and we'll hopefully be meeting again at the end of the month when V comes over here to visit her daughter who lives in Northumberland (and rather amazingly used to live just six streets away from me!).

A couple of days later we went to a medieval festival in Fougeres, which was being held in the old part of the town. Part of the garden/park was set up as a medieval village with various tents pitched as homes, campfires (which I had to be very careful about steering clear of because of the smoke), a few random medievally-type things I couldn't identify, and some stalls demonstrating medieval crafts/skills such as chainmail making. I think that some people were actually staying in the camp over the weekend (it was a weekend-long festival), and everyone who was taking part in the festival - as opposed to visitors to the festival - were in costume. Here are a few pics of the medieval village ...

Further up, near the chateau we came across a choir singing in the square. When we arrived they were singing an English madrigal that I knew from my singing days. They didn't seem very confident with it, but I suspect that was the English rather than the piece itself, and they soon showed themselves as a good choir when they did their next piece that they obviously knew much better and were more confident with. The choir were all dressed in medieval costume, and rather amusingly the condutor had a dog with her that was clearly used to standing in front of the choir.

We wandered around the rest of the festival, taking in the atmosphere, watching children enjoy donkey rides around the outside of the chateau, mooching around the various market stalls selling crafts and traditional foods, and enjoying the visual effects of some outdoor theatre even though we couldn't understand the French. I don't have any pics of the theatre, but here's one of a woman spinning wool in one of the market stalls ...

A couple of days after the festival we visited some beautiful gardens - Parc Floral de Haute Bretagne - that V had suggested we visit and which was only about 20 minutes drive from the cottage. The gardens are divided into differently themed areas, and although each is very different, they're all very beautiful. Here's a small selection of photos from the gardens ...

On my last day in France J (step-dad, not J as in V and J) and I visited Fougeres chateau. It's a weird castle because it was built practically in a valley, which if you ask me isn't the best place to put your defending fortress, and therefore not very surprising that the first chateau on the site (made of wood) was burnt down. It was almost immediately rebuilt, this time in stone, and it's the remains of this that are left. In its day it was very much a castle with defence as it's purpose, and was in fact one of the primary fortresses defending the country of Brittany before they lost their long-fought battle with France and it was absorbed into its neighbour. Fougeres is on the Brittany border and therefore was one of the primary battle areas ... why then did they build their castle at the bottom of a hill??? Anyway, J and I went to the chateau to have a look around, and here are a few pics ...

So that was my holiday, and a wonderful time I had too :o) Despite some lung tightness due to thundery weather at various times, I didn't have any major health problems, and I'm deeply thankful for that. I'm very pleased (and thankful to V) that I was able to go prepared with translations of everything in case I needed it, though even more pleased that I didn't need to use them. I'm also very thankful that the journey home was less eventful than my flight out, and it was lovely of W to meet me at Newcastle airport and bring me home :o)

All in all I had a great time with a good mix of doing things and doing nothing. Here's to a relaxing summer :o)

The first few days

The cottage in France was about a mile out of the village of Le Laroux, which itself is 6 to 8 miles west of Fougeres. We never actually worked out exactly how far Le Laroux was from Fougeres, because going in one direction the sat nav said it was 6 miles and going the other the sat nav said it was 8 miles. Weird. Anyway, the cottage is lovely - converted from a large barn, with 3 bedrooms (1 double and 2 twin), 2 shower/bathrooms, a large living area, a long and substantial kitchen, and a lovely patio area directly outside the kitchen door. Next to the patio is a fence that seperates the patio from the garden, which has another old barn in it, under which M and N (bro and S-i-L) had put a large paddling pool for the boys, and has hooks for swings. Then behind the barn is a large hay field that also belongs to N's parents (they own the cottage), which is looked after by one of the local farmers and in return is given the hay the field produces for his animals. N's parents could do loads with the field and the space they have there, but it's so lovely having the field there that I'm pleased that so far they've opted to keep it as it is.

For the first couple of days of my stay M, N and their boys were also there (there's a second cottage in the same building, that's connected to the first by an adjoining, lockable door. N's parents don't let out this other cottage, but keep it solely for family use.), and it was so lovely to see Oliver and Daniel again. I hadn't seen them since their christenings at the end of March, and even in that relatively short time they've both changed a lot. They're both so adorable :o) As M, N and the children were leaving on the Monday after I arrived (on the Saturday), Mum, J (step-dad) and I spent a lot of Sunday looking after Oliver and Daniel so that M and N could pack. I didn't mind that, although it was a bit of a shock to the system to be looking after two very active young children almost as soon as I arrived. In the afternoon Ollie was really tired, but too afraid of missing any of the action to have his usual nap, so we tried to encourage him to have a lie down outside with us on his blow up bed.

As you see, Oliver wasn't having any of it and promptly put his shoes back on. Quite remarkably for a 2 1/2 year old, he put them on the right feet (which was a consistent thing, not just a one off), and then deftly threaded the velcro strips through the eyelets.

So then he decided that some gardening was necessary, particularly watering the lawn. He ran backwards and forwards to the paddling pool to fill his tiny, yellow watering can and spent quite some time diligently watering the lawn. Not very suprisingly he got bored before he'd done the whole garden, but the activity kept him busy for quite some time ...

... until it was time to play on his ride-on Thomas the Tank Engine ...

... which Daniel found very interesting ...

... and then enjoyed having a go on with big brother, who didn't mind sharing at all.

Later that day, when M and N had done a lot of packing and Oliver understood that he was leaving the cottage the next day, he ran up to me while I sat on a rug on the patio with Daniel. Ollie threw himself onto me, gave me a huge cuddle and said, 'Aunty Becky, I will miss you.' My heart melted, I gave him a big cuddle back and told him that I would miss him too, but that I would come and see him at his home before too long (I'm hoping to get down to London to see them sometime in July or August).

The next day they all left and Mum, J and I were plunged into sudden silence, whereupon we did very little except gather ourselves, got used to the calm, relaxed, read, chatted and enjoyed the sunshine. Idyllic.

Mum and J have came to the cottage last year as well so Fougeres wasn't new to them, but they took me there for a fairly brief initial look around. Part of the town is relatively new, but this is only in relation to the chateau, which originally dates back to 1000 AD. On this occasion we didn't go inside the chateau (J and I did that later in the week), but we walked around the outside of it ...

... went into a church across the road from the chateau ...
... and then wandered slowly through the town gardens ...

The rest of the next couple of days were spent very lazily enjoying the sun, the countryside, and the fresh, clean air. And on that note I leave you for now with a sunset view from the room that was my bedroom.

Traveller returns

I'm home from my French holiday and have had a thoroughly wonderful time :o) I'll write about it over the next few posts, and today I'll tell you about my journey out there.

The flight from Newcastle left on time, the weather was fine and all looked good for an easy time to Exeter, and all did go well until we got to Exeter ... or rather, all went well until we got *over* Exeter. I had a window seat and could see the patchwork world get closer, the dingy-toy planes sitting waiting at the airport as we flew over it, the sea and the land alternating as we flew round and round in circles, and gradually it began to dawn on me that we'd been circulating the area for sometime and I was sure we'd started rising again. I thought this was a bit weird, but figured that it was better to be unexpectedly going up than unexpectedly coming down. Then the captain came on over the tannoy, with that special, calm voice that people use when trying to placate themselves and pretend that everything's okay.

'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, 'we had expected to have landed by now, but are experiencing a slight technical problem with the undercarriage. We are working to rectify this and then we'll have to do all the checks again, and get back in the flight queue. Then hopefully we can land.' That 'hopefully' was somewhat telling of the captain's feigned calm, and I could imagine him sitting in the cockpit swearing like a trooper, then composing himself and steadying his voice before speaking to his passengers.

A few panicked looks passed between one or two of the other passengers, with one of the ladies in the row in front of me asking with alarm, 'What does that mean?!' The guy next to me, who'd earlier told me that he designed/built helicopters, leant over to the woman and said, 'It means the wheels won't come down so we can't land.' This didn't calm her any.

I wasn't particularly concerned for some reason and just got on with enjoying the view, although I did eventually begin to get a bit bored of circling the same area. So we circled, and we cirlced, and we circled, and time ticked on, and on, and on, and eventually the wheels came down, and the captain came on the tannoy again saying, 'Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sure you'll be relived to know that we have rectified the problem with the undercarriage and we're now preparing to land ... You may even be as relieved as I am' !!!

As we were leaving the plane the man who'd been sitting beside me asked one of the cabin crew how little fuel we had left. Her reply? 'You don't want to know' !!! :oO Running out of fuel would've been one way to land, I guess, but I'm glad that we managed to avoid getting down that way.

The rest of my travel to Rennes was thankfully uneventful, although there was a lengthy delay in getting onto my connecting flight as Flybe had been going to use the same plane I'd just got off for the next flight. We had to wait while they had another plane flown down from Birmingham instead, and ya know, I'm pleased they did.

Holidays need a bit of excitement ... but maybe not too much excitement.

Holiday time

This is a very quick post to say that I'm off on my hols to France in about half an hour so I won't be around for a couple of weeks (back 1st July). I thought I'd let you all know so that you don't worry and think that I've disappeared off the face of the planet ... or more likely ended up in hospital. I'm really looking forward to this holiday and hoping that it goes without any health problems, although I'm fully prepared with translations of all my hospital/doctors' letters and of medications and allergies lists.

Here I go. See you when I get back.

Day out

Monday was my friend W's birthday. For ages we'd been planning to go to the Farne Islands for the day, but checking the met office website at the weekend I saw there was a severe weather warning and I doubted the boats to the Farnes would sail. Not only that, but even if they did sail I didn't particularly want to be in a little boat on the sea in a storm and then on an exposed little island with no shelter, and neither did W. On Sunday night W and I decided to postpone the Farne Islands trip and find something else to do to celebrate W's birthday, so we both spent quite sometime online searching for an alternative. Eventually I came across Chipchase Castle in Northumberland, which I'd heard the name of before, but that was it: I didn't know anything else about it. Well it seems that although it's still a private family home, they open it up to the public for a month every year in June, and they have nice gardens to wander around too, so that's where we decided to go.

When I got up on Monday morning I was a little miffed to see that it was quite sunny outside and wondered if maybe we could've gone up to the Farnes in the end, but it was already too late for that and I was determined to give W a good day for her birthday. Before going up to Chipchase Castle we went to Cafe Bar One for lunch (the other place in Newcastle, besides Peppy's, that I can eat out), which was very pleasant, and meant that W could have some birthday cake too. So anyway, then we made our way up to the Tyne Valley and found our way to Chipchase with the help of the wonderful thing of satelite navigation - essential in this case as I really didn't have much idea at all of where the Castle was and it wasn't marked on the road map. As we drove we could see the weather closing in, and just before we arrived we saw lightning flash not far ahead, but we seemed to circumnavigate the storm itself and hadn't actually seen a drop of rain before we arrived. The storm we saw as we approached Chipchase got closer as we stood in the grounds watching the sheep, the thunder crashed menacingly, the lightning flashed frequently and there was a constant booming as the storm got nearer. It came ever so close - within a mile I think - but it did actually reach us, although we got a good view of the storm. The sheep didn't like it much though and they looked very warily in the direction of the vicious storm before gradually drifting away from it's general direction. However, they were soon confused by another storm that quickly came rolling in from the opposite direction, and then a third and a fourth from the other two of the four sides of us. The thunder exploded all around us, with fireworks of lightning flashes flickering on all sides, but amazingly we stayed dry. It was like we were in a little pocket of calm amidst the tempestuous anger. I've never experienced anything quite like it.

In the end we did get a few drops of rain starting to fall on us so we headed into the house/castle for the tour (our own private tour as we were the only people there at this point), leaving the storms outside to battle with themselves. While we were inside it did rain quite heavily, and the thunder continued to crash around the area, but the storms never actually came right up to Chipchase. The tour was quite short, but it was interesting, and I felt quite privileged to allowed into, and shown around, this family home. After the house tour we were free to look around the gardens, pele tower and chapel (set out on its own in the first sheep field) on our own. It was all very lovely. I could waffle on describing it, but instead I'll post up a number of photos so you can see for yourself.

The castle

The sheep

The pele tower exterior

The pele tower interior

The chapel exterior

The chapel interior

The gardens

Chipchase castle and gardens closes at 5pm so after a mooch around the gardens we went off to find somewhere to have a cup of coffee, landing in Corbridge, which I knew a little from when I was a child and my father had lived in nearby Hexham, but I didn't remember it very well. Although there were various coffee shops and tea rooms in the town, they looked shut up and dark, but not to be defeated we thought that we might get a much needed cuppa at the pub we'd just passed so we wandered up the street and found ourselves entering a candlelit bar. It was a bit of a weird thing to walk into, but actually quite nice too. It turned out that the storms that had surrounded us while W and I were at Chipchase had been horrendous over Corbridge and had flooded some places and wiped out the town's electricity. With no electricity we couldn't have coffee so instead W had a glass of wine and I had an alcohol free Beck's, and just as we finished and were deciding to make tracks homeward, the pub's electricity came flickering back on.

I had been very conscious that W hadn't had the birthday day out originally planned, one that she'd been greatly looking forward to for quite some time, but I hoped that she'd still had an enjoyable day despite the storms. W reassured me that she'd had a lovely day and a great time, and I certainly had. We'll go to the Farnes when I'm back from my holiday to France (I go on Saturday!), but in the meantime I'm pleased to have discovered Chipchase Castle and would recommend it as a nice day out, even in the middle of a quartet of storms.

Check up

Let me start with another apology for again neglecting my blog. For the most part I've been enjoying having a break from studies so busy doing fun stuff :o) I've also been getting the paperwork sorted for my holiday to France in 10 days time :oD I'm very excited and have all my medical stuff translated into French now, thanks to a rather wonderful OU peer who read my blog, lives in France and offered her services of translation for my paperwork and if I have any medical problems while I'm out there. She's a marvel.

So now for today's post.

A couple of weeks ago I was getting twinges of toothache so I made an appointment with the dentist, but the earliest I could get was yesterday and of course, as is the way with these things, almost as soon as I made the appointment the toothache disappeared. As it had been some time since I'd seen the dentist (about a year, because as it turned out there was something wrong with their appointment recall system and I hadn't received the last appointment they'd sent out) I kept yesterday's appointment for a check up. I explained to Mr V (the dentist) that I'd had toothache when I'd made the appointment and when he checked my teeth he said there were no cavities, but my teeth were very sensitive and there was some gum recession. He said I should use a sensodyne mouthwash, but I pointed out to him that I'm allergic to mint/menthol so can't use it and haven't found a mouthwash I can use, and also that I'm allergic to colourings and all the mouthwashes I've seen are not only minty, but are always a lurid pink, blue or green. Mr V seemed to find it difficult to get his head around this for a while, but eventually did and said to use warm, salty water instead of a mouthwash. Anyway, he said that all he needed to do was a scale and polish, but as my teeth are so sensitive I'd be writhing around in the chair with pain if he did them there and then, so advised me to use the salt water mouthwash this week and he'd put some fluoride varnish on my teeth that should help and mean that when he does the scale and polish next week the pain shouldn't be too bad. He smeared the pastey varnish on my teeth and sent me on my way. The pastey varnish, though, had a taste that I vaguely recognised but couldn't identify ... until I was going down the dental surgery stairs and my lips started to swell. It was banana. I didn't go back up to the surgery, instead opting to go back to the car and get home as soon as I could, but by the time I got back to the car my lips were really quite swollen, my tongue was fizzy and swelling, my throat was itchy, my eyes were itchy and, I was feeling a bit nauseous and my lungs were tightening. I took a double dose (as prescribed by the immunologist) of each of the antihistamines I'm prescribed for severe allergic reaction and used my nebuliser. I probably shouldn't have driven, but all I could think was that I needed to get home, so that's what I did, whereupon I continued on with the meds, sat with my Epi-Pens, phone, mobile and care alarm next to me and hoped that the antihistamines would kick in. I probably ought to have sought medical help, and I certainly don't advise taking the risk that I did, but I got lucky and things did begin to settle. Once I was well enough I thought I should probably call the dental surgery, tell them what had happened and find out the name and ingredients of the thing the dentist had smeared on my teeth. I spoke to the receptionist rather than Mr V, and she was very concerned, but also very helpful. It turned out the stuff was called Duraphat, and she asked me if I wanted to speak to Mr V. I didn't think there was an awful lot of point in talking to him as there was now little he could do, but a couple of minutes after I put the phone down Mr V rang me, sounding very worried and said that he wanted to see me straight away. The dental practice has two surgeries and he was doing his afternoon surgery at the practice so that's where I was to go, but seeing as I thought I probably shouldn't drive I wasn't sure how I was going to get there so Mr V offered to pay for a taxi. That's what I did. Between ending the call and arriving at the surgery Mr V had spoken to them at the dental hospital and they advised that I either see my GP or go to A & E. Personally I didn't think there was an awful lot of point in doing either of these things now as I was better than I had been, even though I still didn't feel 100%, but Mr V wasn't happy so I opted for phoning my GP to ask them for advice. Mr V gave me their phone and waited while I called. I spoke to Michelle - one of the GP receptionists I know well - and explained the situation. She said I'd need to speak to the on-call doctor, that they'd call me back, but she couldn't say when that would be, so I prepared myself for a long wait at the dental surgery. Mr V was going to have to go somewhere before too long, but wanted me to stay at the surgery so the other dentists there could keep an eye on me while we waited for the GP to call back. He spoke to the first of the other dentists, explaining what had happened, who was as surprised as Mr V at the reaction I'd had (Mr V said he'd never heard of an allergic reaction to Duraphat, and hadn't known about bananas containing benzoates, but that that explained my reaction) and asked him to keep a close eye on me. He then went into the second of the other dentists and did the explanation thing, but came out saying that this other dentist's patient was a nurse and she'd said that I should go to A & E, and that I should go soon because otherwise the queues would start to build up. Mr V seemed very relieved to have this second opinion that I ought to be seen by a doctor and it was decided that that's what would happen. Again he offered to pay for a taxi for me to get to A&E, but first I had to call my GP surgery to tell them what was happening and that I now wouldn't need them to call me back. Michelle asked if the dentist was getting me an ambulance and when I told her that no, I was getting a taxi she said, 'A taxi. That's an interesting approach ... well, you know where we are if need us.'

I have to say that I felt like a bit of a twit arriving at A&E displaying few symptoms of severe allergic reaction by now, but saying how things had been earlier, but they were okay (although saying that I probably should have gone earlier) and I was seen fairly quickly. The doctor was rather patronising and obviously hadn't read the copious notes they have on me from my multiple admissions for my asthma. He questioned my 'possession' of so many different antihistamines, until I explained that they were prescribed by the immunologist; he questioned how I had access to a nebuliser (!) so I then had to explain about my asthma; he questioned my allergy to mint (I keep a list of all my meds and allergies and I'd given him this list) simply because he hadn't heard of it before. Anyway, after examining me he said that mostly I was okay, but I was tachycardic, breathing a little quickly and my peak flow was a bit low at 165, so he prescribed more nebulisers and said they'd keep me there for a while to make sure that I didn't have a second wave (biphasic reaction). After a couple of hours or so a different, much less patronising doctor came to see me, saying that the first one had now gone off shift but had handed me over. He redid my peak flow, which had picked up to 250 and he felt I was probably okay to go home, but because of my history (he'd looked at my notes) he didn't want me to feel like I was being pushed out before I was ready and he'd be happy to keep me in overnight if I felt like I needed to be. I didn't think I needed that and I felt lots better, though very tired by now. The doc checked that I had an Epi-Pen, was a little worried that I live alone, but reassured that I have the community care alarm. He gave me strict instructions to keep that beside me, the Epi-Pen beside me, all my other meds beside me and the phone beside me all evening/night, and if there was any deterioration at all then I was to 'dial the 9s' immediately.

I have now had the very weird, but very good experience of walking out of A&E! I don't know when the last time that happened was. In fact it was such an exciting experience for me that I had to take a photo of the exit/entrance as proof of it. Here's the photo:

Today I'm okay, but still very tired and still have that post-poisoned feeling so I've done very, very little, which is rather boring and very frustrating.

Even though things turned out okay in the end, yesterday really wasn't the day I'd had planned.