I have a number of very good reasons for this heading. My Mum used to tell me I was just like my Dad, always optimistic and therefore often doomed to be disappointed. I had to continually remind her that the great thing about being an optimist is that even when things are horribly dreadful, you always believe they will get better.
So, first on the list is my health. You’ll know this has been a major problem over the last while, where I’ve been increasingly short of breath and unable to even walk upstairs without stopping to rest for a few minutes. I got a big oxygen machine delivered at home, as well as a portable one for when/if I go out – both have been a real boon.
The word from the consultant is that I need one more test to complete the elimination theories and confirm the diagnosis, then hopefully they will be able to treat me with medication. Unfortunately the test is yet another angiogram, which I am NOT looking forward to. The last one was horrendously painful, and I didn’t want to ever have to repeat it.
A few weeks ago I needed a sample of arterial blood taken. Off to one of the hospitals in Murcia with Sonia, our translator.
Well…that nurse who was taking the sample must have been a secret admirer/member of the Gestapo. All she said to me was “This is going to be very painful.” She was right. It was horrendous, I have never experienced anything like it, and I’ve had 2 babies without the use of drugs, but this was genuinely awful. She must have been on holiday the day the patient care lectures were being given.
A more usual blood sample was needed a couple of weeks ago prior to having a gamma scan. Good grief, another S.S member trying to get some blood out of me. She hoked around like she was digging for victory, and eventually managed to get enough into the wee test tube.
Reminds me of a Neil Young song – “The needle and the damage done”….
Our practice nurse was not impressed when she saw my arm – I’d had to go to our health centre for yet another sample to be taken. She was so gentle, and did the job so well, judge for yourselves….
Sorry it’s so badly out of focus, I couldn’t hold the phone steady and try to breathe at the same time, but I think you should be in no doubt as to the different outcomes!
The optimism bit about my health is that they think they finally know what the problem is. If it really is pulmonary hypertension it is not curable, it is life-limiting, but it is treatable, and new, excellent drugs are being developed all the time, so it might be able to be treated with medication, and nothing more invasive than that. Just the angiogram to get through and then apparently I may get my life back. I have missed myself over the last few months, it’s been a very, very difficult journey but I am very, very grateful that I could be back to some semblance of normality in no time. The alternative is that my life may be far more limited than we thought, but I will keep you posted.
The next little spark of optimism is to do with the house my daughter and her partner were buying. Laurie had sold her house, and her buyers have been very patient in waiting for a settlement and moving date. The sellers of the house Laurie and Trev were buying kept pushing the date back further and further, and then, after messing them around for so long, they took the house off the market! Panic stations briefly, then came a much better and bigger house that was patently meant for them, in Portstewart, and their offer was accepted! It was vacant possession, everything has now fallen into place quite quickly and they’ve moved in! It will be a wonderful family home for them.
The photo below is of the first house she bought on her own, with the children, and it has been such a happy place for her. The next house is a lot bigger and will even be a lot happier, though also a lot busier as she has 3 children and Trev has 2 so it will be a full house!
Okay, watch out, because here comes an absolute stroke of genius….
I’ve been moaning about the difficulty of getting down and up again from standard sun loungers, especially for those of us of a certain age, and certain levels of arthritis. Well, we have 7 very nice loungers which we drag out every summer (very expensive here for decent ones, these were €60 each!) so I’ve been trying to come up with a plan so cunning Baldrick would be stunned into silence. I have got a slatted single bed base and immaculate mattress, so kindly given to me by a fabulous fellow Irish woman, Racheal. Waterproof mattress cover on it for coming out of the pool and straight onto the bed, few big pillows behind the head, parasol up, daily breeze doing its bit in 40C heat and Bob’s most definitely and beyond all reasonable doubt your uncle! Up and down like the proverbial hoor’s knickers, and comfort like you wouldn’t believe! So for all of you who know someone getting rid of said items, or if they’re available in the charity shops, do yourselves a favour and get a bespoke “Karen” sun lounger! Yes, that’s the new definition of a Karen, it’s someone who has incredibly brillant and simple ideas that will make your life so much easier and will make your little heart sing with joy! You can thank me later….
We haven’t been able to get out and about as much lately, due to my need to be hooked up to an oxygen machine much of the time. We just take wee snatches here and there, for a quick bite to eat etc. The portable machine I have is very unwieldy, and heavy, so I’m going to see if I can get it changed to something a bit smaller and more manageable.
Anyhow, on our way back from collecting my free, gratis and for nothing gift of a bed base and immaculate mattress (thank you so much again Racheal Deegan, you’re an absolute dote!) we stopped off at Hondon de las Frailes for a bite to eat, at Veinteocho restaurant, which has been taken over by new owners. We hadn’t been there for quite a while, but my goodness it won’t be long before we’re back! I had bacon, sausage, egg, hash brown and toast….all utterly delicious and very, very cleanly cooked. Peter had two big halves of a baguette with avocado, smoked salmon and egg, and polished off the lot!
Delicious food, lovely staff, we’ll be back soon!
No photographs for the next bit, it’s the Spanish wildlife again! This time there’s no photos because you really can hardly see the wee blighters, they are the tiniest ants in the world, but appear from nowhere. So, at this time of year you cannot leave ANYTHING in the way of food around on a bench or table or wherever, as the army marches out resolutely and feasts away on the last crumb. We do everything we can to deter the wee things, sprays, insecticide floor wash etc. Doesn’t matter, as long as the temperatures are up they are here. So…leave literally not a single grain of sugar or anything about.
The much more interesting form of wildlife is the gecko population. They are actually quite lovely wee things, thouigh they move a bit fast for my liking. We spotted it on in the bedroom last night, up where the wall meets the ceiling, it shot behind a bit of the beam…in the photo it lives in the beam to the right of the smoke alarm, where the beam meets the ceiling.
I’m surprisingly not a bit bothered by it being there, they are brilliant at catching and eating any stray flies and mosquitoes that manage to get into the house, so our wee one can stay. This photo, below, is about the size of the wee thing around 2 or 3 inches long from nose to the tip of its tail. Only a baby. I had one in the shower once, I think it saw me and was utterly terrified – don’t blame it! I managed to catch it and put it out the window. It probably died of shock later….
I believe there’s a lot of old nonsense around concerning the current temperatures here in Spain, and how it’s an exceptional heatwave. Well it isn’t. I’ve checked the figures from the lat few years and the temperatures are broadly similar – sometimes less and sometimes more. Saying that, it’s difficult to cope in very hot weather, especially if you have respiratory problems, and keeping cool isn’t always easy. Here’s our expected tems for the incoming few days – they already have been up as high as 42C in the shade, so are cooling down a bit!
In Spain they say that summer begins on the 40th May – exactly – and it’s generally true. When temperatures can hit 44C in the shade with only a hot breeze, the only place to be is indoors with aircon and fans. We complain about the cold in winter and the heat in summer, the heat is far more dangerous and the cooler days of autumn are so welcome.
“When southern summers come the air falls fast like a blanket, smothers the breath and wraps itself round us. We long for the cool air of autumn or even the chill of winter’s fingers on our throats. We overheat like cars with faulty radiators.
To get to sleep we try lying still, but the air feels like a heavy quilt pressing down, turning breathing into gasping, and making skin shine like dawn dew.
We learn in school that most things expand and lengthen in the heat. There is always an exception, of course.
Tempers get shorter and tolerance diminishes as the hot days grow longer, generally it seems best to just stay out of everyone’s way where possible.
The more caring days of autumn are still some time away so for now we rise early, rest when we can, and wait for the heat to lose its sting, and for the relief that cooler air brings.”
One of the really dreadful things with this heat is the number of fires raging out of control across Spain, Greece and France. We are very aware of the potential dangers, especially from machinery sparks and from dry lightning, and even MORE especially from lunatic arsonists and pyromaniacs. It’s a truly devastating picture over much of Europe. We had a fire on the mountain behind us a couple of years ago so are very vigilant now. The loss of life has been desperately sad, and numbers continue to rise. We are always very much indebted to the brave fire officers and others who continue to try to bring the blazes under control.
To those people who are so quick to blame everything on climate change, but that is not always the case. Our friend and neighbour, Alfredo, is a senior fire officer and this is what he told Peter when they were discussing it….
Good morning, Peter. The big problem, although they try to sell it to us differently, is environmentalism. They don’t allow firebreaks, they don’t allow the clearing of the undergrowth, there are no free-roaming flocks of goats, sheep, and other herbivores, which also did their part in keeping things clean, the fields aren’t cultivated because of EU quotas, among other things. But it’s all global warming’s fault?! No!
I think that’s fairly clear – it’s far more to do with environmental mismanagement than to do with global warming! But please, please, please be careful in the fierce heat, wherever you are.
I’ve now learned that I have an appointment for the last test, that right side heart catheterisation that I am SO looking forward to – not. It’s going to be on 17 August, so not long to wait now. We have to be at the hospital for 8am, I have no idea what time I’ll be “done” but I hope it’s early to get it over with. I have learned so far that it will be a day procedure, and they should go in via a vein this time and not an artery, so it shouldn’t be nearly as painful as the last time. In fact it should also only take half the time too. I’m so happy not to have to stay overnight – assuming everything is okay I’ll be home not long after the procedure. I expect to hear something about what they’ve done and found, and I do hope the cardiologist is correct in that it’s a heart issue that can be managed by drugs/ I might not then need to be on oxygen – freedom! I’ll tell you this, for a woman that never even takes a paracetamol for a headache I will chuck whatever they give me down my neck and be very grateful. This illness has really floored me, it is so limiting and isolating. We are used to going out for lunch or to meet friends, at the drop of a hat, but not at the minute. There are times I feel like I’m clinging to a piece of driftwood, alone, in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, in the dark. Thank god for my fabulous, always-there husband, and my fabulous, always-there friends, who have had to listen to me struggle to breathe and cry at the same time.
Fingers crossed all that will come to an end soon and I might have a relatively normal life again for however long it lasts…optimism is the key!
I have a lovely hibiscus that I’ve grown in a pot. Every winter I cut it back hard, to a few inches above soil level, and it comes back in the spring with fabulous deep coral blooms. This winter, “someone” watered it with a bit of weed killer in the watering can, by mistake, and the hibiscus didn’t like it one bit. I thought it was dying – it was shrivelled and sad, like me, so I made a deal with it. If it could just get better, grow some big shiny leaves and start to bloom, I would take it as a sign that I would also soon start to feel better. Well we started off with teeny weeny leaves literally about 2mm long, which kept going till they started to look like proper leaves appearing.
Since then, my wee plant has gone from strength to strength, and the flowers are starting to appear. It usually blooms in spring but was very delayed this year due to the certain person feeding it weedkiller instead of water! (He’s forgiven, though!)
Look at it now, coming on a treat, and giving me hope that I might get a few more years of useful life left! If I say “optimism” again, am I simply repeating myself? Don’t care, imprinting is the thing!
Now for some of my favourite websites:
anthonytoner.net (and) eilidhpatterson.com – when you want some fabulous music!
bookbub.com -for when you want kindle books for free or very nearly free!
diamoray.com – for when you want a bit of bling and sparkle but don’t want to break the bank, gorgeous jewellery and great customer service…I’m going to treat myself to some more earrings, they are divine!
To conclude – when all else fails, and life seems to be giving you a real hammering, slap on your favourite red lippy and face it head on.
Till next time amigos, look after yourselves and each other.
My life in Spain 