Kath Lewis

Happy New Year everybody, I hope that you all enjoyed the festive season. It wasn’t my intention to leave such a big gap between blogs, but it has been a few weeks of ups and downs, and time sort of got away with itself making it difficult to sit down and apply myself. So please bear with, as this may be a bit longer than ususal.

So lets start at the beginning, or should I say the end of my last blog!

We had a lovely Christmas, our son Derek and his partner Lee arrived on the 23^rd as did our other son Ryan. Then on Christmas eve our daughter Judith, her husband Kyle and our grandson Arthur arrived. They were having a Christmas Eve sleep-over with us as they would not be with us for Christmas lunch this year. It was lovely to have a little one in the house on Christmas Eve, and even though he wasn’t old enough to be excited it by it all the rest of us were more than up to the job. He was great fun on Christmas morning, more interested in the wrapping paper than what was inside,  but more importantly loved the trike we got him.  He didn’t want to get off it, and there were a few tears when he had to.

Christmas dinner went down very well, and a big thank you to my sous chef Derek.  Ade took all the traditional photos before and after dinner, and after dinner we all slumped on the settees to digest our dinner and open presents, then played games. For the first game played I was just an observer and score keeper as my batteries had run flat and were in need of a quick re-charge.  We played Guesstures which is a charades type game on a timer, it was great fun and had us crying laughing a couple of times. The picture of everybody with their hands by the sides of the head is as a result of my brother-in-law Ian using this gesture during the game to describe a tree!!

 

Boxing day was very quiet, then on the Tuesday disaster happened, the boiler packed up and it was absolutely freezing as it was the day that the temperature plummeted. Thank god for the wood-burner and fan heaters.  Luckily for us it was an easy fix and we were warm again by Thursday, unlike a couple of our other friends who also had boiler problems that took a bit longer to fix. Mind you the poker tournament we had on Wednesday was a bit nippy and everybody was warned to make sure they had plenty of layers.

To be honest though apart from Christmas dinner and the poker we had a very lazy break, and hardly stuck our nose through the door apart to go and see the new Star Wars movie. Loved it. Unfortunately though this did not stop me from getting the cold that was doing the rounds, so I was not able to attend the New Years Eve party.  Mind you my stomach did behave itself over the holiday period, for which I am thankful, although the fatigue did continue to get me down, and slow me down. I also suspended my gym membership for the next few months as I was unsure of what was going to happen after I had seen the surgeon.  I wasn’t getting there anyway so it seemed pointless to be paying for the priviledge for now.

At the beginning of the New Years first working week Ade and myself started to do yoga together for the first time. I have done is on and off for years, but this was a first for him. Using a great little app that a friend recommended call ‘Down Dog’, we have stuck with it every night more or less for the last 3 weeks, so at least some exercise is getting done.

On Friday 6^th January though my stomach decided to play up again, fortunately it was only a mild one, but I was in bed for most of the day. It also upset me as the sponsored walk was on the 8^th and I wanted to be fit for that. Saturday I was still tired and a bit bloated, and it felt like I had been punched in the stomach. Sunday morning though I was good to go, and unlike last years walk we had a dry start, it did start to rain just before the end, but no waterproofs were required. We had my grandson and his little pal Elsie with us on the walk as well, and they did themselves proud, both managed to walk over 2 miles without complaint. A great achievement for a little boy of 18 months and a little girl of 23 months.

A big thank you too, to everybody who sponsored us, and helped us to not only reach but exceed our target. Your generosity means a great deal to both those of us who walked and to the charity itself.

Following the walk I had my meeting with the surgeon on the following Thursday. Fully expecting to be told when I would be having surgery, she told me that as I had not had any severe episodes since November that she was not convinced that the cause was an obstruction, and that the problem may be slightly higher and coming from one of my infected lymph nodes. Due to the siting off my aliens she wants to be sure that they are targeting the right area, so we will continue to watch and wait, although next time I have a bad episode I need to go straight in for a scan so as they can see it live; so to speak. That way they can be sure that they know where the problem is and as a consequence what the next course of action should be, which may not necessarily mean surgery. I can honestly say that I am fine with that, and so long as I am part of the conversation I am happy for my medical team to be cautious in their approach, because in the long run that is better for all of us, but mainly me.

I have some very sad news to share too, unfortunately on the Saturday after our visit to the see the surgeon, we had to say goodbye to our lovely dog Missy, she was nearly 14 and a very gentle girl unless you were her arch enemy the postman. If you remember she had a stroke in May 2016, she recovered well over the following few weeks, but it did leave her with a slight tilt to her head. She had been deaf for the last twelve months and suffered with arthritis in the hips for the last few years. We had noticed a decline before Christmas which had warranted a visit to the vets, and we were delighted that she got through Christmas and New Year. Don’t get me wrong, she was not in distress, but was slowing down very quickly and was not very sociable when we had visitors, which was very unlike her. Then on Friday the 13^th she took a turn for the worst, and after a sleepless Friday night, we knew that the time had come. Boy was it hard, especially as she was not part of the decision, but the vet came round to the house which reduced the stress for her. Sunday, we really didn’t know what to do with ourselves, and this last week has been hard without my sidekick.

Later in the year, when we have a nice day, we will scatter her ashes on one of her favourite walks and under the tree where she used to always stop to catch her breath and be mistress of all she surveyed.

So to keep myself busy I have been on a bit of a mad cleaning spree, very unlike me. Subsequently I payed the price and ended up having another day in bed, with a very sore and bloated stomach. I may not be great when it comes to applying myself to housework, but boy do I miss the days when I could just get on and do it without consequences. In fact it frustrates the hell out of me, housework is boring enough without knowing there will consequences if I do to much in one go. It would help if I could easily judge how much is to much at any given time, but I can’t😒

To finish on a happier note though we went out for an early birthday meal with friends, and came back here afterwards to play another game of Guesstures. As usual, the girls won.🏆

“I’m not afraid of dying, it’s time I’m afraid of…” Interstellar 2014