The past few days have been hellishly hard work. At the beginning of the week Vonnie went to see the doctor who told her among other things she had a viral ear infection which was causing her headaches and sore throats. On Wednesday night Vonnie had trouble breathing and collapsed meaning she ended up with the paramedics out and a trip to A&E in the back of an ambulance. It turns out she has a really bad case of tonsillitis and has been put on a pile of drugs to get her better.

This morning we woke up and for the first time in about a week Vonnie actually felt positive about the day and was able to get up and not be in that much pain. Our respective parents were popping in to see the kids so we planned a relatively quiet day once we’d tidied the living room up a bit. Then the parents arrived and our son turned from a happy wee boy into this.

He’s excitable. He’s noisey. He won’t do a damn thing he’s told. And that’s before he even gets anywhere near the sweets. Even when he’s not fighting for his grandparents attention he is loud without an off switch. He talks to himself or when he’s alone he’ll just whitter random noises but there certainly isn’t an off switch. He becomes that hard work that Vonnie was completely and utterly shattered by the time our parents left to go home and it’s been a constant battle with him for the rest of the evening.

His speech therapy assessment went really well. Apparently problem cases are flagged if they have something like more than three percent of their normal chat being effected by stutters, stammers or repetition. I think Nairn comes in at just over two percent so they don’t see it as a major problem but he’s to go back in five months for a check. He’s got so many things going on that check of boxes for autism, ADHD and dyslexia that I don’t know if it’s just my parental desire for there to be nothing wrong that makes me think it’s just a kid thing. From getting my own ‘diagnosis’ with regards to dyslexia last year I know that if any of them do turn out to be a problem for him none of them are severe enough to really cause him much bother but it would allow us to target those problems to help him and ourselves.

I guess time will tell.

I’ve been reading up on my rights with regards to dyslexia in the workplace and anything and everything else I can think off that may be an issue. With the ’severity’ of my problem if I was to go to nightschool or back to university I’d be able to apply for a disability allowance and I noticed a few of the other things that people can claim for depending on the disability.

One of the things they can claim for is a non-medical helper who would help with note taking and various other things the person may have problems with. When I found out that they can claim up to £20k+ for a salary for this non-medical helper I turned to my wife…

Bob: Here…these folk make more than I do and all they do is take notes and stuff. £20k for sitting through classes and doing what you would normally do as a student isn’t bad.
Vonnie: Yup it’s pretty good isn’t it. Things must have changed from when I was at uni though as they used to be called enablers.
Bob: I think we should just quite our jobs and start being non-medical helpers. What do you think?
Vonnie: Bob… Your dyslexic.
Bob: Oh yeah. I forgot about that.

Over the last month or so we’ve been trying to swap the bedrooms about but thanks to my energy levels and available time we’re only just getting to the point where we can finish moving stuff around. The final bits of furniture was moved about yesterday but in doing so I’ve managed to do something to my left thumb. I don’t know what happened but it hurts. It’s not swollen or anything but anytime I move it I’m in pain. I can’t grip anything and because its the base of the thumb thats hurt it means I’ve got no strength in my wrist either. I can’t use it for getting off the bed or carrying anything unless I lock my wrist straight. I’s a bloody nuisance!

In other news Vonnie has dyed her hair bright pink.

So yeah…my health.

For the last month I’ve been battling a cold/chesty cough/chest infection and at the beginning of last week I finished my course of antibiotics and most of it cleared up leaving me with an occasional dry cough that felt more like I’d cut my throat and the healing was itchy and causing the cough rather than the remnants of the infection.I felt that good that on Monday night we went for a cycle to my parents and on Tuesday I cycled to and from work. At no point did I feel I’d over done it and actually felt really good about it all.

Then I lay down to go to bed on Tuesday night. It hurt to lay down. It hurt to sit up. When I wasn’t lying down it felt like someone was trying to crush my throat and when I was on my back it was if someone was sitting on my chest. It didn’t hurt that much to be honest it was more the tightness that worried me. What did hurt though was when I breathed in and out. It was fine until a certain point then it became unbearable. Vonnie said I was being a drama queen and I sort of believed her but at teh back of my mind was the thought that if it didn’t get any better by 4am I’d go to A&E there and then. I finally managed to get some sleep after finding some painkillers but if I moved from the one position I found that was comfy then I’d wake up in pain again.

I’d told Vonnie I’d go to A&E if it didn’t get any better by lunchtime but when I got off the bus its was just as bad as it was during the night. A quick text to Vonnie to say I was going earlier than expected and instead of walking across the road to work I walked into A&E instead. Sometimes it’s quite handy having the local hospital across the road from your office! I went in expecting them to say I had pulled a muscle and I’d be back in work within the hour. I got to the desk and told then of my chest pains and my difficulty breathing only to see the 4 kids that came in behind me with strained joints get taken first. It took me a few hours to realise they were being taken into the room we normally go into when the kids have to go to A&E and they were waiting for space to come up in the treatment rooms for me. I’d walked in of my own accord so those that came in via the ambulance got in ahead of me. I didn’t thing like that at the time… Vonnie also found out that they refer to the room I was eventually taken into as Resus which certainly didn’t worry her when she asked where I was…

I was taken in, prodded, questioned and hooked up to a monitor. An IV thingie was stuck in the back of my hand so I could get morphine injected and I was given O2 as well as a couple of ECG’s. Just as the morphine kicked in my mum turned up and before I was whisked away for a chest X-ray I was told by a nurse that Vonnie had called. At this point I’d been told it was probably pericarditis and that I might need to stay over night depending on what the X-ray showed. What Vonnie was told however was that my ECG showed signs of a mild heart attack and that I was definitely staying overnight. Nice of them to a)give incorrect info to loved ones and b)to give that sort of info out over the phone in the first place. Anyway by now the morphine felt very good and I’d had my xray and didn’t even question how my brother had got to the hospital never mind how he’d managed to get from Hamilton in about 3 minutes flat. Vonnie turned up to find me with tubes and wires and all sorts stuck to me and despite my smiles looked really worried. She was much relieved to find out that despite the place being called Resus I wasn’t in need of any and that I hadn’t actually had a heart attack.

After several hours of trying to find me a bed, the hospital had about 2 spare at this point, I was moved up to the ward. It just so happened the 2 spare where in the same room and they the other was soon filled up. I shared that room with a guy that just sat stairing at the wall all day or sleeping and a guy that had had a stroke and spent the day pissing into bottles or shitting in a bag. Not long after I got there the other spare bed was filled by a wee guy with a huge O2 mask on that I was convinced wasn’t going to see it through the night. I’d been hyperventilating when I came in thanks to the pain when I took deep breaths but this guy was something else. He was up at 50-60 breaths per minute, his BP topped out at 240/168 and they could only find one place they could both draw blood from and put an IV into as his arms and legs were that swollen. He was really struggling and his alarms were going off all night. They also had a couple of floor fans on him trying to keep his temp down. So between my pain/discomfort I also had the fans, the alarms, the guys breathing and the stroke guys toilet habits keeping me awake almost all night.

One thing I’ll say though is they like to keep you fed. From the moment I got ont he ward until I left just before noon I think they must have gave me four meals! And thats not including tea and biscuits.

So anyway here I am now trying to find things that I can do that won’t wind up Vonnie or kill me. I’ll likely be off work for at least a week and depending on how I do at my GP’s on tuesday I may be off for another week as well. Just going to the shops knackers me out thanks to my breathing!

Originally published at The Apochrypha. Please leave any comments there.

So on friday night Vonnie announced to the room that the Take That tickets had went missing and as she’d put them on the computer desk it must have been me that moved them. Being a tired and cranky old fart I retaliated in kind. This wouldn’t have been too bad except we were at Kirsty and Mo’s for dinner at the time. cue grumpy Bob and Vonnie for 20 minutes.

So one thing led to another and since then I’ve gutted the livingroom 3 times, the bedroom once and had a general scour around the house as well. I don’t know what I was more pissed off about, Vonnie blaming me when I said it wasn’t or the fact the girls might not be able to go to the gig. I was starting to crack up and get really stressed about it. I was convinced they’d been binned last week

So I sat down on the couch and cleared each cushion in turn as I had before until I got to the last one that had all the letters I’d lifted from the computer desk whilst looking for the tickets. I’d went through that pile 3-4 times already but I gave it one last look through aqnd then checked under the cushion again. And they were there.

All that stress over the last 5 days has just turned to complete exhaustion. Lets hope my bedding dries soon so I can get to bed

No tag for this post.

Originally published at The Apochrypha. Please leave any comments there.

Eh yeah…no internet from 8.30pm last night makes Bob and Vonnie very stressed out people indeed.

Done nothing of note today but I’m making Thai Green Curry tonight from scratch and heading over to Barry’s for a few drinks later on. Won’t be a late one though as I’m shattered!

No tag for this post.

Cold turkey yet again. Thats what it feels like without internet access after all these years.

We were supposed to go through to Dave’s for his birthday on saturday night so we’d managed to get Vonnie’s dad to babysit for us. We headed through there at the back of five to allow us some time there before heading back to get ready. Vonnie’s dad has just moved from Boness to Armadale and his new house is HUGE. Rather large garden with a 4 bedroom house with basement right in the middle. Really rather nice so it is. Anyway we left there at some point between 8 and 9pm with the intention of heading home to get changed then about 5 minutes after starting we changed that to going home via Dave’s flat. After about another 10 minutes driving I woke up and realised Vonnie wasn’t far off falling asleep herself so we headed straight home and after a couple of minutes on teh computer Vonnie went straight to bed. I turned the PC off and shut up house before headign to bed myself.

Sunday morning comes and I turn the PC to get a quite game of Warcraft 3 out the way before we have to go and get the kids. I turn on the PC and it gets throught the autodetection and then hangs. I can’t work out why and I’m stumped. At some point during the day I reseated all the cards and unplugged/replugged all the cables and still nothing. It was suggested it might be the bios so I took out the battery and let it over night but after putting that back in it still wouldnt work. Now we’re currently trying to buy Vonnie a laptop for uni so thanks to technology moving on if I was to replace the motherboard I’d have to buy a new CPU and memory which works out at something like 120 quid minimum which is about a third of the money for the laptop. Mo Nevali kindly offered to help out whilst Mark went looking in his spares box for a motherboard I could use to test my theories.

Got home from work last night and opened the case back up and repeated everything I’d tried on sunday and the bloody thing worked. And worst yet I couldnt replicate the problem so I was no further forward with what casued it. Mo redid everything I had tried and he couldnt either but after running a few tests we came up with a couple of theories. The first being that the IDE controller is fecked as the drives throw out errors if everything i connected but dont if only 3 of the 4 devices are hooked up. The more likely problem is that the the PSU cant handle all the devices and throws a wobbly every so often. I cant help wonder though as my 300w ran my PC for years where as the 350W PSU I’ve got now has only been in properly a few months.

Either way its back up and running and Vonnies can get her uni work sorted where as I can get back to watching all the TV I keep missing

Woke up to head into work early to get the day over with. Couldnt find the cards from my parents so left them until I got home.

Had a shite day at work though made the mistake of telling Lesley it was my birthday and so by lunchtime I had a birthday card sitting on my keyboard when I came back from the walk I took in an effort to wake myself up.

Gave up just before 4 to go home and relax and have a quite night in. Couldnt think of anything I wanted more than an early night after being up all night with Finn.

Got home and took Nairn from Vonnie to give her a rest. Sat down on my PC and had a quick look at my regular sites then VOnnie had a go at me. She was very stressed and I had no real idea why. Eventually got it out of her that Mark and Clare were coming over to drop in a present and she was fedup with folk coming over to see our livingroom as a tip. So I cleared the living room for her and tidied a bit of the bathroom while she washed the dishes and stuff. Eventually she cracked again at my slowness and explained that a few folk were coming over for a couple of drinks later on which gave me a kick in the arse. We eventually got the place tidied and managed a shower each just before folk arrived.

Surprisingly I had a great night, might have been to do with the vodka jelly mind you, and thanks to everyone for coming along. Not seen a few of you guys in along while. And thanks to Vonnie and Clare for organising it.

OK..I promised Vonnie I’d update last night but other things cropped up and I forgot :S

So New Year…

Dave had planned his Hoggmany party for ages and Steve was trying to get us to go over to his seeing Kats pregnant as well and it would be a quiet night. If I was going anywhere it would have been the Hoggmeisters but as fate would have it both myself and Vonnie sat inthe living room wrapped in duvets struggling to stay awake to see the bells whilst Finn jumped about like crazy. Only an Excuse and Chewing the Fat were passable this year but that was about it. Turned the TV over to BBC2 to catch Jools Hollands New Year Hootinany or whatever he calls it for the bells. Always a good show that one although he always has the most famous unknowns you’ll ever see on British TV at some point in the show. Just as the bells hit fireworks started going off around our flat so we woke up a little and sat and watched them from the window for 20 mins before dragging Finn to bed and collapsing ourselves.

Saturday past was Mark’s birthday and so he held X-LAN 2 at his house for the lads to go around and have a laugh for the day.Thankfully we didnt touch HALO whilst I was there as I despise the game but Stoo talked Mark into running Splinter Cell which as a multiplayer game amongst us I really enjoyed. Not sure I fancy it as a single player game or an Xbox live game with folk I dont know in other parts of the world though.

After leaving Marks I headed into Glasgow with Vonnie to meet Papazeb for a few drinks as it was his last night out and Vonnie still hadnt met him yet. I’d intended to have a couple of drinks then have an early night but thanks to the range of bourbon on offer in Stavka I got slightly tipsy and vonnie handed me another 30 quid to keep going.

Ended up leaving about 30 mins after Vonnie left though as I really didnt want to go on to the Garage. Got some food, missed the ‘last’ 16, hada 30 min wait for the 18, gave up and phoned a taxi, just as the taxi turned up the 16 went past, got told when I got in the cab thatthe festive fares were still in operation and thought 1/3 onto 12 quid is still only 16 quid which I had on me, got out the taxi at Dunedin as it had hit 18 quid already on the meter which meant it would be at least 20 quid by the time I got to the flat, just as I got out the taxi the 66 went past and the heavens opened. Fuck that…I think someone was telling me I shouldnt have bothered going out at all!

Oh and I bought an Xbox. For those that know me and my hatred for the things…he made me do it! *Points at random person out the window*

Went to see the mortgage adviser yesterday. Turns out if I change lenders I’ll be paying almost he same amount as I am just now but borowing that little bit extra to pay for fees etc as well as the money for Susie. Unfortunately Its going to cost me about a grand to do this if I do it before 1 December as it seems we were tied into the mortgage for 3 years rather than the 2 years I thought it was…got an early repayment charge as well as having to pay back the cash advance they gave us. There is an upside though…I thought the current mortgage was for ?2k more than it actually is so although im not really gaining anything the loss isnt that bad.

I need to do my sums better in future.

On a related note…the mortgage adviser was due to call me today once she heard back fromthe mortgage companies…and I’ve left my mobile at Vonnies! I think I’ll need to buy Vonnie a t-shirt that says “I’m with dipshit”