Recap of the month - March 2023

March was very busy, with a lot of travelling and several things happening to make a stressful time even more stressful. 

I started the month by driving up to Llandudno Junction on St David's Day because our programme was running an all-day event at the Conwy Business Centre on March 2nd. It was a rare time for our disparate team to get together. The event ran really well and people seemed reluctant to leave at the end. As my colleague Lucy said, that's the mark of a good party.

Photo op with my colleague Gethin

I had booked the next few days off. As I was in North Wales I planned to stay with my mum for a few days. On the Saturday I went with my brother and eldest nephew to Derby to watch Derby County versus Shrewsbury Town. Due to various off-field problems, Derby are a big club slumming it at Shrewsbury's level. Town earned a creditable point, coming back from 2-0 down at half time to draw 2-2. 

Zac ready for the game

The trip to Derby was the first of three Shrewsbury away games during the month. On the Sunday I drove back to Cardiff. After one night at home, Cathy and I headed off to Cambridge for an appointment with the specialist team at Addenbrookes Hospital. 

The appointment was on Tuesday morning and in the evening, Shrewsbury were playing just up the road at Peterborough so we stayed an extra night in the Eastern flatlands and I went to the game. Sadly, Shrewsbury succumbed to a late goal and lost 2-1, but I did meet Peter Burrow the Peterborough mascot before the game!

Mascot!

However, when we returned to Cardiff I felt a bit poorly. My Mum had been unwell when I stayed with her and although she took a covid test that was negative while I was with her, when I took a covid test I saw the two lines that showed I was covidified. A couple of days later, Cathy felt unwell and also tested positive. 

I was well enough to work from home for a week. I missed a planned trip to watch Barry Town play at Briton Ferry so my next football match was a seventeen hour round trip to Ipswich to see Shrewsbury play again. Another exiled Salop fan, Paul, drove us there and back. It was a long way. And Shrewsbury lost. 

Photo with Sir Bobby

After visiting three new football league ground in a row, my next game was a new ground in Wales at Goytre United. They play very near to Port Talbot, and I had arranged a visit to the National Botanic Garden of Wales to check it out as a potential venue for one of my future work events in the afternoon, meaning I could stop for the game on the way back. 

It was a very muddy pitch and the Barry players had to work really hard to pick up all three points. The next game for Barry was at home to Pontardawe Town, and if Barry won they would be divisional champions meaning they would bounce back to the Cymru Premier League at the first attempt. The team played very well and put five goals past Pontardawe to win the title in style. I was joined at the game by my friends Tom, Jude and Seb who hadn't been to a football  match before. Quite a good first game!

They said they enjoyed it!

The champions applaud the fans

In the middle of all this football we had some problems in the house, including needing to get a new boiler. Our old one was 18 years old and had corroded badly. We also had some problems with doors on our kitchen units delaminating, so we claimed some replacements on the warranty. But before we could get them fitted, the washing machine stopped working safely. The repair guy recommended a replacement but to fit a replacement we have to remove the old one, and it's been built in. So, not a simple job! 

We have yet to resolve the kitchen and appliance issues because at the end of March we were back off travelling again. On the very last day of March we attended a day organised by the charity Lipodystrophy UK for people with various forms of lipodystrophy, the rare condition that Cathy has. The day was near Cambridge at the Hinxton Hall Conference Centre and accommodation was included thanks to some funding the charity had received.

Because lipodystrophy is such a rare diseases (4 or 5 cases per million people), it's rare for people with it to know other people with the condition. A day like this is hugely important for people to meet and talk about their experiences - which are usually incredibly similar - and share their coping strategies and things that they have found helpful. My personal highlight was hearing paralympian and one-in-637-million, Tom Staniford, talk about life with his incredibly rare form of lipodystrophy. 

The inspirational Tom Staniford

While it was a long way to travel, especially as it was our second trip to Cambridge in a month, it was well worth it.

From Cambridge we embarked on a mini-holiday, but that will have to wait for another blog post!

Dr Olivia's Guide to A&E

Enjoy this film folks - and keep your eye out for the patient with toothache!

In this world, or the next

I went to see my Grandad on Saturday, braving the predictions of dire weather (which never materialised) and accompanied by my loving wife (and handy potential co-shoveller if we got stuck in snow).

Since Grandad had a stroke last year he has been in and out of hospital. It's hard to see him so reduced and rendered immobile, when he had always been so healthy and such a 'potterer'. He didn't like sitting still and would always find something to do in the kitchen, the garden, the shed.

Basically he's dying. And healthcare being what it is, a process which would have taken a few days a century ago has stretched out for nearly a year. I have no doubt of where he is going. Part of me wishes he was there already, because seeing him in that hospital bed slowly robs me of my memories of him as he was.

But, you know, my Grandma says that she feels that Grandad has told her that he loves her more often since the stroke, than in all their years together - it was their 64th wedding anniversary this year. So maybe there is some point to that drawn out goodbye.

And I've been able to tell him that I love him too. Because we men are crap at doing that unless it looks like someone is heading Home. I've had the chance to tell him how much I appreciate all the things he's done for me; all the things he's done for the family. How his work ethic and self-sufficiency inspired me; how grateful I am that he gave up six years in the prime of his life to serve in the armed services and protect this country from tyranny and horror, by playing his small background part, for no other reason than it was the right thing to do.

And on Saturday I was able to say again that I loved him. I wanted to tell him that whatever happens I know I'll see him again soon. And if it wasn't in this life, then he should know I'd never forget him until I saw him again. But I couldn't speak past the lump in my throat, so I gripped his good hand tightly and muttered a prayer, kissed him on the forehead and left.

My worst Hallowe'en ever

As it's that spooky time of year (when did Hollowe'en become such a commercial affair? Do pagans complain that it's obscuring the real meaning of Hallowe'en?) I thought I'd tell you my personal worst Hallowe'en story.

T'was a few years ago. I'm not sure how many now. I think it may even have been before me and Cath got married. Anyway, t'was Hallowe'en. I was very tired and so decided to go to bed. Shortly after I'd gone to bed, but before I'd gone to sleep, I was called back downstairs by Cathy, who was using her 'er, I think this might be serious' voice.

She had somehow fallen into a door and bashed her hand which was now incredibly painful. A trip to Casualty was called for. This was back in the day when the old Cardiff Royal Infirmary operated a casualty department, so we headed off there.

The CRI is a Victorian Gothic pile in an insalubrious part of town. It has seen better days... one would assume. To give you an idea of how sinister it is, in the past few years there have been a few episodes of Dr Who filmed there - using both the outside facade, and the interior institutional green hallways and waiting rooms. However the good folks in the BBC location department barely needed to do anything to grim it up ready for an invasion of gasmask-wearing child zombies or the like.

Anyway, so we were there in the institutional-green waiting room, waiting to be seen to. It was a Friday night as well as being Hallowe'en, so the main clientele were violent drunks or the victims of violent drunks with various bloody assault wounds. There was shouting and yelling from the drunks who had been brought in by police officers, and miserable sobs and moans from the bleeding and bruised. And it being the kind of building it was, every shout was magnified and echoed down the long hallways.

To compound the atmosphere, in the middle of the waiting room was one TV; an ancient machine mounted on one of those anti-theft brackets which look like they could double up as a torture device. As it was Hallowe'en the selected channel was showing a horror film, which was set for the most part, it seemed, in a creepy gothic hospital/asylum. All I really remember of it was that it starred Mark Hamill, and it ended rather abruptly after he chose to stab himself in the eye for some reason.

So we sat there, watching the blood ooze from Mark Hamill's eye socket, waiting for the X-Ray results to come back, and hoping we could get out of this creepy hospital, before anything worse happened to us...

7 hours in A & E on "head injury Saturday"

When we go round to see our friend M and her daughter Roo, one of the things Roo likes to do is play hide and seek. She often likes to hide when we arrive and was so keen this time, she ran into a door and cut her forehead really badly. We heard the thump followed by screaming even though we were standing outside, and when M opened the door, Roo was gushing blood.

Once we'd cleaned off the blood it was obvious it was really deep, so we went up to casualty. Except it was head injury day. One kid had obviously come of his bike and landed on his face - multiple gashes and cuts and a big one on his temple. A 3-year old boy had a huge cut on his forehead and a shirt covered in blood. When he went in for stitches, he was stitched up for forty five minutes and apparently the doctor lost count how many he'd had.

So eventually it was Roo's turn and the doctor was so nice if ever I have to have stitches I want her sewing me up. Roo was very good and kept very still and now hopefully she'll just have a little line for a scar instead of Nike-style swoosh above her eye.

On the way home we stopped at McDonald's for fries followed by ice cream. The duty manager gave Roo her ice cream for free where she'd been to hospital for so long. It was one of those unlooked for acts of kindness which I felt incredibly grateful for. McDonald's come in for some stick at times, but after that I'm probably going to stick up for them.

Phew!

Cathy went to the opticians yesterday and told them how her eye seems to have been 'flickering' of late. She was referred to eye casualty at Heath Hospital and so I took her up there today.

We both felt apprehensive in case it would mean another op (she had one about 5 years ago). But after a good, long peer into her eye, the optician said there was nothing to worry about. Of course, now she has to wait for her super-dilated pupils to get back to normal. But at least she's home!

Interesting side note
I don't often ascribe things to supernatural intervention, but yesterday the optician said she could see lots of pigment floating in her 'eye jelly'; a condition they refer to as 'tobacco dust'. Lots of people prayed about the situation lats night, and today the optical consultant said he couldn't see any pigment, even though he was using the super-duper hospital equipment to look into her eyes.

An answer to prayer or just an interesting occurrence...?

Paean to Pholcodine

It's been nearly a week since I last blogged, and the cyber-silence got to my brother so much he even phoned me tonight! Those who know me know that when I shut up there's usually something wrong, and I guess the same is true of blogging (although I have been blogging under an alias here).

But why have I been incommunicado? Well, shortly after my last blog post I got sent home from work because I had difficulty breathing. My dear Dad who'd been visiting us at the weekend had somehow passed on his cough which had taken a virulent turn for the worse en route to me and had left me very short of breath. Now I'm used to being out of breath from exercise - in fact, that's one reason I don't exercise, but this was shortness of breath because I couldn't breathe in.

My doc proscribed me an inhaler and I spent the rest of the week under a blanket on the sofa, only really emerging at the weekend. Meanwhile at work, the final stages of the big shake up happened and some of my close compadres lost their jobs, which was unexpected and obviously occupied my thoughts more than blogging. Then I had a writing project over the weekend to do as a favour for the friend, plus bowling with the youth on Sunday evening, and then, oh I don't know, just stuff happening like a staff carol concert yesterday and things, and now I'm here telling you about it.

But on the plus side, I get to neck Pholcodine, which has to be my poison of choice. Ah, the warm rush as it hits the back of your throat. When we were kids my mum apparently used to have to hide the bottle so we wouldn't drink it like pop.

Pholcodine is a liquid opiate - basically opium can be split into two main drugs: codeine and morphine. Codeine's what you get in Co-codamol and drugs of that ilk, and morphine is morphine, named after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams, one of the sons of Hypnos, the god of sleep. (Morpheus is often depicted asleep on a bed surrounded by poppies and opium comes from poppies - coincidence? I think not!)

One of the best feelings I've ever had was after my appendix operation when I was mega-dosed with morphine and the pain just melted away into the night. When I woke up the next day I insisted the room had been painted pink when I went to sleep - but I was reliably told by the nurse that they hadn't repainted the ward in the night; my colour confusion was down to the morphine.

I even wrote a (very poor) rhyme about it. All I can remember is the refrain:

Oh let me sleep, Oh sweet morphine
Oh let me sleep, Oh sweet morphine
Oh, let me sleep, and dream sweet dreams
Bid me never wake

Hmmm, morphine, codiene... the bottom line is at heart I'm an opium junkie. Now if only I'd been born 150 years ago when it was quite acceptable to get out of your head on poppy power.