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Work Report - Mike Crowl focuses on jobs and work and anything connected to the two.
Mike blogs in two places on Orble, and two on Blogger. His wife thinks he writes too much.
My wife and I have just been away for a week or so first in North Otago and then in Central Otago – or Central, as it’s commonly called.
Our first stay was just a normal house, but the second was a self-contained unit and, as so often, the TV was stuck up towards the ceiling somewhere. In order to watch it we’d have had to lie back on the couch at a very peculiar angle.
At home, out TV stands, as most TVs do, at a height that’s compatible with viewing. Why is it that people who design motels and hotels and other similar short-stay places think that people like to get a crick in their neck when they’re watching TV
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While we were in Cromwell Pharmacy last week (we've been on holiday in Central Otago), I noticed the book, Natural Remedies That Really Work, on the counter, and especially that it was recommending Cranberry Juice for urinary tract infections, something that I’d already had recommended to me by a friend I've met through work.
The book looked interesting and seems to weave a decent path between the extreme of believing everything about health remedies and believing nothing. The pharmacist said she’d bought the copy from PaperPlus, just across the mall, so I went over and asked if they had it. The young lady gave me the impression that serving customers wasn’t really what she was there for, particularly when she couldn’t find the book on her computer (I’d given the title slightly wrong). I suggested we do the old-fashioned thing and look on the shelf - which didn’t seem to amuse - and so we did, and there it was.
Obviously with all these natural remedies you’ve got to be careful that you’re not working against the medicines you’re getting from other sources, but I don’t think extra help, in the way of cranberry, will do any harm. Last week I was having to have eight capsules a day for thrush as well as the other tablets I'm already taking. I’ll start rattling soon
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Since I’m at home on holiday this week (and the next two) I can’t exactly write about work on this blog, so I’ll carry on with the other subject that’s taken up a good deal of space here recently.
Went to town on the bus around lunch time today and noticed when I got off the bus that my left foot seemed to be just a little damp – just below where the nozzle of the catheter bag comes out. Thought it might have been a bit of a drip and didn’t give it much attention, but while I was having lunch with a friend, I could feel my left foot getting more and more damp. Finally went off to the loo to check and found that the nozzle had definitely been leaking onto my foot.
Unfortunately I had to go and see someone else before I could go home and tidy things up, which meant dealing with a very wet sock on that side. I discovered later that the shunt wasn’t quite shutting: it needed an additional click to get it to close off completely, though it’s only been doing this today
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Down to the Urology department at the hospital today. My original appointment for tomorrow got cancelled – there was some bereavement – and so somehow my appointment got brought forward, which was good.
Took my whanau with me (my wife, in other words), mostly for moral support, but also to ask questions, clarify things that I missed.
Saw yet another doctor (as you’d expect) but he was well-informed and friendly, and helpful. He had all my notes with him, and got me to ‘walk through’ the process so far so that we were ‘on the same page.’ (It’s cliché day; my clichés, not his.) Plenty of time to look at where things have been and what’s happened so far, so it was all very useful. Also useful to have confirmed again that it isn’t anything I’ve done that’s caused the water retention problems (and hence the wearing of the catheter). Nothing I can do can make my bladder stop working
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I’ve just had a couple of responses to an email I sent out to the wider family a week or so ago, in which I gave some details of 2008 in our household, and in particular the current state of health of yours truly.
It was interesting that one of the recipients commented: Hope you are fully fit and well again...seems like you were never anything else. That’s exactly what it’s been like. I’ve rarely had anything more serious than the flu; never had any broken bones and only a couple of instances where they’ve had to stitch me up. Even those were fairly minor. (Compare this to one of my sons, who, when he was about seven or eight, had four lots of stitches within six months!)
Well, the health debt collection agencies are certainly cashing in over these last few months, one might say. I can’t remember whether I wrote about the week of nosebleeds I had, and the double lot of cauterization, which occurred in July last year. I’ve always had nosebleeds – it runs in the family – but never a week’s worth. And then there’s been all this other stuff, which anyone who’s read this blog of late will be probably sick to death of hearing about
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Back on the 9th December I reported getting a urinary tract infection as a result of having had a prostate biopsy. And finished up having a catheter put in which I'm still wearing - although it's catheter number two rather than the original.
I got up yesterday morning, felt good, walked to work for the first time in a while (partly due to all the holidays) and then, as the day went on, things got very uncomfortable, with lots of stinging as the catheter affected a certain important male part of my anatomy.
Felt exhausted when I got home, had a bit of a kip, and then later on did the vacuuming. I was going to go in the bath after that, to try and soothe things down below, but then had one of those moments when I just had to pee, and instead of it going down the catheter it came out as normal. (Quite nice feeling, in a way, but not what you want as things stand at present
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Back in September last year I wrote a piece called, Good News on the Prostate Front. It probably should have been entitled, Mostly Good News on the Prostate Front because in fact, even though there's now a test available that's more accurate than the biopsy one that's presently done (and which some of you may have noticed I had to endure recently!), this test is only telling us that there's a possibility of prostate cancer in later life. It doesn't actually tell you how you're going to avoid it.
The test is a genetic one and it identifies five gene markers for hereditary prostate cancer. So far so good. You can get the test done at any stage of your manhood, long before the PSA might be showing up some negative signs.
But then the question is: what next? All this test is telling you is that you may be likely to get prostate cancer. Or not. If you are likely to get it, what can you do about it
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365 Posts dating from December 2006
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