Monday 30th October

So today I drove myself to clinic at the QE.

I always find this a little odd when I have to go on my own. As much as I love the QE, it also makes me feel a bit weird and scared for a while when I go back there. I guess it’s just bringing back many many memories 😖 And you never really know what the doctor is going to say to you ..

I went for a bit of a walk around outside when I first got there, I needed to plan and measure a route for when I come here to walk my 1000th mile 👣

I went and sat in the restaurant to have my coffee and cake 🍰 I was lucky enough to get a seat over by the big windows, which is where we used to go and spend some time when I was eventually allowed to get off of the ward for a little while.

Watching everyone walking around and sitting about outside made we want to go walking again so off I went! It was such a lovely day 🌤

Then it was time for my appointment with Professor Hirschfield. Everything seemed to be fine 🙂 No changes to my medication needed. Just go away and keep on doing what I’m doing basically! It seems to be working. Come back in a few months.

My bloods were taken and then off I went.

I spent the evening baby fish spotting! I have briefly said before that Leah now has some tropical fish in a tank in her bedroom. She has gradually been adding to her collection and she has quite a few different ones. Well now she has many more! She discovered some tiny tiny babies were swimming about the tank. These need to be removed and kept separate in a smaller section of the tank as the other fish would just eat them apparently. The more we looked the more we could see. There were loads 🐠🐟🐡 Leah was trying to quickly scoop them up in her net but they moved so fast. It was quite amusing.

I must just mention that I received a letter today telling me that I was a finalist for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Best in Care Awards in the category ‘QEHB Charity Supporter of the Year’ and that I was invited to attend the Awards Ceremony in November. Guess I need to get my posh frock out! 👗

Monday 23rd to Sunday 29th October

A trip to an indoor trampolining park with Robyn and my two nieces’ children Tia, Freya and Oliver. Followed by lunch at Frankie & Benny’s.

A trip to Yarnton Nurseries Garden Centre where I bought some fish, 5 x Rummy Nose Tetra! A bit of a long story but Leah had now set up her spare small fish tank in the dining room and I was allowed to choose some fish for it! 😀

I unexpectedly had my flu jab 💉 ouch 😩 A lovely sore arm for work the next day, just what you need when you work on the checkouts.

The rest of the various times during the week were spent working, volunteering and walking.

Later in the week Robyn discovered that two of my fish were dead 😱☹️ They didn’t last long!

The weekend was a visit to the new Westgate shopping centre in Oxford (which I walked around with a very painful calf muscle). I was quite amazed at how big it was and how different to before. I do think it may be rather cold there, a bit of a wind tunnel in places, as not all of it is undercover. But it won’t matter to me as I don’t think I will be visiting there too regularly anyway. Unfortunately I just don’t have the spare money to spend in the kind of shops that are there.

And an evening spent at Open Mic night at the Blue Boar in town. You could say that some of the singers were more fun to listen to than others!

Here’s an amazing story for you to read. Good luck to the couple🤞

Just to let you know that on Thursday I tore my calf muscle 😩

So the walking is not continuing right now 😰

Just to let you know that on Sunday I walked my 1000th mile! 😃

But the walking continues 👣 …

Tuesday 17th to Sunday 22nd October

Went to work as usual, but I had to leave early on Wednesday as I still wasn’t feeling brilliant.

My new phone arrived through the post. But as usual nothing is straight forward! When Leah was helping me to set it up we discovered that the SIM card from my old phone did not fit into the new one. Back on the phone to EE, the man apologised and said it was their mistake. Would I be able to get to a phone shop where I would be able to pick the correct one up?

As I was going into the JR Hospital to volunteer this week, Leah had a look on the EE store locator map and apparently there was a shop marked as being nearby. I don’t ever remember seeing a phone shop there and when I asked a couple of people they both said there were no phone shops in Headington. But as I usually go for a walk about after volunteering anyway I decided to combine the two and go and have a look. There was no phone shop!

So I decided to drive into Witney, got stuck in loads of traffic – but I managed to get the SIM card.

After eventually setting the phone up, the next problem was the phone case! The back cover fitted fine but the front glass cover to protect the screen wouldn’t fit 😏

Oh my goodness 😖 How am I going to take it out and about with me? I’m bound to drop it …

At the weekend there was an evening out with my brother George and his friend to celebrate my brother’s birthday, my nephew Dave and Alice had recently got engaged so they were out celebrating, Robyn was out with her friend too. It turned out to be quite an enjoyable evening.

Look at this cyclist’s route! I have thought about trying to make one of my walks look like something on my tracker, but I think this lovely face would take some beating.

Another thing to have a look at is this marmite and cheese muffin recipe. These sound as if they would be rather delicious 😋 

Friday 13th to Monday 16th October

For the first time in a while I wasn’t feeling well 🤒 I was feeling sick at times, a bit of a funny dizzy head, aching body, that kind of stuff.

I still went to work Friday. I went out at the weekend, wandered around Oxford on the Saturday. Felt a little better on the Sunday, went to the garden centre and fish shop in Bicester, went out for a meal which was 😋, then went to another local pub where there turned out to be a music quiz going on which actually was a bit of fun 🎵🎶

I went out for lunch with a couple of my Co-op colleagues on Monday. This was the day of the red sky phenomenon which was caused by Hurricane Ophelia. It really was extremely odd looking and a bit eerie. It did look like the world was about to end.

This weird atmosphere must have done something to me because I actually ordered my new phone! something I have been putting off for SO long.

Then I went for a nice sunny autumn evening walk with Robyn.

‘A consultant liver transplant surgeon explains the procedure‘ – click on the blue link to have a read of this article I recently came across (it just happens to be one of the surgeons that actually did my second transplant!) This took me back and got me thinking when I read this – basically a couple of years ago I was just led asleep on a table in an operating theatre in Birmingham with a big cut in the middle of my body and lots of medical people working on my insides in many different ways trying to just keep me alive 😱 
The whole procedure sounds pretty complicated doesn’t it? I’m glad that there are some very clever people about! Quite amazing really …

Sunday 1st to Thursday 12th October

And so it continues – working and walking! With not much excitement in between!!

The odd bit of sorting out at home, still checking and deleting photos to free up memory on my phone (which also needs doing on my iPad now 😏), odd jobs in the garden to try and sort it ready for winter, sorting out and cleaning the freezer, the list goes on!

I discovered that I have done over 900 miles in my walking challenge now … I’m getting there!

Have a look at this 👀 Here’s 15 reasons why walking is the healthiest way to exercise. Remember it also is completely free and you get to see some lovely natural things like this 🙂

A lovely sunset 🌅 and a squirrel 🐿 playing in the autumn sunshine.

Why don’t you start thinking about challenging yourself to #walk1000miles next year?

Saturday 16th to Saturday 30th September

The last two weeks of September were just as bad as the first two! There were some difficult times going on at home. And I was just SO extremely tired all the time, maybe the extra stress wasn’t helping me 😩 

I do find that now I’m regularly doing these extra hours at work every week I do get so very tired. I don’t think I have mentioned that a while ago I sent off letters from both my GP and my consultant supporting my claim to the Department for Work & Pensions, but they still came back to me saying that they would not change their decision 😏 So extra tired is now what I will always be!!!

I had to really talk myself into going on some of my walks during this time and then they seemed to be a little shorter, I just didn’t have the energy.

Of course there were some good times.

I had a couple of good volunteering visits.

And it was my niece Hannah’s 21st birthday. A cold and murky Monday morning and she decided that she wanted to go and do this 😳

So off we all went. Despite it being absolutely freezing cold the first time you got in the lake (it literally took your breath away) we very soon warmed up when we started to clamber about on the inflatable, it was quite hard work pulling yourself up onto things.

Tiring but fun 🤣 

We had all worked up an appetite and were looking forward to going out for our nice birthday lunch!

And look at the amazing birthday cake we also all tucked into later in the afternoon.

Hope you enjoyed your 21st birthday Han. I did!!!

And then on the very last day of September, while Leah was having a shower, the water decided to pour through the ceiling into the downstairs toilet (running down the walls and flooding the floor) onto the fuse box and so stopping all the electrics from working! We later found out that it may have been caused by some gravel causing a blockage, from when she was cleaning out her fish tank earlier 😖

Thank goodness September is now over 👋

Monday 11th to Friday 15th September

Walking and working is how I spent my week! I had unexpectedly ended up walking 5 miles on Monday while out with Robyn so had developed sore feet from having the wrong shoes and socks on. My big toe was also now hurting SO badly again. The rest of the week’s walking hurt, my poor feet 😩

Then on Thursday I found myself in this situation again –

but thankfully it was just a day visit. Time to have a hysteroscopy, biopsy and coil fitted. This was to see how my womb was looking, to take a sample to check there were no nasty changes in the cells and to hopefully sort out the heavy bleeding problem.

I had decided to be brave and just have a local anaesthetic for the procedures. But I was so scared beforehand. It was an even scarier moment for me when I was wheeled into the little room before the operating theatre, and then the doors opened … 😱 I remember that I kept telling myself to just keep calm and that I could do this. I think it was bringing back many memories from February 2015.

Once I was in there and the theatre staff and doctors started talking to me it became very slightly easier. They were so good and explained everything to me as it was happening. I even watched the camera on the screen. But I was glad when it was all over and nothing appeared to have gone wrong this time.

I was at work at 8.00am the next morning, which I guess wasn’t really the best idea. I really didn’t feel too great and when I got home I just spent the rest of the afternoon asleep 😴 

Sunday 10th September

On the second Sunday of each September it is International PBC Day.

The aim is to encourage ‘Movement as Medicine’

So I went climbing ‘the mound’ at Oxford Castle 

which was then followed by a walk around the city, passing the Radcliffe Camera

2.98 miles in total 🙂