Ohmisterporter

Brought Kath home today. With blood pressure and blood sugar under control there was no point them keeping her in a hospital bed until the op on 3rd April. Mainly because being in there was driving her mad, with visiting hours from one until eight every afternoon seven days a week. Imagine being in a room with five other elderly ladies all of whom seem to be hard of hearing so their visitors have to speak loudly. For seven hours. At home Kath can get some quality sleep and be waited on hand and foot (cough).

As always, stay safe all.

Bit of a disappointment today. I was expecting Kath to come home today but despite blood pressure being under control following a change of tablets she has to stay in for now. The reason? The consultant has gone on holiday. Presumably for a week. If she has to stay in until then it may be next Monday before he gives her the ok to leave. On Tuesday Kath has to go back in for her operation on Wednesday. So unless another doctor has the authority to send her home she will effectively be a bed blocker for a week. 

Stay safe all.    

Kitchen ceiling done for now, it took longer than expected; don't they always. Ten minutes to get everything covered, thirty minutes to rub down, two hours to clean up; every time I turned round I seemed to disturb another pile of dust. An hour painting two mist coats, the first was a bit too watery. Remove the sheets and clean up. Step on part full tray of paint and spread it across the floor. Oh dear, my own daft fault, at least I think that is what I told myself. Ninety minutes cleaning up. Have a bath.

Kath may be coming home tomorrow so the place has to look just as she left it. Have you heard of The Wrath of Khan? It's child's play compared to the Wrath of Kath. 

Stay safe all.

With Kath still in hospital I have a chance to get on with some diy that would otherwise have been difficult to work around. Today I can tackle the kitchen ceiling that we had re-plastered. For some reason the plasterer finished it off with a smooth, glass-like surface that will not take paint until it has been sanded down. You can probably imagine the mess that will create. Memo to self:- wear eye protection. Must crack on so stay safe all.

Latest blood pressure test on Kath was 175/145 which is a worry seeing that the tablets were increased from five tablets three times a day to seven. There is talk about raising this to eight three times a day. I looked online at the price of phenoxybenzamine 10mg and they varied from £65.75 to £129.21 per box. If these are prices to the NHS I cannot see what justifies one supplier being double the price of the other. Off to have baked potato with tuna for a late lunch.

Stay safe all.

Dropped Kath at the hospital yesterday for her operation that was planned for this morning. Unfortunately her blood pressure was 203 which is far too high to go ahead with the op. So the phenoxybenzamine blood pressure lowering tablets have been increased to eighteen a day, up from fifteen. Apparently they can go up to ten tablets three times a day. With thirty tablets in a box I wonder how much a box costs? There is a lot of knocking of the NHS and fair enough waiting nineteen hours on a chair in A&E, lying on a bed in a corridor, not been given food because someone forgot to ask the new patient what they wanted for dinner, not checking a diabetic's blood sugar level until she went hypo, all of which happened to Kath in hospital can be considered negatives. But there are a lot of positives as well. "Free at the point of use" being the main one.

So I have at least the weekend to myself to do some shopping, cleaning, cooking (nothing fancy), washing  and changing bedding; in short all the usual jobs that seemingly cannot be done without supervision. I may also add some reading, telly watching, and diy that had to be postponed because I was in the way. Anyway, it may all work out right in the end.

Stay safe all.

Came home from Newcastle RVI after pre-op discussion for Kath and, it being around tea time, decided to stop at MacDonald's in Hexham for a burger. Not being a regular at these places I was expecting more than we got. Do you remember when kids would put an old penny on rails to see how flat an engine would make it? Well that practice is still going strong but using burgers instead of pennies. Combined with a tasteless bun, a cheese slice of unknown variety, slice of gherkin or similar, and ketchup, it was something to be eaten as a last resort; which it was at the time. The toilets were clean though.

Stay safe all.

7 hours ago, polybear said:

 

Does traceability make something safer?  In many individual cases I suspect not, though it does make it easier to identify who to blame in the event of an accident; it also makes it easier to identify where other components (such as a batch of dodgy bolts) may have been used.

 

 

 

In my experience the person held to blame when things went wrong was the inspector who signed it off. For some companies that was the sole purpose of employing inspectors/QA/QC. We were told that to our faces when l worked at a nuclear power station and everybody except the inspectors got a pay rise. We were a necessary evil and a drain on the company; until something went wrong. Such as when pipe fitter who was supposed to install part of a high pressure steam line used a length of mild steel handrail intended for a staircase because it was about the right diameter and save him and him mate a walk down to the store compound. It was that slight difference in diameter that gave the game away to the inspector; just slightly smaller than the adjoining pipe. Did the inspector get a pat on the back for spotting it? Like hell I did.

I was sometimes asked "What is the difference between Quality Assurance and Quality Control?" Simply put you Assure quality by Controlling it.

The farmer who usually has sheep or cattle in the field behind our house has turfed them out and was busy muck spreading this morning. I looked out about an hour after he had finished and there were around two hundred gulls in the field, busily feeding. I like to think the manure had brought worms and beetles to the surface. On the plus side I have never had the urge to eat any kind of gull. On the minus side there have been some dodgy chicken curries. 

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My wife is just getting off to sleep after a tough day. Went to RVI at Newcastle for her weekly appointment with the doctor doing her operation and it looks like the op will be in two weeks time, maybe. Whilst there, Kath began to feel unwell and tested her blood sugar level. It was 2.6 which if you are not diabetic and checking your blood sugar is very low requiring urgent treatment. Fortunately, after eating some sugary food like jelly babies further tests showed a reading of 6.5 which is closer to the norm. We were at the hospital pharmacy to collect some tablets at the time. Unfortunately they did not have said tablets and did not know when they could get some more. This echoed the story they gave last week, and just as last week they said they would deliver them to our home address. Last week's shortfall never arrived so we are not optimistic for further deliveries.

On the way home we were passing our GP surgery and had our prescriptions to pick up from the dispensary there. Kath went in to collect them and the old biddy who serves at the counter asked if she was stockpiling them. This happens regularly when OB is serving, never when her younger colleagues serve us. As you may imagine, Kath was not in the mood for this and after giving OB a telling off came out without said tablets. As I was about to drive away the dispensary manager came running up to the car asking what had happened. An explanation of events took place, which further added to Kath's distress and we left with a promise that the manager would sort things out and she would phone us at home. This proved fortunate as while Kath was going through the list of tablets she needs it turned out the pharmacy was still giving her tablets that were no longer needed and had not upgraded quantities and strength of others. Hopefully all will be well when we go back to collect them. 

Sorry this has turned into a bit of a rant but I wanted to get if off my chest.

Stay safe all.

My paternal grandfather served in the Canadian army from 1914 to 1919. On discharge he, along with most others,  was offered land for settlement; I think it was forty acres but can't be sure. It would have meant emigrating there but there was no way his wife would go to foreign parts, particularly with two young boys to bring up. He had gone to Canada with his brother prior to 1914 to look for work and joined up when war broke out. Once nana Phoebe had him back in her clutches there was no chance of him getting off the hook again. 

Mention of childhood games with toy guns and the hatred of the former enemies at the time reminded me of a game we played called "Commandos and Japs " in which I, being the smallest, was always the Jap. So I was shot, blown up in imaginative ways, set upon by tigers, and generally dispatched for sheer fun. I quickly learned to improvise spectacular falls, trips, and Buster Keaton ear spins that at least earned a laugh and a cheer. I kept in touch with some of the gang; we all ended up with Japanese motorbikes, cars, and game players. Made by their newer generation and bought by our newer generation.

Stay safe all.

Fingers crossed I seem to have accidentally cured my chromebook of its intermittent working. No idea how I did it; the fault disappeared as mysteriously as it arrived. Now working for more than two minutes at a time.

Took Kath to the hospital this morning. Things going more or less as expected and the operation may happen in two or three weeks time. Meanwhile, increase the numbers of some tablets and stop taking others. Kath is now taking twenty three tablets a day plus two insulin shots. It will all work out right though. Meantime, stay safe all.