DVT DAYS 170, 171 & 172

It’s been a while. It’s a combination of business and a certain reluctance due to this being a period of time when lots of anniversaries of my illness are coming around. This has been prompted by our current correspondence with the financial Ombudsman as we argue over the issues related to my time in Jamaica back in March 2019. I also notice that not many people are looking at the blog, but as it was only meant for friends and family that’s okay. I guess most of the odd people that dropped in occasionally will have got bored with the humdrum nature of my daily life, with or without the cancer element to it.

On Tuesday of this week I took off and went to have coffee, lunch and conversation with a friend at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP). It was my first “long haul” drive and my first trip on my own to see someone outside the family. I was quite nervous about driving a reasonable distance, not because I did not think I could but just the time since I had done it. I think this is part of my institutionalisation and one of the reasons for my determination to get out in the world again and try and do ”normal” things rather than retreat to my shed as a first response to getting up in the morning. I need to know how the world functions at the moment in its new COVID form so that I can understand where there are new risks for me as a person who was told I had to Shield due to my vulnerability. That’s another part of my institutionalisation, the internalising of being “vulnerable” and as a consequence dependant on others for my safety. That does not sit well with me and I need to l know what the reality is. My basic view is I have a life limiting illness and I am not going to spend that time cowering in a corner, I intend to live it as fully and as well as I can. It sounds cold but it forces me to prioritise what is important and what is dross and to be discarded.

Any way I drove up the M1 and found that I was being very law abiding and pootling along at 70mph and negotiating the traffic and the rain well. It felt good to get into the car and settle into it again, although I was aware of tension on my neck as I concentrated on getting everything right. I also had to think twice about some of the controls for the “toys” on the car as I had not used them for a while, but it soon came back to me. On arriving at YSP the first encounter with COVID was my using an electronic ticket on my phone to get entrance. One thing that has increased during lock down is the number of Apps on my phone. The attendant scrutinised my phone ticket and waved on to the new one way system. I met my friend in the car park and we went off to have coffee in the upstairs restaurant. There was a one way system and a socially distanced queuing system for the toilets. The same one way system and queuing rules applied to get coffee and food. There were of course plastic partitions up at the counters and the staff all wore masks. In fact I also wore my lion face covering. We got coffee and moved into the dining area where the tables had been thinned and were far apart. It was strangely sparse with attendants in mask hovering with table cleanser. The tables slowly filled with a whole range of people and families with very small children who looked a bit odd in their “small people” face masks. We talked for a long time, interrupted only by bacon sandwiches and more coffee. It was a real pleasure to talk about the world and to hear about this COVID world from another view point than my own family. It was also good to talk about the effects of COVID living and compare the experiences of dealing with the restrictions as they had effected both our families. We took a walk around some of the grounds that are strewn with sculptures of all sorts of shapes, sizes and impact. The grounds are breath taking and incorporate a large lake that can be walked around, along which sculptures are studded.

We returned to the restaurant for afternoon drinks and a snack and watched as the rain poured down across the park. The experience of being out in the country was immensely relaxing and freeing, it made realise how confining lock own had really been and reinforced my sense that I needed to be getting out and about and doing the normal things again. I also realised that the world will be this new sanitised version but that it is doable. It also reinforced the knowledge that maintaining friendships and being able to exchange ideas, experiences and observations is vital to keeping reasonable, rational and thinking. We left as the restaurant was emptying and the attendants were spraying and cleaning everything, using the hand sanitiser as we left. Saying farewell I started the drive home in quite persistent rain. I was still a bit anxious about the drive but as the rain stopped and settled into the old routines of driving I found I relaxed back in my seat and enjoyed the last leg of the journey.

Home and I had time to reflect on eh new COVID world and the fact that everyone else in the world seem to be just getting on with it with some or little adjustments. I recalled a virologist on TV commenting that the incidence of COVID virus I the population is generally low except in those areas where there is a spike. My experience of YSP would seem to support this in terms of the way most people are responding to it. So I settled into and evening of Heroes and with a long to do list for Wednesday.

Wednesday arrived and I set about my long to do list. First was another trip out to buy a Hippo bag in which to dispose of the fence that was to be taken down later in the day. Our local B&Q provided the need bag and I returned home to start on the various tasks of the day. I have decided to sell the Wolf, my Suzuki Jimny, I can no longer justify keeping a second car, the garage full and the expenditure for the very few miles that I drive it for.

Having got it through its MOT on Monday now is the time for it to go, so I did the “We Buy Any Car” valuation on my phone and found they were offering a couple of hundred more than they did pre MOT. An offer too good to refuse, so I booked an appointment for Friday. If I sell it on Friday I avoid a full years tax and insurance, which is a lot of taxis or hire car days. Feeling efficient after this I moved onto finding a stained glass repair service and sent them photos of our front door with its damaged circular glass panel and asked if the work can be done. I await a response, I suspect it may be too boring or too small to whet anyone’s appetite and we will resort to more stick tape, plastic sheeting.

By the time it came to the open forum that I attend on a Wednesday I had dealt with some work e-mails and was looking forward to a good discussion. It never happened, Icould no tget in on the lonk and I heard later that no one turned up. As the rest of the world gets on with life there is no need for a forum to talk about getting back to normal and dealing with COVID, people are, so they do not need a forum any more That’s my view an I think I am probably right. I will see if anyone turns up to the one I host on Thursdays. I hope they do for a little while yet as I enjoy hearing the experiences from around the country in the various services that are represented.

My afternoon was one of grunt and carry as our gardener, Dan, turned up with his chain saw and equipment to take down the back fence in the garden. I unfurled the Hippo bag and acted as labourer. I humped the bits of chainsawed fence to the Hippobag set up in front of the front hedge of the house while Dan sliced though the panels and reclaimed the posts that were worth saving.

Good old fashioned manual labour that works up a sweat and makes you feel you have achieved something when the job is done and done well. As the neighbours over the back have put up brand new fences I have no need to put a new fence up so the back end of my garden now look really good thanks to their new fences. Sometimes life smiles.

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So as the sun shone I felt pleased with the decision and the outcome and was ready to watch more Heros during the evening. I am beginning to wish Heros was at an end as I find I am not reading at the moment and I want to finish Girl, Woman, Other. I note that there are another two series to go when I do get to the end of this first series of Heros, I might have ot pace myself.

Thursday starts with a phone call from the hospital to check on my DVT. A socially skilled doctor chatted for 12.5 minutes about my DVT and medication, in contrast to my oncologist who could not get off the phone fast enough. We discussed how Iwas and agreed to reduce my apixaban to a prophylactic dose for the next six months and if all goes well he will sign me off but keep me on the prophylactic dose for the foreseeable future as my cancer is a precipitating factor in DVTs. I came away happy. So here I am writing the blog when I am not tired and trying to get back to what it was intended for. I think part of my abruptness of entry has mostly been due to tiredness but also the re-stimulation of al the Jamaica stuff and what followed. My phone is a running history and as I have had to refer to it a lot in order to frame a response to the Ombudsman I have found myself siting with a lot of memories I thought I had moved on from. At the moment I am combining the philosophical saying that life is not a problem to solve but a reality to be experienced with my view that yesterday has gone, today is to be experienced and tomorrow is what I make it. Having these memories re-stimulated is a nuisance and makes experiencing today a little more tricky, however I have an open forum to host soon and Wolf to prepare for tomorrow, not to mention a training session to do.