Sunday 12th April 2009

Ok, ok, I know it's April and not March really - just testing!

I had my GP appointment last Monday, and had no problems getting the repeat prescriptions, even for the Ondansetron. Actually, he even gave me another anti-emetic in addition to the others. Some of you may have heard of Stematil as it is often used for sea sickness.

I'm now on three anti-emetics three times a day, plus the Ondansetron for when I need it. Unfortunately, I am still suffering from fairly regular bouts of nausea and have had to resort to the Ondansetron on more than one occasion.

I had a long chat with the dietician, and she thought there may be a lactose-intolerance issue going on, as the milk-based supplements have been such a big cause of the problems. Since last week I have been trying the powder mixes with both lactose-free and soya milks. So far no real noticeable difference - I've still had both nausea and diarrhoea on a number of occasions which is a shame. It would have been nice if we could have pinpointed the root cause as this is still holding me back from full recovery at the moment.

Overall, it's been an up and down week. I've had a couple of days where I've spent quite a lot of time in bed because I've not felt so good, but I've also had quite a few good periods. I've managed to be quite productive with work on the odd occasion, and I have taken the step of committing to a speaking engagement in London in early June. This is a two day event, and ideally I will be able to do both days, but I do have the contingency of just going down and back in a day for my speaking slot, or even handing the slot over to Andy T if absolutely necessary. I'm really determined to make it though, and I'm focusing on this as a target.

I also have a gig with the band next Friday, which will be my most ambitious foray out of the house since the operation. It's quite local (North Manchester), so it shouldn't be too much of a strain. I will have to plan to take easily consumable food with me, plus all my myriad drugs to ensure all is ok. I'm actually very confident that I will be ok (the show must go on and all that jazz), but I want it not just to go ok, but be a really good evening. Again, I see this as a step forward, so I want it to go well so that I can see it as progress. Unfortunately I won't be using the new bass, as I play a 5-string with this band and the new one is a 4-string, so it will be a little while yet before it gets its live debut!

I'm starting to push myself just a little bit with some exercise. I'm not ready to go back to the gym just yet, but I want to start getting relatively active. Today has been a beautiful day here, so I've been outside pressure washing the decking. I did it in about 4 separate sessions so as not to take too much out of myself, and when I did finally complete it I had a long lie down on the sofa, but I have completed it and I feel ok which is another step forward.

My gym membership which I put on hold for three months re-activates at the end of this month, and hopefully by then I will feel up to going along and doing some basic walking on the treadmill, or even some light swimming or something like that. I don't think I look too emaciated at the moment (in fact I probably look more "normal" than I have for a while having dropped a lot of "drinking fat"), but I'm definitely conscious that my muscles have wasted a bit, so I do want to get back into some basic exercise as soon as possible.

Ross next door put me onto a Discovery channel series about a bloke building a car from scratch. He chose to build a Westfield, which is somewhat different from the car of my ambitions, but its a good series to watch to highlight some of the pitfalls of such a project. I'm still very keen to go ahead, although it will probably be a Winter project, so I'm probably looking at the start of next year as a practical time. This also gives me the required "cooling off" period during which I either firm up my resolve to take on the project, or come to my senses and go out and buy a Mondeo! Bets anyone?

Anyway, time to go - for some unknown reason I've got quite addicted to watching the golf on telly! I really can't stand golf as a sport, but every now and then it captures my attention on the telly. The opposite of cricket really, which I always enjoyed playing as a kid, but cannot bear watching either live or on telly (except from the front of a pub on a village green with a Sunday pint in my hand, but even then I'd rather just have the pint and forget about the cricket!)

Too-de-loo,

Colin.