the drugs don't work

i'm getting very tired at the moment. i suppose you could say that the drugs aren't working - yet. although i've started on a new immunosuppressant it takes two to three months to fully work, which makes sense as that was how long it took for me to get really ill when i came off the last lot of immunosuppressants in december. also, in an attempt to build up tolerance, i started on a lower dose and increased it the other week.
combined with the drug taking, i am also rather busy. both at work and socially. last weekend was the royal cornwall show which matthew was heavily involved in and i went along for the friday afternoon and saturday. all great fun but also very tiring. the last two weeks i have also had some evening commtitments for work, which do make a very long day. although i take the time back, it isn't always immediate.
this tiredness has also led to a slight increase in the pleuritic pain that i am still experiencing and i struggle with hills and long flights of stairs. as was highlighted at a meeting on monday night where i parked at the bottom of the valley and had to walk up a flight of stairs to the house near the top. i arrived very breathless, much to the shock of the host! fortunately it didn't take too long to recover.
so all in all i am tired.
fortunately i'm off on holiday!! at long last, it seemed like ages ago that we booked the time off, but it is nearly upon us. we will be spending the first week in bath, and have booked some time at the new bath spa - i am so looking forward to it. only two days to go...

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the good life

matthew and i have been undertaking some gardening recently. we are not quite tom and barbara in the good life, but we now have some veg growing. in the past i have been known to grow a few veggies in pots and when epping forest district council gave us all wheelie bins i took the opportunity to convert my old dustbin into a potato bin. however the last two summers have both involved moving house, so there was no veg growing.

back in april i sowed some seeds - tomato, beans and carrots. we also planted some potatoes in the bin, i did protest that it was a bit early, but my friendly live-in farmer told me that they were already planting them in the fields! my friendly live-in farmer then refused to let the seeds germinate in the house as the compost was manure based and would therefore smell, so they had to make do with the garage. the carrots were the first to sprout, eventually followed by the tomatoes. the beans however refused point blank to show any sign of growth. then disaster overtook the carrot seedlings as they proceeded to die off one by one.


last week i visited my local country store, aka cornwall farmers, bought some bean plants and grow bags and then had an evening of potting up. we had also in the meantime acquire a pepper and a chilli plant.


so now we have two pots of beans, seven tomato plants (half cherry toms and half normal toms), a chilli plant, a pepper plant, a dustbin of potatoes and 1 carrot. yep. 1 carrot! maybe i should plant some more seedlings, but i am not sure that they would fare much better next time around. the strawberry plants that i already had have survived the winter and are already flowering and setting strawberries, so for a garden that has no flowerbed we are doing quite well. we are experimenting with a new watering system seen at a friends house, using wine bottles - will let you know how that goes, but since installing them it has done nothing but rain!


i am reasonably confident that we will be eating some of this in the next couple of months and if you live in cornwall you may even get to taste some yourself! the next hurdle the plants will have to survive is our two week holiday starting next weekend... i will of course keep you updated.

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why?!?

health update

i saw my rheumatologist last week. it was a late appointment 5.30pm, which meant that it was gone 6 before i actually had my consulation. the blood test result has come back from bristol and tells us that i shouldn't reacte to the immunosuppressant that he wants to put me on now, though there is concern that in the past my white cell count has been very low. so i am to start it on a low dose and work my way up to a full dose over a couple of months.

in the meantime he agreed with me on my choice to stick at 15mg of steroid as i was still getting 'pleural pains', this was echoed in my recent blood test results which showed slightly raised inflammation levels.

i am to go back in two months, i was suspecting that this might be 6 months if my two week follow up from being discharged was anything to go by, however the appointment has already come through for July.

on other health related issues, i am still visiting the gp surgery for warfarin tests, which have been a bit all over the place - not sure why. however the aquarium now has fish in it!! and there are some tasteful landscape pictures on the walls. still not entirely sure about having to listen to the radio while you wait, but so far i'm not having to wait too long. the other big bonus about the new surgery is that there is generally just one person on reception and the other staff are in the office behind. in the old surgery the receptionist was in the office behind a glass screen in the corridor and it used to really wind me up when you were trying to tell the staff you had arrived or to make an appointment and they would continue talking to the other staff in the office rather than deal with you. now they can't!