a view through my own eyes

Yesterday saw the return trip to the consultant.

The cornea is inflammed on the exterior layers and is starting to dry out, this apparently is a sign of attempted rejection. The good news is that the interior layers are fine and if they were having issues then things would be more of a concern.

So for now I am steroids to deal with the inflammation every two hours, steroid ointment for at night so I can get six hours sleep (hurrah) and tear substitute drops to help lubricate and rehydrate the eye, these are taken any time it starts to hurt.

It hurts, it hurts probably more than when I had the operation.

For the first time I am starting to worry about it, before and after the op I did not worry as it was a gift of the highest order. Now though I am used to being able to see with my left eye and I really do not want to lose that vision.

I know that things have to get much worse before George is written off but this is the first step on that route and I do not like it one bit.

Anyhow the consultant thinks that the drops should sort matters out and I have to go back and see him in three weeks.

Fingers crossed eh.

There is an episode in Battlestar Galactica (possibly the first), where they are being followed by Cylons. When the fleet does a hyperspace jump they have something like 37 minutes to rest before the Cyclons appear at which point they do another jump and the countdown clock is reset to 37 minutes. After a few days of this the crew are starting to feel ragged and tempers start to fray.

Over the weekend I noticed that my focussing was a tad iffy and that George was starting to ache. At first I put it down to tiredness as I had had the benefit of a few late nights more than I should whilst working on essays for my course. By Monday I had ensured that I had had a couple of really good nights sleep and if anything the eye was getting worse and that bright light was a bigger irritant than usual.

So I phoned the consultant’s secretary as hers is a number which I have been given for anything that could be regarded as an ‘oh shit’ moment. After a couple of calls back and forth and some waiting around I am advised that the consultant is not going to be able to see me but I should head over to the eye unit at Ashford where they will be able to see me.

Getting there I am seen by the registrar who works for the consultant that I see – which is good as I have seen her before and so I have faith and trust in her. She and a junior colleague take a good look, and when I say a good look I mean that between them they spend the best part of half an hour looking around the layers of my eye from the optic nerve at the back through to the new cornea on the front.

Eventually I am given some eye drops – not a prescription – the drops – to save time. I am told that there is definate inflammation in the eye, that the cornea does not appear to be rejecting yet and that I will be seeing the consultant and the registrar on Thursday afternoon as they will make an appointment for me. That if the pain gets any worse to phone the eye unit at Ashford on the directly number that they just gave me and to get it looked at. In the meantime avoid bright light and rest – as apparently I will need it.

Several things about the above struck me as odd: 1. that they spent so long looking in the eye, 2. they gave me the eye drops and not a prescription, 3. that I have an instant appointment made for me on Thursday, 4. that I am not told to wait if it gets worse, that I have to get in contact straight away (subject to normal working hours)

Should I be worried and concerned? Is that a tautology? I don’t know and probably but I really cannot be bothered to look in the OED.

Anyway back to BSG – the drops that I have been issued with (steroids and antibiotics) have to go in fairly frequently – every hour day and night for three days. So my phone having a countdown timer counts down an hour and a klaxon sounds – so far it has been loud enough to wake me up – should I have managed to actually get any sleep. I restart the countdown and bung some eyedrops in.

At the moment I am starting to feel shattered and disoriented. I am struggling to concentrate on anything in particular and my chess playing (against my ageing 1983 model – this was a 50pence bargain at a jumblesale a couple of years back – and is the identical model to the one I had in my early teens) chess computer is almost as appauling at the computer (my better one died when we moved house as the board was crushed – new one has been ordered) itself. Fortunately I am still quite relaxed about this, though I have pondered placing the klaxon sounding phone up Ariel’s arse as she keeps bloody meowing at me.

Mrspao helpfully pointed out that if I could look at a screen for such an extended period (I cannot do much more than 20mins without needing a reasonable rest at the moment) then I would be in an ideal position to watch an entire series of 24 in realtime.

Yesterday mrspao and I spent a day in Lodnod.

On the suggestion of Stotty relating to a possible jaunt to Bournemouth later in the year (where there will be an airshow and restricted expensive parking), I splashed out twenty quid on a network railcard.

You have to bear in mind that I had no idea that you can get a network railcard for off peak discounts – mainly since I have never been eligible for a student one or too old for a young persons card. So I have been fairly ignorant about these matters – which is a shame as mrspao and I go to London for a day out a few times a year on average.

Anyway – twenty smackeroos later and I can get a third off tickets in the south east area – which covers a fair chunk of the country tbh AND take up to three adults with me and get the same discount for them as well.

So yesterday’s rail tickets with underground and bus zones 1-4 instead of being 23 each were instead 15 (with rounding), so a saving of 16. Which off one trip means I am effectively 4 pounds down. But since we are going to London again next week as well – it will have already paid for itself inside a week and I won’t care if I do not need to use the card again for the year.

If I do go to Bournemouth later in the year – it looks like I can get a £15 saving on the rail fare – so win win!

Bargain.

As a side note, at the Canterbury stations there are posters saying “Go to the London Dungeon” or “Have an exciting day in the capital” etc, when you get to London at the stations there are posters saying “Go to Kent, the countryside of London”!

• we went to the University despite taking a day off work, as mrspao had a two hour seminar to go to.
• we had a cooked breakfast
• I got a couple of DVDs and books and a card – thanks mrspao
• we had high tea at Mama Feelgood’s
• we bought some nice stuff for dinner
• we had to buy some cat food, as the order from the intermaweb had not arrived
• I arrived home to find an email saying that there is a rather large parcel at work waiting for me
• we went to the vet’s with Merlin
• who has been diagnosed with cancer

The stupid thing about this, is that understandably mrspao and I are somewhat upset. Merlin does not care, he does not understand and is not in pain; as long as he gets fed, watered and tickled behind the ears he is happy.

But as soon as he does start to suffer with this, I know what has to be done as I will not have him in pain out of my own vanity.

At work there is a cafe/bar for the cinema/theatre that it is part of. In recent months they have started opening earlier in the mornings and doing breakfast. Which is great if you get to work early and hungry or just don’t care if you are late because you are hungry.

Their baps though have been somewhat variable.

The bacon bap, contained a rasher of bacon, no butter and looked like it had been chewed open by a rabid dog.

The second bacon bap, contained a rasher of bacon, butter and was neatly sliced open.

Similar can be said for the sausage bap with the added bonus of the sausage being sliced down the middle from time to time so to fill the bap.

Today when ordering a sausage and bacon bap, as the title says I hit the motherlode.

A neatly sliced and buttered bap, with get this: two sausages and two rashers of bacon.

I won’t need to eat again until we go to Mama Feelgood’s (not on the web – sorry) this afternoon.

Set in 2027 this is the first part of Robinson’s three stories of California – each set at different times with different themes.

In this one Orange County is entirely built over, buildings on buildings with freeways over freeways.

Jim is an angry young man, angry at the world in general, angry at what has happened to OC and angry at his dysfunctional relationship with his father. Eventually he ends up getting in with industrial terrorists who specialise in targeting the defense industry. Jim’s father however works in the defense industry.

KRS specialises in eco-thrillers and this is one portrait of how he envisages Orange County to be in the future, it comes across as a very angry book – clearly KRS is targeting the defense industry as the root of all evil. But also he targets bigotry and greed, this is mostly illustrated through the asides where he gives us a history of OC from the days of the native indians, the colonisation of America by the Europeans and eventually how he sees the future – these sections are fascinating as they provide relief and contrast to the ‘current’ concrete OC.

The book is however a victim of its time, written in the late 1980s (I do not have it to hand) – it continually mentions compact disks, video tape and other common technology found at the time of writing – which for a sci fi author could possibly be regarded as a cardinal sin. However I will let KRS off this one – as the book was such a good read.

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Oh – and no more leisure reading for me for a week or two as I am heading into essay mode and have the pleasure of digesting tomes on the Great War for one essay and tomes on Christopher Hill and other stuff for another essay that I am still vaguely figuring out.

Mrspao after the 24 marathon a week or two ago, announced that we would not be watching season 6 until Easter weekend.

I concurred as we both have work to do and although we do not watch much television, 24 is umm addictive.

A few days later mrspao announced that she had ordered season 6 as it was sillycheap online and that she would be locking it in her desk drawer until Easter.

This seemed reasonable to me.

Yesterday mrspao let slip that Jack Bauer was being held hostage in the boot of our car.

Gahhhrrrhhgghhjjjk!

Mrspao has however come up with a cunning plan to ensure that we do not spend the next few evenings sprawled out on the sofas, mug of tea in hand, going goggle eyed watching 24.

drum roll.

West Wing

drip..
I went to use the loo in the wee hours of the morning, only to discover a cat had previously been there on the floor where my foot was placed.

drip..
The washer jets on the car decided to block – I noticed just when we were leaving on a two hour drive to a wedding, when I was suited and booted and running a tad late.

drip..
At the wedding I was advised not to take photographs in the church ‘for copyright reasons’ despite everyone else being allowed to take photographs.

drip..
I read the instructions for an essay I have to produce, decided what I was going to do. At that point and only at that point did I discover a third page of instructions with a ‘sample example of a topic’, the ‘sample’ was only what I was planning to do. Guess who ordered a couple of books from Amazon to help with this essay?

drip..
I ordered a roast beef on white sandwich for lunch, get home and unwrap a pork on brown sandwich.

drip..
I went to the garage to get a can of baked beans for dinner to go with the sausages and potatoes, brought back beans and sausages, so returned to the garage and came back with a can of beans. Guess which can I opened?

drip..
My work email address appears to have been hijacked by spammers (again) so I have a never ending stream of mail delivery failures where the mail has not delivered, as well as a few ‘stop spamming me you bastard’ emails from people who do not appreciate the niceties of collateral spam.

For some reason I appear to be suffering from a complete sense of humour failure.