Having surgery

Used car prices didn't go up in Canada. There's just less used cars for sale. No one could afford car insurance before Covid-19 and Powell giving money to everyone who didn't need it and this is the reason new car prices barely budged and used car prices didn't increase. No one in Canada got money that didn't need it unlike in America where even babies got 500 dollars.

NCOT...apologies for the above rant.

it seems you've worked out all the issues in a most beneficial way. The possibility of working at home would be a great option.
I can understand the fear of not being able to get access to meds or supplies...I would think being well stocked would ease some of that fear. Sure worked for toilet paper 🙄

q

@quincy - No problem! I've given up trying to make sense of Nicky's post. He/she says Powell gave money to everyone who didn't need it, then in the next sentence says that no one in Canada got money who didn't need it. Eh?

Here in the UK we've got less used cars for sale AND prices have gone up. My local Skoda dealership told me that they only had around 12 used cars in stock whereas normally they'd have around 50. And the starting price point for a used Skoda was £10k. On top of that our fuel is really expensive. Insurance, I dunno about. Mine is quite cheap but I've - touchwood - managed to build up a 10 year no claims bonus. Road tax costs me more than my car insurance now.

I had a toilet stockpile for Brexit Wasn't necessary in the end, but even with a deal and a limited implementation of Brexit - some things have been deferred - we are still struggling with getting supplies into the country and finding enough drivers to deliver them. The UK seems to be in permanent crisis mode now.

Anyway, I'm a bit anxious about getting to hospital on Tuesday morning. Some areas have seen long tailbacks due to petrol queues, so I don't know how long to give the journey. Google Maps is giving me normal journey times, but not sure how much I trust that. Besides, if the petrol stations get deliveries overnight it could be a different story by the morning.

PS: Quincy - How did you get your nice yellow icon?

Good luck at your pre-op appointment tomorrow.

NCOT and OH...thank you 🤗
I use the emoticons from my tablet or phone. So much more expressive 🤓...until it's nixed.

q

@Old Hat - I'm so sorry, I missed your post! You must have posted while I was still typing my previous post >_>.

@island time - Ooh, a new thing for me to google! Thanks for the suggestion - I'll look into that.

@ks - Is it possible to earn enough to make a living that way? I just had a quick look at proofreaders offering their services on Fiverr. I won't name her, but one woman managed to get glowing praise and an average rating of 4.8 despite several punctuation mistakes in her profile, including a glaringly obvious (to me) misuse of "it's." My English is not perfect by any means, but hell, I can do better than this bint.

Another thing I have considered is technical writing, but it looks like you need a degree for that. It's not completely out of the question, but I would need to be pretty certain of being able to get a job at the end of it for that much time and money. IT is another possibility, but I would need to narrow the field down considerably - IT on its own is too vague :/

@Quincy - Ah okay. Unfortunately I am a dedicated laptop user ;p I do look at the internet on my phone, but I find typing long posts on it to be bit of a nightmare.

@iPoop - Thanks! Fortunately I have a trustworthy garage that I've been going to for years. I'm going to take my car there soon and ask them what needs doing and how much it will cost to fix. It passed its MOT this year but with several advisories. Even at the time the garage warned me the car would need major work next year. It's the brakes I'm most worried about, as they were one of the things which came up in the advisories.

...
Anyway, I went to my pre-op health checkup yesterday. I had blood tests and an ECG, saw four different people, and got so much paperwork they gave me my own folder to take it away with. No problems, except for the loud radio playing one dire song after another in the corridor - even the adverts were better by comparison and I hate ads. Eventually I asked the receptionist if I could sit in another area. She was very sweet about it and kept her promise of coming to get me. So yeah, I think I'm healthy and not about to keel over from a heart attack, but I didn't get much feedback.

They went into a lot of detail about the Enhanced Recovery Programme. I remember this from my last surgery in 2015, but they've added a lot of new stuff since then. For example, they give you prophylactic antibiotics the day before surgery, then on the day of surgery itself they give you gabapentin. You also have to drink carbohydrate drinks beforehand (unless you're diabetic, which I'm not). Another new thing is chewing gum! You're expected to bring in your own chewing gum and chew on it for 20 minutes four times a day. The idea is to stimulate your bowels to start working again. I don't like chewing gum, but if it helps avoid another ileus I will chew on that s**t 24/7.

An ileus is bowel paralysis and I had one for 9-10 days after my last surgery. It was genuine hell. I was nauseous night and day - never got a respite from the nausea. I had zero appetite for food or liquid - the tiny bits I tried to force down I vomited back up. It was scary how quickly I weakened. I'm not normally one for completely losing my appetite: even if I lose my appetite for food, I can always drink something. This time I couldn't even face water or tea. In a week I lost a stone (14lb). Good crash diet, but not one I can really recommend from personal experience.

In the end the only reason I got out of there - the hospital wouldn't let me go until I started eating - was because I made myself eat two slices of toast and marmite every morning. After 3 days of that I was much better, but to this day I still hate marmite.

Oh by the way, the operation will take 5 hours. I was kind of surprised at the length :/ Anyway because of that I was told it will almost certainly be a morning surgery. I also still don't have a date, annoyingly. In the past I would have the pre-op checkup about a week before surgery, but they've changed the system and now the preop checkup is done before the patient is given a date for surgery. I was given an explanation and the explanation amounts to this: they were finding that so many people were physically unfit for surgery they had to cancel too many operations. Okay, fair enough, but now I'm left in limbo not knowing when the hell my surgery will be. It could be next week, it could be six months from now. To be fair, the person I moaned to about it was sympathetic and suggested I call to find out where I am on the waiting list. I will do that, but not yet: I need more time to digest the implications of surgery first. I couldn't sleep last night for worrying about it.

Phew. Sorry for another wall of text, folks. I did try to break it up into smaller walls. And now, I will stop typing and shut up

NCOT,
It sounds like your visit went well--even if you didn't get a date for the surgery. 5 hours, that doesn't seem too long. My last surgery was about 6 to 7. Stay hydrated so they can find your veins for the happy juice. Did the new instructions let you know how long the average hospital stay will be after surgery? Chewing gum seemed to help me this last surgery. I could keep broth down. The previous one I was sick for 3 days,,, and I didn't chew any gum. On the car front, I agree with the others. If you can save for the repairs and hold off if possible.

Store shelves being semi empty.... I know someone who lives in northern Illinois and they stated the shelves are alittle sparse when they go in, and that when they order they receive about half of their items as the rest is out of stock. It's been that way around Texas, New Mexico and Colorado for me. 🙀

Please keep us updated. Your in my thoughts and prayers!
Clo

You know who didn't get CERB...the disabled; those who actually need it; like me! (But you already know what i'm doing to fix that NCOT!)

I'm glad you're moving forward with surgery, though I completely understand the trepidation. The struggle is real. You have a lot of people rooting for you. I have your email...I think...to ease a part of your anxiety...if you need ostomy products or are running low - I'll express post some to you. Rest easy on that front my friend.

NiceCupOfTea said...


@ks - Is it possible to earn enough to make a living that way? I just had a quick look at proofreaders offering their services on Fiverr. I won't name her, but one woman managed to get glowing praise and an average rating of 4.8 despite several punctuation mistakes in her profile, including a glaringly obvious (to me) misuse of "it's." My English is not perfect by any means, but hell, I can do better than this bint.

Upwork is definitely the premier site. Fiverr is on the lower end of the spectrum and there are lot of subpar products on there for less money.

There is a whole industry and theories on how to maximize your earnings on Upwork & Fiverr. You write well so you could easily earn $30 an hour. Some of the experienced writers charge over $100 an hour but they have a long history of reviews and they've built up a client base and have a solid reputation. The real goal is to get the clients and move them outside of the upwork platform (so upwork doesn't take a commission from your work) - so their advertised life-time earnings are just a percentage of what they earn with their work outside of Upwork. You can probably watch some youtube videos on how to find work on Upwork (take them with a grain of salt, they are mostly marketers making those videos).

I hire people on Upwork for help with my computers, networking computers, and configuring my phone system at work. All things that I could probably do myself but it takes time and I'd rather pay someone who is more qualified and does the stuff on a regular basis.

Scary about the ECG. Hope it was a fluke and the next one is ok.

Hello folks.

My GP surgery delayed my ECG by a few days, which was annoying, but finally got it done today! The nurse wasn't qualified to analyse the results, but she did tell me it looked much the same as the first one. So whatever was wrong the first time presumably hasn't gone away :/ A copy of my results will go to my GP and to the hospital, so I'll wait a few days for them to analyse it then call them if nobody calls me in the meantime.

Oh yeah, and I'm being threatened with court by my block of flats' parking company, lol. As though this year hasn't sucked hard enough, it needs to suck a bit more. I've always parked in my allocated space, but occasionally the permit has slipped down the dashboard with only the top of it visible. I appealed the first time this happened, but the parking company rejected it and I couldn't be arsed appealing subsequent tickets. I even got a ticket at the beginning of this year that I had forgotten about - apparently I had put the permit in the wrong way round after trying to straighten the edges of their crappy quality paper permits. (I've since solved that problem at least by the amazingly ingenious solution of stuffing brown paper in the permit holder.)

Anyway so yeah, eventually the debt collection letters turned into something more serious and I couldn't ignore it any longer, as this particular parking company has form for shady behaviour (it used to be a clamping company and the only reason it still isn't clamping cars is because it was made illegal in 2012). I'm hoping they'll just drop it rather than take me to court for a relatively measly £160, but if they don't, I'm prepared to fight. I've already asked them for a SAR (Subject Access Request - a data request basically) and let their solicitors know.

So yeah, that's been my week basically >.> At least next Monday should be nice, as I'll be going to see my friend. Even though it's technically South London where she lives, it's amazingly green and pleasant if you just pretend the high street doesn't exist and go in the exact opposite direction. There's a lovely little wood, a massive park, and a farm which is open to the public.

Edit: Maybe I shouldn't have gone on about my parking woes. Sorry guys. Just ignore it.

Post Edited (NiceCupOfTea) : 10/21/2021 4:35:38 PM (GMT-6)

Hi ks.

Nothing to report I'm afraid :-/ Haven't heard back from the GP surgery or hospital, so I sent an email to my IBD team on Wednesday. No reply from them yet. Unfortunately coming into winter with rising Covid cases is probably the worst time to be chasing this, but nothing I can do about that. I just want to find out what's happening, if my heart is okay, and if I'm still on for surgery.