MEDICAL MATTERS

[PanBiker]

All the best for a speedy recovery Stanley, new Summer topic is ready for your daily observations when you are back fighting fit.

[Stanley]

It's been a long and boring night! Only problem I have is neck ache with keeping my head bent forward.... They get you one way or another! Listened to a lot of poetry and nodded off a couple of times, looking forward to a proper sleep today!

[David Whipp]

Morning Stanley.

How have you got on?

Owt you need doing today?

[Tizer]

Well done, Stanley, mission completed and it's time now for R&R, but plenty of the first R and not too much of the last R!

[Cathy]

Thinking of you Stanley, hope things are getting better. Will soon be a memory...

[Stanley]

Thanks to all of you. Thanks for the offer David.... but no pressing needs at the moment. Here's the update I sent the Kids this morning....

Mick was dead on time yesterday and I had the dressing off, eye cleaned up, and saw an immediate alteration/improvement. I have hardly any vision at the moment and what I have is rather like one of those annoying moments on TV when the director uses swirling graphics to replace an in focus shot but the black orange peel is no more. As the day progressed this improved slowly.
Saw the doctor and she said it was all OK except for a small rise in pressure in my right eye which is common. They induce glaucoma in effect to press the retina back in place and this has to be monitored and controlled. I have a third set of eye drops for this. I say I have them but Mick had to go off on a trawl of the country to find a pharmacy that was open....
Picked a delighted Jack up and then home. Worked out a timetable for my three different eye drops and settled down to normal life! Watched a bit of TV and in bed at 22:00 to fall into instant blissful sleep.
Eye crusted up this morning but I had boiled some water last night and used that to clean up. I am comfortable now and ready for the next eye drops! I had to write a timetable to keep track of which one when.... My eye is only half full of fluid at the moment and this means that when I look straight forwards I am seeing through the junction between the fluid and the gas. If I look straight down and get that off the lens I can see better, vague shapes, I can see separate fingers on my hand!
Overall I am delighted. Nowhere near vision yet but it is a wonderful improvement already and I have great hopes. Am being very careful with all the care instructions. No signs of anything untoward and I shall have a walk with Jack very soon. By the way, no discomfort (they don't talk about pain these days, it is called discomfort!) so no pain killers but I have my pracetemol if any ache comes back. Wonderful how one pill will work if you are not used to them, I never use them now. Oh, and back storm is completely gone! All told it's a minor miracle.
Best thing of the lot was being able to lie down and sleep last night.... Small things....

Love XXX

[Nolic]

Keep up the good progress Comrade. Well done. Nolic

[Stanley]

Thanks Comrade. I am very pleased with progress, definitely signs of improvement and it's very early days. A miracle!
Mick was singing your praises yesterday, you have at least one dedicated fan.....

[LizG]

Welcome back Stanley; very glad to hear things are improving so quickly. I'd tell you not to overdo things but I'm not sure how you overdo looking!

[Cathy]

Stanley you will be back to double fighter pilot vision before you know it. Well done!

[Marilyn]

Ah...he will still be quite "one-eyed" about some topics, Cazza...

I was expecting to hear you were experiencing nausea, Stanley. Often when things go wrong with our eyes or ears, there is some degree of it.

[Stanley]

None of that Maz. I'm not looking for double fighter pilot, just small and slow improvement. They tell me it can be spread over months... Had an interesting conversation with Margaret's husband Mick in Perth yesterday. He has macular degeneration and also has injections into his eye but the difference is that much of his vision is clear. He told me that when they do an injection he can see the tip of the needle and the fluid coming out of it, a bit like the swirl you get when gin mixes with tonic! Time for another of my battery of eye drops!

[Stanley]

All going well I think.... I had mail from my mate Bob Bliss in St Louis telling me that he had an argument with a lawyer who told him that the majority of people in the UK were desperate to get out of the NHS. I told him to direct the man to this LINK which is a recent study by a US think tank demonstrating that out of 11 Western countries surveyed, the NHS was the cheapest and most cost-effective health system. The US system was rated the worst of the 11 on the same criteria. God bless the Labour government of 1945!!

[Stanley]

Appointment for check on progress at Ward Six on Friday at 09:30. St Susan lined up and will pick me up at the top of the street at 09:00. Wonderful support!

[Stanley]

Scrubbed up, optimistic and ready to go....

[Moh]

Just back from caravan so caught up with this - glad things went OK with your op. Stanley. Mr David did my second cataract, a nice man we had quite a laugh. Just one more week of drops for my eye now, it becomes a way of life..

[Stanley]

Eye drops as a way of life.... Dead right Moh! Three lots for me this time and I had to write a timetable to keep me on track. Drops after cataract ops were Maxitrol four times a day for 3 weeks. This time it is four weeks and one other lot twice a day for two weeks. The third lot were for pressure in the eye and only used for three days.
Glad you are nearly at the end of your course and that all is well. The eye doctor told me she didn't want to see me for six weeks yesterday so all is well. No guarantees of course and they tell you all the terrible things that can go wrong! However I see signs of improvement and have some vision back. It will be perhaps six months until they eye settles down.... No problems with that, I can function and it's a miracle!

[David Whipp]

The eye doctor told me she didn't want to see me for six weeks yesterday so all is well.

Good to know Stanley.

[Moh]

I go to the eye clinic on the 4th July for my post op. assessment to see Mrs Mohan who did the first eye. Hopefully that will be the end of it although last time the nurse mentioned laser treatment to improve the left eye even more.

[Stanley]

Good news Moh and I am so pleased for you. It';s like a new lease of life isn't it!
I have a little story for you which demonstrates how dim I can be at times. I noted that the water level in my eye was falling which was wrong because the theory is that the eye gradually absorbs the gas and replaces it with new fluid. It dawned on me last night that my thinking was wrong, everything you see in the eye is reversed, left is right and up is down inside the eye. So what I had noted was the gas level dropping, not the fluid! This is good news because there is no vision through the gas. What I am seeing is gradual restoration of normal sight and it is definitely OK. Only downside is that the powerful eye drops which keep the pupil dilated and flatten the lens to aid the recovery process distort what vision I have but I can stop using them next Friday. All is looking well and by Wednesday 9 July when Susan and I go for our luxury day on the Fellsman things will be much nearer normal... (I got mail from the Fellsman people yesterday that our tickets and timetable are in first class post so that's all right!)

[Marilyn]

Yes, you want to be ticketty-boo for that, Stanley.
Does it start at Ingleton? Stayed in a holiday cottage at Ingleton last September, as it was a central place to chase ancestors from...lots of family recorded from round there...some worked the kilns in the old potteries and clay pits.
Nice spot.

[Stanley]

Starts from Lancaster and goes over the Settle Carlisle line to Carlisle. Susan and I will be boarding at Blackburn and alighting at Appleby to take the vintage coach ride and the lake steamer on Ullswater. Full breakfast on the way up and dinner on the way back.

[Sue]

Hope all continues to improve Stanley.

I had to chuckle about the reference to ear problems. I had labyrinthitis last week whilst I was away. All praise to the Cumbrian health service who got a Dr to phone me and faxed a prescription to the local ASDA store for me to pick up. He even got someone to phone me with directions to the store. Once I had the prescription I found contraindications with my medicine for restless leg syndrome. Thus I phoned my own GP on Monday who also phoned me back. Thankyou Dr Threlfall. Problems resolved I proceeded with my Art workshop week. The first four days were awful. I felt like I was on a merry go round at full speed and the ground was spinning. I had severe nausea and kept falling over. I think the people at Holehird Gardens in Windermere thought I was drunk. Many thanks also to the volunteer staff there who contacted the emergency service on my behalf. By Thursday I just had mild nausea. Today I have stopped the tablets and so far so good. What a week for it to happen, the week plus accommodation had cost me over £350. Also next Monday we fly to Venice. I haven't asked if I can, I don't want to be told NO!.

[Stanley]

Ah, this is a bit like the man in 'Three Men in a Boat' who read a medical dictionary to while away a wet afternoon and found he had all the complaints except Housemaid's Knee! I get that sometimes but nowhere near as bad as you and olive oil in the ear and drinking plenty of water seems to cure it. Sounds nasty!
Off to the chemist's today to get another bottle of Maxitrol eye drops. (Steroid and antibiotic four times a day). The hospital only gave me one bottle even though they knew I would need two. I suppose they are saving money on their budget.
Just out of curiosity I looked the price up, £2 at a UK online pharmacy and same drops on Amazon as a pet medicine for £13. Good job I'm not a dog..... So, if your dog has a bad eye, go to the online pharmacy!
Eye progresses well. The gas bubble is shrinking fast. Am drinking lots of water!
I got mail from my friend Ken Sansome who is a doctor at the Mayo Clinic. He was responding to the news of my detached retina. In the message he asked me not to remind him about the US medical system because it embarrasses him. And over here we have people proposing that we go over to a similar system....

[Sue]

Nice to hear you are out and about.

I am afraid olive oil won't do anything for the inner ear where the semi circular canals are located that control balance and body position. Nothing can be done except relieving the intense nausea.