The new neighbours are still rebuilding the garden, after taking all the leylandii trees out and burning them last week , which really annoyed everyone as all the cars in the road were covered in ash. They have now got the fence up, great for us as the trees were umanagable. Woken up again this morning with the digger in the garden and the hammering in the house (new kitchen and bathroon suite going in).

It’s all go.

Today I have been writing all the information to go on the application form to send it in ready for the paper sift which takes place on the 23rd October. If I get through that stage the next hurdle will be classroom tests and interview, then would be a trip to RAF Cranwell for leadership tests and other air obsever tests, if lucky enough to get passed this stage then comes the airbourne navigation excercises and soit goes on one hurdle after another until your accepted for training.

Oh and you also have to pass the fitness test so I’m off for a training run later, I haven’t done any running for many years so its going to  be very hard. I’ll add some more when I am capable of breathing again!!

I had a week on holiday camping in Lincolnshire and when I came back I had an appointment to see the consultant again. He checked my hand and said all was good and then discharged me from his care.

But about a week or so later I started to feel ill, nothing specific just a bit bloated and with quite severe heartburn. I didn’t think much of it but made an appointment to see my doctor for last Friday, 26 June. However the day before that my wife woke me to get ready for work, but she said she thought I should try and see the doctor today rather than wait another day, As she said I had turned yellow!

I got up looked in the mirror and sure enough I had turned into “Homer Simpson” Overnight and my eyes were also very yellow. I was also feeling quite rough. I made an emergency appointment and went to the docs. She examined me and took some blood tests. She thought I might have Gall Stones, and she would arrange for me to have a scan in a week or so.

I wasn’t convinced about the Gall Stones so I read through the information that came with the antibiotics I had been taking a few weeks earlier for my hand, and there it said that in rare cases Augmentin can cause liver problems and it described my symptoms to a T.

As it happens my wife is a nurse working at the hospital where the blood samples were sent, so the next day she was able to check them on the computer. What she found was not good, she spoke to one of the Dr’s she works with and he said “where is your husband now” she said” at home and he said ” well get him into hospital now”

I know nothing about the readings that the blood tests gave, they mean nothing to me but here are a couple of them:- Alk. Phos> normal levels 25-120 Mine was 458. ALT normal level <40 mine was 256.

Once again I was off to hospital. Just there for a day while they gave me a scan, more blood tests and other tests. The conclusion was that I did not have Gall Stones but that the Augmentin I had taken for my hand injury had damaged my Liver.

The Cure? well there isn’t one but apparently it usually clears up in 6 - 8 weeks! So I am now stuck at home looking very yellow. The other symptoms I have are feeling extremely tired and worn out after doing the smallest task but worse than that is the itching, caused by the high levels of some chemical swirling around my body in my blood, it is extremely intense itching from head to toe and all points in between trying to sleep is really difficult because of it.

I have today had yet more blood tests to see if things are starting to improve. I’ll let you know.

Oh by the way the bush that I was trying to move at the start of part one, I have now moved

I got the spade and started to dig the hole to plant it in. Now the “fence” between the border and where I was digging is in fact just a rusty piece of steel mesh, the sort used to reinforce concrete. The ground around here is very hard and stony so digging a hole requires some effort. At one point I swung the spade high in the air intending to slam it hard into the ground, as it came down I felt a searing pain in my hand and instantly jerked it back up again and dropped the spade. Blood was pouring from my hand!

Holding my hand aloft my wife escorted me to the kitchen and a quick look at my hand revealed a hole in my little finger. One of the rusty spikes from the fence had entered my little finge at the middle knuckle and gone down the inside of the back of my hand nearly to my wrist, luckily it had come out the way it went in when I jerked my hand up.

With some risk to my health quite possible we drove to the local hospital A&E dept.

They checked it out and X-rayed it, which revealed that there were still tiny fragments of rust inside my hand, so the plan was to admit me and then to operate the next day to clear out the muck. So off I went up to the ward.

I spent the night with a drip in one arm and being woken at various time to have an injection. In the morning the consultant came around and examined my hand and decided that rather than operate, he would keep me in and treat it with I.V. Antibiotics.

So another day and night in hospital having the anti biotics pumped into me at regular intervals, one of the anti biotics was something call Augmentin, more of that in part 2.

The next day when the consultant examined it the swelling had gone down a bit and he was happy for me to come home with a two week course of the same anti biotics.

Now back at home and off work for a week I kept taking the tablets and soon my hand was much better. After a week I returned to work and all seemed OK, my hand had healed nicely and I had not lost any feeling or movement in it.

End of the story ? Not quite read on in part 2

Well what have I been up to. Quite a lot of work on the website, new detailed graphs page added and a new graphic on the astronomy page showing the current sun position. I have today finished updating the wap page so you can view it on your mobile phone here
point your phone to www.weybourneweather.co.uk/wapindex.php
Many thanks to all at The Weather Watch Forum for all their help, I couldn’t do it with out there help as I know nothing about coding etc, but I am picking up bits and pieces.
I had a week off work on leave didn’t do a lot but recharged my batteries, did a bit of gardening and work on the allotment.
Last Saturday my son had his eighteenth birthday party in the garden. Luckily the weather was quite good but a garden full of drunk teenagers with VERY loud music was not all fun. No complaints from the neighbours so must have been OK.
Work is still not good but must persevere and see if things get better, at least after some leave I feel a bit better about it.
this swine flu looks a bit serious doesn’t it? Have to keep a eye on that.
Well not much more to say, I won’t leave it so long next time.

With the clocks going forward it has been a quiet start to spring.

Did you see the Grand Prix? Great to see another brit winning, about time Jenson Button had a good race and a victory. Looks like this F1 season is going to be a good one and more interesting than recent years.

The weather here has been quite good which always makes me feel better. Spent yesterday washing the car so its now all nice and shiny.

Bye for now

Well it’s been one of those weeks. Things at work are getting worse each day the changes they are making to our job seem to get worse. I don’t want to say too much about what I do but we were spending our time driving around Surrey on the main roads assisting drivers and others who had broken down or had an accident, everything from a minor bump to a full on serious injury accident and worse. It was a great job and you felt you were really achieving something. Now the powers that be say we can no longer cover the county but have to stay in one small area dealing with minor local issues. It’s not the job we applied for, trained for or have been doing for the last few years, we may still be asked to attend the more serious accidents on the major roads but not often. We are so annoyed and frustrated by the lack of consultation or discussion, and the fact that these changes have been forced upon us by senior management who have never even visited us to see what we actually do, that many of us are looking for work elsewhere. In the current economic climate and at my age I really could do without the worry of having to find another job. The new working practice starts next week so will have to wait and see if its as bad as we’re expecting …or worse

Not only have I had to put up with all this but I managed to be so tense about it that I put my back into spasm and had to come home sick.

Well that’s enough of my ranting, must remember to put the clocks forward as its the start of British summer time, and also tomorrow morning sees the first race of the new F1 grand prix season, now that I am looking forward to

Had to go to the airport today to pick daughter and her boyfriend after their holiday in Egypt. They have had a great time and we’ve already been through the 485 photographs she has taken. She especially enjoyed swimming with Dolphins.