6 months since my last post, it’s time to update.
This week I got back the results from my April bone marrow biopsy. There have been no Leukaemia affected blood cells detected since January. But the important tests are the bi monthly bone marrow ones.
At diagnosis 85% of my blood producing stem cells were affected by the mutation which causes my type of Leukaemia. By December it was 3%. Unfortunately, between Liverpool Royal, and Guys, in London, they lost my February sample, so I’m ru
It's 9 weeks today since I was first admitted. I'm feeling much better. Still in Liverpool.,. Treatment going well. Drs pleased.
I've .three more days of chemotherapy before I'm discharged for 2 weeks on 29 November.
Returning to IoM on 2nd December.
Then on 14 December I start phase 2. That is four blocks of 4 weeks chemo twice per week with each block separated by two weeks break. So that's until end May.
The really good news is that apart from 5 days induction to phase 2,
For those who don't know, we're trying to update via Twitter.
https://twitter.com/manxforums
Basically a database table containing all the MF posts ever has fallen into a corrupt state. Due to the size, normal recovery methods aren't having much effect so I'm now looking into dumping the data out and rebuilding it from an extract. Obviously that's quite drastic and it's proper shit-the-bed type stuff as one error and it's all gone. I don't know how current our backups are right now, Uni
After pondering what to call my blog, the revival seemed to be the most apt. I thought of "Bursting with Joy" but that would have seemed a little OTT even if it would appear appropriate to those who have been through the dark days of my life. "Risen from the ashes" was another thought but that reminded me of the Phoenix. The Revival is pretty apt for what is happening to me now; a revival as in the definition "A restoration to use, acceptance, activity, or vigour after a period of obscurity or q
Well here we are back home after Paul has had his op in London. He now looks good, no skull deformity and is feeling good. I have to say that all the years of paying health premiums have paid off. I am ashamed to have not stayed with the NHS, which I support,and believe in passionately, but the care he got privately was really superb.
He has been given the go ahead to fly by end of January, so his ski holiday is on. The Walton skull plate was synthetic, but the London plate is titanium, will
More health worries and silly Spanish stories
Well this is intermittent, but I never meant to make it into a diary. I am surprised at the number who read, especially with my appalling spelling. I promise I do spell check work matters. I just haven’t got an IE spell check configured for the forum posts, that and losing a couple of teeth has given me a slight lisp, which has upset the voice recognition software.
So no I have not applied to be AG or Deemster. Nor do I wish to stand for election i
(Originally written on 02 October 2008)
There I am at Heysham in the Ferry Terminal. God is having a particularly heavy pee on the port at the time. It’s early December 2006 and I’m on my way home.
Heysham Terminal – I wonder why Dante omitted it from his divine comedy – must have been too scary. Actually it’s more Mines of Moria from Lord of the Rings. Dark, damp and full of strange creatures.
The traffic cone is in the middle of the sewage pool designated as the Gentlemens toilet.
Well it has been an eventful 3 months. Paul went to Walton and had his plate fitted. It was a plastic affair, not titanium, so no looking forward to setting off body scanners. In and out in 4 days. I went to Spain and finalised the farm and season prepared the apartments
I got back 30 April.
& days later Paul was at deaths door again, air ambulances to Walton. Infection had set in the plate was rejecting and pressure was building up inside his brain. He lost all co ordination and sta
Well, it's been a long journey for me so far and it isn't over yet, but I am truly beginning to find my way to enjoying my life and not just making the most of it.
I have found it hard to write these past few months as it has been a time of trying to understand my emotions and behaviour of the last year. If anyone had told me that I was behaving irrationally at the time, I would have thought they had lost the plot. I knew that I had done some pretty strange and erratic things like going on s
... this cartoon does a pretty good job of expressing alot of my thoughts about parts of modern life and work.
It involves a strong reaction to it - oh dear NSFW language.
The challenge in life is how to ensure the poetry this world has to offer us outweighs the frustrations life blocks us with ... and an understanding that overcoming those frustrations is partly what creates our poetry. Life aint easy - but that shouldn't surprise us really.
It has been the longest I have been without blogging or editing Toms Blog but now I will give a catch up.
First of all, who wants to read about how someone is struggling over Christmas, the New Year and Birthdays with depression. That was where I was at leading up to Christmas and after, continually dipping. It isn't something people want to read on a blog or perhaps that I want to write in too much detail. One of the effects is a lack of motivation and the blog fell into that category as d
Paul continues to make good progress and to stay dry.
What will I have to blog about indeed.
We have builders in at present, I am taking the opportunity of adding bed rooms and bath room so we will end up with 3 receptions including a more defined dining area,a room downstairs which can be used as either a bedroom as we get older or a reception, with a walk in shower added to the cloaks and upstairs a new office for Paul and 4 large doubles all en suite.
Spain is done but the website
You will be able to tell by the time of my writing that I'm still having difficulty motivating myself in some areas. But my life has continued with enough activity to warrant a blog. I should really do one more often, but there is still no real organisation in my life despite the fact that I am packing into it as many things as I can. A pattern will become apparent as I near the end of this blog and you will understand perhaps what is really going on in the mind of Barbara Glassey. I hope you do
After admission to Nobles and air ambulance transfer to Walton neurological centre on two occasions with ten days, the second under life threatening circumstance, Paul has made a very quick and seemingly full recovery from his three cerebral haemorrhages and two seizures.
I spent the weekend with him. He has had visits from lots of friends and family
He has asked me to thank all of the people who have asked about him, thought about him and prayed about him. I too have had messages of sup
I spent all yesterday with Paul
He has been moved from ITU to a high dependency ward.
He should move on to an ordinary ward Friday or Monday when they stop the blood pressure drugs
He is tired, but cheerful, fully compos mentis, and quickly recovering movement on the left. (he can lift and keep both left arm and leg in air for 30 seconds)
His speech is unaffected.
He is hooked up to all sorts of monitors and on drip lines for drugs and fluids. He is eating normally. His head
not very eloquent, I know
I have commented upon my partners drinking and its effects on me and us from time to time
My last visit to Spain was railroaded by a drunken weekend so i went alone, nothing memorable apart from 36 hours storm tossed in the Bay of Biscay and I will post about that another time.
The Farm is finished, I have paid rates and I have a permanent electricity connection. The booking web site is in beta phase and we are nearly all go
The drinking got really out o
I can't think of a suitable title so yes, I have used Toms naming convention. I have had to try and make time for myself to do this blog again. I still seem to be running around quite a lot and not spending much quiet time at home, except in the evening and by then I am quite tired and its Orry time. That isn't a good time to be bashing away on a computer keyboard as I could lose most of the keys in seconds. He is very quick to nick a key and it sometimes takes an age to clip it back on. My retu
Life still continues to be one of continual challenges, albeit brought on by myself. Just after my last blog I decided to have a gathering. Toms friend Tony has sisters living in Manchester and every time they came on holiday to the Island, we always put on a buffet and invited friends around. I did this a week last Saturday for Tony's sister Joyce and her partner. I was very nervous to be honest and I wasn't sure how I would stand up to having friends around without Tom here. I was determined t
To everyone who keeps uptodate with my blog I have to apologise for the erratic entries you have been getting of late. I'm afraid it is still down to the same old thing - the grieving process and how I am handling it. Just when I feel I have weathered the worst and feel I am starting to get on with things, back it comes to slap me down. In my last blog I told how October was the month Tom and I started going out together. It was also a month we came to love. A lot of people feel depressed when t
Yes, it has actually come to me earlier than I had Originally intended, but I have now taken early retirement. People ask me how do I feel and I would have to say that I'm not sorry to be saying goodbye to that area of my life. I'm actually trying hard to stop smiling like a Cheshire cat. I started work at 15 and until Tom became sick, I have been employed in all that time. The sad part of retirement is that Tom and I spoke about it almost on a daily basis. When we retire we will go to America
Just back from Spain
we now have the bolletin and the cedulla, nearly there.
Of course nothing goes smoothly, both the water and electricity have decided I need a new metre and that the electricity will need to be under grounded from the nearest sub station, 100 yards away, for which I will have to pay, water wants to re route the supply so it is in the road rather than under my garden.
We shall see how long that takes.
The place is really super, just one problem we have develope
You wouldn't believe how many times in the last 2 weeks that I have been going to write a blog and just haven't seemed to find the time or too tired to do it. I have been doing a little sailing, socialising, walking etc and will attempt to remember the main things that have occupied me.
I have discovered yachting as opposed to motor boat sailing and have found it an entirely different experience altogether. Toms friend Michael has taken me out on his yacht the Raven which is a gaff rigged boat
We are enjoying some lovely weather here at the moment and I for one have been making the most of it. I have spent the last week trying gradually to regain my strength and walking is one of the area's I have had to work on. On Toms Birthday I never got to the cemetery as that was the last of our very bad days which was wet and very windy. I was a little tearful that day and played a little recorder he used for messages to himself. Some people wouldn't cope with the sound of a loved ones voice wh
