Monkeying Around

We had a huge stash of bedding to take to Monkey World.  The boot was full, despite me having pressed everything to make it as flat and neat as possible.

We intended to go in Spring, on a pleasant day.   However, it was half term, Miss Teen was staying for a few days,  and we asked if she wanted to go.  

We went yesterday.

It was dry (hooray) and it was a bright cold day when we started.  By the time we got an hour down the motorway it was dry but very grey.  

We left the stuff in the car and went into the park.  We thought it best to have a look round and then come back to the car later, when the queues were quieter, to drop off the mountain of bedding.   

There were few monkeys and apes to be seen, they weren't stupid.  It was cold out.   They'd all been moved out of their bedrooms so the bedrooms could be cleaned, but they hadn't come outside (and couldn't be seen from outside) so actually we saw very few individuals while we were there.

It was full of excited children.  It was lovely to see them all having such a good time, but reminded me that, for us, going out of school holidays would have been much more comfortable.

We managed to recreate a couple of the photos we took last time we were there with Miss Teen, nearly 6 years ago.

We had lunch in the cafe, then drive the car up to the entrance so we could unload the bedding.  DH had to stay with the car while Miss Teen and I lugged and lugged stuff.  I had one huge box and I'd put a load in that, but it was so heavy the two of us could barely manage.

In the end it was all done.    We decided we would go home rather than going back into the park.

Miss Teen fell asleep on the way home, so that was another photo recreated :-)

 

 

Hear, Hear

Back in December 2023 I had a throat infection, and on the evening of 2nd January 2024  I suddenly lost the hearing in one ear.  I literally felt it go.   

Afterwards, it felt like my ear was waiting to pop.  I kept trying, without success. I assumed it would pop overnight, but it didn't.    I used the NHS website, which suggested a few things, none of which worked.I continued to try for days, until I eventually asked for a GP appointment.  By the time the appointment came it was over 3 weeks since it happened.

  I didn't see the GP, it was another practitioner.  I told him that I'd felt my hearing go, it went suddenly.  He told me to get one of those balloons (Otovent), and to come back in a week if it didn't help and they would make an ENT appointment.

I bought the balloon thing, I used it frequently.  I tried all the other exercises as well.    After a week of no success, I made a follow up appointment and asked for a referral to ENT.

The referral came through fairly quickly, it was something like 20th February.  It turned out it was too late to help, and the ENT chap said it was likely that my loss (degradation rather than complete loss) was now permanent.    I should have had steroids within the first 6 weeks, which would have improved my chances of my hearing being restored.

I was having problems with my sinuses,which was interfering with my CPAP.  

During the last year I've had a lot of tinnitus, to varying degrees.  The sinus issues come and go.

I also found early on that massaging a very particular spot on my ear brought my hearing back  for a very short time, sometimes less than a minute. I press the pad of my index finger very firmly on the spot indicated in my photo,  closing up that little channel, and massage firmly in circles.
 
If I'm lucky, for a few seconds I can hear much more clearly, before it goes away again.  

The other day, someone posted that they had tried using a sinus rinse and it had cured their tinnitus.         I didn't hold out much hope, but I thought it was worth a try, while I am throwing everything and the kitchen sink at my issues.   

I had a go the first time - what a weird sensation it was!   My nose felt quite perky afterwards, but my tinnitus was unaffected, and my sinuses weren't any happier.  Five days later, I decided to have another go.  I knew what to expect this time, and once again my nose seemed happier but no other changes.    I actually had a craving to do it a second time the same day, but I resisted.   

This morning when I woke up, I could hear the voices on the radio more clearly than normal.  I thought perhaps DH had turned up the volume.  Then I realised that I could hear "behind me" (which is the bit of hearing that I have lost).     My tinnitus was also very low (or gone?).

It didn't last. Four hours later, the sensation has dulled, and my tinnitus is back (at a low level at the moment) 

It was lovely while it lasted.

I'll try another rinse later on today.

 

 

 

 

 

Prides and Fall

I've been doing really well (well, "well" relatively speaking).  Until I wasn't.

On the "doing well" side,  I'd managed to organise a burst of spring fever into some substantial cleaning, always a good sign as it's not my favourite job.    I'd also been faffing around with the diary stuff, and the fact that I was even vaguely interested in it was a good sign. I'm actually well down the rabbit hole on that one. In a good way,

I'd also had the urge to put some window film on the french doors at the back of the house.   I'd thought about this several times over the last six months, but hadn't even managed to drum up the energy to go and look.  This time I looked,  I photographedopy pasted,  I considered, and I ordered.     

Not only that,  but I went through the faff of measuring and cutting the film exactly in half,  AND following the instrcutions on preparation exactly.    This involved dusting (and using my little blower), cleaning, washing, and dusting again the glass before I even thought about trying to apply the film.

I managed to apply the film,  I got the pattern perfectly aligned,  and the whole process went swimmingly. 

I even quite like the end result (although I do miss having an unobstructed view).

Miss T came round for dinner, and thought we'd had new doors put in.

And I'd managed to find and wash the other Kefir jar I have, and separate my grains s I;'m now growing 2 lots of water kefir (with tyhe intention of having enough spare grains to create Kefir Fermented Vegetables).

My back, walthough still a disaster when I sleep on it,  was much improved during the day. Something from the "kitchen sink" attempt is obviously working.     My stomach acid is lurking, but I've managed to deal with it without resorting to a proton pump inhibitor tablet for two weeks now, which is amazing.

I have been craving milk, so I guess my calcium is being activated.

I'd even had another burst of selling stuff.

I even decided to ask for empty soda stream cylinders so I could send back 4 empties (I'm at the end of an annual plan, and we haven't used as many as we have in previous years).   I went out to collect them this afternoon. 

And the fall?

I managed to completely miss my hair appointment!  

I feel very bad about it as I visit a lady who does hairdressing from home.  She only does it a few days a week, which makes my tuirning up even worse.   My Dad was self employed, and I know how derailing this sort of thing can be,

I was completely honest with her, and told her that I had completely forgotten about it until the alarm went off while I was walkig round the Co-op.    My hairdresser was lovely about it.

 

 

VFX

I went to let the Girls out this morning and Olly, one of the Araucana, was missing.  I checked the nestbox, and she was in there trying to lay an egg.  An egg was in there too, presumably from yesterday (there hadn't been any the day before that).

 It's been so long since we had eggs that I did the egg dance all the way to the house. I wantred to tell DH that he egg drought was over. 

I got a bit of paper and wrote V F X in huge letters on it.   I then turned it over and wrote 
S, V F X on the other side.

DH wandered downstairs and I held up the first side. .  He read the letters and looked at me blankly.  I turned the paper over, and he read out the letters.  Still blank.

I got another piece of paper and scrawled
V U N E X ?
on it.  He said "vunex", and I started to laugh and told him to read out the letters.  Still no dropped penny,

I hadn't expected this, and I chuckled.

I wrote
F U N E M ?
on another piece of paper ("funem?"  " no read the letters!).  

I couldn't stop laughing as I wrote 
S V F M

Then
F U M N X ?

Then
S, V F M N X

And then it clicked for him.

Gotta love the Two Ronnies

 

Ugh

After a lot of close investigation, studying many many photographs, I ordered a 2025 page a day A5 diary from Amazon.    It arrived today.

 

I don't like it.

 

I'm rolling my eyes here.    I spent ages studying the pictures, ruling out lots of variants.  This one seemed like it would be good, but it just isn't.  It doesn't feel right. 

 

I pressed on,  moving the remaining items from my to-do list on to the pages.   The stuff that I need to do, but don't need to start yet, I put on the monthly overview page.  The stuff that I need to do on a particular day (like some stuff I have to do next time I am at my Mum's house, I put on that day ).  I resisted the temptation to transcribe all my previous todo (and now, mostly, done lists).

 

The principle is still sound, but the diary itself just isn't.  

 

I didn't go for a supercheap one (which, ironically, might have been better), and that might be part of the issue.    I don't like the paper.  I don't like the cover. I don't like the binding,  I don't like that Saturday and Sunday are on one page (that one is my fault,  I had been excluding those and this one slipped through).

I am aware of how ridiculously whiny this sounds. 

I can see that I am going to end up designing, printing and binding my own.

 

I wanted to get one for my Mum so we can try and work out what is triggering her COPD. Ths one isn't suitable for her at all.

 

...

 

Eventually, I found one I thought might work for my Mum.  I went for a week to a view in the end.  I bought a similar one for myself, and I'll try that tomorrow before  considering again printing my own. 

 

At least diaries are cheap, when the year has already started.

 

 

 

What a To Do!

I've always loved technology, and have been an early adopter since I was able to buy my own things.

I moved to using electronic "to do" lists, and I love tools like "Keep Notes" which let me use access the same list from all my devices.      I use "keep Notes" for my freezer inventory,   for my "buy again" and "don't buy" lists for wine/coffee/tea and numerous other comestibles,  for the same reason.

Recently, however, I started to use a paper based to do list again.    I suspect it was a procrastination thing really,   writing out the lists helped me avoid having to do actually action any of the tasks.      

I was a t a bit of a low ebb, and my usual self motivation techniques weren't working.   I wrote things down to stop them buzzing around my brain, and so I could organise them and - maybe - commit to doing some of them.

It was surprisibngly effective.  I'd forgotten just how good the endorphins made me feel when I highlighted an item to show that it was "done".   I found myself adding undocumented items to the list, just so I could have the satisfaction of seeing how much I was achieving.

I stopped doing it when I started to feel better, and I found that my personal productivity plummeted.    I started again, and the volume of my tasks soared.

I've been using an A5 notebook, which is working OK.     I've had to organise it so that my longer term "To Dos" need to be on a separate page to the quick things.     

I've decided I'm going to continue with it, and to help me track those tasks that just don't get done,  I'm going to use an A5 page a day diary.  That way I can see when I first added a task.

My life is so rock and roll.

What happened in Week3 (PPI or not to PPI)

I can't believe I'm already starting week4 (Tue 4th Feb)

This is a look back at week 3

Last week, I had to take a PPI on Tuesday.  Now that I know they interfere with absorption, I really wanted to find an alternative.  I read that slippery elm bark is good at actually repairing gut lining, so I ordered some of that which arrived on Friday.

I was away at my parents house for a couple of days. I'd taken some of my own Water Kefir, but I hadn't taken the cider vinegar (Mother Root), nor the Tibico Kefir, nor any fermented veg.    I was home on Friday, and I could feel stomach acid rising.  I was disappointed because it was only a couple of days since I'd taken a PPI.

The slippery elm bark had arrived while I was away, so I decided to take one.  I was surprised that it seemed to help with the acid, so I chugged some Mother Root and some Tibico Water Kefir as well, and decided to see if I could last another day before taking the PPI.

I was still aware of acid in my stomach the next day, so I took the slippery elm again, and the Mother Root, and it stayed manageable.     It's now Tuesday, so it's been a week since my last PPI.   My stomach acid isn't completely settled, but I'm still holding out on taking a PPI.   If I have to take one, I'd prefer to take it in the middle of the day, or sometime during the night, so I can avoid it interfering with everything else.

As the week closed, I considered what to do about starting the completely separate Amino Acid supplements.   Part of me wants to wait until I've been doing the Vitamin D protocol for longer.  However,   I'm going to need to get my annual thyroid blood tests done through my GP in a couple of months, so it would be great to have started on the amino acids to see if there is any thyroid improvement early on. 

I also want to ask the GP to do a folate test,  as it would be interesting to see if the Vitamin D protocol - or the amino acids - have had any effect on that before I make a decision on how to deal with that.   ( I've already paid  privately for tests my full thyroid, amino acids,  and vitamins before I started the protocol, so trying to time the NHS one seems reasonable).

I decided, on balance, that I'd start the amino acid supplements at the beginning of Week 4.

Kitchen sink drama

21st Jan, I started the second week of the Vitamin D Protocol, which requires doubling the Vitamin D to 10,000 IU.  It's up to me whether I double the K2 or whether I keep the K2 the same, and I chose to keep the K2 the same.  This means I'm taking one brand of softgel with the D3+K2, and another which just has the D3.   

Because I'm doubling up on D3, I need to ramp up the Magnesium.  K2 takes calcium to the bones and teeth and magnesium keeps it there. D also depletes magnesium,  so it needs to be replaced.   The Protocol says to increase to 500mg elemental Magnesium, so increase from 2 tablets to 5.  This was a huge jump and I didn't do it in one go,  I did 2 nights at3 tablets, followed by 2 nights at 4, and then upped to 5. 

On Thursday night I had really bad reflux.  The last time I'd taken a PPI tablet was Saturday, so I'd missed 2.   Quite a while ago I moved myself to having a tablet every other day instead of every day. Before starting on the cider vinegar and the water kefir, I had actually tried moving to every 3 days, but this was a failure.     Since being on the cider vinegar and water kefir, I'd skipped several days tablets with no ill effects.

Now that I was taking Magnesium, I wanted to stop the PPIs if possible.   I'd read that  PPIs stop minerals being absorbed, so I was hoping that the gut stuff I was doing would mean I didn't need to take them anymore.

The reflux/gerd continued on Friday, and I realised that I stupidly hadn't drunk any cider vinegar for.....I'm not sure how long.      I'd completely forgotten about it while I was busy making my own Water Kefir.    I drank some on Friday afternoon, but it didn't have the immediately calming effect  I was irrationally hoping for.

In the end, I took my evening Magnesium in the early evening, so that I could take a PPI that  night.

I need to get back into the routine of having some of the cider vinegar stuff every day.   I'll also drink some of the Tribeco water Kefir as well as my own Water Kefir.