30 September - 48 hour week

Can't say am not beeing looked after properly. the hospital room is on a newly refurbished floor and the ensuite bathroom is large and out of the box so it all seems very nice hotel to me. the nurse engages me in conversation about Murakami book which is on my bedside table. an early onne, first twenty pages not that engaging and so don't think i'll bother. the drugs worked fine and since surgery was realtively short did not wake up too discombobulated and know my name etc.



Shame the injected local anaesthetic is doing his job and so don't need those morphine based painkillers all friends were wishing on me. darn.



In 3 days i see various nurses and there it is, article about the 48 hour week demanded by EU officials means a patient gets passed between 3 or 4 shifts in 24 hours. here it seems to be every 12 but still, it appears that much can go wrong in a chain of chinese whispers between doctors and nurses being handed over notes. my own little example of this is that every time new nurse comes to take my blood pressure. often as it happens as would be indication of something going very wrong, said n urse starts to worry when they see my level super low at 87 on occasions and i have to explain it's always been like this miss, that's why i could never really smoke spliffs because i'd faint and i could never get the 'benefits' of coke as it barely raised me to super vibey levels. But imagine i would not be that awake to say so myself, in fact on being take to xray day after surgery, i was wheeled around a bit too fast in my wheechair and on arrival i was about to faint, said so, they lay me down and hey presto, well ten mins later, i revived. funny also that bloke who was wheeling me around seemed to have no authority to lay me down and since there was no one in the empty xray room, he could have easily stretched me there but no, he had to wait for the right person who took forever to get to me etc etc. Returning me to my room they stretchered me which by then was not really that necessary but they were following some other rules.

all's well etc but i guess my advice, and i like giving some always, is that if you're having something done, something maybe more serious than bunions removal, you should aim to have your own personal rep there with you at most times, family or friend, to sort of read your notes and argue/explain your case as required. then again maybe on nhs you're not allowed to loiter in the corridors/rooms at all hours as you were in my lovely princess grace marylebone hospital.

mmh, what else? basically we're all different and all that scary stuff i read on internet or was told by old relatives, has not manifested and i seem to be having an easy time of it so far. so i'll be super careful in crossing the road on my slow feet for a while. would be said if i went under a car no?

29 September - Surgery & not cosmetic

Am off tomorrow for a while for surgery and post surgery, nothing life threatening, nothing cosmetic but has to be done - bunions of course , can you believe my punishment, when i get better I may have to wear horrid ugg style boots or the like since it takes a full 6 months to really get back to proper shoes and not feel pain/swollen extremities. But contrary to popular opinion not due to high heels wearing but .. genetic. Mother and grandmother never had high heels though mother in fifties must have worn pointy tight shoes and know a 23 year old who needs them done and she's one of those 5'11" girls who never wear heels so as not to tower over midget men which abound. So either this lackadaisical current approach to blog will continue or given the enforced rest I'll go back and fill all the gaps including last week's 30th anniversary of V&A and all that, the recent attendance to an 80th b'day, last Sunday on the shore roof with only Sanjay from Eastenders as famous person spotted (and why did his name came to me so quicly when in fact on arrival at guest list of showcase for new band managed by old Bros's manager (his name? gone? but he's very fat and his boyfreind is called Brad. I have never met Brad but i remember his name instead of the actual guy I met) I said to the receptionist I was the plus one of A. and she asked me for A's surname and I had one of the usual blanks.. for so many minutes that she was eventually able to find the surname on her list for me. And I know A. very well.

And various other bits and bobs of life which are all memory loss related these days. Like L. sending her boyfriend over to collect my spare keys so she can come make me cups of tea when i'll be laid off and I gave said boyfriend back the saw I'd previously borrowed, chatted about this and that to him but totally never remembered to give him the keys he'd come over to get. His excuse for not asking for them was that he was mildly drunk from the pub. Other instance was Toph's phone ringing with his bro in law's name on display and he saying 'wonder why he's calling me' and me realising just there and then that I had never posted a week earlier some docs that Toph had asked me to scan/email to bro in law and then post. I agreed, (I had to witness them so I knew it was important to send them) stuffed them in my bag on way to work and then promptly never got a reminder sent by my own brain that I was meant to do anything else. Result, potential holding back of a deal going through blah blah blah.

Anyway, gotta go as too much to tie up before impending non communication. See ya. Oh and if I don't wake up, er.. well, shit happens. I had fun anyway.

18 September - Teeth & Bob Marley

Amazing in what level of bad mood an infected gum can have you spin. Or rather, day 5 of one which you had lanced and thought what with the antibiotics (word came to mind immediately this time) and some painkiller, it should have been well defated. But no. Still we bravely go to support friends and their book launches and so I find myself at a Bob Marley biography launch where every old journalist or PR guy I knew 30 years ago has made the trip, and suddently or not so suddenly even the ones I may have fancied back in the days don't look so hot at all. Plus they're all sort of poor. Including producers who worked with major bands. If those bands don't keep selling and your royalties don't come in or nobody else approaches you because you're yesterday's news or you can't really spend days and nights in a studio anymore since you have family etc, you turn to.... music for films/ads etc. They all say that. And some have to wait tillt hey spot a friend to have a drink bought for them. It's at time like these that I don't mind having had a steady job that pays all of my bills and drinks too.
Still, my friend JH was very happy to spot dave swindells in the crowd as he used to be for years mr club review for TO and god knows what he does now, I didn't stay around to ask. If he still goes to clubs I wouldn't know what they are.

Evening was notable because I found myself around a table where everyone had had a much shittier year than mine. One divorcing and having to endure ex husband about to become new father with new squeeze, one whose ex husband (much loved at the time when we were young and working together) had died the previous month two days after an operation to his pancreas. He was awake the following day and she saw him but by the time she went back the next day with their 19 year old son, he'd suffered a heart attack and died. This was an absolutely stunning (at 25 at least) man who was well below 50. Then there was the widow of a much loved though super cranky top publicist who died a few months ago of cancer and then they told me about an ex colleague who died two weeks ago of a brain hemorrage and she also was younger than me. I didn't know whether I should burst into tears there and then since it was all very doom and gloom. Then tk god C. arrived ( not seen her in 15 years but clapped eyes on her a month or so ago at another do) with her toyboy in tow. Ten years younger, relationship been going for 4 weesk and were super kissy kissy. So there's hope but truly... had to forget about the bad tooth.
I know am rambling on this post but be patient.

16 September - Memory & Dyslexias

Well, I haven't forgotten I have a blog though one day I fully expect to wonder about that too. But.. despite filling in drafts of various things concerning me, there's an element of stress in my life that coincides with work related issues and health stuff and, well, another leak in the new house which is still not sorted to my liking and it makes it just too tiring to muster the energy to write something that's not down/dour/skeptic etc.
Right now I seem to be quietly worried about my short memory just not throwing up names of things/people and also mixing them up. Examples are along the lines of wanting to say 'Please move that chair out of my way' and the sentence that comes out is 'Please move that table out of my way, I mean the chair' . This means my brain is instantly aware that it's used the wrong word but ... what if it then doesn't? Other examples are telling someone at work 'John now can't come to the meeting in Paris' and person replies 'John?' and only then I realise I meant say 'Christian'. And so on.

Today I nearly got annoyed with some guy at jessops because, after jabbing my finger at the machine for half an hour in order to print pictures from sicilian holiday and the receipt telling me to pay £20 odd, I went in search of employee who in answer to my 'how much are your prints if you print more than 100, it used to be 7p?', said, 'yes, it's 7pm but you chose the larger format so it's 14p each'. I said no, I chose the smaller format, 5" by 7". He looks at me and says no, the smaller format is 4" by 6". And I still didn't get it. To me 4" by 6" was larger than 5" by 7". This was simpy a numbers dyslexia in my mind. Thank god I didn't get too annoyed and he sweetly said I'llc charge you at the smaller format charge and still give you the larger format prints and I nearly replied but I don't want/like 6" x 4"!. But can see now clearly when old people say resolutely one thing and no arguing will persuade them they got it wrong. But am not old enough for all of this to happen now. Hence the .. getting worried.

Or maybe it's my gum infection and the ... the... I was about to write antidepressants but that's not it, don't take them and it's the wrong word! What I want to say is the.. the.. (30 seconds later i still don't have the word... the , you know those things they give you to fight infections and you can't drink alcohol whilst on the course. What the fuck are they called. This is driving me insane, forgetting everyday words, it's just not on.

Left this for a few minutes and the word has not come to me yet. It may be an hour before it appears. If there's someone like Toph around I can ask him but you can't go asking colleagues 'what do you call that thing, that thing , you know' or you sound demented.

This is now ten mins later and the word still hadn't come so I broke down and asked a colleague. And the answer is... antibiotics. Obviously. She very sweetly said it's not age but speaking several languages. Mmmmh, I do but it's not that. And I can't blame too many drugs 'cause I hardly did.

7 September - Blog is still alive

and back from holiday ... and other ... stuff.
will write soon maybe even tomorrow so long as I get some energy. Short supply the moment one hits work and admin for own life and others...