ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
My mum had Parkinson's. She managed to cope with it for nearly 20 years but it got her in the end. She got very ill, ended up in hospital, and never got well enough to be discharged... While in the hospital she got repeated hospital acquired infections and spent a year there until finally she was too weak to carry on. We eventually found out that what had triggered all of this was 'aspiration pneumonia' - her Parkinson's had made it difficult for her to swallow so she had been accidentally inhaling food and drink.
Miserable bloody disease. If I ever won the lottery I would give 90% of my winnings to Parkinson's research!
I did have the chance to go on a NOAC (Novel oral anticoagulant) back in 2012 but they were relatively new then and I opted to stick with warfarin because doctors had 60 years of experience with that, so less chance of something unexpected happening. I haven't looked at the NOAC data recently but obviously they have had had another 9 years of experience with those drugs now so I reckon that they should be ok! I might switch one day - warfarin potentially can cause problems and regular blood tests are needed to keep an eye on how it is working. I had one this afternoon***.
NOACs are way more expensive than warfarin, but that isn't something we have to worry about here. Our NHS only makes a small standard prescription charge, currently £9.35 per prescription, or long-term patients can pay £108.10 a year for all prescriptions. There are also exemptions, including everyone (like me) aged over 60. I hope you manage to get it on your insurance!
*** I have previously reported on possible temporary side-effects of the AZ vaccine for warfarin patients. Today's test result tends to support that... My results are normally very stable, but a pattern is suggested:
- Good test result
- Good test result
- Good test result
- Good test result
- [Covid jab #1]
- Bad test result shortly afterwards
- [2 week interval]
- Good test result
- [Covid jab #2]
- Bad test result shortly afterwards
- [2 week interval]
- Good test result
Changing the subject... I nipped out on my bike yesterday and saw a young man walking towards me. He was wearing distinctive shorts and had very white legs, like that was the first day that his legs had seen the sun this year. He had a big rucksack on his back, and he had a big bushy beard. I km further on I saw his double! They must be identical twins - there was no way that the original man could have got back in front of me. Even if he had got into a car and driven down there, I would have got there first. It seems very strange for a man in his early 20s to act like a clone of his brother. He was not only sporting an identical beard, but had the same type of shorts and rucksack too!
When I went for my blood test earlier on I was nearly hit when turning at a mini roundabout. No, not by a car - the car drivers (for once) were obeying priority and I was keeping a close eye on the vehicles to make sure that they DID. What caught me out was a teenager shooting off the pavement and hurtling across the road just in front of me on a big, heavy-looking mountain bike. He was very close to swiping my front wheel from under me. Note to self - check pavements too!
