It has been a while since my last blog post. To be honest not much has gone on.
I am recovering well, my scar has healed very well. As far as I can tell I have some scanning left on it but just in small areas, around where the part of my scull was removed.
I am getting out each day for a walk, doing more each day, currently one hour. Last time I had to have a nap was after a weekend at Centre Parcs, I couldn't do as much as everyone else. They all got bikes, myself and Melissa didn't though it was tempting to get the bike which has a large seat in the front but we it was unfair on Melissa (still in a mood with her.) After we got home I slept for 6 hours, woke up at 7pm, went to bed at 11pm, I ended up getting up at 9am. Was just proof that I was still recovering. The weekend was just what I needed as was getting a bit frustrated.
I have been working in my computer to get used to it, resting every so often. My eye sight is very clear in my left but have had no progress in my right. In the next few days I am going to use photoshop to give you a rough idea what I see. I am still not 100% used to my eyesight when I am out because I have been bumping into quite a few people and alot of people have been cutting me up.
Back to work next week, couple of hours a day, then increasing it each week.
I will post the pics which gives you a rough idea of my sight soon.
Wednesday 28 September 2011
Friday 16 September 2011
Tired
So this is it, the start of the start of the frustrating part. We got back from Paris on Monday, was an extremely exhausting weekend, I actually fell asleep while on a river boat near Notre Dam. I had a few naps on the train but did not want to ruin my sleep pattern as it is nearly normal.
The next day I woke up feeling pretty good, I had to go to the doctors to out my prescription in and thought I would also collect a few bits, milk etc. I was out for about 40 mins. I was absolutely exhausted, Paris was still taking it's toll, I just felt drained. Took me most of the day to sort myself out.
As my eye is not realty doing anything I have decided to just get used to it. I have been on and off my pc, letting my eye get used to it. It stays good for about 45 - 60 mins, it then gets tired but does not cause headaches. I don't feel tired jus my eye.
I have still popped out for walks, just the local park, but I am not going as far or I am stopping half way for a while. I feel I just need to keep this up so I can get more confident as areas which I am not used to with my dodgy sight can still be a bit daunting.
A nice relaxing weekend now with friends at centre parcs, nothing like a weekend break to help this frustrating part of recovery go quickly.
The next day I woke up feeling pretty good, I had to go to the doctors to out my prescription in and thought I would also collect a few bits, milk etc. I was out for about 40 mins. I was absolutely exhausted, Paris was still taking it's toll, I just felt drained. Took me most of the day to sort myself out.
As my eye is not realty doing anything I have decided to just get used to it. I have been on and off my pc, letting my eye get used to it. It stays good for about 45 - 60 mins, it then gets tired but does not cause headaches. I don't feel tired jus my eye.
I have still popped out for walks, just the local park, but I am not going as far or I am stopping half way for a while. I feel I just need to keep this up so I can get more confident as areas which I am not used to with my dodgy sight can still be a bit daunting.
A nice relaxing weekend now with friends at centre parcs, nothing like a weekend break to help this frustrating part of recovery go quickly.
Saturday 10 September 2011
Home Alone and Speedy Family
Last night I was left home alone for the first time, Melissa is cycling to Pairs (UK bit was yesterday, today was part 2 now in France)Today was tiring (yes again) but hopefully means i will be all good tomorrow to see my fantastic wife get to the Eiffel Tower. I took it reasonably easy today, watched the rugby and chilled out. i Went into town with Mr Ashton for a few hours, had a couple of rests but it felt good. Did get a freaked out 8 times by people appearing on my left hand side and bumped into someone or something 4 times, these happened at the start, got used to it and adapted myself near the end.
Taxi is picking us up at 6.30am tomorrow and euro star is at 9.22am. I am going to try and sleep as much as I can, not very sociable but I want to as much energy as I can to see my wonderful wife cross the line at the Effiel Tower (and my #1 sister in law Kirsty) 200 miles in 3 days! It is all for diabetes uk, if you want to sponsor them you can find their just give pages here.
Diabetes UK Just Giving Sponsorship Page
Just a quick update, I may try and blog from France tomorrow...oooh!
Wednesday 7 September 2011
First appointment since the operation
We have just got back from Romford Hospital. It was my first meeting with my neurosurgeon since being in hospital. Had had a pretty good feeling about this as they had not rushed me back in in the past two and half weeks, but there was always a chance that something bad could come out of this.
The surgery went well, this is not an exact number but it is believed they have got 90% out. They had to stop the operation because there was a very painful area for me which they avoided as much as they could but as they went on they had to go back to it as it was all that was left. the more they took the more it hurt and the more out of it i became, this is when they stopped. During the removal they found my lump blead a lot and was causing a issues, it made it harder to operate on as they had to keep clearing the area.
They have discovered that the lump is a meningoma, if they would have known this before they would probably not have gone for a awake crainotomy and knocked me out while removing it. They have not been able to give an exact class of the tumour, rating 1 is the lowest (originally believed) and 4 is the highest. Because the tests could not give an exact result the rating for mine has been given a 1 / 2, just as a caution. This does mean i am going to have more frequent tests on the area than originally thought, my first scan will be in 2 weeks with a follow up just after.
Here is a link to what it is believed to be:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/physical_health/conditions/braintumourbenign.shtml
I mentioned my eyesight, at the moment it is a total waiting game, I plan to just test my eye sight a bit each day, try to get used to it and build up the time i use my right eye.
Now it is a waiting game for a while and keep working on my recovery.
The surgery went well, this is not an exact number but it is believed they have got 90% out. They had to stop the operation because there was a very painful area for me which they avoided as much as they could but as they went on they had to go back to it as it was all that was left. the more they took the more it hurt and the more out of it i became, this is when they stopped. During the removal they found my lump blead a lot and was causing a issues, it made it harder to operate on as they had to keep clearing the area.
They have discovered that the lump is a meningoma, if they would have known this before they would probably not have gone for a awake crainotomy and knocked me out while removing it. They have not been able to give an exact class of the tumour, rating 1 is the lowest (originally believed) and 4 is the highest. Because the tests could not give an exact result the rating for mine has been given a 1 / 2, just as a caution. This does mean i am going to have more frequent tests on the area than originally thought, my first scan will be in 2 weeks with a follow up just after.
Here is a link to what it is believed to be:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/physical_health/conditions/braintumourbenign.shtml
I mentioned my eyesight, at the moment it is a total waiting game, I plan to just test my eye sight a bit each day, try to get used to it and build up the time i use my right eye.
Now it is a waiting game for a while and keep working on my recovery.
Tuesday 6 September 2011
Staying Awake and Dealing Unpolite People
Since my last entry I have been a bit all over the place! My last entry I was getting head aches again and had been put back on steroids. This worked and still is but made my body clock go a bit strange. The steroids were to see if they could help my sight cone back a bit more but not much has happened. I got back on the tablet on Friday, was a bust dag, which I mentioned in my last entry. After that entry we went out for the evening, I did not feel sleepy at all, I didn't feel sleepy for the whole night! Went to bed at 11pm and was tossing and turning for hours, just couldn't drop off, I was trying games, TV and at 4am i came to the decision to go and watch a film. i just could not full asleep, I watched American Gangster and at about 5.30 am decided to give sleep another go. SUCCESS!!! I fell asleep, but my body did not care what time i fell asleep as far as it was concerned I was going to wake up at 7.30 am, I think I got just over 2 hours sleep. I felt fine and slightly refreshed, saw my wife go out for a bike ride, but sleep was no option, my body was happy with a power nap.
The family BBQ was at about 1pm, Melissa got back from her 40 mile bike ride and we were meeting my parents there later. I had been looking forward to this for ages but in the back of my mind was worrying about staying awake and becoming grumpy. When we arrived I was offered somewhere for a nap but I did not want to miss out.
As the day went on we played a few games had some lunch and soaked up the sun, few hours down the line I still felt pretty bloody good. Then one my best mates popped over to see how i was doing as have not seen him for a few months. All this was keeping me going and happy, grumpy Andrew was not appearing.
The day turned into night and I was still going. I had been in the Jacuzzi once already but went in again. This time though I went in on the hope it would help me relax. Indeed it did, i was in for a while, i dried off and we were the last to leave the party. Got back to my parents and I slept for t hours straight. I still am amazed how long i was awake for, over 40 hours sleep with a 2 hour nap in the middle, in my opinion i was not grumpy.
We had a few things to sort out but after living in hospital then at my parents, Melissa and I were moving home. Was looking forward to it, my Mum and Dad had been brilliant and it never felt strange living back there. This felt like the next step for me though, even though i am still recovering and need to rest it meant i got some independence back.
Since being back for 2 days I have had on and off moments, Monday I slept a lot, this does not bother me too much it just frustrates me when i cannot get the energy to do the minor things. i wanted to update my blog but with being tired and rubbish vision I couldn't update it. Also it was Melissa's 25th birthday, but I could not get the energy to take her out, this a contract promising to take her out when I am well.
I was allowed out by myself to day, not far, i went to aldi to get some bread. I felt ok about it, was just very cautious. But got a woman shout and moan at me. I was queueing at the till, when it was my turn the guy on the till passed me my plastic bag. Now i believe i am on a bout 25% vision on my right so i could not see anything. the woman behind me then raises her voice at me like i am a piece of crap on her shoe that he is talking to me. I was very happy with my response, I turned towards her, which allowed me to see the bag and polity said I can only see a small amount out of that eye and i could not see what he was doing. i turned back round, got my shopping and left. I was annoyed but she was not worth it, suppose i may have looked like i was ignoring the check out bloke, he was still polite, the customers were the problem.
Tomorrow is my first trip back to Romford hospital for a appointment with my surgeon, will be getting test results and full feed back from the awake crainotony. So looking forward to hearing the results and maybe getting some pictures of my brain. It is on my mind a bit, but if something really horrible would have been fined i would have been already back in hospital. Hopefully this will also show the next step for my eye sight, it is still crap. No headaches but i have still only got a small percentage of vision from it, here is a wikipedia link which gives a rough explanation of the lack of vision in my right eye.
The family BBQ was at about 1pm, Melissa got back from her 40 mile bike ride and we were meeting my parents there later. I had been looking forward to this for ages but in the back of my mind was worrying about staying awake and becoming grumpy. When we arrived I was offered somewhere for a nap but I did not want to miss out.
As the day went on we played a few games had some lunch and soaked up the sun, few hours down the line I still felt pretty bloody good. Then one my best mates popped over to see how i was doing as have not seen him for a few months. All this was keeping me going and happy, grumpy Andrew was not appearing.
The day turned into night and I was still going. I had been in the Jacuzzi once already but went in again. This time though I went in on the hope it would help me relax. Indeed it did, i was in for a while, i dried off and we were the last to leave the party. Got back to my parents and I slept for t hours straight. I still am amazed how long i was awake for, over 40 hours sleep with a 2 hour nap in the middle, in my opinion i was not grumpy.
We had a few things to sort out but after living in hospital then at my parents, Melissa and I were moving home. Was looking forward to it, my Mum and Dad had been brilliant and it never felt strange living back there. This felt like the next step for me though, even though i am still recovering and need to rest it meant i got some independence back.
Since being back for 2 days I have had on and off moments, Monday I slept a lot, this does not bother me too much it just frustrates me when i cannot get the energy to do the minor things. i wanted to update my blog but with being tired and rubbish vision I couldn't update it. Also it was Melissa's 25th birthday, but I could not get the energy to take her out, this a contract promising to take her out when I am well.
I was allowed out by myself to day, not far, i went to aldi to get some bread. I felt ok about it, was just very cautious. But got a woman shout and moan at me. I was queueing at the till, when it was my turn the guy on the till passed me my plastic bag. Now i believe i am on a bout 25% vision on my right so i could not see anything. the woman behind me then raises her voice at me like i am a piece of crap on her shoe that he is talking to me. I was very happy with my response, I turned towards her, which allowed me to see the bag and polity said I can only see a small amount out of that eye and i could not see what he was doing. i turned back round, got my shopping and left. I was annoyed but she was not worth it, suppose i may have looked like i was ignoring the check out bloke, he was still polite, the customers were the problem.
Tomorrow is my first trip back to Romford hospital for a appointment with my surgeon, will be getting test results and full feed back from the awake crainotony. So looking forward to hearing the results and maybe getting some pictures of my brain. It is on my mind a bit, but if something really horrible would have been fined i would have been already back in hospital. Hopefully this will also show the next step for my eye sight, it is still crap. No headaches but i have still only got a small percentage of vision from it, here is a wikipedia link which gives a rough explanation of the lack of vision in my right eye.
Hope this reads ok, this is my longest blog i have done so far so please forgive my grammar and spelling, i have tried to sort it as well as I can.
Friday 2 September 2011
Good Days and Bad
Right now i feel good. I have been awake all day, with no naps and had to be up early to get to the doctors to get my sick certificate. Good successful day, unhealthy fry up, wonder in town in town to spoil wife, meet up with work mates and chilling in the sun this after noon. Finished with a meal out with wife and parents for a early birthday treat for Melissa.
Even though today has been a success I did have a hard day the other day. Maybe i got a bit ahead of myself. But i woke up a couple of mornings ago with a uncomfortable headache (i am rock hard so it did not hurt.) I had cut down in my paracetamol as i felt good and only had them in the morning and evening. this caught up with me, it wore me out and the headaches were easier when i was asleep. Also the steroids which help the swelling had finished which may have contributed. I am now back to taking regular paracetamol even if i feel OK and have been sorted with more steroids. my surgeons secretary is brilliant, my surgeon is on holiday and not back till Monday buy helped me speak to a specialist and helped me soring out steroids at my GPs. She has been brilliant through the whole procedure, from initial diagnosis till today, the Dr is a very lucky and he has said agrees. Gill is a top lady!
Family gathering tomorrow, going to freak a few with my scar! I'm a git!
While writing this i have been listening to my playlistis i made for the operation, currently incubus. I did not listen to any music for the while time. too busy chatting but really enjoying them now.
Even though today has been a success I did have a hard day the other day. Maybe i got a bit ahead of myself. But i woke up a couple of mornings ago with a uncomfortable headache (i am rock hard so it did not hurt.) I had cut down in my paracetamol as i felt good and only had them in the morning and evening. this caught up with me, it wore me out and the headaches were easier when i was asleep. Also the steroids which help the swelling had finished which may have contributed. I am now back to taking regular paracetamol even if i feel OK and have been sorted with more steroids. my surgeons secretary is brilliant, my surgeon is on holiday and not back till Monday buy helped me speak to a specialist and helped me soring out steroids at my GPs. She has been brilliant through the whole procedure, from initial diagnosis till today, the Dr is a very lucky and he has said agrees. Gill is a top lady!Family gathering tomorrow, going to freak a few with my scar! I'm a git!
While writing this i have been listening to my playlistis i made for the operation, currently incubus. I did not listen to any music for the while time. too busy chatting but really enjoying them now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)