COVID-19 jab done

 Got a phone call yesterday and was jabbed today. We arrived a few minutes early to the church hall and was greeted at the door asked have we been in contact with anyone suffering from COVID or symptoms did we have a temperature etc then directed Inside to a receptionist. She had Heathers details but not mine but no problem we had a few questions and answers and I went from being the invisible man in a wheelchair to a man in a wheelchair waiting for my Covid jab. We went through to the church hall to find four lines of chairs laid out and a slick operation operating. Directed to the front line they removed a chair and asked a few more questions and most importantly which arm. We sat for a few minutes before a nice lady appeared said back in a second I need more vaccine. She reappeared seconds later I peeled back my cardigan to expose my arm and it was all over jab done and before I could replace my cardi she was doing Heather. Over and done with and back outside before the time we had been allotted. Heather had been told not to drive for fifteen minutes and we had both been told our arm may ache but take paracetamol if it did and expect to be contacted by the GP surgery again for the second dose in around twelve weeks 📆  👍❤️ Job done. Anyone who is feeling anxious there’s nothing to worry about. My arm don’t ache and Heather’s does so it seems a fifty fifty chance unlike the flu jab were we both hurt 😢. So get yer jab done we both had the Astra Zeneca vaccine 💉 if anyone is wondering 

Those who can do those who can't teach? depression and tricks to get out of it

 I am useless at many many things and I have just tried to write ✍️ in my journal for the first time in a while. I can’t write anymore my hands are just not working well enough so does that mean I have to become a teacher 👨‍🏫 . Why this emoji has come up because I wrote teacher I don’t know 🤷‍♂️ but it did. I am writing ✍️this post on my iPad with a stylus, I call it my stabby stick. Everyone knows if I ask “anyone seen my stabby stick” that I cannot find my stylus! Well now I can’t write does the quotation “Those who can do those who can't teach”George Bernard Shaw penned over a hundred years apply to me? I know what you’re thinking’why pick on me with such a profound question so early on a Monday. All I can say is man up it’s 3:45pm . 

Is no longer being able to form legible words with pen 🖊 or pencil ✏️ something to get depressed over? Yep another profound question 🤔  From what I know is anything can cause me to become depressed. So what do I do to beat depression? Well I am not sure I actually do beat it now it’s my turn to answer a profound question. I don’t think I beat depression it’s more that I suppress it. The ways in which I  suppress it are  many and varied, all are easy the hard part is actually doing something. An old Chinese proverb goes A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step but we all know the first step is the hardest.

I always recommend people seek the advice of a professional, my GP has helped me tremendously but going back to the last paragraph taking that first step is difficult. I know because I refused to accept that there was anything wrong. Who me I am fine nothing wrong with me I’m alright etc. etc. Anyone recognise themselves in those few words? Actually doing something is the hard bit once you have admitted to yourself speaking to your GP 👩‍⚕️ is easy, they know about this stuff they are the experts . You wouldn’t let a gardener fix your car 🚙 or a bricklayer rewire  your house 🏠 or your mate from the pub do a filling on your teeth would you? And if you are prescribed some tablets take the darn things. So many people read the leaflets and scare themselves that the possible side effects are going to happen to them. It might say one in ten thousand people but I know people who then say I’m not going to take that chance! Madness completely bonkers.

Hello people just talk!

 I am nearly always the one who strikes up a conversation, maybe I just like the sound of my own voice. But with lockdown it’s difficult. I haven’t seen anyone and it’s gotten so as I don’t know 🤷‍♂️ if I actually want to see anyone. For me to be like that anyone who normally is a bit shy must be really anti people. I know I can pick up the phone but really the only people who I have called since lockdown have been my family and because lockdown has taken away things to talk about. Now in normal times I don’t need anything to talk about, I once struck up a conversation with three strangers explaining that I will talk to myself lamp posts and stray dogs! The strangers all women of a certain age asked which category did they fall into then one came to the conclusion of ‘stray dogs’ which caused much hilarity. The spoken word can  be such a lift, I used to read poetry aloud to Heather my wife and have only done so once in these lockdown conditions ☹️ I must try harder.

Depression is a thief it steels your sense of fun in life, now that might not sound much life ain’t meant to be fun but if you don’t enjoy life you become miserable. I am sure life was never designed for you to feel miserable! When life is fun you actually smile 😆 Everything becomes a reason to laugh you smile and those around you smile, smiling is infectious. You might smile to a lady weeding her garden and finding her task tedious that brief smile could lift her spirit and her tedious task becomes a joy. The trouble with COVID is we are all wearing a mask 😷 so we are being robbed of simple joys. My personal pleasure is music, l love early rock n roll and music from my youth and the 60’s and 70’s to me music stopped in the 1980s  and restarted when Adele released 19 in 2008 I enjoy all of her albums. Ed Sheeran has become another of my favourites. 

My mainstay of enjoying life in recent years is photography. With the advent of digital photography and then the camera 📷 in phones photography has be one of the easiest of hobbies to get involved with. I do have a phone but mainly use a camera 📸 as this gives me far greater control over the creativity of an image. I am not an artist but sometimes I do venture away from the cameras auto settings to capture something a little bit different. Then after shooting the pictures I have some more fun transferring said pictures onto my laptop 👨‍💻 or more recently my iPad. Transferring images by WiFi is new to me and as with any learning experience fun and frustrating in equal measure. Twenty years ago I tried using photoshop and was bewildered by the complexities of post production of photo’s I didn’t enjoy the process and on one forum I frequent I use “life’s to short to learn photoshop “  as my tag on each post😃

Each of these stages is an escape from reality! When I am engrossed in taking photos or transferring them and cropping and enhancing the images I become detached from my everyday problems. I use photography as a means of escape. I will write ✍️ more about my escapism from depression in future posts. 

Another day in bed, thanks MS

 I thought about getting up this morning but staying in bed was a far better idea. I was exhausted after a busy day yesterday, when I did wake up first thing this morning I did so with much reluctance, Heather made me my porridge 🥣 which I ate in bed, drunk a cup of tea took my tablets and went back to sleep 🛌 💤 l finally did get up at 3:30 . Multiple Sclerosis makes me tired beyond tired. It is referred to a fatigue because we all know about feeling tired, you know what it’s like after a busy day you want to kick your shoes 👞 off put your slippers 🥿 on and sit if front of the television 📺 and slob out. With MS you got to bed full clothed and you don’t take your shoes 👠 off. Heather woke me this morning and I was still knackered. I went back to sleep immediately and only surfaced to take on water.

Multiple Sclerosis make a mess of people and my variant is called Primary Progressive and where many people describe MS as “oh you have good days and bad days”  well with primary progressive MS the disease gets progressively worse!  More information click here on the link https://www.mssociety.org.uk/

Had day in bed with my Multiple Sclerosis

 I was awake at six and knew today wasn’t going to work. I went back to sleep, Heather made a cuppa and I had breakfast (porridge sqwiushed banana and honey) and went back to sleep 🛌  💤 😴  until after two o’clock when I woke up in a panic. My indigestion and acid reflux does that I feel like I can’t breathe 🧘‍♀️ and wake up in a real state. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/heartburn-and-acid-reflux/

https://www.royalberkshire.nhs.uk/patient-information-leaflets/GI%20Physiology%20Gastro%20Oesophageal%20Reflux%20Disease%20GORD.htm

West Ham versus Manchester United

 Boring first half they have just gone in for halftime and it’s nil nil and the most exciting thing is a ball put past a West Ham defender. We turned over and watched Ben Fogle in Ireland off grid with author Mark Boyle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Boyle_(Moneyless_Man)

By mentioning Mark I am doing the thing he objects to screen time but hey ho I am a rebel 

Black and white photography and Lightroom and Amateur Photographer magazine

 Last night as was reading this weeks AP ( Amateur Photographer) magazine in bed. Oh well I’ll own up, I read it in bed most nights! What was different last night was there is a whole section on black and white photography. Also there was mention of processing images in Lightroom. Well I’m never far from my iPad so I downloaded a free version of Lightroom and gave it a go. I have tried messing around with various apps to process my photos and I usually come up with the decision ‘life’s to short to learn how to use programs like photoshop’ but last night I linked with Lightroom and have been messing around with it most of the day. I’m back in bed writing this before I go to sleep still my Amateur Photographer magazine beside me, I have it on subscription, as soon as the first lockdown was announced I set my subscription up so I was safe in the knowledge I could get my copy without leaving the house 🏡 as most of you know I am in a wheelchair so having it delivered just makes so much sense. 

As I just said in the past I have not ‘messed’ with my photos,  I shoot jpeg. I detest photoshop and think heavily photoshopped images aren’t real photos but I may be weakening 🤣 I enjoyed playing with Lightroom 😱 Yes I know almost twenty years after getting my first digital camera 📷 I am actually using a tool other than cropping. And I intended to do it again today 🤣

Snow ready

 Whilst I may now be wheelchair based I once had legs and a body that actually worked! Pre Multiple Sclerosis days I would love to be out there as a family snow ball fighting and sliding down slopes on the sledge. Yesterday Victoria our youngest daughter phoned to ask “have you got a sledge” Heather said “of course we have” Victoria turned to her two sons and told them “I told you Grandma would come up with the goods” evidently she had been trying to buy a sledge 🛷 online without success! She should have tried Grandma first she was offered not one but two. A circa 1960’s wooden one and a 1980’s plastic one  so in preparation for the forecast snow she came and collected both. I won’t be using them and I don’t think slipping and sliding in the snow is high on Heathers agenda for tomorrow. 

So the moral of this post is grandparents don’t ever throw anything away and children check with mum and dad when sledges are unavailable on Amazon Prime or on eBay at extortionate prices. Our sledge was bought at a boot fair for a fiver current price on eBay £100 to £200 happy sledding kids 

Big headlines won’t head off a recession dead cat bounce

 I had to smile 😊 at the news headlines back to normal by next spring who are they kidding . I used to think the Bank of England was an honourable institution, well after the Governor espoused that little nugget of wishful thinking I have changed my mind. Pent up savings are going to save the day. The economy isn’t even going to hit a bump in the road and not so much as a mention of the recession I feel we are hurtling towards. I too can manipulate figures and I could predict a sunny future after all it’s still winter so the sun is sure to shine sometime during the summer months, but predictions of normality are in my mind hogwash. In this article https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/04/uk-banks-given-six-months-to-prepare-for-negative-interest-rates 

The report says to prepare for negative interest rates so are we going to bounce back to normal or bounce like a dead cat

Because Andrew Bailey, the BoE governor, said: “The monetary policy committee’s central forecast assumes that Covid-related restrictions and people’s health concerns weigh on activity in the near term, but that the vaccination programme leads to those easing, such that gross domestic product is projected to recover strongly from the second quarter of 2021, towards pre-Covid levels.”

He also went on to say recovery will be driven by ‘pent it savings’ driving the recovery. To me that smacks of the eat out to help out debacle of last summer

People won’t have the choice the used to have as not many shops will have survived. Any one remember Debenhams or Top Shop ? 

Feeling depressed

 I have been a bit low for the last few days and then it dawned on us why. Last Friday we had to visit University College London Hospital to have the Baclofen pump refilled and the dose increased so maybe it’s my body getting used to the larger dose of Baclofen. Drugs have had some strange side effects over the years from hallucinations to insomnia so it’s no real surprise. I have Multiple Sclerosis and recently had an operation to form a stoma a colostomy. So far it has been a success we are just two months in and the nurse has told us to wait three months before getting too excited. 

My depression maybe the drug increase or just dealing with my MS. I cannot walk or even stand anymore so all the pressure goes on to my wife Heather. She is fantastic and deserves far better from life but carries on regardless dealing with everything and putting my well-being before her own. Depression just creeps up on you sneaking in through the cracks and going unnoticed until it has suddenly got it’s feet under the table and is wearing it’s slippers, relaxing and comfortable with it’s surrounding. Currently with COVID-19 restrictions life is super difficult plus it is winter and even if I could get out it’s always bloody raining.

Heather has her work cut out getting me dressed and out of bed. I have to be hoisted on a sling suspended from an electric ceiling hoist. Showers and bathroom visits are done on a commode shower chair which has a mind of its own as to the direction it will take, I am sure it is related to the the wonky supermarket trolleys 🛒 that are abandoned in car parks. I am in an electric wheelchair for getting around but at the moment the furthest I go is downstairs in my through floor lift to sit looking out of the window for birds visiting the garden.  We have several bird feeders an even on a dull damp day like today the birds keep me amused and I am never far from my camera 📷 . Photography gives me immense pleasure and is something I would recommend to anyone feeling depressed! Digital photography has made everyone a photographer. Phones have fantastic cameras and for anyone who wants to be a bit more serious about taking pictures the range of cameras available is enormous. I will blog more about cameras another day.

Today’s post is about depression and I imagine that we all have off days, feeling a bit blue and cheesed off with the world. It was because of feeling like that on a long term basis that I sought help. My first port of call was my doctor (GP) and she had a nice chat with me before she told me that I was depressed!  It wasn’t much of a surprise I had known for a while that I wasn’t feeling ‘right’. She prescribed an antidepressant tablets and guess what? They actually work. After a couple of months of feeling better I stopped taking them, have another guess as to what happened, yep I started feeling depressed again. I have decided that they are alright and now recon they are the best two tablets I take each day.

I have no simple answers to depression I just know how I have got over mine, and even now I still get off days. What I would urge anybody to do is seek professional advice. GP’s are busy people but they are marvellous people who really want to do the best for you. So even in these strange lockdown times they are available for help, so book an appointment, it may be a telephone consultation but it will be a fantastic one. Do it now!