T + 2021 The (admittedly very long) calm before the storm.

SEPTEMBER - NOVEMBER 2018

TLDR:
Stunned to see that my last posting got 350 reads - this one should fix that.
If you wish to skip this one it whinges mostly about my numerous afflictions,blah blah, contains weak humour and four instances of bloody swearing including this, together with unfunny references to 19th Century Communist figureheads. Oh and a domestic violence/Godfather joke - but it’s all very precious and contrived so I’d slide on by if I were you - go get a Macca’s or something.

Obviously I'm blogging again and if maybe you're reading this arschfardle you’ll know that I only blog when I’m sick baby (Garbage song) , but anyroad the viral infection (HSV1) that gave me the cold sores has refused to clear up and is giving me regular nose bleeds so I'm back on loads of Aciclovir and a new one on me Valaciclovir. I've had Valganciclovir before and the main difference that I can see is that it had more letters in it - oh and Vala... is blue.

On the plus side though I’m one small cold sore away from the full Leon Trotsky look (working my way through the bad guys - hoping to stop before I get to Marx) which I’m sure will look just fabby when I’ve finished growing it. Nosebleeds are still very bad, it gets to the point where we wake up to a scene slightly reminiscent of the horse head bit in the Godfather, gore all over the bedding and pillows almost as if Jeannette had leant over in the night and given me a couple of smacks in the mouth and.......oh hang on a sec...

Can you pass the Kleenex over Darling?

I had been on 40 mg of prednisone per day, which was keeping the GVHD in the joints on my left hand side at bay. Weirdly my joint GVHD is a pure southpaw - so far not a peep on my right. (ominous pre-shadowing music here).

Anyroad as per usual once things are cruising along and have stabilized you try to titrate down on the steroids and my dose was dropped from 40 to 30 mgs. Usually this should be a piece of piss with no negative outcomes, but in this instance a difference of 10mgs appears to be all it takes to put all bets off and me back in play. So I've had a few days of sausage fingers and frozen joints - luckily my consultant has agreed to bump me back up to 40mgs and reassess. Some small oedema in my right foot, so I switched to hiking socks to help disperse. Better than doing anything about it eh? (it’s that spooky music again).

Now another new wrinkle is that I had some splits in my fingers from doing the gardening without
gloves on - you know where the dirt gets down the side of your nails and dries everything out. What with the sores inside my nose itching and bleeding I couldn't help but revert to my old Nicky Nicky Nose Picky 8 year old self and have the odd deep dig, with the result that I've managed to get cold sores on 3 of my left hand fingers behind the finger nails. Effing Gross. I keep them taped up with elastoplast as it is exquisitely painful to tap or bash them against anything.

When I get rid of (or stabilise) this virus the plan is to start a course of 4 x 1 day a week Retuximab down at Hastings Conquest which is brilliant as it saves me from the trek up to London.