February

Well, February. ‘Nuff said. Especially in the UK, that's for sure.   It has been a pretty full-on and not necessarily a positive couple of weeks  - and that doesn't even include the weather!  

I won't go into everything as I don’t want to bore you to tears, but it included my car breaking down [at work] and the logistics of getting it to a garage to be fixed (at a cost of £260).  I was without the car for over a week - very irritating.  Then, two days later Paul’s car started making weird noises so that is booked into the garage later this week too. Ruddy typical!

I also had a complete nightmare within my second job-role; a Sports Hall 'customer' was being particularly difficult, and, in the end, I referred the issue to the Committee as I refused to be "harangued" anymore.  It completely ruined the whole weekend because, you know what I am like, I worried and worried about it!  That was eventually sorted out and I feel somewhat vindicated however, why is there is always one person who can upset the apple-cart?

Also I have been really struggling with the on-going vision issue in my left-eye.  At the beginning of the month I had an appointment with Professor McNaught at Cheltenham General Hospital's Ophthalmology department....

• He removed three loose stitches from my eye and prescribed antibiotic drops.  Hopefully it will be more comfortable now; the other stitches can remain in the eye for years and years - they are nylon apparently.
• I asked about having a 'blind' contact lens to block out all blurred vison from the left eye because is irritating, disconcerting and ultimately very depressing, however he does not recommend it because it might impact on the operation / surgery.
• Instead, he has suggested a pair of glasses with a 'defused' left lens for back-up because that might help with headaches and, generally, my frustration.
• He says it might take up to another year for the optic nerve to settle down - if it ever does...
• He literally said my situation is "tragic" ....
• And he qualified this by saying that in the 25 years he had been at Cheltenham he has only seen "two or three" other patients who have experienced this deterioration because of the high pressure in the eye, and they have no idea why it changed so much in such a short period of time [a couple of months].

As you can imagine, this made [makes] me very depressed.

---