Peter’s Hospital Diary

Well that was Christmas - the turkey (remains of) is looking very forlorn, and the last set of visitors have departed! However it was an excellent week, starting off on Christmas Eve with the midnight service - and then on Christmas morning with a family gathering, including Olivia, who seemed more interested in the boxes that her presents came in than the items themselves! (The photo shows her with Katie, and there are more in the Gallery, here and in the gallery’s Olivia section). We ventured out on Boxing day to get some exercise (with Olivia in her ‘all terrain 3×3 buggy’ ‘driven’ by Tom) and took Max (who hasn’t featured for a while) with us.

Felicity’s relations (Mother, Brother and family) came to visit on the 27th. I always enjoy the food on the days after Christmas more than the day itself - the cold meats and pickles. I managed the pickles OK - an indication of how things have improved in the last three months (although strong pickled onions were still too much!) However I was looking back at the blogs from this time last year - here where I was amused to be in an almost identical pose as this year and here
which was the calm before the ensuing storm! But enough of that! (No lemons this year either - but lots of flowers…!)

One other indication of the improvement is that I can drink coffee again. I suppose in the last 12 months, I could count the number of cups of coffee I have drunk on the fingers of one hand (and this from a former 6 cups a day man) but just before Christmas we bought a Tassimo coffee and drink maker. I have to say I was rather scepticle about the claims, but it really does make a good consistent cup of coffee that I enjoy. Another small upwards step!

Things didn’t all go according to plan - the kitchen freezer went wrong on Thursday (I think the compressor that has failed) and I can’t quite shake off a cough and a cold that I have had since the week before Christmas - but they are minor niggles in what was an excellent week!

Now for New Year!

Onwards and Upwards!

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Happy Christmas everyone!

Onwards and Upwards!

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… and all through the house, everything’s manic, no peace for a mouse!”

And I expect that is a familiar tale pretty much everywhere! I finished work on Friday, although it was a token effort and we packed up at mid-day. In fact it felt as if the Christmas break had started as the drive to work only took 20 minutes instead of the customary 40 as the motorway was almost empty. However it was worth going in as I discovered that I comfortably passed the exams at the end of the last computer course module, which was a relief!

Vicki brought Olivia over on Saturday afternoon - and as you can see from the photo she is all but walking, and now navigates herself round from one item of furniture to another - until she gets bored and realises she can make faster progress on all fours!

Katie came home yesterday, and a friend of ours, Ian, who is staying for Christmas, arrived last night. We went to the Christmas Carol service last night, then on to friends Sue and Mark (French Cottage) for a cocktail party, and this morning has seen a last minute shopping expedition before settling down for the last minute preparations!

O&U!

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One bit of news to report!

Following on from Simon’s post on Tuesday, I spoke to him today. He is in fine form, having just completed the second cycle of chemo, however the inevitable side effects are kicking in. He mentioned the hair loss (and he has promised a photo for the blog!) but he says that his blood counts have been low, especially haemoglobin and of course, the neutrophils. So he has had a blood transfusion (which he says made himn feel a whole lot better - almost instantly!) and some injections of my old friend, GCSF, to stimulate his bone marrow to produce some more neutrophils. But overall, he was on very good form, and appreciates the comments that have been posted here! Keep it up Simon - we’re right behind you… (Oh no we’re not… Oh yes we are… - Oh dear, pantomime season again!)

Back at work the week slowly comes to an end. Christmas lunch yesterday, an office party today and we finish tomorrow - probably about lunchtime! And of course tomorrow is the shortest day, but if you cast your mind back to my posts last December, you wil recall that although the days start getting longer, sunset doesn’t start getting later for another eight days or so!

Anyway, there will be some more posts before Christmas, so in the traditional fashion - and especially for Simon…

Onwards and Upwards!

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Time to get festive with the Christmas theme!

It was a very cold and frosty weekend - however the fire made everything quite toasty! Felicity was working so I was ‘in charge’ (well, nominally!) while my parents were visiting. But we had a good weekend, with Vicki bringing Olivia round and we decorated the Christmas tree. Felicity finished work during the small hours of Sunday morning, and spent some of Sunday recovering!

I hope it is cold and frosty for Katie, who has gone to France with the University ski club for a week of snow-boarding - she returns on Christmas Eve.

I was somewhat amused to hear about this item on the news this morning! As you know, I have been less than complimentary about hospital catering - good to hear that the media has finally caught up! (Perhaps they ought to read my blog!)

The annual ‘news letter’ has been drafted and will be sent out by e and snail mail in the next few days, and will be linked here. And this is the last week at work for 2007, I finish on Friday for two weeks!

Finally, a recent text from Simon “Still smiling, although feeling rather tired” - keep it up Simon - we are with you all the way!

So onwards and upwards!

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A busy week all round really. Felicity has been doing some more contract eventing work, which means she has been coming home in the small hours of the morning, and on Wednesday I had to go to Plymouth for some meetings. While the meetings were reasonably useful, the real pleasure was getting out and about and visiting another friend of longstanding from schooldays, Lisa and her husband, Andy. Lovely evening Lisa and great to catch up! (And Harry the spaniel has got lovely ears!)

The journey back yesterday was eventful - half way up the A38 between Plymouth and Exeter I stumbled across a very recent accident (as in about 15 seconds earlier) so it was a case of stopping, calling the emergency services, getting the casualty (cut head) comfortable with the help of a couple of other people who stopped. The ambulance arrived pretty quickly, as did the police, so after handing over the incident to them, I was on my way again after 20 minutes.

And Katie is busy too - off for a week of snowboarding with the University ski club.

This weekend I have my parents visiting and it is also time to do Christmas cards. Well, I say cards, but this year we are having a change of routine. We normally buy charity cards, supporting LeukaemiaCARE who get a percentage of the profits. However given that all cards end up being recycled about 10 days after receipt, this year we aren’t sending any, but instead donating what they would have cost to LC, so they get the lot rather than just a percentage. We will be sending out a newsletter, either by post or e mail, and I will also post it on the blog as a link. So it should save some energy recycling and perhaps minimise a bit of landfill! We’ll see how it goes!

Fingers remain crossed for Simon (BT) who continued his treatment this week. Keep smiling Simon!

Finally, I have reactivated the ’seasonal’ links for those that haven’t got their christmas trees yet!

Onwards and Upwards!

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Home again after another fairly intensive week, looking at aspects of computer networking - and again with exams at the end of it. I think I did OK, but I have a feeling I may have made a couple of basic mistakes, I hope not too serious. The week wasn’t helped by a rather unpleasant D&V bug halfway through, which left me feeling a bit rough for the last two days. Still, all done so time to forget about the exam!

It is a really miserable day here - in fact it was miserable driving back yesterday afternoon - however I got a fire going when I got back and that always makes thngs seem cheerfull!

I had news of Simon (Bt fame) who had some chemo last week - I think the side effects were starting to kick in during the week so I hope they will recede soon - hang on in there Simon.

Other than that, not a lot to report, so in time honoured tradition…

Onwards and Upwards!

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And finally everything is back as it should be! Full raid, disk layout fine, all burning and turning!

I was talking to fellow blog master Mark about it, and he commented that this episode was hardly a good advert for Linux, which rather got me thinking about the last couple of weeks.

The initial failure was a hardware fault in the memory which manifested itself as disk corruption. However Linux uses a journaling file system logs disk transactions before they happen (large disk transactions are processor intensive, so most modern OSs delay disk writes until the processor isn’t doing other things - but a system crash can mean lost data that hasn’t been written to disk - which is why a computer should always be shut down properly, never just switched off)) Linux uses a journaling file system which logs potential disk transactions so if the system does crash, the journal can recover the expected transactions and make repairs. (Windows NTFS also uses a less robust form of journaling).

However in this case the potential corruption was so bad that Linux deactivated the disk so that no other damage could occur - a fact that I didn’t immediately recognise. If I had, I could probably have had the system up and running again within a day or so. As it was, I took the safe course and reloaded everything onto a new disk, got it all up, and then transferred it back to an array. What would have happened had I been using Windows? I’m not sure, but I doubt it would have been any easier. However, as Mark pointed out, having up-to-date backups would have helped!! (That is now in hand) Mark - enjoy your Apple Mac when it arrives - and remember that the underlying operating system is Linux based!

I said I would post some more photos of Olivia at a birthday party when I received them. I have and they are in the November Album in the Gallery (under Olivia).

I am off on another module of the computer course I started a month ago - this one is about networks, so I may not write for a few days - but keep watching this space!

O&U

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