Peter's Hospital Diary

For not updating this during the week – but it has been busy again! Not just during the day, but evenings as well, with some visitors and a late evening at work.

However I am well, although last weekend I had some severe sniffles – to the extent that I logged on to the Swine ‘flu helpline, but as I didn’t have a temperature, it seemed I was OK. And in fact the sore throat has gone, and although I am still a little sniffly, I feel much better now. We also had various cousins and nephews visiting last weekend, so we had a housefull on Saturday night, and a large crowd for Sunday lunch, which was good!

My sister also had a birthday this week, so that was an excuse to nip over for a meal and I also had a visit from my parents who had a look at the flat. And work has been busy too – as we enter the holiday season, people are away, so there is a bit of covering to do. However we are planning a break in September, which I think I need!

And good news from Simon, who has recovered well (and has just told me off for not posting ) but I’m sure he will post a comment in due course!

Finally, a goodbye to Margaret from the PET Centre – I’m sorry I missed the leaving bash, but a HUGE thank you to you and the staff for the various scans over the last ten years, and all the very best for the new ventures! Keep in touch!

Anyway – must dash – Onwards and Upwards.

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Not for me, but about Simon, who I said was going into hospital on Tuesday for an op on Wednesday. I’m delighted to say that all went well and he is being discharged today.

Simon – Onwards and Upwards!

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The ECP was uneventful, but Tuesday’s session seemed to run a bit slowly; I had an appointment in the Haematology clinic at Guy’s on completion, but I received a message telling me to go to the day centre on the fourth floor. There is a day centre on the fourth floor at St Thomas’s, so I turned up – to find that I wasn’t expected! However I did meet up with Tom, one of the nurses that looked after me during the transplant, so we had a quick catch up. However as there were no transplant doctors there, we concluded that the message meant the Guy’s day centre, so I hopped on the staff bus, with my notes, for the session.

It felt a bit odd being back there – however after giving another eight tubes of blood for tests, I had my check up and sent on my way, with a prescription for a some oral antiseptics. I was less than amused to find a one to two hour wait at the (newly refurbished) pharmacy – pity the money wasn’t spent on getting more staff!

So I left it to go home and and I’ll get them from my GP! The journey back was fine, and I left to go back to Corsham later in the evening.

So we continue Onwards and Upwards!

(No news of Simon yet – he was scheduled for his op today)

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Yes, only two days since the last post on Saturday! I had a quiet Saturday, and finally managed to get the webserver graphical interface working, which was rewarding. I still want to complete the upgrade, but that can wait for a while until I finish the current piece of coursework. I had quite a good session with that on Sunday, with quite a bit of experimenting, so I hope I can start getting the notes together for the write up. The problem is that I need a ‘clean’ computer (one where the software is added in a controlled fashion) and an internet connection; while I do have a connection in the flat (via the mobile phone network) that poses its own difficulties, so I am really limited to working on it at home. The other highlights of the weekend were visits by Vicki and Olivia – whose speech has developed tremendously in the last week, and she is now forming simple sentences!

I travelled up to London this morning for the first ECP session this afternoon – which was uneventful. Tomorrow I have the second session and my check up in haemotology.

Also on the medical front, would you please keep fingers crossed for Simon, who is also going into hospital this week for a bit of additional treatment – we will be thinking about you, Simon.

So – and especially for Simon – Onwards and Upwards!

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A very sociable week starting with a leaving ‘do’ for someone at work on Thursday when we descended on a Chinese restaurant in Chippenham. An excellent evening, but the highlight of the week was a reunion dinner on Friday (last night) for those of is in a year group at the Royal Naval Engineering College – more years ago than I care to remember! I have seen some of the people there in the intervening years, but it is the first time that I have been to a gathering of so many, since I left the college. It was a splendid evening with much reminiscing and catching up. The really amazing thing is that very few of us had significantly changed in appearance, and even those who I had lost touch with were pretty much instantly recognisable!

It was a late night/early morning, so I have been doing a little recuperating today, However I have managed to fix the little snag on te webserver. It seems to have been running OK, but I have now got the graphical software (Gnome) pretty much back as it was, and once that is sorted I will look again at upgrading it.

Monday and Tuesday will see me up at St Thomas’s again for the next course of ECP, followed by my (slghtly extended) two monthly check up.

Onwardfs and upwards!

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More updates – this time on the server – and not all sweetness and light!

To recap, the new server has been running Linux, to be precise, Fedora 10. The Fedora Project has just released a new version, Fedora 11, and it is possible to update that on the fly. However, with 1374 of the 1,420 files updated, the system froze, and when I restarted it, the same thing happened, so I now have a hybrid system – some old, some new. Interestingly it isn’t stopping it from running any of the server applications, but I can only log into it remotely, or via a command line interface, the graphical side just will not run.

It seems that there is a problem at the Fedora servers too, so I am a bit stumped – I suspect I may have to reload the software at some point. However as it is all working for the time being, it isn’t too urgent.

To cap it all, last night the main incoming switch tripped – luckily the freezers were still cold, but all the batteries in the uninterpretable power supplies had flattened themselves – I thought the house was quiet when I woke up!

However back on the home front, I had a 3C weekend: cleaning, cooking and coursework! Felicity came home this evening after two weeks away, so yesterday I was doing coursework, today some cleaning and tonight some cooking so she had a meal on her return. In the process I evicted a few alien life forms from the fridge – for those Torchwood addicts, I’m not sure if the 456 were hiding in there…

Tomorrow I have a meeting in Portsmouth, so I shall be returning to Corsham after that!

Onwards and Upwards!

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Another fairly busy week. I was home alone again at the weekend, with Felicity off at Henley, and then on to Hampton Court for the flower show. I arrived home to find the max/min thermometer in the conservatory registering 67C (!), candle wax over the table and floor under some sad looking flat candles, and some decidedly sick looking plants (a rubber plant and a clivia) togrether with a very unhappy looking cyclamen in the kitchen. Fortunately the greenhouse and baskets had received some attention (TLC is probably over-stating it). However over the weekend, I cleaned up the wax, possibly saved the plants and did one or other bits of tidying up.

Rachael came home from Magalufe on Sunday afternoon, while I was doing a full back-up of the new webserver – not helped by the tape drive overheating and one or two other problems. However I got it all done and returned to Corsham on Sunday evening!

On the down side, I discovered that someone in the (large, open plan, air conditioned) office has been diagnosed with swine flue. It seems it was about 2 weeks ago, so we are waiting to see who (if anyone) will be the next to succumb. (Note to self, must ring Guy’s for guidance!)

However all seems well so far, I was out at meetings yesterday, the sun is (pretty much) shining, so…

Onwards and upwards!

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Where is the time going? Half way through the year already and it doesn’t seem 5 minutes since I was gingerly driving up snow covered roads on the way to work, and now we are swltering in the heat!

Must be the heat confusing me as the next ECP isn’t for another 2 weeks because the six weekly regime has started. I’m really not looking forward to London in this heat – if the heat wave continues.

Last weekend was busy – crossing the border into Wales for my brother-in-law’s ordination at Newport Cathedral, then back to Corsham on Sunday afternoon. I shall be back homefor the weekend, although Felicity is away at the Henley regatta, so I must start the next lot of coursework!

On another note, I expect you, like me, get a few e mails with subject lines containing “Urgent – please pass this on to all your friends immediately” or similar lines in the subject line. The e mail then goes on to describe something that “happened to friend” or “has been verified by Microsft/some-company/some police force” and so on.

These e mails are almost invariably hoaxes, so before forwarding them on, it is worth taking 30 seconds or so to enter the subject line as a Google search. This will usually bring up several web sites that will verify (or otherwise) the authenticity of these e mails – so far I have never seen a genuine one! They are just another variation of the old chain letters that used to circulate by post.

Onwards and upwards!

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