One down, one to go

I had my flu vaccine today. It was fine, apart from the fact that I don’t really like looking at needles and the doctor took the vaccine out of the packet and then proceeded to carry on talking to me about how many vaccines she has to do and all the bureaucracy that goes with [...]

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How not to be a doctor

I’m pleased to say that 95% of doctors I’ve ever had anything to do with have been very good, however, I had a bad experience with one during my recent stay in hospital which made me feel compelled to write a short guide on how and how not to behave with a patient:

Do not launch [...]

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Tomorrow

Tomorrow is “pacemaker day”. I expect you’ll be unsurprised to learn that I’m quite worried about it. I rang the ward administrators today to confirm the bed and they said I’m in the same ward that I was in last time so at least I will be in fairly familiar surroundings. I haven’t packed my [...]

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Date for pacemaker implantation…

…is the 6th of August. I was reading about the procedure again today. I’m not sure I will be able to cope with it being done while I’m awake, so I hope I can be made as unaware as possible of what is going on, although I am still scared of having a general anaesthetic [...]

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Pacing

I went to see the pacing doctor today. He was quite friendly and helpful and realistic in an almost discouraging way. He was trying to make sure that I didn’t think that having a pacemaker fitted would make me suddenly have lots more energy. Unfortunately, this is what I was hoping would happen!
He also explained [...]

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A busy week

This week, it was my birthday and our wedding anniversary and we also had an appointment with the cardiologist on Thursday. I think I’ve mentioned before (probably several times!) about my sometimes strange heart rhythms. After experiencing strange rhythms on an increasingly regular basis and having yet another 24-hour tape since I wrote my post about [...]

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Art in unusual places

When I was in hospital, one of the things that made my days more cheerful and my walk around the wards more interesting was a lovely collection of pictures featuring whimsical, pretty, sweet and sometimes slightly odd scenes cut out of paper. I think they were made by Rob Ryan. If I’m wrong I apologise! You can [...]

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NaBloPoMo

Yes, I am doing NaBloPoMo again this year. I hope I can do it. I found it quite challenging last year and November is looking to be busy so far, so could be even more challenging this year! I seem to have booked myself up for almost all the weekends in November, apart from [...]

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Open Hearts

The Grown Up Congenital Heart Patients Association  has just published a little book of stories from people with congenital heart defects, called Open Hearts. If anyone has followed me to WordPress from my old blog you might be able to remember me talking about trying to write my story for this book. I eventually finished [...]

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Let out into the wild

I went to the hospital for a check-up yesterday. All is well. I wasn’t there for very long, which was good. I had an ECG first and then saw the cardiologist – not my usual lady cardiologist but one of the doctors I saw when I was in hospital, the one who discharged me, in [...]

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