Hello! Long time no post once again, but it’s safe to say that this blog has fallen to the bottom of my agenda at the moment. That being said, October has been rather a lot, so it seemed only appropriate to do a little look back over the events of the month. So without any delay lets get stuck into what I got up to in October.
Weekend Getaway
I kicked off my October with a little staycation up on the
Norfolk coast. My Mum has recently brought a chalet right near the beach in
Winterton, and was kind enough to let my friend Maria, her two dogs and I stay
there for a few days.
We had a great time away together with long dog walks on the
beach, lots of chatter, snacks and we even brough our Nintendo DS’s with us for
playing Pokémon together. There is no Wi-fi on the site, which makes it the
perfect place for a getaway to switch off and recharge. Maria is one of very few people that doesn’t
drain my social spoons, so the few days we had away with the dogs left me
feeling calm, well rested and recovered from what had been a stressful few
weeks prior.
Dog news!
Speaking of dogs, we’ve finally had some good news regarding
our rescue girl – the news being that the ban preventing her from traveling
from Romania, has now been lifted! I think we’ve still got a long wait ahead of
us, with the charity now needed to get various bits of paperwork and licencing
out of the way, but regardless, we’ve moved forward and are now waiting on a travel
date.
Given that Freya was supposed to have travelled to us in April,
she’s already had all of her tests and jabs, so I’m hoping she’ll be among the
first to travel over. I have everything crossed that we have her before
Christmas!
Health
After months and months of constantly being on my period, I
finally made myself go to the doctors to see if there was anything they could
do to help. To be honest, I didn’t think I would get anywhere, as when I’ve
previously been to a different doctor for the same problem I’ve been told it’s ‘normal’
to sometimes have long periods and wait it out… I'm sorry, but being on a period for the better part of 5 months is most certainly not 'normal'.
That being said I must have picked a pretty good day, as there were final
year medical students in the practice and in the appointment. I haven’t met the
Dr I saw previously, so I could be doing her a massive injustice, but I do
wonder if the presence of the students meant that she was extra thorough and helpful.
The end result was a blood test, which of all things
revealed that my kidneys are underperforming. This wouldn’t necessarily be a concern
on its own, but a blood test I had back in 2018 showed a similar problem –
although there has also been a small decline in my score. When I went through
the results on the phone with my GP, we also looked at family history, resulting
in another blood test, to look at my kidneys again, but to also look at my
hormone levels. I’ve also had to do a urine sample for the same, and am now waiting
on a referral to the hospital for an ovarian scan.
We’re kind of at the point where we’re looking at two things at the same time: my ovaries to try and get to the bottom of these periods, and my kidneys following the results from the initial blood test. The latter does mean that I’ve been told not to drink for the time being, so it’s just as well I packed alcohol in at the start of the year – although I do wonder if this is the reason why I felt so rotten after drinking? I’d easily spend days throwing up – maybe this was the cause all along?
Concerningly I have started getting a dull pain in the left side of my lower back, which has been coming and going the past week or two. I'm paranoid that I'm overthinking what could just be pain from sleeping funny, but it's certainly something to mention to the doctor when I get the results from my latest tests.
Work
Work is going really well at the moment. After achieving my
promotion my manager happened to ask what I wanted to do as my next step, and
after some chatting I spent an hour or so talking through auditing and reviews
with one of our directors. I now have a whole afternoon set aside where I’ll be
assisting him with one of the more granular reviews, and talking through our
compliance processes, which I’m very excited for!
Mike’s garden leave is up, and he has started his
new position. As much as he’s enjoyed his much deserved time off, and I think was quite excited to start. He’s now be just up the road from my office again, so
we can go back to sharing a car most of the time – which should be a massive
cost saver at the very least!
So far it doesn't appear to be a problem with his kidneys are we had first feared, which is a massive relief both for Boots and our bank balance. We're already at the point that we could have got a small car with the vet costs, and I'm fearful that we'll have a struggle on our hands if it turns out to be anything major. As a consequence I've started to put money aside, just in case we have most costs coming our way.
Later on in the month I joined Maria, and another friend of hers, Jack, on a night out to see Lawrence Chaney perform at the Waterfront in Norwich. Having never watched RuPauls Drag Race I had no idea what to expect, but had a really great night.
We even got meet and greet tickets, and should hopefully
be getting the photos from that very soon! Arriving early for the meet and greet also meant that we could park ourselves right at the front, while everyone else at the meet and greet headed off to the bar. It paid off, as when the show started, we had the best view!
So, in general, life is pretty good. There's also been lots of dog walks and more laid back catch ups, and hopefully, it will be our own dog that we're taking on adventures very soon!
