Greetings all! 🙂
As stated above, this is the beginning of our third week cooped up with two overbearing and disgracefully demanding slave-drivers (Satai and Ching) in a rather messy, and rapidly becoming more messy by the day, house, because Kelly, our usual Cleaning Lady, is off in her own state of voluntary self isolation… so today, Julian is going to have to get a clean handkerchief, tie a knot in each corner, pop it on his head like a mob-cap, and turn himself into a “Kelly Mk 2” and do a bit of dusting and vacuuming. Be that as it may, after a week of gritted teeth and a somewhat-demented flurry of preparation (my teeth were gritted, because Julian was in such a somewhat-demented flurry of preparation!), with some trepidation, our “drawbridge” was finally raised, and our portcullis lowered for the duration (apart from a weekly top-speed scurry, masked and gloved, to procure perishables, such as fresh fruit and vegetables (if and when available!), bread, milk, and eggs, etc.)
Week 1 was a doozie – we’d rung Dorevitch to see if we could have someone out to do my regular Warfarin blood tests, as I was over 70, wasn’t in fabulous health, and we didn’t think it would really be advisable for me to sit around in a (usually very crowded and busy) clinic waiting to have my blood taken. “Certainly!” they said – but we’d have to get my doctor to authorise it.. but they’d try to have someone out the following week anyway as I was already two weeks overdue for my blood test. As we were going to see Dr. B. the next day to get a few repeat scripts, we also asked her to arrange for Dorevitch to send someone over to do my regular Warfarin blood tests. She made a note to do so, we got our scripts, and we had a brief chat with Dr. B about the Covid-19 situation. She’s very, very busy, and very, very worried about it all, and from then on, she said, she would mainly be doing home visits, and phone or video consultations. She was expecting to receive a delivery of flu vaccine that week, and said she’d come to our place the following Wednesday to give us ours. I said I didn’t want one. I’m 70+, and have never had a flu shot, or had the flu, ever, and that I didn’t want to spoil my stellar record. She and Julian both ganged up on me, saying I was going to have a flu shot whether I wanted it or not, if only to try to prevent a “false positive” if I got sick (i.e. if I’d had a flu shot and got sick with “flu-like symptoms”, it was much more likely to be Covid-19 than the flu, and I’d be treated appropriately a lot faster than if they just thought it was the flu at first)
The next Tuesday, a nice young gentleman from Dorevitch arrived to take my blood test. Good-o! Next, we received a call from Dr. B’s clinic to say that she’s arranged for someone from Dorevitch to come and do my blood test on Thursday. Julian and I looked at eachother, a bit bewildered… Oh well, we’d ask Dr. B about it when she came over the next day to give us our Flu shots. The results from my blood test came in that evening. NOT good. Short explanation: people with normal blood, that doesn’t start clotting at the drop of a hat, need to have an INR [International Normalized Ratio] of around 0.8 to 1.2 (i.e. the higher the INR the thinner the blood) Because I have a tendency for my blood to clot abnormally fast, my INR should, ideally, be around 2.6… it was 3.6!! WAY too high! Hmm… I’d been wondering why I was getting so many bruises when I hadn’t been doing anything that would have caused them! My Warfarin dosage was changed to a very complicated dosage, alternating amounts every night, so I made a handy-dandy chart so that I’d be able to get dosage right….
Wednesday morning arrived, and so did Dr. B, to give us our flu shots… we told her about the visit from Dorevitch the day before, and that we were apparently going to get a visit, organised by her good self, the next day (Thursday) as well?… what should we do? She was as mystified as we were, and we all thought that as they’d sent someone on Tuesday, maybe the Thursday one wouldn’t be sent? Oh well, we’d wait and see. I had my [censored] flu shot; I was not happy! 😕 I also felt a bit cheated… I didn’t even feel the needle go in! 🙁
So Thursday dawned, and around mid-morning, the doorbell rang… it was, of course, someone from Dorevitch, come to do my blood test! A young lady, this time. Julian explained what had happened, but she decided to go ahead and do the blood test anyway – err… When I saw about half a dozen empty blood tubes in the dish, where there is usually only the one, I was a bit taken aback. I shouldn’t have been – this wasn’t the first time that Dr. B, in her wisdom, had decided to run some other blood tests on me, at the same time! 🙄 Oh well… We got the Warfarin results that night – and as it turned out, it was probably a good idea, after all, to have the second blood test so soon after the first. In three days, my INR had gone down from 3.6 to 3.4! Of course, my dosage had to be changed yet again, from a terribly convoluted, complicated dose that needed a chart to follow how much warfarin I had to take each night, down to something much more simpler, thank heavens! So much for making complicated charts, eh?! 😕 I presume that the other, extra blood tests were OK, because I haven’t heard anything to the contrary. I’m sure that it there’s anything amiss with any of them, either Dr. B or the clinic will let me know toot sweet! 🙂
I have another blood test scheduled for Tuesday, tomorrow… I’m starting to feel a bit like a pin-cushion! 😕
Anyway, apart from all of that blood testing business, we’re both well, a bit frazzled, I suppose, and of course, we tend to spend a lot of time playing WoW, especially as Blizzard have a Bonus 100% experience gain going until April 20th… (means you level up twice as quickly!) 😎 and watching my very favourite eldest daughter streaming on Twitch. I’ve also been doing lots and lots of online jigsaw puzzles, and lots and lots of online crossword puzzles, as well as a lot of e-reading, so I definitely haven’t been bored! Julian alternates between playing WoW, mundane office work, cooking, doing the laundry, and a bit of cleaning, as well as his weekly top-speed scurry, masked and gloved, forays into the nasty and dangerous Covid-19 riddled great outdoors.
Julian has bought the cheapest Apple 10″ iPad that he could find, so that we can Facetime with Lee, Kate, Dr. B… and anyone else who wants to talk to us via Facetime. So far we’ve spoken to Lee and Neale, Kate and Terry, and Julian’s sister, Mitta. So far, it seems to work quite well (naturally, I try to duck out of sight of the camera, cos I usually look pretty messy – so don’t expect to see me on Facetime! 😉 )
And that about wraps it up from me for the past three weeks! 🙂 I’ll keep you all up to date on happenings here at “chez nous” (or “con noi”, for those who prefer Italian! 😉 ) as things happen (or don’t happen!), so I shall bid you all to remember that a balanced diet means a cupcake in each hand. Do try extra hard to bee good, take care of yourselves, and above all, to drive carefully! ciao for now, moi! 🙂