Friday, February 14, 2014

what doesnt make you stronger ,kills you.........



photo taken by Doris.


2014 has not got off to the best of starts for me.hositalized in January with pneumonia,and asthma-breathing difficulties.......
The British NHS is the best health care in the world.(remember,America,my 3 days in hospital:my consultant:my Asthma Nurse:My X-Ray Men;etc are all Free) infact ,even free, we demand 100% 'We pay for it through taxes after all.We have high expectations......
...... 8 days ago I got a phonecall out of the blue from my consultant's secretary.Telling me the X-Rays they took in A&E  on January 3rd showed "A change in the left lung"and could I "undergo a repeat chest x-ray in the second week of February to ensure there is no significant abnormality".The request form i gave to the Hospital's X-Ray Man 7 days ago said on it "LRTI?Left Hilar Prominence" .
Now i was worried.Nobody had sat me down and told me any of this.While in hospital in January two different doctors went out of their way to say my x-rays "were fine".
This Monday I rang up my Consulatant's secretary ( he's called DR.R.P. KARADI by the way).I asked if she had any news of my x-ray results yet.She sounded surprised."Oh ,he's on Annual Leave this week.He wont even look at them for at least 1 to 2 weeks"....
So I have been worried for over a week.self-diagnosing on the internet..researching the joys of Lung Cancer et al(.........while ,no doubt,Dr Karadi reads some thriller on a beach somewhere......)
Thankfully i had a routine visit to my asthma nurse yesterday.I told her the tale.She hacked into the hospital's records & read me the X-Ray Mans report.
It turns out the original x-ray in A&E showed one lung slightly larger than the other,but ,crucially,  no structural abnormalities.The X-Men wondered if i had sat in slightly the wrong position when it was taken.They just wanted a second photo to check.Last week's  2nd X-Ray showed my lungs were symetrical.I was sat wrong orginally......I am ok.
Now my asthma nurse shouldnt really have given me this information.But how long will it be before the Consultant passes this on? (if at all)
When exactly did subjectivity die?
Objectively , they have looked after me wonderfully.But a 30 second informal conversation would have avoided 8 days+ of needless worry for me.
We live in a world of checklists & "targets". It is unfortunate that "hypochondria-prevention"doesnt seem to be a target in this Brave New World..........

This is a Sepia Saturday post.
This week's Theme is "Crowds"........If you look at this photo,& the people in it,notice several souls are savvy enough to turn & notice the camera.........
Brighouse,"The Birthplace of The Selfie"?
The building in question was on Mill Royd Street.
A 5-storey high and 17-windows wide silk-spinning mill in Brighouse..
The mill burned down on 26th October 1903, and fireman Alexander Carmichael was killed on his way to the blaze.
Alexander lived at Back Bonegate, Brighouse. He was killed when he was fell from the fire engine as it sped to the fire...............
Poor  old Alex.,killed not by the fire itself, but by the alarm surrounding it....such is life (& death).

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

in a stable condition....

Neil Young:Live in Japan:1976:Heart of Gold.


this week's speia saturday 212 is looking at  snow. It's excess & it's absence..........
One of a Series of photos taken by some of the Anglo Saxon side of my family in the early 20th century in Lake Saranac in up state New York  ..To some extent,I am recycling These previous posts
{Me Thinks our ancestors enjoyed & gleaned more fun out of extremities than we do now?Just a Thought........}
Thankfully ,we have had no snow here yet this winter.Here is a photo Chris took up the road last Winter......
I am getting over my recent illness.Saying that, Im not 100% in as much as I get tired very easily still.
I'm now on stronger steroids for my asthma (flutiform instead of beclometasone) A fairly minor ajustment ,& still ,i feel, only moderate in terms of heavy-duty asthma (?).
I'm still not that sure what i would do differently if it happened again?
it was all so quick.
In the space of 48 hours I went from Hero -to-Zero. New Years's revellery to the back of  an Ambulance with an Oxygen Mask on......
It was   lower respiratory tract infection {pneumonia?} which in turn triggered a bad Asthma attack.........Hey-Hoy .
My asthma is controlled at the moment ,and I only feel a little hoarse as i type this post........... [above:Bob Dylan "see you later Allen Ginsberg".Basement Tapes Outakes.]
Here in Calderdale ,we are in the middle of the weeklong Wyrd Britannia Festival.
The festival rolled into Hebden Bridge Library tonight.
Andy Roberts gave a talk on LSD in Britain & the band Magpahi also played.
Andy is a great advocate of the drug.
I took it several times in the 70s and I fully support his plea for understanding
.A groovy night was had by all!
 
 
Roll on John:Blackpool 2013 :Bob Dylan.
those wacky Anglo-Saxon Zimnochs......

 
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Wednesday, January 08, 2014

the 3 ghosts of zimnoch { غزل‎ : an audio post}

"Once More we come like dust adance in air........" (Rumi:Ghazal :1720)
1962 school photo.

 
Two old men are sitting in a cafe. Gideon says to Dave , "Did you come on the bus?" Dave  replies, "Yeah, but I made it look like an Asthma attack."

As it happens, the story begins only a few hours after the photos in previous post..... taken on New Year's Eve....
At 5am on Friday 3rd January 2014 i was in the middle of a severe asthma attack.Over just 2 days this had developed into something scary.I was afraid.
When I was ten ,an older lad in the swimming pool (Woodside Baths)had put his big hand ontop of my head ,and pushed me down ,my head underwater...& held me there.Maybe he had attention-deficit,because he seemed to forget about me...but his hand didnt........
.I can still remember my childhood panic.The situation returned on Friday 3rd January 2014.Nothing ever really leaves us does it?
That same year (it must have been 1962?)I swallowed a big boiled sweet whole..Had I been alone, perhaps i would have died?Luckily,my big Brother Ziggy was nearby & he manage to get the sweet out.
Heimlich maneuver or a simple kick in the bollocks I cant remember.it doesn't really matter in the end.The main thing is it worked.
So i was rushed by ambulance to A&E in Halifax.I stayed  in hospital for 3 days.I was proper poorly.Perhaps not as sexy as a Stroke or a Heart Attack....but serious enough to these old bones..
I'm home now ,still on gardening leave & swallowing a shed load of antibiotics & steroid tablets (where is that damn Heimlich when you need him?)
I,ve been wallowing in my excitement on facebook .i know i tend to get manic & obsessive when something important happens to me.I also dislike the way i insist on turning everything into some sort joke or jolly caper.It's a way of avoiding i suppose
Anyway..........what i tell here for the first time,is 3 linked portraits/vignettes about my stay on the ward .Things that happened in our 4 -man sideward during my weekend in hospital.
Although not directly to do with my illness (you must be sick of hearing about it)Some extremely poignant  things occured.Some  ghosts past ;present & future.arrived.A reunion of sorts.The whole affair seemed like some  planned  Pagent's rehearsal.................
click bar directly below to hear the post /dont forget to turn on your audio:
You know ?I havnt walked out of doors since 1a.m. on the 1st of January 2014.......
3 Little Known Zimnoch Hospital Facts:
1962 was  the last time i ever stayed in hospital (6 weeks in traction with a fractured femur)
1965 in Poland.The only time I ever met my Polish grandmother.just the one occassion, on her hospital deathbed in Białystok
1952.six of the first nine months of my life were spent in hospital in Huddersfield. with Meningitis .


Me in 1960 (?) in a Leven,Fife  garden.From my Auty Brenda's photo album..
This is a Sepia Saturday post.


Wednesday, January 01, 2014

Happy 2014

I used to believe that something magical happens on New Year's Eve.I know better now..but still a good night.Thanks X

Thursday, December 19, 2013

what good am I.


The Gentle Author is reading a racy new book called "The Best Of Sepia Saturday" why dont you buy it and feel the pulse!You can purchase it here . Then you can meet 46 Gentle Authors! It's published,printed & written by Alan Burnett . He asked if he could take one of my posts (I still have to pay for my copy!)
I have not been around much of late.This should be my final post of the year,so I will be around visiting all my neglected friends over the next week.
May i wish you all a very Happy Christmas . I hope 2014 is sepiatastic for us all.
This is a sepia saturday post.
The audio is the actual live recording of Bob Dylan at the Winter Gardens Blackpool on November 22nd this year. Me Cathy Margaret & Don where in the audience......
.................What good am I then to others and me
If I’ve had every chance and yet still fail to see
If my hands are tied must I not wonder within
Who tied them and why and where must I have been.....................?

click here to hear this extremely rare,very good quality(from the soundboard),highly illegal  bootleg recording of the performance we saw  :

I'm having something of a gallop through my year in photos.To say I've not been abroad, or had any sort of extended holiday,it's been an interesting year!


[to see all my photos you can view my image website  {here} .]

As this is some sort of a review of 2013,here are 2 videos I took at Hebden Bridge Trades Club this year at my 61st Birthday Gig........the music was provided by British Sea Power a band i have supported here for many years.In my opinion,the best British band of the past ten years.....(I really care little what the accountants & beancounters might say.....)
.

I am attending this in January.should be fun.

Phil's Birthday

  My friend of 60 years Phil got married just a week ago to Iris . (He died last Sunday ) .  Today was Phil's Birthday . We went o...