Saturday 4 July 2009

1252 Being ill, Transylvania Twist, Lost,

I am full of cold with a urinary tract infection. The first signs of the cold came after New Years Eve and I thought it simply a cold which might go to my chest which is usually something I find more unpleasant and takes time to clear up. There was one year soon after starting school where I seemed to have every childhood illness going from mumps to chicken pox, but the major problem was having a weak chest. I remember the Friars balsam treat man of inhaling from a bowl with head covered. My childhood weakness had two long term consequences. For as I had missed most the schooling over one year when I failed to perform as expected I was held back to take the penultimate year twice/ This was humiliating. I lost the other classmates and had to get to know new ones although because of the home situation I was not encouraged to make friends and invite them home. There was the exception of the wealthy girl who I got to know and who when holding a large birthday party at a venue in Croydon, I was collected by car and taken to her home and then from their to join the party. Apart from a street party held to mark the end of the war and family gathering this was the first social event attended outside the home environment. Shortly afterwards the young lady was sent to school in Switzerland and I never saw her again.

The second consequence of the weak chest is that I have always been prone to chest infections and the ordinary cold cough becomes something of a nightmare, sometime requiring antibiotics if ordinary cough medication does not work. I have experience a whole range of cough conditions and usually I go to the chemist and explain my condition and get a medication that it effective.

So my approach was to grin and bear it, keep warm and void going out where the news had reported the spread of vomiting virus However what happened was not normal. I had all the usual symptoms of tightness behind the eyes to TV or working at the computer was not always possible, and feeling weak and generally grotty concentration was also limited. However later evening and into the early hours around 2 am I was sufficiently engaged with two DVD's of the second part of series 2 Lost that I was able to deflect attention away from how I was feeling although I did notice that I was frequently having to drag myself up the staircase to the first floor half landing bathroom and toilet to pass a heavy coloured water. Living on my own and being environmentally conscious I tend to only flush periodically, for upon the accumulation of such small gestures humankind may be able to survive longer on this planet than present appears to be the situation. It is all about balancing the carbon footprint rather than a kind of contemporary Puritanism.

I then cannot remember sleeping as from 2 am until 5am when I thought the best thing was get up for the day I can remember getting up and down almost every five mins to return to the bathroom I had commenced to feel very hot and was uncomfortable in my breathing. I have tended to perspire profusely when undertaking any form of exercise so that when out walking or just doing a lot of shopping, my shirt can become soaked and I always carry a replacement in the car with a towel except during Winter Time. This is to do with being overweight and I have slacked and slacked and over Christmas to New Year commencing to go backwards, promising myself that I would begin to cut out everything other than the main meals and go back to avoiding the sauces which I had been using to make the unused portions of chickens into tasty second and third meals. I would revert to buy two whole chickens and create a hot pot using stock cubes.

However food was the least consideration and the previous day I had made do with a chicken noodle soup and some baked fish without batter and one packet, I usually have two, of steam cooked then frozen vegetables. Between 5am and just before 8 I broke out with a fever so that water flowed from off my forehand and upper body I also found breathing increasingly difficult although this may have been a panic reaction. Being a believer of the Don't Panic guide to the Galaxy first invented in the Hitchhikers Guide and use what is just as good, the Internet, in general and Wikipedia. In the particular. On this occasion I went NHS Direct to see if could find the difference between a cold and flu symptoms.

I had not used this internet information and telephone service and my experience yesterday impressed. An admin assistant takes basic information starting with the home telephone number, then address, then a series of questions before you explain the problem. Then I was put through to a nurse who covered the same information plus some more then said she thought I ought to see a doctor. I had to arrange this, first ringing my medical practice at which I am registered, and I should listen to the out of hours tape and contact the emergency doctor service system where the number was provided if the problem did not merit an ambulance, but could not wait until the practice surgery next opened to make an appointment. This I did and was put first through to another admin assistant who took the same kind of details and information but at this point there was the first problem because the practice of my registered doctor could not be located, and I could not remember the names of any of the other doctors having attended only twice to see my GP in two years since moving and also three times for the first assessment by a district nurse followed by the annual flu jab and the once only pneumonia jab. Now to a confession this year I did not get the flu jab because I knew I had added weight to the last reading and wanted first to reduce to that position. There was a second reason because for the previous two years I had quickly got a cold after the flu jab and a second cold over the Winter months. And I had read and heard news reports which sheeted the flu jab was only effective if it covered all the virus which might circulate.

After a little delay the practice was identified and I was put through to a medical doctor and went over the same personal information symptoms. I was advised to immediately arrange to see a doctor and that I would be contacted about an appointment and the name of the centre in due course . It was sometime between 7 and 8am. I would be contact with an appointment and location. The process from first telephone call is therefore a filter and also a double check with having to give my telephone number four times as the first piece of information. It does therefore take time but it was valuable to be able to talk while the fever continued and I had to slowly talk to take breaths.

Then just as it had come the fever appeared to go and with it the breathing difficulty although this did not return to normal. I had been advised to drink lots of what and take another doe of the propriety powder which I was told would help to flush the system if I had an infection and reduce the temperature. As soon as it disappeared I debated about taking up the appointment. I decided to go because of the passing water problem and having had the feverish condition. I was telephone just after 8 and given the first appointment of 8.40 at the District General Hospital emergency treatment centre which is opposite the ward building where I had visited my mothers over the last six weeks of her two month stay. After being moved from the assessment unit in the main hospital building. It felt odd going back on my own account.

I was asked to provide a urinary sample and surprise surprise there was difficulty at first so I resorted to the running tap. From a dip stick test blood particles were found which indicated an infection which required medication. As one gets older the U.T.I becomes a more common ailment with the associated problem of confusion if not treated. This had been the suggested first cause of the condition of my aunt when she was admitted to hospital in January 2003. There was no temperature although I have had one shorter period since and it was only after it passed that I felt able to make the effort to return to writing this piece commenced two mornings ago
Since being a young man I have supported the view of the interaction of mind with the body in relation to physical as well as mental health as a means of prevention and treatment. I am aware of the effect of stress on mental and physical health, although I have always thrived on being put under pressure through a challenge. I have experience of a psychosomatic disorder on two instances, in at least I felt ill or experience a pain and no physical explanation could be provided when I went for tests. This now causes me a problem in the sense that I went I am ill I tend to look for the causes before contemplating a medical assessment. I have also born close witness to what happened to my mother and other relatives as they approached death and the disabilities they experienced as well as seeing at close quarters the problems of those in one residential home over a period of three years where I visited every other day for the first four months and then almost every day, apart from three trips to London and one to Wiltshire, and when I had colds. I witnessed how people fought, sometimes physically to protect and further their interest and for life itself. It was therefore that much more inspiring to experience the way my mother appeared to accept what was happening to her over her last year, including what was for me the horrific circumstances of her gradual death. It makes me feel guilty when I find that I cannot cope with a bad cold although at least in this instance there was an infection which required prescribed medication.

My spirits have risen and ebbed over the last 36 hours. I put off going for a further supply of photo paper deciding to stay in doors and checking the position was least in my consideration. On my way back from the visit to the Doctor I remembered that across the car park to my nearest Lidl there was a pharmacy chemist. I went into the store to buy some grapes and discovered that although the photo paper had been obtained from the second store, there were four reams on display. However the price was the advertised price and not the concessionary price obtained previously and which makes the first purchase such a bargain. I begin to have the impression that the managers switch items between the two stores as what may have happened with the Turron and which I am now determined not to eat any until I have lost a stone from my weight after I recover from the cold and the infection. Yesterday I managed on a good soup, one roll and the grapes. I hope to feel sufficiently well to go to Morrison's well wrapped and by car for more bottled water, and grapes and light soups or soups without lots of bits.

Yesterday I received a slim envelope which looked similar to those from the Premium Bond prize distribution office. I must find out if it is possible to check on line. Alas it was not a cheque but the automated new motor taxation licence disk which of course set me reminiscing about by two first jobs and where although my main function during the first which lasted two years was to write out new registration log books and where those who know my handwriting recognise my hand eye coordination problem, I was also required to help out with writing licence renewals at the three quarters, and the big renewal period over Christmas and the New Year. Because I was usually to engaged in conversation with a companion about every subject in the universe although mainly jazz and music of all kinds and our reactions to evening visits to Soho cellar clubs and in Oxford Street. I tended not just to make single mistakes but sometimes, these involved several hundred as happened one year with a major supplier of door to door milk deliveries in the county of Middlesex when the category of Pedestrian Controlled Vehicle should have changed and I failed to notice and they had to be sent back after having been put on some vehicles before the error was noted. My reward for this mistake was to not to get the sack but I was told off and then put in charge of a small group of men, retired former local government workers, recruiting to help in the annual rush. I and my group were sent out of the way to the top of the multi storey building in the Vauxhall Bridge Road where we were free to talk the day away under no supervision as long as my own, and I followed the production of the required output, no more and no less. One of the group who lived back down the Vauxhall Bridge Road, in a Victorian terrace, towards Victoria station was the retired head of the vehicle licence section of the Croydon County Borough Finance department and so impressed was he will my supervision and chat that he ensured that I was advised when a vacancy arose in his former department and received a good recommendation from him. This did not happen immediately as there was less than a dozen employees, including two member of the internal audit who checked our daily accounts, and the this compared to the 200 others employed at the building which is now the Random House publishing company, located around the corner from the Tate and with the new Government security building nearby.

Fifty years later you can pick up any phone or log on and tap in your specially assigned number and pay or change your details automatically, as the centre now as the details of every MOT and Road Insurance automatically assigned to vehicles and their present registered owners. You do not need to have the paper work to hand when you contact, only the payment details. Then although I renewed just before the New Year the new printed tax disk and my name and address with reference details arrived on January 4th. This far quicker than the manual operation years ago, will involve significantly less staff and should result in fewer mistake, as I imagine that fleet owners will have a batch renewing system. Those of us, and I count myself included, critical of the loss of the Child Benefit and then the Driving Test information on computer disk also need to take account of the cost effect improvements.

One of my tasks fifty years ago was to enter into a handwritten register the details of every reported stolen car and then put a red ink line through the information if the vehicle was recovered so that over period of times the number of outstanding vehicle thefts of county registered vehicles became apparent and the registered should have been consulted every time an old vehicle came up for a change in registration, especially the lucrative allocation of special number plates. These could not be bought or traded as of now but once a year a vast quantity of goodies arrived from satisfied firms and individual customers who appreciated our work although these disappeared and were not distributed to staff to my knowledge, and which make my licence writing and log book writing mistakes that much more significant. I say that the register should have been consulted but it never was as I was forced to admit when someone came round and checked out my work and that of my colleague, as well as other staff in the New Vehicle Counter Registration section and the two adjacent sections employing senior offices and who dealt with specialist queries and problems and I think the Driving Licence Counter staff. As office juniors, there were three possibly four attached to these three sections we were in a favoured position which was pointed out in no uncertain terms when we were individually required to work on a Saturday mornings once every couple of months in the massive registry on the first floor above which could be reached from one of two stair cases. I mention his because although I have not necessarily been good at particular tasks I have always had those who believed in my potential and provide support and encouragement, including to leave vehicle licence and similar type local government work at the earliest opportunity, including studying for internal and general qualifications and which to passing the Local Government Examination's Board Clerical Division examination and one Advance level GCE in British Constitution because the subject was part of the syllabus for the promotion leading local government certificate. The main point si that as a consequence of the ability to related very MOT, Vehicle Insurance to a vehicle and its owner, the on board computers in Police vehicle can check on every and any vehicle if they have cause for concern. I presume there is still one master data base fro stolen a officially off the road vehicles. Given my present dependence on the word processor, the data base and spread sheet and the constant use of internet searched information, I would like to believe that I would have made a better fist of entering the information on the stolen and recovered vehicles included the important engine and chassis numbers. However I also have another thought that I am more likely to have been the junior who mislaid the disk or worse still wiped the record clean from the system with no back up, And what would my subsequent life had been if that had been the situation? I must remember to change the new licence for the old.

Before watching a spoof horror Transylvania Twist, such was the state of the cold and fuzzy head, I was able to enjoy the contortionist of the circus performers on Big Brother House plus the enthusiasms of the dances and non dances such as Amy the artist and the young politician who despite his physical frame to the contrary was able to show some cool moves, So far so good despite the best efforts of the programme designers the group are demonstrating the poverty of the average talentless moron previously on the programme. Hey Big brother you have egg on your face. However I wonder what those who tune into Big Brother Little Brother will make of having a different class of participant. I am being harsh but I am not in the mood for subtlety.

Having unintentionally wiped the computer slate clean of chess games after one 101 run on level 1 and some 1250 1500 games overall I decided on a new tactic after Christmas which did not bear fruit until the New Year. Now I am up to 82 games level 1 without defeat or draw but abandoned further effort until the head clears because it only take a second loss of concentration and slip of the hand to bring the situation back to zero.

Yesterday all I felt up was watching the TV but at times even this proved too much. However having previous found the TV series Lost engaging I decided to watch Season part 2 Disk 2 and 3 each with four episodes.. I saw the whole of the first season over a period of weeks but season 2 has been problematic with disk arriving over a year and because I have keep no record of programmes watched it was difficult to grasp some story lines but watch all the episodes in a day has meant that together with seeing some of the subsequent series I was able to both enjoy and critically appraise, in so far that I had the capacity to do so. I soon was back on the Island with the participants and during the course of the evening I commenced to learn something more of the dynamics, theories and philosophies., although there much more to be unravelled and this is a series that likes o provide a rational explanation for the irrational.

A new couple was a white man, a bachelor who saves the life of a black woman although colour did not appear to be an issue, as it has not with other characters and one aspect of the programme is that attempts to reveal the commonness of human behaviour across races and cultures. They quickly develop a relationship and on a trip to Niagara Falls he proposes only to learn that she is in remission from cancer and has only a year to live. She has come to accept her situation but he does not and on their honeymoon to Australia he takes her to see a faith healer who uses the energy which exists in the area and which he argues occurs in a few other places around the world. He cannot help her but she decided to tell the husband that she has been cured. On the island he has reached the point when while others have established some kind of community , and a couple trying to build as church he wants everyone else to build some kind of sign that can be seen by planes or satellites , and large three row SOS built out of large pieces of rock. The wife tries to discourage her husband from the venture and eventually explains to him her belief that the island has cured her as it has John Locke who remembers meeting at the airport before the flight takes off, in his wheel chair, something he has not needed since coming to the island. Her husband elects to stay with her and make no further attempt to depart.

Since beginning to explore the Island the participants first discovered an underground chamber and during this set of episodes we are made are that there are others, including a new one where the occupants could observe what was happening in the others. The key to these chambers is need for one of them, possible all when they were active to punch in a code periodically. These are the number which the over weight (original of the 14 chief characters) Hurley who used the same number to with the big prize in the US lotto draw Individual now and in the past have been responsible for ensuring that the code is applied otherwise the system on the island which keeps its energy in check, fails with suggested dire consequences. Locke, the man recovered from his wheel chair gets it into his head that even if the system did required such action in the past it no longer and determined that they will stop. Introduced in seasons is a new character a former criminal who brother was a priest and who has come to act the role especially after being called upon to investigate an alleged back from the dead incident (flashback). He feels called upon first to be the church and then to go back to where another plane was discovered in which heroin was packed inside holy statues. It is here they find the latest chamber and here the former criminal is determined to continue maintain the system especially when Locke tries to stop him. As the seconds elapse after the time of code entering passes we learn the secret of island and the protection system, Without the system a reversal of polarity occurs and this is what forced the two planes to fall out of the sky and it is also the source of the force field which prevents ships and boats from visiting the island or escaping from it beyond its perimeter.

The main focus of the second part of the series is the relationship of the aeroplane survivors with those who live at the other end of the island and who also claim to be survivors. Michael has no contact with his son Walt who lived with his mother in Australia until her death. Walt does not initially get on with his father and his emotional being is centred on his dog who survived the crash with him. Walt has been captured by the other survivors group as a means of getting the return of one oft hem who has been captured and held prisoner under interrogation in the underground chamber When a raiding party from the crash go to try and rescue Walt that are surrounded and lose their weapons to the other group who have disguised themselves as mountain people. Michael is captured and taken back to their encampment of huts by the third underground chamber and given a few moments with his son. He has been told to release the prisoner and also bring back the leader of the crash survivors, two major characters from the first series, one new influential character who killed two of the other group and one other, unlikely character, although the reason for this becomes apparent.

The new second season character a former US cop who went to work for airline security in Australia. She was forced to leave after a colleague realised she had taken the law into her own hands and killed someone who had attempted to kill her but had walked or become free. She has an incident with the prisoner in which he attempt to kill her so she seduces the keeper of the guns, and take his gun to kill the prisoner just as Michael is about to release him so he has to take the gun off her and then kill her, but also another new individual to the series who comers across the situation after collecting some blankets, although why these had to be obtained from the chamber is one of the slimmer connections in the series so far. She is killed accidentally, Michaels shoots himself in the should to prove he is a victim and then the prisoner leaves with Michael insisting on a recovery plan for his son involving only those on his list

While the violent death of the former police woman turned cold blood killer has to be regarded as justice, the protracted death of other young woman in which she tries to point the finger at Michael, is less satisfactory because this alleged former psychologist has befriended Hurley the extremely overweight young man with an obsessive eating disorder from the guilt in his past and who from leaving the psychiatric until and trying to lead a good life he wins the national lottery and a vast fortune and sets off to conquer the world. The lottery numbers are those used to prevent the reversal of polarity on the island. The girl has befriended Hurley and prevents him from committing suicide as he hallucinates over a friend who has combated the medical attempts to help Hurley lose weight and find other less damaging ways to cope with his sense of guilt. In the episode in which she tries to convince Hurley that he is hallucinating and what is appending on Island is their reality she is shown as also being a patient at the same psychiatric hospital as Hurley. A regular feature of the programme is of individuals seeing real people from their lives on the Island. Everyone on the island has a history, some were running away and their situation and the island makes them confront their past.

In order to rescue his Michael, who has shot himself in the shoulder is told to persuade only four of the crash survivors to come with him and the amazing thing is that after all that has happened on the island three of the main characters consent, one has already been killed, and eventually Hurley agrees as a non combatant and whose inclusion is to return to the others and warn them not go to the other side of the island after the three others are captured and Michael and his son given a boat on their release. However that Michael was able to persuade the small group and to dissuade the only survivor known to have had combat experience from the expedition and to stop the first reaction to arm as many a possible to undertake the mission was puzzling although the programme designers had planned this to involve Sayed who uses the boat that has become fixed to the island. This is an island back story and follows the same lines of that involving others via controlling parents who want to dictate who there daughters marry and do not. This individual has been framed, goes to prison and where the parents has continued to prevent contact so that an engagement is announced involving someone suitable. The man determines to get his own back by winning a yacht race against her father and which comes into his possession through a young widow who offers to finance his venture and whose husband had the boat. Although trhere is the opportunity for the man and the love of his life to get together he says a man has gotta do what a man has gotta do and sets off on the completion only to be pulled through the force field on the island, through a previous temporary break in the island system, three years beforehand. He then becomes involved with the last individuals, or so we are led to believe, of the corporation responsible for the system and its monitoring. Those who work the underground chambers are required to make detailed reports which they send to senior management in the kind of tubes which large shops use for the cash or check payments for goods. Such systems enabled centralised cashiering accounting. A bizarre aspect is that the survivor discover that these tubes lead to an above ground outlet in the open air, and have piled up over a substantial period of time.

Well there has to be unanswered questions for later on the in series Our yacht competition is then persuaded to stay for three years only going out in a contamination suit with head set as without these the atmosphere kills. He then learns of the subterfuge to keep him below ground when the former site deputy is seen going above ground in a damaged suit, is followed and found taking off the suit on his way to undertaking further work to repair the yacht. It is during his absence and the delay in working the system timer that the loss of polarity begins and the plane falls out of the sky. He then completes the repair and makes his way to the survivors and then attempt to leave the island on his own. During these last episodes of the series he boat drifts back off shore and is reached by the other crash survivors. The man explains that eh he set sail and should have reached his destination but all that happened is that he was pushed back to the island, Subsequently Michael is told to set and keep to one precise course as if this is the only exit route from the force field. Sayed now commandeers the use of the yacht with the help from the Koreans couple, to do a reconnoitre round the other side of the island as he believes that Michael is leading his friends into a trap. He tells the leader of the survivors this and he promises to send a signal to where they are join him after he has reconnoitred. However he discovered the alleged encampment deserted and the rescuers are captured but not killed through the use of tranquilising darts. As the episode and series ends, Michal and his son set off to freedom, or are, Hurley is sent back with the warning and the other three await their fait, but with several other series further completed it is evident that they were not killed so why were they captured in particular?

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