Getting especially addicted to the AI option on my phone! But certainly gets my All Bran bright and Christmas sparkly!

So, yesterday, the dark day of November 10th, I shouldn't be maudlin.. Apologies.. time heals they say? But I'd like to meet these people, see how their life experiences have differed from mine..

'I know how you feel; yes I can imagine; this is my advice; this is how I would manage your problem' 

Yeah, walk in the shoes of people who have had to overcome parts of their lives that have broken them .. and I don't just mean me, of course not .. People have, and are, suffering way more than me, and you.  We have no real idea... If you're reading this you're a very lucky person in so many ways...

Sorry head in weird place me thinks, today!

Time to change, the subject!

Saw these Christmas sweaters in Asda just now, made me want to buy them and get back to work at Overseas, where the view from the shop doorway is the Mediterranean.. Christmas tunes blaring from the speakers all day, every day of December, dancing down the aisles in our Christmas sweaters.. Yep, miss work, miss my friends there, miss many of the customers.. Probably why I hang out around supermarkets now! Seeing small insights small similarities, makes me smile... Good memories.

Even those people coming in complaining the advent calendars had run out and no more stock coming in... Well, after three months of being in store they would be gone, right! 

Then the mince pies on the counter, 50/50 ratio more or less, in those that love them, from September to December, and those that hate them, complaining about them even being there for sale!?!

We must waste so much of our lives complaining about what we don't like, don't want... Instead of being grateful and happy about the good things we have, can see, can feel...

Oops, dropped back down to wherever I began my post! Is this what All Bran does!! Lols 

Okay, got my surgery report yesterday, thankfully at last, nothing gory coming up, no red flags and warning bells!

The LST/NG was removed en bloc, taken as one piece, that means, less risk of leaving anything unwanted, they used a technique which mentioned an ESD speedboat!?! And nine clips used!!

Anyways, they did it, I'm healing and all good!

I feel like a good walk along a river bank or through a forest, wellies on and squelching through the mulch.. that wonderful earthy smell I missed of England when living in Spain .. I need to fill up on some positive effects of nature, breathe and pause, and breathe some more..

It did rain last night and stopped this morning before I went out.. But, I am also feeling really tired, I couldn't fall asleep last night, then as usually follows, awoke too early!

M.

I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me.

Joshua Graham

Going to get myself up in a minute! Been listening to a book for a couple of hours, nipped down for a coffee, but need to shake myself up, get up, have my rusk and warm milk and then get down to Asda! Need some more soup! And maybe a yoghurt, can't get much softer than yoghurts! 

Stomach is hurting again sitting so maybe getting up and moving about will help now.

You know I Googled that strange dreamlike weird thing when I couldn't sleep the other night.. had some strange meanings.. which I won't bother you with!! Lols 

Sat now, second cup of coffee, and first Farley's Rusk under my belt! I have already called City hospital, a really helpful guy is going to print out and send me my report, which the system in the Queens Med had been unable to do on Monday, and he also advised me on what other soft foods I can eat until Saturday! Very helpful...

I am dressed and ready for my short walk, wish me luck! Lols, well it'll be too late by the time you read this maybe!

It could be years!! 

Music track today, and it's John Lewis's Christmas 2025 advert.. 

I realized just now watching a Christmas Advert on TV, I have missed these adverts, not having seen the Christmas Adverts for so long, or only intermittently.. 

I guess some people may say "Christmas ads! Ooerrr again already!."

But, some of them are so beautifully thought out and made.. Small stories.. straight to the heart ..

M.

The dead don't disappear 

Not while they're loved..

Quote from an episode of Strike 

 

Mathern, a village in Wales..

But first of course I better update on surgury.. 

Went in about 10:30 Monday morning, for my 11am admission, was a bit of a deja vu feel about it all, after last week, but I was signed in, checks done, signed all the forms and trollied off to the theatre about 12:45ish..

Every one very nice, felt very cared for and looked after... In the bit before the theatre, the prep room... They put in the cannula, BP arm band, the stickers and then an injection for something and the oxygen mask... The anesthesiatist said think of a happy place .. so I put myself on the boardwalk at Calahonda.. and knew no more .. 

I can't actually remember coming back around in the recovery room, but obviously I did, because they moved me back into my ward half an hour later... Was 4:30 then...

Reclined my chair and covered me up with a blanket.. where I snoozed!

I came home about 7pm and went to bed about an hour later.. slept sort of until 3am yesterday morning, then just laid in bed listening to a book until I got up about 9ish.

Baz took the day off to look after me, I wasn't allowed to be left alone for the first 24hrs...

And also no food for 24hrs after the surgery..

So last night about six I had something? Oh soup, I had cream of chicken soup... 

Yesterday I had a very very sore throat and speaking wasn't easy... 'Yeah yeah yeah!!' and a very painful abdomen area .. All to be expected.. 

Today tummy still hurts, but not as bad, and throat getting better.. A long as I don't talk too much!! 

I didn't get my report, and I didn't get a food plan.. So that's been worrying me a bit, winging it on the soft food I can eat, today had a rusk for breakfast and three hours later another one, with warm milk .. love those things! Then three hours later I had half a can of cream of mushroom soup, the other half three hours later! So four meals today, if you can call them meals! And a Complan just now, for some goodness! 

I guess I'll sort of repeat tomorrow, if I can't get hold of anyone to answer my question about what to eat!! 

I know it's soft foods for 72 after after the non food 24hrs .. 

So a good meal Saturday, although I have to admit I'll be a bit worried as the point of soft foods is that nothing hurts the site of the operation, for obvious reasons.

Anyways, I survived it! And I was scared, it's just not a good time of the year, I know remembering dates from past painful times doesn't help... 

But I'll never forget...

Last night although exhausted, I couldn't sleep! And after waking up at 3am yesterday morning and still seeing 2am this morning!! Made yesterday a very long day! Lols 

I watched a bit of TV, played a bit of solitaire, then listened to my book, I expected sleep .. instead I had sone weird hallucination! It was as though I was floating low near the ground, and all I could see was earth and rocks and faces there in... Was horrible, and my mind kept trying to see anything else, I was trying to think of something else to stop what I was seeing... Yet on and on I floated .. just earth and rocks and faces!! 

Then I slept, woke up, broke my glass, mopped that up, picked up glass! and couldn't sleep again!!

Tired today, but can't see sleep coming easy tonight..  its usually just lots of waking up and turning over like the ever turning kebab! Falling asleep is usually easy .. hate it when it's not.

All these photographs I took on November 5th 2018.. in Mathern where I was in a placement.. end of life care...

M.

Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?

Rose Kennedy