2012 - 3

Chesty Morgan?

Some vaguely related sentences:

Shortly after I had pneumonia (as talked about in a previous post), I had to go for a check up with my own GP in Northampton, on return from spending a couple of months with my folks in Herts. After an examination he announced he believed I had 'bronchial asthma' which, until the other day, I had just let wash over me. Then it dawned on me that asthma is a bronchial disorder, so what other kind of asthma can you get?

On Saturday evening, I thought what a pathetic specimen I am at times. Not only have I been cursed with bad backs, aching limbs, shoulder operations and broadcast about them to all and sunder; I've been whining about how shit I've been feeling since before Christmas. In fact my health is a regular inclusion in this blog and I feel it has to stop. To be fair, even I find my health boring and repetitive, so God knows what the casual reader must think. "Oh here's Hypochondriac Man again with a broken toenail or a split end!" I would.

My two wishes for 2012 were good health and a solid, no fuss, hard-working job year. 19 days into January and I've just had the rest of this week off sick and subsequently haven't been at work, during term time, which isn't good, regardless of how shit I've felt. My body had the good grace to be ill during my entire Christmas break, it could have at least waited for a relapse on or around February 10th.

One of the reasons I always let Dr Molla's asthma diagnosis wash over me was until I had pneumonia, me and breathing were like joined at the hip. Even when the diagnosis was repeated several times during my 20s and 30s, I just thought it was just another GP cop-out diagnosis like IBS or Back Pain. Then in my 40s, I started to have genuine asthma attacks - mild at first and probably caused by years of smoking. I have had possibly a couple of dozen proper asthma attacks in the last 10 years and I can honestly say I know what drowning feels like. I had one at work on Monday.

So, I came to a conclusion on Saturday night; I was going to try and stop talking about my health like it's interesting or something.

Saying that...

Fisio Fairoppy

I sometimes wonder if I would have made a good gimp. I've always found fiercely strong women quite attractive and a wee bit intimidating in a 'I want some of that' kind of way. Anyhow, my physio is a few years older than me and as straight talking as Jeremy Paxman. She doesn't beat around the bush; she says it how it is and when she says 'do this exercise' you straddle the pain barrier to please her.

Yesterday, I had what is effectively my last session until the next time. My back is officially okay. It wasn't so much what she said to me as how she said it. Don't even think about surgery! You're nearly 50, face facts, things go wrong! Do the core stability exercises or go through it all again, more often! Don't do any heavy lifting! Walk more - push yourself!

Obviously, some of these suggestions I would have taken on board even if I'd been told by a talking slug wearing a fedora and eating souvlaki in my attic. The one about not lifting especially appeals.

Oddly enough, she told me, as she works in a GP surgery, that the doctors reckon there have been more incidents of the novo virus, coughs, colds and other assorted viruses this year than in recent years; probably due to the mild weather. She also said something really odd. She said that while last winter saw more deaths, the number of flu, virus and other cases was considerably lower. I made a flippant joke about pensioners standing more chance of surviving the flu than the cold and she looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Exactly!" I'm not going to argue with her.

The cold kills germs. Unfortunately it kills people too.

Touchy Subject

Maggie's been in the news a lot recently. The release of the 'Film I Will Never Watch' and debate as to whether or not she deserves a State Funeral ala Winston of Churchill. Also the great idea of allowing the private sector to organise (and pay for) her funeral (which started as a joke, but now, well, you know, it's not a bad idea, is it?).

Thatch is a Marmite person and that analogy works okay apart from the fact I use Marmite in soups and stews and I couldn't imagine putting bitch-features into anything I cook, unless it means hanging, drawing and quartering first; maybe served up with some corned beef.

Never fear, if Thatch doesn't steal the headlines then the Queen will. We've already had to suffer the spectacle of a royal wedding last year and this time it's a diamond jubilee and it's coming out of our pockets. I know it's not Liz's fault she's been on the throne 60 years, but she's allegedly not stupid, she should be stomping on Blackadder's foot suggesting a low key celebration to fit in with the mood of the country. She should also be dropping large hints that while one would love a new yacht, it's an insult to anyone who doesn't even have a rubber dinghy.

Michael Gove is the imbecile with all these bright ideas and is obviously angling for a place in the Lords. His latest hair brained idea is to ship 300,000 personally autographed copies of the King James Bible to be sent to every school in the country as an Easter gift. Total cost about £4million. Blackadder surprised me when he told Gove that the taxpayer wasn't paying for it.

I mean, every school must have a King James Bible, it helps promote diversity.

TV Dump

My intention is to talk about TV in independent posts and there will be one soon; but a quick mention for Forbrydelsen II or The Killing 2, the latest (2009) Danish pot-boiler to hit the BBC. As much as we really enjoyed the first one, the wife did guess the killer in episode 1 and at times you wondered if it was a crime drama or a demonstration of how piss poor the Danish police are. The second one, while equally enjoyable, felt like it tried to do twice as much in half as many episodes.

I also found myself thinking, 'why don't you ask that or say this' a lot of the times as I struggled to believe the slap dash investigative work, the heavy handed politics and some of the stilted dialogue. Sarah Lund seemed to take on some kind of mythical maverick cop persona, which she seemed to unintentionally find herself in in the first series and embraced it like it was a character trait in the second, despite there really being no evidence that she's just a dysfunctional Inspector Colombo. The sequel was enjoyable, it just wasn't as good as I expected and left me thinking that maybe the Danes are trying just a little bit too hard.