Tag: Portsmouth

Escape


Sunday 21st June was Father’s Day in the UK and, as usual, my daughters sent cards and gifts.

They always say that I’m really difficult to buy for but I usually disagree with them. I like to say it’s not me, it’s just that once you reach a certain age you pretty much have everything you need. In fact you start to consider divesting yourself of “stuff” and I know my granddaughters are keen to help me with that. They can’t wait to clear out my garage, preferably without me being present.

Anyway, back to Sunday.

Keeley,  my granddaughter, had arranged to take me out but would not tell me where. She kept the whole thing secret, despite my constant questions …

“What do I need to wear?” “What footwear,  do I need my wellies?” “Will I need my bathers?” 

And statements like “I don’t do shopping!” “Remember I’m 74, I don’t  do anything athletic!” and ” Don’t go breaking your grandad!”

Anyway,  she managed to keep the secret right up until we parked up outside the Cascades shopping centre in Portsmouth. I haven’t been down there in over a year so I have no idea what businesses are in there. Everything I’ve read in recent times says that Portsmouth has gone the way of so many British town centres, with empty stores all around. Looking for clues I scoured the visible store names but nothing jumped out.  Keeley asked me if I had guessed yet to which I replied quite randomly

“Is it an escape room?”

I’ve no idea where that thought came from and much to my surprise she confirmed that yes, we were indeed going to do an escape room.

Apparently she has previously been to four escape rooms and thought that this kind of experience would be right up my street .

This was going to be my first and I was immediately excited to get involved.

On entry to the building we were met by the young lady who was to be our host. She took us through the obligatory health and safety rules and then a brief rundown of the back story to our room and the challenges we might encounter.

The building contains a number of rooms. Our specific challenge was to be “Dr Ryddle’s Memories”. The brief back story for this room, taken from the website, is …

Dr. Ryddle’s Memories is an escape room game where you are pitted against perplexing challenges and puzzles inside the mind of one of the greatest 21st century scientists. As you enter the Mind Space, you will walk through the memories of Dr. Ryddle in the deepest quarters of his mind to discover scientific breakthroughs that the doctor never told the world. But that’s not all. The time is ticking and you only have one hour to recover the secrets and the key to escaping Dr. Ryddle’s mind!

Fully briefed we were led to the room, ushered inside, and the door clicked shut behind us.  My immediate thoughts were that I didn’t want to mess this up and or us to fail. And I certainly didn’t want to let Keeley down.

On entry there is an initial clue to get you going. With hindsight it was probably the simplest but it did make us sweat a bit. And then we were off. The first puzzle solved allowed us access to a computer keyboard which we would use to enter codes and passwords.

There were many objects in the room, mounted on the walls as well as boxes/cubes on the floor each with a hole to enable you blindly explore by touch. There was a sort of jigsaw puzzle to assemble on a wall. All of the objects were clues, or parts of clues, to enable you to unlock several, four I think, combination padlocks. Which in turn gave access to more objects / clues. There were also several hotel style safes. Each requiring a code to be entered to gain access to more clues.

We had been warned that our sense of time passing would be totally messed up. That we might struggle with a puzzle thinking we had wasted 10 minute when in fact only 2 minutes had passed. When the TV screen wasn’t giving clues it invariably showed the clock counting down.

Did I mention that we only had one hour to solve the room?

When the counter was down to five minutes I became aware of a clock ticking. This just added to the tension, served as a distraction, and injected a degree of panic.

Well, we did escape! With around two minutes to spare!

Did I enjoy it? Yes!

Would I do another one? Yes!

One thing I noticed was the difference in the way that Keeley and I think. There were elements of the problems that Keeley was more adept at solving, she was definitely more intuitive.  But then there were instances where I was the one to take charge.

It was definitely a team effort and very enjoyable.

Thank you to The Real Escape for providing this experience.

But, most of all, thank you Keeley for arranging and sharing this experience 🥰

The day didn’t end here. Keeley drove us home to pick up Gerry and then, later in the afternoon, we headed out to The Forge for a Sunday carvery roast. When all three of us were feeling pleasantly plumptious we headed home. A fitting end to the day.

Happy Sussex Day


I’m sorry that I am a bit late with this. I fired up the post but family stuff got in the way.

From Wikipedia…

Sussex (from the Old English: lit. ’South Saxons’) is an area of South East England that was historically a kingdom and, later, a county. The current ceremonial counties of East Sussex and West Sussex cover approximately the same area. The two ceremonial counties border Surrey to the north, Kent to the north-east, the English Channel to the south, and Hampshire to the west.

Sussex is my home county. I was born in the coastal / port town of Shoreham-by-Sea. However, as my father was a policeman we were moved around quite a bit. So, home was Hove, Lewes, Westfield, and Battle. I left home to take up an apprenticeship in the Royal Dockyard, Portsmouth. In reality I haven’t lived in Sussex full time since 1969, having moved next door, so to speak, to the county of Hampshire.

The shield, central to the image above reflects the Sussex flag, bearing Six gold martlets on a Blue field, which dates back to 1611.

A martlet in English heraldry is a mythical bird without feet that never roosts from the moment of its drop-birth until its death fall

The motto We wunt be druv, is a Sussex dialect expression meaning “we will not be pushed around” and reflects the traditionally independent nature of Sussex men and women.

Which is probably where I get my stubborn streak.

My heart still belongs to Sussex.

Bobs Bowel 10 – The Big Day


Finally, the big day has arrived. Today is the day I am to have  my tumour removed.

I’m due at the hospital at 06:30. I have been told that I am the only patient on the list, so I am hoping that means first into theatre. No hanging around.

So my next post will be after my procedure when I am compos mentis again.

It’s funny how it seems to have taken a while to get to this point, but in reality, it has been just over three months, from diagnosis to surgery.

If all goes to plan, I’ll be in theatre for about three hours. Then, after time in recovery, I should be on the ward in time for tea. Although I doubt I’ll be in any fit state to eat and who knows what diet I’m going to be on.

I’ll see you on the other side.

Bobs Bowel 9 – A Grand Day Out


Not so much a day out, more an afternoons tour of the hospital as today I have three appointments.

First up is an ECG. Making sure that my ticker is still ticking. No specific time for this, I just had to turn up and present myself at reception. I arrived at about 11:45 and was seen just after 12:00, which gave me time to find the venue for the next appointment.

This session, at 13:00, is with the Stoma Nurse. Although a stoma isn’t planned, this appointment is to talk me through the what ifs. Also to mark where the stoma could/should be if the surgeons deem one is necessary. Although the colonoscopy and subsequent CT Colonography show the tumour hasn’t spread my internal physiology could present other problems. The surgeons won’t know until they get inside and start rooting around.

So the stoma nurse explained all the why’s and wherefores of how a stoma is formed. She then had me lay on an examination couch while she felt my abdominal muscles and ultimately marked the primary site for a stoma on my right hand side but also marked a secondary site on the left side. Viewed from the front I now have a face on my belly with my navel as the nose. I was toying with the idea of drawing on some ears but various folks have deemed that a bad idea.

Having had the spots drawn on I was then shown how a colostomy bag should be affixed to my belly. She demonstrated how to fix the bag on, how to seal it and also how to empty it. And then it was my turn. To prove that I had been listening I had to apply a bag over one of the spots on my belly. Having passed that test I was told to keep the bag on for the rest of the day. “To see if I had a reaction to the adhesive”. To be honest I actuall forgot I had it on, until I went to bed, by which time I was to tired to mess with it. So I slept with it still on. The following day I found out how good that adhesive was. It was not an easy job getting it off.

The final part of my stoma education took the form of a kind of homework. I was given a number of bags to practice with. A couple of them had some kind of tablet in them to which I was supposed to add water. The tablets, when mixed with water, form a sludge of the same consistency as wallpaper paste. This was intended for me to practice emptying a bag. Needless to say, I failed in this task. And it is too late now.

After an hour or so in stoma class I was sent up to E Level to meet with a doctor for my formal preop interview. She went through many of the same questions that had been asked at each of my previous appointments. In this day and age, with the technology available, you would think that all staff in the hospital would have access to all of this information. Still, all the questions and drawing some more blood, and taking my blood pressure, took another hour.

I was eventually released to go home at just on 17:00.

An interesting point is that none of the folks that we visited knew when my operation was to take place !!! This, despite the fact that I had been informed the previous week.

So, my procedure is due to take place 31st March, 2025

Tiny Tiny TV


https://app.portsmouth.co.uk/story/full_page_image/11th-march-2025-page-5_4f3907df/content.html

The  News strikes again !!!

Yet another faux pas from the team at The News. Does nobody proofread their articles before publication?

5mm Screen?

25.4mm = 1 inch in old money.

So this new, “big” screen is less than one fifth of an inch!!!

Bobs Bowel 8 – Bloods


Whilst I don’t yet have a date for my surgery, the NHS is keeping me on my toes. I recently had to make a trip to the hospital to hand over some more of my blood.

I knew they would want to check to see if the iron infusion had done the trick. So I already had that appointment in my calendar.

However, a telephone call out of the blue informed me that they wanted more blood. Apparently they needed to check my liver function and also to ensure that my blood is clotting correctly.

Over the last few weeks I have had so many needles inserted I beginning to think I’m in an episode of Hancocks Half Hour, namely the Blood Donor.

Bobs Bowel 7 – Outpatients Anaesthetics


Thursday 13th February, and another appointment. Once again, at the Queen Alexandra Hospital. I’ll soon have my own allocated parking space if my visits carry on at this rate.

This time my appointment is with an anaesthetist in the Outpatients department.

My appointment was at 10:00, and right on the button, I was whisked away for some observations. I had my blood pressure, weight, and height measured, again. I was also given an ECG.  And then it was back to the waiting room where I had time to make friends, playing peek-a-boo with a toddler.

After a short while my name was called by the anaesthetist wearing an amazing pair of electric blue shoes.

After the usual pleasantries she revealed that we had met before. Ten years ago, when I went in for the brachytherapy treatment for my prostate. She was the anaesthetist who drew the short straw for my procedure. As a patient I was not very cooperative, not on purpose. With me sat on the table in theatre she attempted to give me an epidural. Three times!! My body just refused to play ball, would not give up my spinal fluid so no further attempts were made.

Once the procedure was underway it was time for me to misbehave again. I unconciously decided to vomit. She unfortunately had to deal with that, and call in Dynarod to suck out my tubes.

I apologised to her as in my head I was to blame, having had rather a lot of cheese as my last meal the night  before the procedure. Nobody told me that they tilted you head down to insert the nuclear seeds. She showed me the copious notes taken following that little episode but she was quite magnanimous. Noting my, as yet undiagnosed, type 2 diabetes which apparently can have the effect of slowing down your stomach process, causing “pooling” which in turn can cause regurgitation.

After reminiscing about old times we got down to the business in hand. We had the inevitable chat about my health in general and specifically focussing on weight, fitness and diet.

I was given a thorough but gentle arse kicking. Likening preparing for the operation to an athlete preparing for the olympics. Apparently the procedure will last about four hours and, although I will be unconcious laid out on the table, for my body it will be akin to running against Usain Bolt. So, as she put it, I need to be in the best possible shape to deal with the procedure but also the fitter I am the faster I will recover.

Exercise and weight loss are the order of the day, supplemented by plenty of practice with my spirometer. She wants me to up my daily walking. That shouldn’t be hard since it is negligible at the moment.

We also talked about diet with regard to my diabetes which can have a negative impact on my post op recovery. And right there is where I get into trouble.

In general the medics extol the benefits of a balanced diet, with plenty of fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds and so forth. Quite often promoted as the mediterranean diet. Below is a typical chart promoting a balance diet. All stuff that I like.

Due to the location of my tumour which is partially blocking my bowel I have been advised to stay on a low residue diet which conflicts with the idea of a balanced diet. Which in turn also conflicts with a diabetic friendly diet.

What that means is that the only food that I can eat from the green zone is carrots which have been peeled and cooked until they are soft. I can have cucumber but I have to peel it and scoop out the seeds. From the yellow zone I cannot eat any of the wholegrain items. I can have potatoes cooked without their skins and not shown I can have white bread, rice and pasta.

Hang on a bit, actually, for my diabetes I should not be eating any quantity of carbohydrates as this gets turned into sugar, bad for diabetics. So between the diabetes and my tumour everything in the yellow zone is pretty much a no-no.

Things do get a little better when we look at that strange pink zone. I can eat the tinned tuna, chicken, fish, eggs, and mince. Although my tumour says no to fish skin and bones like you might get with sardines and pilchards. Meat is fine but no gristly bits, no bacon rind etc.

And on to the blue zone where I am allowed small amounts of cheese and milk.

And so, I am resigned to eating a mainly protein diet, not quite leaping into the full carnivor diet. Supplemented by squidgy overcooked root vegetables.

As if meal preparation wasn’t already difficult enough.

Ah well, as the anaesthetist says, it is only for a few weeks.

Sad to say, I still don’t have a date for my op.

Bobs Bowel 2


Previous Posts On This Subject

The NHS Poo Sticks game, Colonoscopy, and Bobs Bowel.

I have become obsessed with bowel movements, or rather the lack of them.

After my CTC I restarted taking a laxative, Molaxole, but this was proving to be non productive. As well as the laxative I have also resumed eating normal foods, not the low residue diet, which is remeniscent of baby food.

The lack of bowel movements over the last few days, and the constant feeling that I just ate a full Christmas roast is troubling. The indications are that my tumour is severely restricting the flow in my digestive system.

And that is definitely not good news.

I have been consulting Dr Google, which is not always a good thing. But, in this case the concensus seems to be that, if my tubes are truly blocked, then continuing with the laxative can be counter productive.

Regardless of biopsy results I think it is imperative that the tumour is removed and tout de suite.

As I have been typing this post, and after several fruitless trips to the bathroom, I have finally had success. The fullness that I have been feeling is easing so I think I will carry on with the laxative for the time being. Based on my recent past experience, my bowel seems slow to react. So I have taken another dose of Molaxole and will drink plenty of fluids.

Tomorrow, I will contact the Colorectal Unit for some advice but regardless, I am seeing a consultant on Tuesday with whom there will be a full and frank discussion.

So, I am off now, to make a mug of Bovril.

Stay tuned….

Bobs Bowel


A few days ago, I posted about the NHS Poo Sticks game. There then followed a visit to the hospital for a Colonoscopy which led to my cancer diagnosis.

Apparently my tumour is positioned up at the top right corner in the diagram, where the transverse colon joins the descending colon.

Of course, that is not the end of the saga. We are only just getting started.

Shortly after the colonoscopy, at the meeting with the doctor along with the bad news I was given an appointment date for a meeting with the consultant. That is scheduled for 28th January.

After being discharged I headed home to find that the hospital had already been on the phone. I returned their call and was informed that they had an appoinment for me to attend the hospital again. This time for a CT colonography (CTC). Lucky me. I was scheduled in for Tuesday 21st at 08:30.

That was the good news. The bad news was that I had to go back on the low residue diet. OK, it was only for two days this time, starting on Sunday. On the Monday before the CTC, I was to start taking a liquid laxative. Two doses, one at 08:00 and the other at 18:00. No food after that time, just clear fluids until after the CTC.

The liquid laxative, Gastrografin, also contains a dye (contrast medium) that contains iodine and it helps to clearly show the colon on the scan.

Once again my imagination ran riot but reality was a lot simpler. I was expecting to spend the day on the loo, but after a brief eruption in the morning, I suffered nothing until the following morning. Even after the second dose.

Tuesday morning arrived soon enough and I took myself of to the hospital. No sooner had I arrived in the reception area than I was called through. Given a hospital gown to change into and told to take a seat in a waiting area.

I was then called through to have a cannula fitted. This was needed for the dye that they would inject during the scan. After a brief wait I was shown into the scanner room. I have had CT scans before so my anxiety levels were really low. And so it was up onto the scanning table where the unpleasantness started.

Firstly I was asked to lay on my side with my knees up towards my chin. Once in position a tube was inserted into my back passage. This was for the gas that they were going to use to inflate my colon.

As the gas flowed, so my discomfort increased. Initially there was the sensation of my abdomen bloating. This was soon accompanied by stomach cramps which grew in intensity. I was asked to lay on my back and I was threaded through the eye of the donut.

The discomfort was increasing.

They then injected the dye and we played thread the donut again. After a couple of passes I was asked to turn on my side.

Still the discomfort was building. So much so that I was muttering to myself. Something along the lines of “enough already”, “get me off this thing”, “please make it stop”. You get the picture.

After a couple more passes through the donut they came in to put me out of my misery. The gas pipe was extracted and I was led out of the scanning room, across the corridor and shown to a toilet.

It was there that the process of decompression began. It was also there that I got changed into my street clothes. I then went and sat in a waiting area but it wasn’t long before I headed back to the decompression chamber, and then back to the waiting area.

After a short wait I was invited into a small room where my cannula was removed, and then I was discharged.

Over the last few years I have undergone numerous procedures. But this was by far the worst. I have had CT scans before but the added gas takes them to a whole new level. Definitely an experience that I am not keen to repeat.

I am not Jumping Jack Flash and it definitely was not a Gas, Gas, Gas.

Now, I am eating a relatively normal diet but to ensure that my bowel doesn’t become completely blocked I have been prescribed a different laxative, Molaxole. This I have to drink twice a day. It doesn’t taste nasty but it isn’t pleasant. I have to add some orange squash to make it more palatable.

Yuukkk!

So, now I have to wait until Tuesday and the appointment with the consultant.

I’ll be in touch…..

E-Scooters – Should be banned


https://app.portsmouth.co.uk/full_page_image/28th-october-2024-page-7_4f8307e4/content.html

This is just one, recent, example of how dangerous these E-scooters are. Of course they in themselves are not dangerous. It is actually the misuse by individuals that is the danger.

Locally, the only E-Scooters that are legal for use on our roads are those from authorised hire companies. Privately owned E-scooters are illegal.

I don’t understand how the government allows the sale of these scooters in this country. Unlike cars and motorbikes owners are not required to have insurance, wear safety gear i.e. helmets and the vehicles are not even registered.

Frequently they are driven in an unsafe manner. Personally, I once saw one of these scooters veer off the pavement. It moved diagonally across the road directly in front of me. So suddenly that I had to perform an emergency stop. Clearly the rider did not look to see that his way was clear.

I have also seen one of these scooters, three up. i.e. three females hurtling up the centre of the road.

In this case the victim was Raquel Delgado-Calo. She is a veterinary surgeon. She suffered deep lacerations to her forehead which will leave permanent scarring. Raquel also received stitches to her nose and a fractured skull. She spent three days in hospital and three weeks off work followed by a three week phased return. In addition, she has suffered from eight weeks of concussion. She has experienced dizziness, which has caused the cancellation of surgeries at work. And then there is the ongoing anxiety when crossing roads.

In my view, the E-scooter rider, Joseph Pedalty has gotten off way too lightly.

He has been disqualified from roads for eighteen months. He also was handed an eighteen month community order. He was fined £120 plus costs taking his penalty to a total of £319. This includes charges for no insurance, failing to stop after an accident, and failing to stop at a red light.

The law is an ass.

Pedalty has 10 past convictions and had been disqualified from the roads for drink driving in 2021.

How do his fines and convictions possibly balance out the impact that he has had on this woman’s life.

I’ll say it again. The law is an ass.