Pick a card

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I’ve spent a huge chunk of today installing new debit card and credit cards. The new debit card is very fancy. It is only printed on one side, has a fancy colour scheme and a different number. The credit card has the “old fashioned” relief letters but the number is also changed. Which means I have to go through all my accounts and change the details.

It’s actually proved quite a useful exercise. I’ve moved lots of subscriptions onto my debit card so that I can see them go out on the main statement. I’ve also realized how many things I pay for each month. Scary.

Post surgical piano

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During my recent hospital stay I really wanted to do the violin gag:

Rob: “After my treatment, will I be able to play the violin"?”

Doctor: “I don’t see why not”

Rob: “Great, I can’t at the moment and I’ve always wanted to”

Unfortunately, the occasion never presented itself, and I didn’t really want to give them more things to worry about than just my headaches. Anyhoo, today I was able to try some piano practice to see if the treatment has had any affect on my keyboard skills. The good news is that I’m no worse than I was at playing “The Entertainer”. The bad news is that I don’t seem to have acquired any extra skills.

Brain Surgery for Rob

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I’ve been having headaches for a while. Last Sunday I found out why. The technical term is“ chronic subdural haematoma”. The upshot was three holes in the skull and a bit of drainage action.

The NHS is completely wonderful. In the midst of a pandemic I had scans and whole bunch of focused professionals finding the fix and applying it. I had surgery on Monday evening and I’m now back home with strict instructions to stay away from keyboards. Which I’m obviously following to the letter.

I’ll be back after a rest.

Home

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There is no better way to start the day than with a chap pulling pipes out of your head and then stitching up the holes. I’d been on regular doses of pain killers, so I didn’t notice that much though. One major hospital tip: If they offer you painkillers take them. At one point I thought I’d show everyone I was a real man and could manage without the drugs. This turned out to be a bad plan, so the next time I was asked I gave a hearty “Yes please” to everything.

In the morning we had the “ward rounds” when consultants, doctors, nurses and students all gather round your bed and discuss how you’re doing. The best bit was when they said that I’d be able to go home today.

After lunch a charming nurse came to see me and ran through a test to make sure that my brain still worked. This involved drawing a clock face and remembering five words. I can still remember the words even now, which is very pleasing. I thought I might be able to impress her if I ever see her again by reeling them off. Unfortunately I’ll never be able to do this because I’ve completely forgotten her name or what she looks like. The best bit of the test was when she asked me to list as many words as I could that began with the letter “f”. Well, that was fun. As I am now “Wordle trained” I went off like a rocket and she had trouble keeping up with them all. Apparently I have a wide vocabulary for my age.

The best part of the day was heading home. Nothing like your own TV remote control. And bed.

Ward life

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Being in hospital has a lot in common with going on a long distance flight. The best way to cope is to totally give yourself over to the system for the duration of the journey and just go with the flow. The staff here are all awesome. I found myself chatting with the the various people who came to change bits of things attached to me and take readings and the stories were very similar. One chap was just finishing his fourth 12 hour shift in a row. Another nurse had come in on what should have been her rest day because she wanted to make sure that things were OK on the ward. I feel genuinely humbled to be around these folks. And angry with the way that society seems to reward hedge fund managers (who do nothing more than convert sums of money into larger sums of money by breaking things) more than these people.

The policy on mobile phones and whatnot is great. You can just use them and being in a big high hospital seems to result in good signal strength. I’d taken the precaution of taking my headphones and phone with me, along with a large rechargeable battery. I was able to watch movies and buy things on the internet with no problems, which got me through the day nicely.

They are hoping to remove the the drains soon, which means that I’ll lose my “borg” attachments and begin the process of turning back into a normal human.

I need this like a hole in the head

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Today started with scans. First a CT scan followed by an MRI scan that seemed to go on for ever. Then a discussion about what may have caused the problem and what to do about it. A while back I was cleaning the stairs in what turned out to be a horribly dangerous way. The result was that a vacuum cleaner fell on my head, knocking me down to the bottom. At the time I thought I’d got away with a cut and a feeling of intense stupidity, but it may well be that I’d done more damage than that. I’m now known to the doctors here as “Dyson man”.

Anyhoo, I decided to go for an operation to fix it. All they had to do was drill three holes in my skull, attach some drains and let the fluid out. I was relived to find that I’d be knocked out for this procedure. The idea of sitting there while someone takes a Dremel(tm) to my head was a bit frightening. The wonderful thing is that they were actually able to get a team together and do this right in the middle of Covid and a healthcare crisis.

I had the operation late afternoon and woke up in the recovery room a couple of hours later. They had the radio tuned to one of these “Eighties hits” station and about the first tune I heard, no word of a lie, was “I’m still standing” by Elton John. Talk about omens. Loved it. Things got even better when they took me down to the ward and gave me tea and biscuits. Both custard cream and bourbons were present and correct. Awesome.

It’s a bit hard to sleep when you’ve got two tubes attached to your head and connected to collection bags, but I think I’ll manage.

My brain hurts

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The doctor probably expected me to be more upset than I was. After all, he'd just told me I had a "subdural haematoma", which translates to blood in the head around the brain. For me this was actually good news. They had found something that might be causing the horrendous headaches I'd been having. I was thinking that the worst thing they could have told me was that they could find nothing wrong. Then I'd really have been in trouble.

I'd gone into casualty after dialling 111, the UK patient advice service.. After a brief delay they'd shoved my head into a CT scanner left me in a room for a while before coming and giving me the news. More scans tomorrow when they’ll decide what to do.

Talking Pomodoro Timer in Useful Shock

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I’ve found a use for my Talking Pomodoro timer. I’ve decided that I’m never going to tidy my office properly. I start the task and then, after a while, I either run out of steam or find I’ve added so many extra tasks to to the job that the whole enterprise just collapses on itself.

So, spending a day tidying up will never happen. But half an hour a day, that sounds possible. So I set the timer for half an hour and then start tidying. When the timer goes off I stop tidying and go off and do something else. That way I don’t expand the task or give up because the job is too large. It’s kind of working so far, in that there is a tiny corner of the room where I can see the floor….

Double Exercise Bonus

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It turns out that the Apple watch can’t tell the difference between piano practice and exercise. Perhaps it is the way that I get cross when I make a mistake and wave my arms around, plus the nervous energy that I expend navigating some of the trickier parts of “The Entertainer”.

Anyhoo, this works rather well for me in that I get a double whammy of virtuous credit just by sitting down at the keyboard and failing to play something properly.

Whatever happened to MouseTrap?

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You know how old people are supposed to get cross about change? Wellllllllll.

They’ve changed the MouseTrap board game. The new one doesn’t let you eliminate other players by catching them. Instead you collect portions of cheese or something. Most unimpressed. I see this further evidence of the continuing decline of civilisation etc etc.

My advice: seek out the original and best. Proper sudden death action.

Tax Paid

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I’ve done my tax for the year. Just six days before the deadline. Go me. Now, if you’ll excuse me I’ve got some crying in the corner to catch up on…

It didn’t used to be this way. I was happy to pay may tax and watch things around me get better and better. But to think of the possibility that some of my cash is being used to fund the incompetence and maliciousness that passes for government these days is rather upsetting.

Broken hard drive

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The hard drive above is broken. It contains 500G of - well, I don’t know what. I’m sure nothing on there is important because I never leave important things on portable (or indeed any) hard drives. And I don’t own any bitcoins. However, I guess you never know.

I was hoping that I would crack the drive open and find a drive and a USB interface card I could swap out for a possibly less broken one. However, that is now how things go these days. The drive and the interface are all one broken component.

What would be amazing is if a ninja reader of this blog took a look at the board and went “Oh yes, just tap this connecter and all will go well.” In the unlikely event that this actually happens it turns out that Brian has a similar vintage drive which is also broken in the same way…..