What made you happy today?

[jep]

Sent the bailiffs to Admiral Insurance - they paid up including costs. 

Justin

 

[KennyN]

A long awaited delivery finally turned up...

[Kevin Wheeler]

Hooray!

Looks fantastic @KennyN

Changed your picture already!

[Bibs]

Yay, congratulations and have fun

[KennyN]

Thanks Kevin, I look forward to driving it on the 14th.

[ChrisJ]

Driving home through Harpenden after dropping my daughter back at school, I stopped off here to get a take away.

Godfrey's (godfreyschips.com)

It was a really great fish and chips. If you are in the area, try it.

Last time I went (on a Friday evening), we had to queue for an hour.

 

[Techyd]

17 hours ago, KennyN said:

Thanks Kevin, I look forward to driving it on the 14th.

That looks absolutely stunning Kenny!!

[KennyN]

Thanks Dean 👍

[ADF]

@KennyN  ooooooohh shiny, very nice.

 Your gonna enjoy that just go easy, I don't want to see another Lotus upside down on a fence(one is enough).  I Like the number plate but are we going to have to call you Kenneth now? 

Hopefully get to see your car at Thruxton (and you of course)

[windymiller]

birthday today and a gift voucher to tour the emira production line with a pal of mine !!!! boom 🥰 been once before several years ago and that what got me lurving the evora !!! 

[exeterjeep]

4 minutes ago, windymiller said:

birthday today and a gift voucher to tour the emira production line with a pal of mine !!!! boom 🥰 been once before several years ago and that what got me lurving the evora !!! 

congrats and have a good visit - taking the Lotus?

[windymiller]

does the pope wear a funny hat ?

[exeterjeep]

has a popmobile - could try that round Hethel.

[Kimbers]

About 6 months ago I had raised red sections where I had had cancer previously. Yesterday I got some amazing news after being in and out of hospital for tests and just before Christmas, I had a biopsy done.

Firstly the great news is they didn’t take too much, cause I don’t have a lot left there anyway!! 7 stitches and I was done. Go team Tiny Tony!

Secondly the biopsy results came back yesterday as “Inflamed but not Cancerous”. Tiny Tony may need some antibiotics but not hacking about again.

Listen up people because this may save a life. Male cancer is a huge killer because we don’t talk about it enough. I made a choice when I was diagnosed to be open and talk about it. I had several people ask me questions and get check ups based on my experiences. We don’t check those areas enough and when we do find something we don’t do anything about it quickly enough. We all know about Prostate cancer and testicular but you can get cancer on your Todger too. It’s rare but penile cancer is a real killer. So check yourself and make sure you refer yourself with anything you are unsure about. I am really chuffed to be clear again. Make sure you are!

[jonwat]

Great news, keep it up. 😃

[bogle]

Since Tony chimed in with his public service announcement which is uncomfortably good information to distribute...Here's mine.

Ok,  Listen up people with moderate to severe Sleep Apnea.  I have been chained to CPAP machines for the past 17 years.  It started with my excessively loud freight train snoring.  I tried surgeries for my deviated septum and a UPP procedure(flap of skin at the back of the throat) and no luck.  My sleep apnea was discovered by a sleep study which identified that I stopped breathing over 100x a night.  This is classified as severe sleep apnea.  The neurologist stated I hadn't mustered a good night's sleep in 35 years. 

About 6 weeks ago I had the Inspire device surgically implanted (2 to 3 hour procedure).  2 weeks ago this device was activated and set on Level 2.  I'm now on level 5 because that's where I can feel the pulse at the back of the tongue.  The generator (similar to a pacemaker) is implanted in your chest above the muscle.  Wired leads attach to the body's rib cage which detects when the person has stopped breathing.  Another set of electrodes wires travels up the neck and connects to the back of the tongue.  This wired lead's job is to send the electric pulse which kicks the tongue out of the airway to allow normal breathing.  You only need the Inspire remote which job it is to turn it on/off, pause and adjust the power level.  Just as the commercials show - No Mask, No hose - Just Sleep.  CPAP machine are no longer needed allowing the freedom to sleep anywhere on your bed in any position.  CPAPs only allow for restricted movement while asleep.  Additionally, the battery in the generator portion in the chest area is good for 10 years.

At first the device was considered experimental by my insurance at the time (Cigna).  I saw some ad about 18 months later stated Cigna had approved the device.  I found the doctor the next day and got all the necessary tests and records to him.  It did require a sedated inspection of the throat/airway/mouth to affirm that the device would work as anticipated.  Sometimes they find issues that can be corrected during surgery.  In my case, the UPP was discovered and technically a UPPP should have been performed.  Although this could have been corrected, the doctor thought is was unnecessary based upon the number of procedure he's performed and observed post surgery.  Otherwise, the device could make up the difference.

There are many ads on TV that advertise the Inspire device which are quite entertaining.  But what it means overall is freedom.  No more dragging the CPAP on airplanes, getting stopped by the TSA and making sure it's not a bomb.  However, I do need to show my Inspire ID card while in the TSA line.  I was returning from Bonaire and the security guy did a pat down check on me instead of going through the X-ray detector.  Mobility is an awesome thing after being followed by CPAP machines.  It's like your handcuffed to the CPAP except with your head instead of hands.  

I truly belief the device works better than the CPAP.  The CPAP mask sometimes slides off or only has partial flow because of mask shifting.  CPAPs are cumbersome and bulky.  They're ugly, too.  Inspire is the best divorce from a CPAP ever!  The only drawback is a slight recovery time (1 week and temporary restricted movements) from the surgical procedure and the cost.  CPAPs are coming down in price some are $600 US, but my units ran from $1000 US to $2000.  The approximate cost for my surgery was about $80k US.

I don't how the NHS deals with medical devices like pacemakers and how much cost out of pocket.  So that could be an issue.  Note that the Inspire device is very similar to a pacemaker.  There are certain restrictions for MRI imaging which might require you get a CT scan instead.  Pacemakers have similar protocols when it comes to Magnetic imaging.

If you got this far...congratulations!  I realize this is not the most entertaining read.  But like Tony said, "If I can help just one person, I've done my job".

Thank you very much and I hope I passed the audition.

 

[C8RKH]

@bogle I managed to read it all without nodding off, so thanks and a great post!

I can't remember the last time I slept for more than 3 hours in one go, but I'm not diagnosed with anything or on anything. I can go to be bed at 1000 at night. Be asleep by 1003 (usually wifey will start a conversation when i go to bed, then........) Never had a problem falling asleep. My problem is staying asleep. usually wide awake by 1230, thinking it must be 0500/0530 which is when I usually get up.  Been like that for 20 years. Tried going to bed at midnight, but just woke up at 0230 instead!

Sometimes I wonder if I went to sleep for 8 hours whether I'd actually wake up.

The one superpower this has given me is that I can power nap anywhere. 45 minutes of deep sleep nothingness. Did it last week in a work meeting in West Coast US. When I woke up I blamed it on the jet lag. The truth is, the meeting was just bloody boring. 

[bogle]

C8RKH,

Wow!  Fascinating aka Mr. Spock.  What a great superpower to possess.  My superpower is inflexibility.  I am Captain Inflexible.  Yep, not the greatest superpower I admit.

Do you fall asleep easily while driving (i.e. Narcolepsy or Sleep Apnea might be an issue)? 

Have you had a sleep study performed?  It's typically done over 2 nights.  One night without any sleep aides and other with a CPAP. Yes, it's a pain in arse because you're hooked up to about 12 wires (head, chest, legs).

My sleep apnea was so bad in my younger days that I would fall asleep while driving.  The apnea was the cause in this situation. 

If you want to find out more then I suggest contacting a neurologist for testing.  Otherwise, you are Captain Power Sleeper.  I think we both need costumes for our incredible superpowers.  

 

[Bibs]

I've just moved from a CPAP to an APAP and it is much better but I agree, they are a chain around your neck (literally sometimes!). This one has a 4G card and they can check up on usage remotely which is an encouragenent to remember to use it! 

I'm pretty sure that the Inspire isn't available in the UK yet. If it were and approved by the NHS, it would be free of charge at the point of usage, our taxes fund the NHS entirely. If it were available privately before approved by the NHS, there would be a price attached. 

[bogle]

Bibs,

Inspire has remote monitoring as well through the Inspire application.  My recent CPAP has this as well.  Remote monitoring is a great tool.  I have no choice to use it because otherwise I'd be sleeping in the basement or hotel.

 

[Kimbers]

35 minutes ago, C8RKH said:

@bogle I managed to read it all without nodding off, so thanks and a great post!

I can't remember the last time I slept for more than 3 hours in one go, but I'm not diagnosed with anything or on anything. I can go to be bed at 1000 at night. Be asleep by 1003 (usually wifey will start a conversation when i go to bed, then........) Never had a problem falling asleep.

Sometimes I wonder if I went to sleep for 8 hours whether I'd actually wake up.

This is me too! I wake up at least 3 times a night even if I am exhausted. Only time I sleep for longer is when i am drunk.....and I don't mean "Drunk" I mean "Drunk Drunk!" then I only wake once.

Then I read an article about Multi Phasic Sleeping also called Segmented sleeping. It appears that that was the way we were back in antiquity, sleep too long and you got eaten by something.

So maybe we are just Neanderthal @C8RKH 

[C8RKH]

1 hour ago, Kimbers said:

So maybe we are just Neanderthal @C8RKH 

What's this "maybe" thing?

[pete]

Grandson got his purple belt today

[pete]

Local sausage shop posted this today

[Alfa2Evora]

JENNIFER : LATEST UPDATE

OK, so it's been about 8 weeks now since my last update and that's mainly because there's not a lot to report - I don't know whether to look on that as a good thing or a bad thing. Good I suppose from the standpoint that she's not regressed in any way but bad in as much as she hasn't made any significant progress either.

The only real negative over the period is that, just after Christmas, Jennifer caught that nasty flu bug that was doing the rounds and instead of throwing the worst of it off in a couple of days as she has in the past, it took her a couple of weeks to get on the road to recovery but once she did start to throw it off she did so quite quickly and is now back on form. Similarly, the weight loss she suffered, and which she could ill-afford, during this illness has now been reversed as she regains her appetite although it could be several weeks yet before she restores all the pounds lost.

On the positive side, her conversational skills are progressing with more and more vocabulary coming into play - she's even correcting people she hears speaking on the TV if she feels that there was a more appropriate word or grammatically correct way that they could have expressed themselves. Those moments are more glimpses of my 'old' Jennifer creeping through,  .

She is still a long way from getting her reading and writing abilities back though - numbers and letters on the page are just a jumble of shapes but ask Jennifer to solve an arithmetic problem or spell out a complex word and she's right on the case so I think it's simply a matter of keeping plugging away with the "My First Alphabet" and "My First Numbers" books and it'll all click into place some day.

Every day, so long as it's not persisting down, I take her to the nearby loch to watch the wildfowl and she always returns from those trips with a smile on her face. Also, I'm taking the dogs in to visit at least once a week and that is having a great therapeutic effect on Jennifer, and the staff and other residents alike.

That's about it. She seems to have settled well into her new surroundings, she's made a number of new friends among the residents, the staff all seem to love her, and any small step of progress I view as another move towards my ultimate goal of getting her back home where she belongs.