A Needed Office Break

Desperate to regain whatever little sanity I have, I've walked away from my office job for a week for a little self-care.  Checkimg my stress levels later, I could see my stress levels peaking shortly before I asked for a half dat and the rest of the week off work. You can actually see my stress drop when I was told my leave was granted and it plummeting as I left the office a little after mid-day:

Having no house keys on me, I spent the afternoon wandering around Swansea to remind myself just how beautiful my home city really is, before being picked up later that afternoon.

 

 

I ended my 11k step walk by a look round The Dylan Thomas Centre, where they had the acual doors to to the writer's writing shed. Reminds my of my shed door :)

The Eyes Have It

Miserable start to the day, as I had to walk down to the hospital to see my eye consultant. Looks like I am back on the waiting list for another operation, where they will tighten my lower left eyelid with a diamond cut in the outside corner, have elasticised plastic stiched into the lid, and have its tearduct moved and enlargened. Tick tock tick tock...

Nice walk to the bus station then, where my mood lifted slightly with some beautiful scenes and one of my best seaglass finds:  

I really need to shake off these December blues though 😒

Low

Off work as I struggle with the latest flare-up. Everything work-wise is an intermittable struggle these days and I need to take my mind, as well as my body, away from the place for a while to heal.

As usual at such times, the cosy gaming offered by Animal Crossing has proved successful in taking my my mind off my troubles, ans I even did a bit of writing in the evening for next year's Guy N Smith zine, GNS3..

Halloween at the Hospital

Hospital day, where covering dermatologist said department is too busy to provide bespoke letters for employers. "That's was Occ Health Employee Services are for," were her exact words. She did say they would post me copies of my consultant letters to hand in though, but god knows when I can expect to see them. Unfortunately, the weather was harsh and took its toll on my face, which triggered more pain for me. I was too self conconscious to  take public transport though. Grrr. Here are some Swansea scenes I pictured on the walk though:

Flare

Been a rough final week of October. The end of summer has now really hit home and I have been off work for the past week with the worst skin flare up I've had since starting on my biologic injections. 

I have fallen way behind on my projects, what with the Sept/Oct walking challenge, and then my flare, but I am hoping that I still have time to pull everything together in the last 2 months of 2025

Work-wise, I am probably going to trigger an attendance warning, but it is what it is. I started 40/60 hybrid working at the start of the month, where I work from home every Tuesday and Thursday. I have applied to flip that to a 60/40 working pattern, where I work 3 days from home and 2 days in the office to help me better manage my various health conditions. This went down like a lead balloon in some quarters. I have been told I need to get both a GP and Consultant's letter to back up my application for a Reasonable Adjustment in my working pattern, but I still haven't heard back from my medical team since I emailed them. I had my Occupational Health interview with a doctor today though, and he told me he was going to back my application, and I am seeing my dermatologist tomorrow, so I can ask them face-to-face for a letter the morning. The only trouble with that is that she is not going to be my regular consultant , but I can't see why it will be too much of a problem. I will just have to see tomorrow. Again, it is what it is.

Lying awake at the moment, waiting to sleep, so I'll end this entry here, and get on with making a plan of action to get back on target with my New Year's target resolutions. 

Before I go though, whilst I have been too unwell to do much this past week, I have produced made an illustration for the Guy N Smith inspired ghost story, which is currently waiting for a second draft overhaul. It probably gives too much of the story away, but hey ho:

 

Weight Loss - Job Done!

I set myself a weight loss challenge around New Year to lose 3 stone. At the time, I weighed in at 13 stone 13 lb. Here is a pic of what I looked like around that time:

Chubby Me

Whilst my diet proceeded exceedingly well, with my weight dropping to the 11 stone 1lb mark by May, that last 2lb of fat I needed to lose to reach my goal was as stubborn as hell to shift.

This morning, however, the scales were very kind to me and clocked me in at 10 stone 13lb. 

Here is a pic of me in the London Dungeons from last weekend, which shows my weight loss rather graphically:

Job done. 🙂

1st Beach Visit for a While

As one is on the doorstep of the other, I rewarded myself to a visit to the beach after my hospital appointment this afternoon.

Crossing the park, I bumped into these new residents too: 

Avalon 2 ~ Day 9/100 | Eyelid Op - Day 6

I managed to add all the images I wanted onto the zine today. I even put them in order. I still have to decide upon the size each image will appear and their position on each page. I also need to do all the writing. I am pleased with where I am now in relation to it publishing date.

In other news. Check out the progress on my poorly eyelid. As the swelling goes down, the bruising is slipping down my chops lol.

Recouperating Day 3

Recouperating - Day 2

 The bruising is now starting to show:

Surgery Day (Part Two)

Well, my poor old eyelid has finally been sorted - courtesy of a 45-minute x2 surgeon operation, plus a supporting cast of brilliant medical folk. 

It turned out to be a longer, trickier procedure than either I or my consultant had expected. And honestly, I really wish they’d knocked me out entirely instead of giving me six of the most excruciating injections I’ve ever had the displeasure of experiencing. 

I arrived at the ophthalmic surgery at 12:30 and was quickly moved from the general waiting area to a larger room that eventually filled with 8 patients. As we settled in, we began swapping stories. It turned out we were all there for either cataracts or, like me, eyelid-related issues. Thanks to the room’s open-plan design, we had the pleasure of hearing every detail of each other's conditions. I won’t go into specifics here, but let’s just say I winced more than once at how personal some of those consultant-patient chats got. One story in particular stayed with me and still tugs at me days later. 

I was the last of us to face the surgeon’s knife and, lucky me, got to hear the post-op groans of those who came back before me. Plenty of grimaces, muttered “never again”s, and the sort of haunted looks that don't exactly calm the nerves. At around 4:30 p.m., when our merry group had dwindled to just yours truly, it was finally my turn. 

Oddly enough, the scalpel, cauterising, and stitching didn’t hurt at all. But the six local anaesthetic injections straight into my eye? The most definitely did. That was, hands down, the most painful experience of my nearly 59 years of life. Because I couldn't afford private treatment, the wait for NHS treatment meant the tissues below my eye had toughened up and blocked my tear duct. This was briskly resolved with a saline syringe flushed through until it reached my nasal passage - at which point I got a delightful cocktail of salty tears and slightly sweet blood trickling into my mouth. That, too, hurt. Not quite injection-level pain, but still grimly memorable. At one point, the surgeon's asked if I could cope with the pain. Desperate to avoid more needles, I just grunted “Yes” and lay as still as possible, trying to ignore the glimpses of scalpels and ominous-looking tools being aimed under my poor old eyeball. 

To add to the drama, it became apparent one surgeon was training the other. So, naturally, I had the privilege of hearing a play-by-play commentary of everything about to happen to my face. “Snip there. Lateral slice there. Diamond-cut this. Cauterise here. Thread the suture through the tendon - no, firmer than that, jiggle the needle - it’s tough tissue... no, that’s too superficial... here, let me show you...”

Honestly, it was like being trapped in an on-the-surgeon's-operating-table nightmare. Eventually, it was all over. Everyone seemed very pleased with how everything had gone. Grateful, I thanked every single person in the theatre at least a dozen times as they wheeled me back to the now-empty waiting room. I sat alone, clutching a black coffee (no vegan milk options, of course), texting my wonderful partner to come pick me up, conscious that Day-Surgery was about to close for the day. 

Back home at last, I sank onto the sofa, dosed myself up on co-codamol, and waited for the swelling to kick in...

Surgery Day

 After what seems like forever, the day of my eyelid surgery has arrived. My excitement to have the procedure performed has rapidly turned to anxiety. But It has to be done. Time to put my big boy trousers on.

Hospital

 Another visit to the hospital this morning. Came away with a plan of actionin the form of a prescription.

Eye Surgery

 Looks like I am finally getting my eye sorted 😎

I finally completed the ms for the 2nd Guy N Smith zine. Just 5 weeks left before you can purchase a copy.

A Sight for Sore Eyes

 I have been a bit baddie over the last few days with my old eye problems. Apparently I should get my operation in about 12 more months! I saw the optician this morning as getting to see a doctor or consultant is next to impossible these days. Apparently the blood vessels in my 'good' eye burst as the it was overworked while my swollen eyelid kept my 'bad' eye closed for a day.

Anyway, it is starting to heal again - for now.

I do have some good eye news to share too, as I have added a few more eye talismans to my Glastonbury Speaking Tree Crassula ovata:

Back to Work

Back to work after the Crimbo festivities. Short day made it bearable, though the rest of the work day was taken up with a hospital visit to see the opthalmic doctor.

It wasn't the best of experiences as I had a syringe pushed into my left eye tear ductt and saline squirted though it into my right nostril-ugh!! Upshot of that and various other checks and tests carried out is I need a tear duct readjusting ing in my left eyelid, which apparently requires 10 seconds of surgery. 

If that doesn't solve my issue, then I will need to have the corner of my eyelid tightened at an even later date.

For now though, it's another waiting game as the required surgery is being classed as just routine. Tick Tock. Tick tock.

Looking Back on 2024 - Part 1

And so this is Christmas 2024. And what a year it has been! I lost my beloved Soosh in a house fire back in March - an event I still do not think I have processed properly. I also lost most of the book collection I have built up since childhood plus a lot or nostalgic keepsakes, some which has been with me for over half a century. Uninsured, we had to cancel our planned Brusells, Glastonbury and Japan trips to get us at least back on our feet again. It has been a long process and even now the repercussions of the traumatic event have yet to be fully ironed out. Looking back on the first few months of 2024, the only good thing to manifest itself for me for that period of time was my hospital consultant finally put me on my new meds, which I need to be injected with every two weeks. This was a real game-changer for my health, and though it took 4 long years to prescribe me the injections, I am truly grateful to the NHS for allowing me access to this very expensive but miraculous medication. Today, at 58-and-a-half-years old, I have never been so healthy. And on that upbeat note, I think I will close this first part of my lookback on the year that was, and for a couple of weeks still is, 2024…

Back to the Gym

Gym after work today to clear my mind...

Gym

Just joined the gym 💪