Awake with a Memory

I woke this morning at 5am. I lay awake for a few minutes and was just about to turn over and go back to the Land of Nod when ideas suddenly started flooding into my head. All sorts of ideas about all sorts of things. It was as if my Memory had suddenly been turned on. Now those of you who have known me for years know that I was born with a very poor ability to remember things. Facts and lists and information just don't stick with me which is why I loathe quizzes with a passion. I am totally hopeless. The children of my New Zealand Family loved them and were always trying to get me to take part (my other pet dread was Monopoly).

Having a good memory is regarded as one of the things that equates to intelligence. When I was reading for my first degree at University I was told by my course tutor that if I ever did any post grad study then do it by dissertation not exam. I was good at essays and research and always got A to A++ in my written work submitted (except for a notorious economics paper where I got a C and caused a laugh when I said that understanding economics was, for me, like going forward in reverse gear.).

My entire adult life has been a matter of lists and notes to remind me 'to do' 'to remember' etc. If I do not have my diary then I am lost - totally. If I didn't have my diaries going back to the year dot then I would have no memory - just memories. There is a subtle difference. The brain is a strange and wonderful place.

So I am sitting at my laptop at 5.20am feverishly trying to make notes and recall the ideas for blog posts that I was thinking about when I woke.

I love Blogland and blogging but life at the moment is so full of living that I've not actually been participating in commenting or writing blog posts. I have been reading where I can. I can do that on my phone when I'm waiting for someone or something but, as most people will know, trying to comment on a phone involves signing in every time one wants to comment which is a pain.

I can't promise to get up at 5am every day (or ever again for that matter) but at least at 6am I have had two coffees, fed the birds and the fishes and still have 6½ hours before I'm meeting my son for lunch. 

Eighty

Today is my 80th Birthday.

It's a Marmite Day. That is to say one either loves it or hates it.

A friend recently reached that age and refused to acknowledge it.

I want everyone to know and I shall be celebrating. Nothing extravagant: just coffee with friends in the morning at The Woodlands. In the evening Gaz and Carol are taking me and my sister-in-law (who is staying with me at the moment) out for dinner.

The reason I am celebrating is not just for myself but in thanks to our wonderful NHS without which I would not have lived much past my 16th birthday. At that age I had a disease that still kills people today. However by a stroke of good fortune I was referred to a specialist who (and there were long waiting lists for some operations even then) removed much of one of my diseased lungs.

Since then I've lived with cancer since my prostatectomy in 1997 because some cancer cells had already escaped elsewhere my body. However every time so far that the cancer has started to show signs of asserting itself the medics have found a way to stop it. The last, and currenet, treatment started about 7 or 8 years ago with a drugs trial which proved very successful for me.

I had a heart attack in 2000 and had 6 stents inserted.

I could go on but I think that's quite enough evidence to justify my grateful thanks for the wonderful people who work in our National Health Service.

Thank you one and all.

Dotage and Broadband

I might be considered to be in my dotage and I might still be deaf as a post. I'm hoping that the latter will be remedied next Monday (the former being incapable of a remedy) and that the 1½ litres of warm olive oil in my right ear and the Otex in my left ear will have done the trick and the nurse can syringe my orifices successfully. Until then I can't even hear the keys being struck on the laptop. 

However, I am really peed off today. I was up at 0630 with the intention of having a really productive day. After having abluted (which, rhymingly, is the ablative absolute) I started checking my emails. Then my broadband started dropping again. It's been doing this for ages and it's very annoying. I tested the speed when it came back and it was 4mbps download. I'm supposed to get about 30mbps but I've NEVER had more than 23 and I consider 15mbps pretty good as a rule. 

It was 7am. wotthehellarchiewotthehell why not waste some time seeing if I could get something done about it. I have had a Vodafone mobile phone since 1990 and have always been very satisfied with the service and value for money. When I started with Vodafone Broadband a few years ago it was great. Any problems (the line blew down one day for example) you picked up the phone and instantly spoke to someone. Forget it. You "speak" to chatbot or noone. (which given that I'm temporarily deaf is probably a Good Thing). However the algorithms don't contemplate the possibility that one may be having a sporadic fault so after ¾ hour of fruitless going around in circles it offered me the opportunity to speak to someone.......and then closed down. 

However when I tested my speeds again they were the best for months and, so far, my connection hasn't dropped out for over 30 minutes. 

As a post script I should add that I have discovered that if I put my earbuds in I can actually just hear someone on my phone so can at least communicate on the mobile phone if absolutely necessary. 

Disoriented by Deafness

On Wednesday I went deaf.  

It's not a permanent situation (I hope) but it is severe in that I am unable to hear anything at all unless it is held next to my ear and is very loud (my phone on full volume is just about audible but I can't hold a conversation easily). I cannot, for example, hear the living room television on full volume. I can't hear the kitchen television if I put it 1 metre away on full volume. I can't hear traffic coming near me if I'm on a pavement. I can't hear the warning beeps in the car. 

Worst of all I cannot hear anyone 3 feet away unless they are shouting. A quiet coffee at The Woodlands is not possible at the moment.

I have always said that one should never assume anything about a person until one has experienced what that person has experienced. That can be anything from depression to the pain of childbirth or in a man's case a kidney stone. 

At the moment I have become acutely aware just how much my life would alter if I were profoundly deaf. Because I will hopefully only be deaf for about 10 days I don't have the anxiety of what life would be like if I were permanently deaf. However, it's definitely a good insight into what deaf people have to endure.