Giggling Patient, Wood a Plenty, 7th Jan 08

We didn't get up with the alarm but I woke at 8.45, made a cup of tea and rescued Stanley, then ran a bath for Jim to get his back going enough to drive him to the doctors. We set off eventually and it's open surgery this morning, so we just gave his name and sat and waited. If we weren't ill before we arrived, we certainly will be now. Everyone was coughing and spluttering all over the place, the waiting room far too hot, just right to spread those lovely germs. Why oh why do people go to the doctors with a cold? There's nothing they can do, just stay at home and it will get better. We waited about 45minutes, then in to see a female locum, who didn't look old enough to have left school, let alone qualify as a GP. She was, however, very thorough and duly reported that his back was all knotted up, muscles in spasm and the numbness in the leg due to the sciatic nerve.

She prescribed a very strong muscle relaxant to take during the day which worked very well. Didn't remove the pain all together but was a marked improvement on the over the counter ones. Best of all, she prescribed some diazepam for night time, 2 of them for 3 nights. Well, Jim decided to take them before going to bed. I didn't think this was a very good idea, but he knows best. I checked on him 10 minutes later and he was fast asleep on the settee. Then of course I had to get him into bed. He giggled like a helpless schoolgirl, which set me off as well! It was very funny, they certainly seem to work! I did manage to get him undressed and into bed. He then thought one of the cats was in the bed, but it was next door in the lounge! Only the pink elephants were missing! What a laugh. No wonder people get hooked on them. I left him reading the paper but I don't think that will last long. Will go and check on him again in a minute. What a responsibility!

Post arrived today from the UK and in it was a letter from my doctor saying my cholesterol is 7, which is of course, far too high. Aaaah!. No more chocolate for me. I had been a bit of an ostrich about it, really in my heart of hearts I knew it was probably high. It's always been a bit high, but only up to 5. So it's a new diet from tomorrow. I have put on weight too, so the low cholesterol diet will help me all round. I am low risk in so many ways, it doesn't seem fair that I can't eat a bit of chocolate! I don't smoke and never have, don't drink (hardly at all) and as far as I know there's no family history of heart problems or stroke. I'll have to go and see the doctor here if I'm being sensible and get another test with the 'good' and 'bad' cholesterol split, so I can really see what's what, then keep an eye on the improvement (that's positive thinking, isn't it?)

Our load of wood was paid for on the way back from the doctors at Gort. This one man lives alone with 2 large Alsatians and a big black pot bellied pig! His back yard is littered with trucks, cars, old tractors and huge piles of wood from the forestry. Good chap though and he delivered said wood without moaning about the access to our cottage, which isn't wonderful! Now Stanley should be kept going happily for a month I would think.

All in all a better day. Hopefully the muscle relaxants will work and Jim's back will get back to normal, or as normal as ever. We certainly won't be able to fly to Australia if it's not recovered.

Well, I've just checked and he's sitting in bed doing an advanced sudoku (which I always call Suzuki). There's a surprise.

I almost forgot, as the weather's been so awful for so long, it rained most of the day plus a howling wind.