#Tortoises, #Blogging, #Coronavirus, Medical Mutterings, And Questions For #Blind People

~Photo of Artemis just inside the tortoise cave, looking out towards the camera... Just because.

Let's talk blog posts:

For one thing, the changes to how I'm doing my Wednesday posts are being kept. It's easier for me, and the feedback I got from the changes was positive, so it sounds like it's a win-win situation. So, yeah... Definitely glad I did that.

The other thing is my Tuesday posts. My original plan for those had been random day to day life stuff, because that seemed to be working last year. But between low energy because of not feeling well, and already covering the other main areas of my life in other posts - writing, media, and pets - I don't always have much to say without stepping on the toes of another day's post, if you know what I mean. So, I started feeling like I was pushing myself to deliver what I promised on the Tuesdays by pretty much giving you a preview of the other posts, which was just more work for myself. Either that, or I'd be taking some of the stuff I could have posted from the petkids on Fridays, and then having to think hard to figure out what to post (or essentially just do pet photo round up posts) when the Friday posts needed to be done.

However, I didn't want to not do Tuesday posts, because... Well, those of you who have been around a while know how determined I am to stick to a posting schedule if I've got one, even when dealing with health issues. But, I promised myself - and several other people - I'd take the whole self care thing more seriously from now on.

So, though I'll sometimes do a random life catchup type post on a Tuesday, and some of my Tuesday posts will continue to over-lap with stuff that could work with the other days, you'll be seeing a bunch of quote and tag posts filling a lot of my Tuesday slots between now and the rest of the year. I set a bunch up when it was difficult to write because I wasn't feeling great and next door was doing some rather noisy renovation work (seriously, I swear they're gutting the place and rebuilding the entire inside, if you go by the noise). When noise makes hearing JAWS impossible, it's easier to stop constructing quote round up posts, or writing the answer to a question I have right in front of me, than it is to keep the thread of a story or poem I was trying to type, so it was an ideal task to do at the time, and will help me for the rest of the year.

I hope you understand. It seemed like the best thing for me to do, especially if I want to both take care of myself better, and keep to my five days a week posting schedule for the time being.

Let your heart guide you. It whispers so listen closely.
~Walt Disney

Anyway... Let's catch up with a few things that have been going on over the past few weeks.

First, let's address the elephant in every room at the moment: Covid-19, or the Coronavirus.

OK. So, a lot of people might disagree with me here. But, seriously people, stop panicking. Yes, it's bad. Yes, you need to be careful, and definitely self-isolate if you so much as suspect you have it. Also, yes, it would be a good idea to have a few days of non-perishable food items on hand, "Just in case." But those are actually things you should do as standard anyhow. Also, stop the panic-buying already. Especially the toilet paper thing. What's with that anyhow? Well, at least it makes more sense than the people I heard about who were stocking up on lettuce.

I mean, stocking up on a little extra canned food, pasta, etc. That's sensible. In fact, I believe you should keep a well-stocked store cupboard all the time anyhow. I even get the frantic buying of gloves, hand sanitizer, and masks. Although you want to be careful with relying on those things, since over-use of hand sanitizer can lead to alcahol poisoning, and unless you're using a proper gas mask, a mask is actually not going to help. Just saying. But what's with the toilet roll thing? A few extra rolls... Sure. But nobody needs that much. As it said in something I saw on Facebook: if you need that much toilet paper to survive a two week isolation, you should probably have been seeing a doctor a long time ago.

Look. Just wash your hands properly and regularly with soap and water, just like your parents always told you to do anyhow, stay home if you're sick (especially if you regularly come in to contact with people on the high risk list) and shop sensibly, making sure you have a topped-up store cupboard, but not over-doing it. Like I said, things you should be doing anyway.

Bearing in mind, I say this as someone who is on that at risk list. Yes, I'm young enough that my age counts in my favour, since most of the 20% of cases where people who catch it die - yes, you read that right... In 80% of cases people recover, in case you missed that bit among all the rising numbers of the dead - are older people. However, I've got asthma, am prone to chest infections, and the issue I've had with my kidneys since birth makes me prone to infections anyhow. Not to mention, Kelly had pneumonia as a child, and has some lung scarring from that, so he's got to be careful too (he's also 13 years older than I am). So, please don't think we're not taking it seriously. We are. We just aren't panicking, because we don't see any need to, or that doing so would achieve anything.

In short, my point is, panicking isn't going to help anyone, and panic-buying is only going to mean other people will end up without essential items - like toilet paper, for example.

Also, to the person I read about via the Twitter feed of one of the newspapers, who took advantage of a blind shopper's lack of sight to steal their toilet roll from their shopping trolley: what's wrong with you? You're a real jerk, and the only reason I don't call you worse is because this is a family friendly blog. Be glad I wasn't that blind person. That was low, dude. Real low.

Right. Now I have that out of the way...

I gave in and took some medicine for my cold/flu thing. Managed to get rid of all but an annoying lingering cough, which I have most of the time through Winter anyhow, because asthma, so I'm not concerned about. I did this in the week leading up to my procedure at the hospital, since every time I'd thought the cold/flu thing was getting better, it came back worse, and I was hoping to have it actually go away before the procedure was done. Well, that mostly worked. Like I said, it's just that bit of a cough, which is mostly only at night anyhow, so it's fine.

Speaking of the procedure: it went smoothly, and I think I'm healing well.

As it turned out, I'd had our friends, Lorna and Andy, take me earlier than needed, because I hate being late for things. Between that and the fact the Coronavirus is making a lot of people cancel things, Lorna and I were actually waiting for Andy to come back to pick us up by the time my appointment time actually rolled around, since we were seen really early, and then the local anasthetic actually worked first time, which meant it only took about five minutes... Maybe ten, if you count the time it took for the consultant to read the consent form out, verify I was agreeing for Lorna to sign it on my behalf, check she knew what she was signing and was doing it of her own free will, and have her sign it.

Anyway, the procedure itself was fine. Recovering afterwards... Not so much.

The numbing effects were meant to last two hours. They lasted maybe half an hour. So they'd worn off before I had a chance to take some painkillers. Not to mention, eating even soft things like Weetabix, oatmeal, soup, and strawberry flavoured soya yogurts - the things my diet consisted of during the days afterwards - was unpleasant and incredibly painful. During the first 24 hours, I wouldn't have even eaten those things if I hadn't needed to in order to take Ibuprofen (the only painkiller I can take without some kind of allergic reaction). Even drinking wasn't comfortable, despite my making it a little easier on myself by using my travel bottle, which has a built in straw.

Let's just say, I'm very glad mouth wounds heal quickly.

I'm also very glad Kelly was willing to have toast with Logan for several days for me, so that Logan could still have his bit of toast, but I didn't have to try and eat toast. I seriously don't know how I'd have managed it without Kelly, because I definitely wouldn't have been able to eat it, and I didn't really want to be giving the whole piece of toast to Logan (even though he'd have thought it was fantastic if I did).

Anyhow, I have a follow-up appointment to make sure I've healed properly, but it's not until May. I'm not sure if they'd normally leave it that long, or if it's that non-emergency appointments are being scheduled quite a lot in advance because of the virus. But I go for my follow-up appointment on May 12th.

Before I end this, I'd like to share this post where a blind person answers some questions from sighted people. I'd also like to add that if you have any questions not covered in that post, you should feel free to ask. You can either ask me in the comments section of this post, on social media, or by eMail, or ask Holly in the comments section of the post I just linked to.