We still need to get some things - in particular the DVDs and most of
the books - in their correct order on the shelves. But other than that
we're done with the unpacking and organizing; there are no longer boxes
everywhere, and the house looks more like a home than a storage
facility.
And... I FINALLY finished organizing the craft room!
Well,
like with the books in the computer room, the papers and books - while
on the correct shelves - need to be sorted properly. But the actual
craft supplies are organized. The room is cluttered - though it's
organized clutter - and I had to put some of the stuff in the bedroom in
the end, but it's done: I now have a craft room I can actually work in,
and a rough idea of where to find what I want or need for whatever
craft project I might want to work on at any given time. Including
having all the partially completed projects and various craft kits in
one place so I can see what I have that needs working on.
Anyway,
like I promised back when I first started working on the room soon
after we moved in here, I have some photos Kelly took of the craft room
for me to share with you. They aren't fantastic, because the size of
the room made it tricky for him to get good angles for taking better
photos, but at least you'll get to see what it looks like in there now.
I don't have photos of the other rooms at the moment, so you'll have to
wait for those. But here are the photos of the craft room:
And
here are photos Lilie and Logan wanted to be involved in, where you can
see the various craft kits and partially completed projects (mine,
Dad's, and ones I inherited from Nan) that ended up in the bedroom,
because there just wasn't space for any more shelves in the craft room.
Getting photos in the bedroom is a bit easier, but where the shelves
are still makes getting great shots tricky, so again they might not be
the best of photos. Most of the stuff on the shelves are the various
craft kits - some I got from my subscriptions, some I got elsewhere, and
some that Nan had - and the rest of the stuff on the shelves (the stuff
on the top two shelves) are craft projects of mine and Nan's in various
stages of completion. The stuff in the box and bags beside the shelves
is Dad's collection of projects in various stages of completion.
Anyway, here are the photos:
*~*
In other news:
A couple of weeks ago, a tooth I’d been having some issues
with broke. It wasn’t bugging me though,
so it just reminded me I needed to sort out a new dentist some time soon. But a few days later an abscess formed above
it, which was incredibly painful, and I spent that night in agony and feverish.
The next morning I called 111, which is the number to call
here if you need emergency medical care, or medical advice, but the situation
isn’t life-threatening (if it is you call 999).
My intention was just to have them help me get in for an emergency
dentist appointment as soon as possible.
However, after my answers to a few of the general health
questions they insisted I went to the hospital.
I protested that I’m never 100% healthy, and if I can get the tooth
sorted I’m sure I’ll be fine – or as close to it as I get – in a few days. But they were having none of it, and
basically told me I had a choice between getting myself to the hospital and
having them send me an ambulance. Since
I didn’t want to take up an ambulance slot that could be used for someone who
really needed it, and my Mam was on standby to take me to the dentist
appointment I was trying to get anyhow, I agreed to have her take me to A&E
to get looked at.
When we got there and it was busy, I told her to go home and
I’d let her know when I was ready to be picked up. Good thing I did too, since she dropped me
off there soon after 2:00pm on that Saturday afternoon, and – between all the
people already in front of me and all the emergencies that came in and needed
to be prioritized – it ended up being around 6:30am on the Sunday I finally saw
a doctor.
~
To cut a long story short, after an ECG, a chest x-ray, and
some blood tests (the latter of which took them eight attempts to achieve) I
learned I had a nasty viral infection that had a chest infection to go along
with it, as well as the dental abscess I knew about. They also told me my haemoglobin was low, and
I’d need to come back in a few days later to have it checked again, because if
it didn’t show signs of rising I’d need a blood or iron transfusion – maybe even
both. In the meantime I was to take some
antibiotics they gave me, and call 111 again on the Monday morning, and tell them
the hospital had given me permission to go see an emergency dentist.
So, I called about the dentist the following morning, and
managed to get an appointment to see a dentist just up the road from where I
live that very afternoon. The tooth was
broken beyond repair, but he was reluctant to pull it at first because the
abscess made the chances the anaesthetic would either not kick in at all or
would wear off too quickly very high.
But when I told him it was making even drinking difficult because of the
pain, he agreed to try. It took
everything he could give me, and the stuff did start wearing off before he was
done, but the tooth came out. And I
managed not to hit him, even though it was a close thing (he said, under the
circumstances, he wouldn’t have blamed me if I’d hit him, and was proud of me
for managing not to, since the last bit of the tooth extraction was essentially
with no pain relief at all).
Thankfully it proved to be worth it. At least, I think so, since the pain level
started to decrease from the following day, and by the Thursday both the level
of pain and size of the abscess were noticeably less.
~
On Friday October 1st – so, almost a week after I first went to
A&E – I went back to the
hospital, only to discover they’d made a mistake when reading my results, and
their expectation of seeing a low haemoglobin level meant when they saw one of
my levels was low they naturally blamed my anaemia. Except it actually turned out that wasn’t the culprit, as I learned on Friday.
Knowing my history with aneamia and the fact I'm vegan, they’d lectured me about not including enough B12 in my
diet, so had me worrying I’d been neglecting things I should have been eating
(especially with how important it is to watch that as a vegan) when, as it
turned out, my haemoglobin level was actually 124, which is nicely in the
normal range. My platelet level, however,
had dropped to 80, which is almost half the minimum it should be, but can't actually be blamed on my being a vegan.
They decided to check me again though. But after spending the day at the hospital getting tests, they
found nothing wrong with me but the infection and low platelet level – and the
38.2C temperature to go with them – so sent me home with more antibiotics,
since I’d just about finished the ones they gave me in the first place, and my
platelet level – while higher, at 104 – was still much too low. Though they did also send off some blood for
specialized tests to double-check the infection wasn’t anything special, which
they said they’d contact me about if there was anything concerning in them. There shouldn't be, but I agreed they could do the tests anyhow, since it doesn't hurt to check.
~
In short, my low platelet level – discovered before, and
likely caused by the congenital issues I have with my kidneys – caused me to
have an infection, which I didn’t notice I had.
So the infection got worse (especially once I had that broken tooth to deal with) which made the platelet levels drop even
more, which in turn made the infection end up getting worse, especially with it
still being ignored by me.
So, basically, if I'd just seen an emergency dentist like I wanted to - who would have given me antibiotics because of the dental abscess anyhow - I could have avoided the whole hospital adventure.
~
Oh, and just to make things even more interesting: I've been told that I should avoid taking Ibuprofen - the liquid form of which was the only pain relief I was able to take - since it's likely not helping my platelet issues. So that's me unable to use any actual medications for pain relief now.
All natural pain relief suggestions welcome, since I dare say I'm going to need them at some point.
