Turning 25...

....and still not necessarily grown up!!

On Friday I turned 25 (I can't wait until next year when I can say I turn 26 on the 26th!). I was stopping at my parents house as still on IVs.

I woke up to found a birthday banner had been put up in my bedroom. This shows just how deeply I sleep as I am aware when my mum comes into do my IVs at about 5.30am enough to get my line out, apart from that I have no idea when she leaves after connecting the eclipse device or when she comes back into remove it and flush the line! On Friday she also put a birthday banner up and I really did not know she had done it.

I then went downstairs to find a small pile of presents awaiting me:

Sat in my long awaited for camp chair:


I knew I had this chair for my birthday as I picked it out. Some of my fellow scout leaders have got similar chairs and it is amazing how much more comfier they are than the cheap folding chairs you can get (the ones that are normally like 2 for £10 or similar!). This is not a cheap chair but one of the leaders has had hers for 7years and you cant tell its that old based on its condition so they are well wearing and hardy. I look forward to my next beaver sleepover/ scout camp where I can take my chair with me!! After opening this present I then proceeded to sit in it whilst opening all my birthday cards and for most of the morning.This is a picture of all the presents that I had waiting for me when I woke up that morning! During the day I also received the zumba game on the Wii and a Sharky and George (Crimebusters of the sea!) hoody.

In the afternoon I had a buffet style party tea with some of my family and then some lovely cake:

I was pretty impressed when I saw it!!

All in all despite the IVs it was a good day!

IVs and some thoughts

Ok, so I am now a week into my IVs. I feel better in myself, my cough is reduced generally and its becoming more of a dry cough than a productive one. Yet if you look at the clinical numbers I am actually slightly worse off than when I started last week. I will be going with how I actually feel rather than the numbers though.

Last wednesday was a very long and emotional day. I still didn't get all the answers I need and still face more tests before anything can be truly determined. My x-ray showed radiological changes in comparison to my previous years on the left hand side. This by itsself isnt necessarily anything to worry about as it could just be a patch of infection. However when placed with somethings it could also be a sign of Aspergillus becoming a problem and having to treat. One of the blood tests that would also confirm Aspergillus hadn't come back. So depending on that result and another x-ray in September could be a start of some new treatment. However this treatment can only take place if they are 100% confident it will help as the side effects can be potentially quite damaging due to my diabetes. It's a tough balance to strike, but ultimately may improve my lung function.

My vitamin levels were low. They are always low when they are tested so I wasn't surprised to hear that. However to hear that my dietician possibly wanted to come in and talk to me about it after the doctor left I was not so impressed with. I had been sat in clinic for an hour with noone coming into see me and I had heard the dietician say she had seen everyone she needed to. So she had another thing coming if she thought I was going to stick around for her to talk me after the doctor left me!! As it was I got to the hospital at 10am wednesday morning and did not leave until 4.30pm. This meant I did not get home until gone 5.30pm!!

I also expressed what I thought is pure stupidity on the Ultrasound department for allowing diabetics to have scans in the afternoon. I had not been able to eat since 8am and then they were slightly delayed in doing my scan. I was starting to feel hypo and had a bad headache for the rest of the day. I feel there should be a question on their forms when the scans are booked asking if the patient is diabetic and therefore giving them an appointment as early as possible in the day.

Annual assessments are just stressful days and its possibly more irritating that it was a month after the tests were done supposedly so all the results will be in and then they arent so you still cant discuss everything you want or need to.

Havent blogged in awhile

Ok, so I haven't blogged in awhile. There is no reason for it, just not really had anything to say.

I've been on reward camp which was nice and chilled which is what I wanted it to be and so was good. The not so good part of the 2days is when I got stung by a wasp on my eyelid!! It flew into my face and got trapped behind my glasses and panicked resulting in the sting. That was very painful but luckily an anti-histamine tablet took down the slight swelling and my eyesight was not affected so I did not have to visit a&e (which I was threatened with if my eyesight went blurry!!). So glad I'm not allergic to wasp stings!

My parents have been away on holiday for the last 2weeks and its felt weird not seeing my mum. Normally I see her most days or every other day for a cup of tea, so to not see her for almost a fortnight was weird. It wasnt so weird not seeing my dad as I dont normally see him as he works and so unless I go round for my evening meal I dont see him except on sundays (when I always go for sunday dinner!). Its been abit of a stressful 2weeks with my mum away as well as I've had to deal with a couple of things that she would of sorted out normally (mainly a very early 6.20am wake up call because my niece woke up covered in chicken pox and her mum panicked slightly as she didnt have the car and had my other niece to get to holiday club and other things. Also my brother and partner had a major argument and I ended up with my brother for a day and night at my house basically just sat in my armchair refusing to budge from his stubbornness and she refused to budge from her stubbornness either! They are pretty much sorted again now though). Both of those things I did because I love my family but boy does it make me appreciate my mum lots! If my parents had been at home my brother would of stayed with them and his partner would of rung my mum for advice on the chicken pox and for lifts at such an early time in the morning.

I've got a busy week coming up, it should go to plan like this:
Monday- visit to see a niece and nephew I rarely see (they are my sister's husbands kids so they are adopted niece and nephew and they are staying with their grandparents which is why we can see them as they dont really live close by for us to see regularly. Only if my sister and husband are home from Cyprus (where he is posted in the RAF) or if they are with his parents).
In the evening I am going to see Smurfs 3d - very excited!

Tuesday- It is my grandmas birthday so she is coming round to my parents in the afternoon for a birthday tea which I am also invited to. My IVs are also being delivered sometime on tuesday. There is a leaders meeting at 7.30pm to discuss the programmes and other scout group stuff and I also have to squish in a visit from the best friend who comes back off holiday and wants to pick up her guinea pigs that I have been looking after.

Wednesday- Is a whole day at the hospital! I have to be there for 10.30am to start my IVs (which for those who know me may realise that means I will be on IVs for my birthday this year). Then I have clinic in the afternoon which is my Annual Assessment Review afternoon. So is the clinic where they discuss all of the results from the tests they did last month to see if any changes need to be made to my medication and plans for the year ahead to keep me as well as possible. I'm expecting upto 5 new medications based on what was discussed at the first part of the review. I am also not allowed anything to eat from 8am on wednesday until after my ultrasound scan at 2pm in the afternoon. I am also only allowed water to drink until after my scan, this is going to make for a very long day and means I have to be up early to have breakfast and a cup of tea to get me through the day. As I wont really be able to eat straight after the scan as I will be straight into clinic with the doctors!!

Thursday- is a pretty quiet daytime and in the evening I will be going to pizza hut with the same friend I am going to the cinema with on monday. I put a status on facebook last week wondering if I could convince anyone to go to pizza hut with me as I love the BBQ pizza they do. She replied saying I was thinking the exact same thing and she loves the same pizza I do as well so we organised to go. We will probably end up ordering a large cheesy bites BBQ pizza between us.

Friday- Is food shopping with my grandma and that takes all morning by the time we have had to have a cup of tea with her afterwards. As much as I love my grandma I always find friday mornings a long time! When I food shop by myself depending on when I go I can have done my shopping and be home again within an hour, sometimes within half an hour. On a friday I leave my house at about 8.15am and usually don't enter it again until 11.30am! Thats a long time for food shopping.

My weekend is currently empty of plans which is probably a good thing seeing as I will be on IVs and should really rest abit. The week after is also empty of plans apart from my birthday.

New Arrival

I no longer live completely alone again! Introducing Harry hamster:






Harry was chosen and named by my nephew. I promised him he could pick my new hamster after I told him I wasnt having a dog!! I also let him name him. Harry is about 7 weeks old and so is still very much a baby. He isn't used to being handled yet as you can't touch them until they are 6 weeks old otherwise the mother attacks them. However he has let me handle him a few times with no problems. He is slightly skittish and tries to jump out your hands, so I need to stay at low level with him until he is more confident but does let me pick him up.

He seems to have settled well into his new cage and was quite active this afternoon playing in his wheel. He is now snoozing but not in his house. I'm not sure if he has found his house or just isn't sure of it as he didn't have one in the pet shop.

National Transplant Week

Another busy weekend

So I had another busy weekend again this weekend (but a fun one!).

On Saturday I spent the day at the local campsite helping out with a groups camp. The plan was for me to drop one of their leaders off there and some bags of wood for their campfire and then leave again. However I ended up staying for the whole day and helping them run their activities!! I should of realised by now that when you go down to a scout event you always stay longer than you initially planned, especially when they know you aren't going to be doing much else otherwise!! I was meant to be visiting the scout shop after being at the campsite (which is only open saturdays 9.30-12pm) to collect my new beaver leader hoody. They were like 'its ok we'll text D and get him to bring it out with him as hes coming out when the shop closes anyway). So I ended up staying. It was good as I got to see the beavers who I have been helping to run have some fun in the settings of the campsite.

My first job was in charge of a lawn beanbags game. They had all 3 sections out there for a large group camp and had split them into 4 mixed section teams. So the teams were rotating around four different activities in the morning and assessed on their scouting behaviours (so teamwork, kindness etc) for three of the activities. Mine was the easiest activity to score as I just added up their beanbag score and thats what got put down. However they still had to act as a team so I would take points of them if they started to gloat over getting a higher individual score than someone on their team instead of saying well done. One scout nearly lost all of his points as he kept being really patronising to the younger cubs and beavers instead of being encouraging and he knew he was doing it. So lawn beanbags was basically a target was laid on the ground and from a certain distance back they had to throw the beanbags and try and get the highest possible score (50 was the bullseye and they had 6beanbags so the highest they could get was 300). They were also playing parachute games, snakes and ladders and making tincan pancakes.

Tincan pancakes are basically what they sound like! You take an empty tincan clean it all out, at the end with the lid already removed cut a square out the side so you can slide a tealight candle in and out easily. At the other end of the can make some holes just under the lid all the way round the sides so the heat has somewhere to escape from. You then put the tiniest of drops of oil on the top of the can (where you still have a lid), light a tealight candle and put it under the tincan. Once the oil has heated up you put on a tiny amount of batter and wait for it to cook (takes about 10mins to cook each tincan pancake). The kids love doing it as its something different but it is quite a long process for a mouthful of pancake (as thats basically the amount of pancake you have once its cooked!).

It was then time for lunch which was sandwiches, veg (raw carrot, raw pepper and cucumber), fruit and a packet of crisps. At mealtimes as a leader you get to stand there and try and get them to queue orderly and patiently and generally contain the chaos and make sure all kids and any invited guests to your camp (so important people in the district or those who teaching the kids a skill you dont possess) have got food and then you can have some. As I wasnt expecting to stay and they hadn't catered for me I waited until right of the very end and had what was left over (still got a ham sandwich, pepper,a banana and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps). You always cater for 2 or 3 people over who you are expecting for any unexpected drop ins and they had some people not turn up so they had tons of food!

In the afternoon they did a scavenger hunt and I made sure none of the other teams were stealing others items. They also made camp donuts which I helped them run. Camp donuts are amazing and can be done at home on the stove as well! You need to make some pancake batter up. You then take a slice of bread, butter it, then put a filling of your choice on (jam, lemon curd, choc buttons and marshmallows all work well!), fold the bread in half like a sandwich and cut into two. You then dip the two bits of bread into the batter and place into a hot frying pan and fry them like a pancake until the batter is cooked (this only takes a couple of minutes). As soon as they are out of the pan you roll them in sugar and voila camp donuts made!! This is the way this group made them, but my scout group make them a slightly different way. Instead of using pancake batter we butter both sides of the bread and make up like previously stated. once they are cut into two you roll them in sugar first (the sugar sticks to the butter), wrap them in tinfoil and place them on the edges of the fire in the embers, then leave them for about 5minutes (depending on how hot the fire is) and then take them out and camp donuts are made. Both ways are good!

Thats pretty much all I did on saturday.

Yesterday I went to Fantasy Island at Skegness with my friends for the day. It was kind of a stag do for one of them as he gets married on saturday but didnt want a traditional stag do! It was a good day with lots of laughs and plenty of rides. A few photos were taken but not on my camera so I'm still waiting for those to be put on facebook.

A busy little beaver

I have been pretty busy this weekend doing all kinds of letters for scouts and beavers.

I still can't believe I was ever fooled into thinking that scouting was just one night a week for a couple of hours! Maybe it is for those occasional helpers who dont do anything except turn up and go home again right at the end without getting involved in any of the planning or preparing.

At the moment I am juggling preparing, organising and running a beaver programme by myself with preparing, organising and running a scout programme pretty much by myself (I have an ASL but there not necessarily so great at the being organised thing!).

This is a whole lot of things to organise to sure every child gets the full experience of scouting and doesnt miss out on any badges they have earnt because of my lack of record keeping skills!

This weekend I have done the following relating to scouting:

• Written a letter to give to Beaver parents regarding an invite to join another colony to see Persil the Owl.
• Written a letter to send to the scout parents regarding a weekend away which our troop has been invited to by another troop in the district.
• Addressed the envelopes and posted the above said letters!
• Updated group records
• Printed health forms for the patrol leader reward camp I will be running to give to the scouts who need them on thursday.
• Printed the provisional programme for the patrol leader reward camp to give to the other leaders so they can see what will be happening and throw in any ideas they have (a camp programme is never set in stone, it is only ever a rough guide so you have things they can do but things always change when you are on camp depending on enjoyment factors of current activities!).
• Started organising the beaver programme for the term starting in September with regards to outside guests coming in.

That is a whole lot of stuff to squish in when I also spent most of saturday daytime out of the house with family and sunday afternoon at my parents house.

I absolutely love being in scouting and this post might seem like I am complaining but it is meant that way. I love the time I spend at weekly meetings actually running them and I admit I like things to be organised and so that aspect of scouting I relish! I always try to keep my records upto date every week with regards to work they have completed in case it completes a badge (that can so easily sneak you by without realising) and letters and forms and all things like that!

Tonight I will be joining another troop in the district for their weekly meeting. They are holding a Carnival/ Fair games night and I was asked to go along and help man a stall. I think the way the night will run is all the leaders will be at a 'stall' and the scouts will be free to roam and go on any activity they like. I know they have got a candy floss machine!! and there will be a hook a duck as well. I'm not sure what else they will have going on but I am aware that the group own a set of stocks and I'm a little worried there maybe a throw wet sponges at the leader in the stocks. Hopefully if that is there I wont be on that one!!!! This is the same group who the weekend away is with at the end of July so it will be good to get to know a few of their scouts a bit better.