Dumping - maybe but maybe not

I am still in hospital and I am writing this blog from my hospital bed on my laptop.
When the Drs suggested I came into hospital I was quietly pleased that someone was going to have a look at the unpleasant symptoms I get whenever I eat.
In short what happens after the first few mouthful is :-

• I start to sweat heavily
• My pulse rate jumps to about 150 bpm
• My blood pressure rises
• I feel dizzy
• I am sometimes sick

In the past these symptoms have been described as Dumping Syndrome and various Doctors and Surgeons have told me they could do nothing about it. Three weeks ago I was referred to a Gastroenterologist at Jimmy’s here in Leeds. In the past most medics have pooh poohed my description of the symptoms I get when I eat so I thought it wouldn’t hurt anything to show them.
The appointment was a 9am so instead of having my breakfast at home I took it with me and ate it just before going in to see the Dr. She took one look at the state I was in and decided I needed to come into hospital for tests to try to work out what was going on.

I think I will draw a veil over the false starts and none availability of beds but eventually I found myself on the gastroenterology ward discussing what happens to me when I eat.
The first test I was given is called a Glucose challenge test which is the standard test for diagnosing diabetes. It involves fasting for 16hrs then drinking a sugary drink. To see what happens a blood sample is taken every 30 minutes for three hrs and your BP, pulse, rate and oxygen levels are also checked.

I didn’t react as they thought I would because I don’t react to sugar in any form other than to start passing sugar in my urine. However it did confirm I am diabetic (This has never been tested for before).

After a lot of head scratching and tooth sucking the Drs decided to devise a test to see what happens when I eat toast. The test has been dubbed the toast challenge test and involves another 16hr fast and then being given 3 slices of buttered toast and a cup of coffee. This time I did react, I was wet through with sweat (I needed to change my pyjamas), My BP went through the roof, my heart rate was just short of 200bpm and I felt really ill. The bloods they took during this test charted the rise in my blood sugar to 17.1 (normal is less than 7) and confirmed that I am a full diabetic but didn’t explain why I react the way I do when I eat.

When the results of the bloods came back from the lab they gave a picture of a rising blood sugar for the first 30 mins after eating and then over the next two hours a slow drop back towards normal. This is NOT dumping syndrome as what would have happened if it was is that my blood sugar should have gone up over a 2 hr period and then suddenly drop to 3 or less accompanied by tremors on the limbs.

As I have reacted to every meal I have been given in hospital so far the Medical team are very aware there is something wrong but are stumped to explain just what. The next step in the investigation is to repeat the toast challenge but this time to give me an injection of Octreotide during the test.

I am apprehensive about this test because looking this drug up on the internet, it is widely used to ease the symptoms of Dumping by increasing the output of insulin and other gastric enzymes. However as my symptoms are the opposite of those shown by classical dumping it isn’t clear what effect Octreotide will have on me. Oh well if anything goes wrong Jackie will be here with me to alert the staff and I couldn’t be in a better place.

Watch this space to see if the test showed up anything interesting.

Just in time

I took retirement a few weeks ago and it has become apparent I accidently did the right thing just in time. Since then I went to a clinic at Jimmy's and within five days found myself in Hospital getting ready to have all sorts of tests because the gastroenterologists have decided that the dumping
that makes eating such a pain (especially in public) is actually something to worry about.

I have had one 28 hr period having blood tests but I was let out to go on holiday as I couldn't afford to cancel a prepaid holiday and we both needed the break quite badly. However once the holiday is over, I will be going back into hospital this time to stay there while they do some exhaustive tests to find out if the symptoms I get every time I eat is dumping or out of control diabetes.

The other thing the hospital is worried about is that my shirt size has gone from medium at Christmas to xxl now but I haven't put any weight on, in fact I am about 5 kgms lighter.

Just before I left hospital to go on holiday one of the nurses told me with unholy glee that next week I will have to have a 24hr period of 15 minute blood tests. Not much chance of getting any sleep with that going on. I am also having a barium meal on Tuesday so judging by previous experience I should be bunged up solid by Thursday. I don't know what other fun packed plans they have for me but they tell me that if they start any form of treatment after the tests they want me to stay in until they have had a chance to evaluate how effective the treatment is.

If I hadn't cleared all but one of my previous commitments I don't think I could cope at the moment. I have one last web site to complete and then I can have a break and concentrate in dealing with whatever the hospital thinks is wrong.

Our Holiday has been a great success. The Hotel is wonderful (Wrea Head Country House Hotel, Scalby, near Scarborough - 01723 371 190). It is a country house and is full of antiques and old word decor. However the services are right up to date (TV in the bathroom and a power shower). The food is excellent with a different menu every night. The staff are eager to please and nothing is too much trouble. The grounds are full of wild life and there are paths leading to spots where you
can sit enjoying the sight and sounds of the working farm next door.

Talking of farms we were told about a new bird garden and animal park on Scarborough Road just outside Filey. It is a family enterprise and has a lot more than just birds. The owner told us that some of the animals they look after were rescues. We met two donkeys that are the gentlest we have ever seen. When they arrived they were in a terrible state but to look at them now, without the photographic evidence, you wouldn't believe it. They so delicately and gently took the food from our hands and then followed us as we looked round the rest of the pens. The owner and her family have worked very hard to build this garden and they have made it a welcoming and delightful way to spend sometime learning about domestic animals and how to care for them. We spent a happy couple of hours wandering around the various pens and can thoroughly reccomend stopping off for a look round and a snack in the cafe afterwards.

Scarborough has changed a lot since we last visted some years ago. Where ever you go you can see signs of refurbishment and rebuilding. A good example of this is the Corner Cafe area which is now a block of flats with shops underneath. We were thrilled to find that one of the Cafes is owned by the family that used to run the fruit stall next to the corner cafe and they have started selling the
waffles that were so famous at this place. Yes I did make a pig of myself and loved every mouthful.

That's all for this blog,

Bob

Winding up

It is with a heavy heart I am writing this week to tell you that I have become the latest victim of the financial downturn that has hit this country. As I told you in my last post, Milo our chocolate lab has got a problem with his eye. The vet's bills from that have added up to just short of £1,000. That wouldn't have been a problem if Sainsbury's Pet Insurance had paid out on time as they have in the past. This time they have been messing about asking for Milo's full medical history although they have known him as long as we have had him, sending the claim forms back for more information that they had already been given and acting as though we were making a fraudulent claim. This has caused both us and our vet some serious heartache because we (and our vet) don't see our pets as financial liabilities which is why we have insurance on them. However at a time like this the pet's needs come first and we argue with the insurance company later.

I always try to carry a float so that if something like this goes wrong I can pay the bills as they come in and chase insurance companies later but this time my float has been eroded by one of our other pets having a huge abscess on her jaw at the same time - more vet's bills. Again normally the float covers all these things but recently I have been having cash flow problems with customers being very slow to pay their invoices so I have been borrowing from Peter to pay Paul so to speak.

The crunch came when we had to cancel our holiday because I needed the money to pay the vet. Some of our slowest payers were on holiday having a good time and sending me email requests and instructions for more work together with photos of themselves enjoying their break. This was the straw that broke the camel's back because when I started working with computers my wife had said that she didn't mind what I did as long as my activities didn't effect the bills being paid and our family life wasn't curtailed by them. Having to cancel the holiday we both badly need was seen as my activities doing just that.

Omega Cottage will close for new business on 1st September. I will miss the work and the friends I have made in the years I have been trying to help folk to get the best out of their computers. It is going to be a wrench stripping down and selling off the infrastructure I have enjoyed so much building here in my study but there is no point keeping more than a single computer as I will not need the servers and Macs I have now to do the bit of web surfing and maintenance on my personal web site.

Thanks to all of you who have been customers and friends down through the years, I will miss you.

Milo in trouble - again

Three weeks ago we took Milo to the vet to have a wart taken from his left eye. According to our vet it was a simple procedure that should take about ten days to heal. Milo in a bucket is not a nice animal to have around. He is so clumsy that his bucket looks as if it has been run over by a tank and the walls and doors around our home look as it has been the site of a demolition derby. As you can see Milo is a Chocolate Labrador. They are not the most graceful of dogs at the best of times, add a bucket and you have a lethal moving object. He has knocked us off our feet more than once and we are covered with bruises from the edges of the bucket. Thankfully when we took him to the vet this morning, Aunty Margret (our vet) confirmed that the ulcer is at last beginning to heal.

With everyone away on holiday it is very quiet here with no books or scripts needing work. However I do have a web site request from a firm that has rebuilt our conservatory roof, replaced the windows and generally tidied up and refurbished the whole conservatory. The firm is Calder Windows and I can thoroughly recommend their services and workmanship. You will find their website (draft version) at http://www.calderwindows.co.uk.

While things are quiet I am adding some more templates to my templates page. I have downloaded 20 or so new templates that I think folks may find interesting and give them some ideas of what their web site may look like. Over the next few days I will add them to my site and you can browse through them.

It is the time of year when I go looking at prices for car insurance. I was directed to the SAGA web site and the quote it gave was very attractive, almost £70 less than Direct Line's quote. The way SAGA quote is you give them the registration number of your vehicle and they identify it from a database based on the DVLA one that is used by most if not all of the Insurance companies to guard against fraud. The database identified my vehicle as a Vauxhall Combo Tour 2000 CDTI. There is and never has been such a vehicle as Vauxhall confirmed when I rang them. SAGA couldn't or wouldn't believe that this mistake had been made and insisted on trying to insure my vehicle as a combo panel van. AS that quote came in at over £400 pounds and was again for the wrong vehicle, I gave up, gave Direct line a ring, told them what had happened and got them to reduce my quote for renewal by £40. The lesson from this tale is check carefully any legal documents you are sent as anything based on a computer is not infallible, it is just as likely to be wrong as something produced by a human being.

A New Look

One of my customers suggested that if I was offering to build web sites for people then I should have some way of showing my skills and abilities. This seemed a good idea so I built a new template (called Misty after this little lady).





I have been playing with rounded corners in CSS so the template Misty uses them. This template is a fixed width, three column page with static background. Which lends itself to lists and short paragraphs of text. It is not ideal for tutorials or articles but works just fine for a contact page (see pic on right) or a list. I already have a list of example templates on one of my sites but it had a severely plain and utilitarian background. It is only a three page site just to demonstrate the type of templates that are available for use as free downloads from the web. I don't mind using templates as a lot of hard work has been done for you and the cross platform issues have in many cases been solved. It is then a matter of adapting the template to the customer's needs by adding logos and content. To have a look at the templates go to OmegaCottage.org .

My next task is to change the apperance of the page I use to test new projects. At the moment it looks as sever as the old .org page did but I will select a very different template and adapt it to take the links to the project(s) I am currently working on then add a contact page so that folks can tell me what they think and/or ask for a quote for building a site for them. You will find the page at OmegaCottage.com .

Just a short post today - see you next week.

Setting up the new computer

The computer Jackie won has arrived. It is huge (24" x 24" x 9") and very heavy. We unpacked it and plugged it in and it proved to be as fast as was claimed. However although it was loaded with Vista Ultimate, there was no DVD or licence. Now I know that when you win something you should be grateful for what you are given but when it comes to a computer, then one without an operating system is like a car without an engine. I rang the people who built the computer and was told that it was loaded with Vista and that was that, but as a Microsoft Partner I knew it shouldn't be delivered like that.

The competition was run by PC Format so I rang them to find out just what I should have received. I was told the computer should fully complete and ready to run. I told them what state the operating system was in and that the accessory pack for the computer case was missing too. The Editor Alan Dexter told me he would contact the computer supplier YoYoTech and find out why I had been supplied a computer with an illegal copy of Vista on it.

I am glad to report that yesterday morning a parcel arrived containing all the missing bits. The computer is now up and running with a fully legal operating system and I have been able to add the wheels to the case plus a few other bits like a floppy drive. I am glad PC Format were able to sort this one but if the prize had been won by someone with less computer knowledge than my own would they have been able to argue with the builders or would they have found the computer stopped working when Vista wouldn't activate and had to go and buy a copy at the full retail price?

I have loaded all my usual software on to the computer and it all seems to run just fine. The next test is what it will do in Windows 7. Windows 7 is released on 22nd October. I have signed up at Amazon for the pre-order scheme and hopefully saved my self about £50 on the full price. I am at present using the RC 1 version of Windows 7 on two of my computers and I like it. So far I have had no problems with it as most of the hardware manufacturers are bringing out Windows 7 drivers ready for the launch. The one exception is Matrox who can not or will not say when or even if they will be bringing out Windows 7 drivers so I can't test my multi screen system using my normal P690 graphics cards. In view of this I have abandoned Matrox altogether and switch back to ATI graphic cards. I don't have the massive three screen desktop you get with Matrox but the three desktops I do get with ATI are nearly as good and whats more are reliable and stable which is more than the last set of drivers for Vista 64 bit were from Matrox.

BT Internet seems to be having problems again. Several of the people I am in touch with use this ISP and all have lost their connection over the past few days and several of them also report missing email. BT Claims there is nothing wrong but if not, where are all the missing emails?

That's it for this week - bye for now.

Who's a spoilt brat then?

On Thursday of last week my wife Jackie received the following email

---

Hi Jacki
Ref Yoyotech Competition PC Winner

Your PC will be shipped out on Monday 27-07-09 via City Link, and will be with you on Tuesday 28-07-09

If you do need to adjust the delivery day please inform us before Monday 2pm

--
Regards

Kul Singh
Antech Direct Ltd T/A Yoyotech
30 Windmill Street
London
W1T 2JL

---

She was just about to delete it as spam when she thought on to ask me to check it out for her. I rang the company and after the usual why are you ringing and who are you etc I was told that she had indeed won a computer and it would be delivered on Tuesday. I asked what is the spec of the machine expecting an Office machine or middle of the road family computer. What she is getting is this computer which is an ultra fast, ultra powerful games machine full of all the latest bells and whistles.

I began to think about how to shoehorn this beast of a machine into Jackie's corner of the lounge where she happily does several hundred Internet competitions a day. This is where I was turned from a puzzled husband into a spoilt brat because Jackie told me she didn't want it "What would I do with all that power?" and that it was mine if wanted it.

Now, bearing in mind that the number of times I have played a computer game can be counted on one hand, I had to work out if this powerful machine could be converted into a very powerful workstation instead of a games platform. The simple answer is that at this moment in time I don't know. I do use some very memory hungry programs (Adobe InDesign for example) and MS Office is notorious for hogging memory. But on the other hand these days I have to be able to handle book sized Word files as that is the way book manuscripts arrive from the author for typesetting.

The graphics card that is in this machine is a very powerful one but will it run a three screen system? Again I don't know till I try it as the Matrox website doesn't cover this graphic card. Quite a few graphics cards are not compatible with the Triple Head to Go hardware or drivers so it may not be as simple as plugging it in and linking up to my three screen system. Oh well, I have just finished typesetting a book so after the machine arrives tomorrow, I suspect I will be in for a few happy hours researching just how to configure this machine for best performance as a Desk Top Publishing, Web Designing and MS Office applications machine. It will be a bit like using an F1 racing car to pop down to the Co-op but you never know I might just take up flight Simms and learn to fly.

It is only when something like this happens that you take stock and realise just how much you can take your partner for granted without realising what is happening. Like most men, I can easily become wrapped up in what I am doing and lose sight of the big picture. Jackie just puts up with me staring at a computer screen for hours on end and still the house is spotless, the meals always arrive on time and I am never short of clean clothes - see what I mean - I am a totally spoilt brat especially when I get a wonderful present like this computer.