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Cycling
Persistent punctures dogged the beginning of January until I bought new tyres and a second hand 'reserve' bike from eBay.
Then I made 30 mile morning loops via Winchester, or a new loop via Romsey, my norm having set myself the easily attainable 500 mile per month target.However, the onset of my headaches on May 7th was to change that (see Health below).
In March I'd cycled 550 miles. In November I cycled a total of 4½.
I had not planned a sponsored cycle this year as Tony, a Barrett's Wessex member, was cycling across Australia and I didn't want to compete for sponsors. Asit was he didn't fund raise with his trip but attempted to raise awareness instead.
In 2012, health permitting, there are two sponsored cycle trips I'd like to undertake: the Paris-Hayling group cycling round Holland in July and the Saigon-Angkor Wat trip in November/December that I've been wanting to do for a couple of years.
Health
The headache started at 7:20 on Saturday 7th May, ten minutes after getting up and considering combining the Winchester and Romsey cycle loops to makea 45 mile trip that morning. I tried paracetamol with no effect. Co-codamol gave me an intense abdominal pain which lasted an hour. Ibuprofen was the onlything that offered a modicum of relief but NSAIDs increase stomach acid and I shouldn't take them. It was after seeing a third GP, after 10 weeks (previous visits after 2 and 6 weeks had each resulted in beingtold they were muscular-skeletal tension headaches that would clear themselves up) that I was referred to a neurologist with an earliest appointment date of 14th December! My new GP sent me for blood tests. Ihave had a total of five sets of tests for this now. 3 of them have shown polycythaemia (too many blood cells) whilst the other two were just “high normal”. Stopping my TRT, which could have been a possiblecause, actually increased the haemoglobin count – and the headache; and it resulted in my dry eye condition getting considerably worse.
Eventually saw the neurologist at the beginning of December (7 months after the headaches started). He thinks it is only muscular-skeletal tension but could possibly be a rare condition called Sjogrem's syndrome – which would explain other symptoms. So I've had a blood test for that but there's no cure apart from treating the symptoms. (They proved negative.)
Barrett's Wessex
At our AGM in May, we presented Southampton General Hospital with the HALO machine we had been raising funds for over the previous two years havingonly just reached the target in time. (The evening had been funded by a charity handout from the local radio station where I'd undertaken a ten minuteinterview.)The new committee, consisting of the previous 5 of us (plus our medics) and two new, previously co-opted, members was re-elected and, in accordance withour practice, officers chosen at the first committee meeting when I became chairman.
Having reached our initial fund raising target, we decided to switch focus to awareness raising, support and education and expansion to cover the greaterWessex area. To that end, I met with Dr Jamie Gordon in Bournemouth to discuss the setting up of a Bournemouth hub and Lynne (our new secretary) and Imet with Dr Ben Colleypriest in Salisbury to discuss another hub there. Both consultants were supportive but things have been slow to develop. Jamieneeded to sort out his patient database first which he now says will be complete by April when he envisages a public symposium. Ben, meanwhile, hasmoved to Bath, where I had already had encouraging email contact with Dr Jonathan Quinlan. Bath will be our next focus for a new hub.
At our October committee meeting, it was suggested we seek to become a separate charity operating totally independently of Barrett's OesophagusCampaign. To that end, I have now drawn up a new constitution to meet Charity Commission criteria and drafted responses to the questions of the on-line application form which I am expecting the committeewill agree in January for our membership's approval at the AGM in June.
Nationally, as a trustee of BOC, I am now sitting on another committee planning a joint awareness campaign, “Action Against Heartburn”, for next year.
I have had to attend a few meetings in London this year. I had originally intended to use the folding bike, cycle to the University coach station and take the bike to London with me. However, I found the foldingbike hard work: the gear ratios were too low for me – I felt I was pedalling fast to get nowhere. I prefer to use my normal bike to the coach and leave it locked up at the University. In London I can use busesfreely and have once used a “Boris Bike” - which I found heavy and low geared and was not happy with in London traffic. I did take my reserve bike to London once, when I managed to get a very good cheap raildeal, and was much happier in London traffic on it.
Other news
We didn't get away for a holiday this year; we have had to be even more careful with spending. We have had a few days at Colin's in Swindon, dog, hen and house sitting with some decorating and odd jobs thrownin. I had planned to have some “away days” with the bike which didn't materialise because of the headaches. But we are spending the first week of the new year in Northern Cyprus (on a very cheap, last minutedeal).
Many things had been going wrong with the car. The fan/heater only worked intermittently, the front passenger window couldn't be wound up (except using the driver's control) and the driver's window thensimilarly failed – requiring a dismantling of the switch in order to shut the window. There was also an intermittent problem with the nearside front indicator. Together with numerous bodywork repairs, I estimatedit would cost at least £1500 to make good before the MOT would be due in December; with a mileage of nearly 130,000, it was probably time to change it.
Karen had always said the car was too large for her and she wanted a small petrol engined one. After much consideration, I adjudged a Suzuki Wagon Rwould best meet our needs and kept perusing on-line sales until I discovered one for sale near Salisbury at only £1750 with less than 24,000 miles on theclock. The dealer agreed a £500 trade in so we paid less for the “new” car than it would have cost to keep the old one.
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