I’m OK now but I’ve been having a fair bit of angina and atrial fibrillation for the past year or so (to go along with all my other pains, but that’s another story).

Last Monday evening (10th) at 8pm I had some sudden strong pain in the middle of my chest. I had no hesitation – I knew I had to call 000. The ambulance was here within about 10-15mins (and I had all my bags packed and ready to go). The guys asked me where I wanted to go, which hospital??? Huh? They said “Don’t go to Joondalup (15 mins away) as it’s blocked up. What about Hollywood Private?” Yes, I said, I used to go there 10 years ago and it feels like home to me. So, off we went, about 45mins drive. The pain had gone by then.

I spent the next 4hrs or so in the ED, bored out of my skull. They hooked me up to an ECG and BP cuff, but it took 1 1/2 hrs before a doctor came to see me. Ugh.

Anyway, they did blood tests but said I wasn’t having a heart attack and there was nothing really wrong. I felt OK by then. They said I didn’t need to stay, but it was 1.30am by then and I thought the next line would be, “We’ll keep you in overnight.” But they said if they admitted me, it would cost me a min of $250, so, what would a taxi home cost? Weigh it up. Answer – a taxi costs $99.80 to my place. So at 2am that’s what I did, getting home at 2.30am. Slept like a log.

So I’ve got a GTN spray (niroglycerine under the tongue) and fluid reduction tablets and all’s well that ends well. Fun. Not.

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But did I mention pain? Bloody hell, I have pain! It’s non-specific nerve pain, in all kinds of places, mainly in my right chest, right arm and hand, legs, anywhere and everywhere. The Norspan patches help a lot but don’t fix it completely. I’m reluctant to use them too much as I don’t want to become habituated in case they lose their effectiveness.

It makes me wonder what the future holds. Is this the way it’s going to be from now on?

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I’ve been put onto Ozempic, the appetite suppressant, and it’s working well, but for the first few days after the weekly injection, it makes me feel a bit tummy upset. That’s kind of what it’s supposed to do. But last Thursday’s was especially noticeable.

The good news is that I’ve lost nearly 5Kg in the past 8 weeks. I can feel the difference. It’s good.

Plus the heart doctor has put me on to a diuretic to reduce fluid in my system. I took that for the first time along with the Ozempic. Whoo hoo, urrrrgggh! I felt sick and dizzy and woozy. I’ve been there before with diuretics – I don’t think I can tolerate it.

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On top of that, I think I’ve got a kidney stone – left side, dull ache, not the full blown kidney stone pain, thank goodness, but it’s making me very nervous. I have a referral to a urologist but with all that’s been going on in the past couple of weeks, I ha’ven’t made the appointment yet. Monday!

So all in all, I am not feeling very well!

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I’m pretty angry about the Verada that my “mate” has returned. It’s not in roadworthy condition.

First, the rear tyres are illegal. Damn, I am angry about this.

Second, the power steering is now so bad as to almost make the car undriveable. It was fairly bad when he borrowed it in February 2022, but if you kept the fluid topped up, it was fine. But now it tries to pull the wheel out of my hands, regardless of the fluid level. Unfortunately, even a second hand steering rack is about $600. Plus fitting.

Grrrr.

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I’m still waiting on the replacement dishwasher that NRMA insurance were going to supply, as well. The old one died on 16 March with the ceiling collapse (I saw my diary the other day) and so I’ve been waiting ever since. I’ve complained to NRMA about using Betta Electrical in Rockingham as the suppliers, who say they can’t get a machine.

So I finally seemed to persuade NRMA to use Appliances On-line, who seem to say they have stock. But the weeks pass and nothing happens. What’s going on? Bit fed up – this is nearly six months waiting now. I’m running out of clean dishes 🙂 !!

Schmertz = pain in German. I’m in pain, chronic pain. It’s not as bad as many people have but I’m tired of it. Nerve pain, with no obvious cause, just random sharp! needle jabs, mainly in my right side torso/chest but occurring anywhere in my upper body. The Norspan patches work very well, thank goodness.

Next, bursitis, pain in my left shoulder. I’ve had an ultrasound examination and an X-ray to confiirm it, resulting in a steroid injection last Monday. It’s helped a lot but it’s not 100% fixed. I find it’s worst when lying down to sleep, strangely, and it doesn’t matter which side I lie on, even though it was a left shoulder problem. Let’s hope the steroid injection has fixed it.

Next, peripheral neuropathy, sharp stabbing pains in my feet, so bad as to have me yelling and arching my back. This is not new, it’s been ongoing for years, but seems to be especially bad these days.

Next, chest pain from heart palpitations or atrial fibrillation. It was so bad at 3am a couple of Sundays ago that I nearly called an ambulance. I got up and took a full 300mg aspirin and a full beta blocker tablet, then sat up at the computer for a couple of hours. It slowly went away. The pain, I mean, not the computer 🙂

Now, at this moment, I’m still getting low level AF with a small amount of breathlessness and dizziness. I have an appointment with the cardiologist but it’s not until 3 August. I’m sick of long waits for specialists.

Next, I reckon I might have a kidney stone – blood in urine and a side ache, left side, not bad. I have an appointment with a urologist in August. Another long wait.

Damn, damn, damn. Sick of this. It’s getting me down.

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I mentioned getting my Verada back. He did quite a good job of cleaning it, except for all the leaves and dirt in the tailgate crevices. It’s still leaking power steering fluid too.

But he didn’t do anything about the rear tyres! That means he’s been driving it for the last 16 months on illegal tyres, on my insurance! If he’d had a prang, I would have been in trouble. Grrrrrrr!

I’ve been thinking hard about which car to sell and I think it has to be the Honda MDX. I love it, but it’s too hard on fuel (15L/100km) and too big and heavy. The Verada would do every carrying job that I need, so I don’t need the Honda. And Vera is such a pleasure to drive. I love it.

I have to do a few fix-it jobs on the Honda first, before I advertise it.

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I mentioned my friend who’s a rusted-on Liberal voter. After all the relentless news of the corruption, the lying, the meanness, the dishonesty, how can anyone support this horrible cabal of nasty bastards? What goes on in your mind, that you can just disregard all the awful news that pours out, week after week, month after month, year after year of the disgusting cesspool that is the Liberal Party of Australia? How can you continue to give these bastards your support????

Does it not occur to you that all the best intellects and greatest minds in Australia are Labor supporters and/or politicians? That all the greatest brains and best innovations have come from Labor people? All the greatest projects in the history of Autralia have come from Labor people.

It just astounds me. My friend is very intelligent and is an electronics engineer, who writes computer code at a high level. Yet he cannot open his eyes to the shit bag that is the Liberal Party. No matter which state, no matter which branch of the party, it’s corruption all the way down.

I know most about WA, of course, and the depths of corruption in the Liberal Party here are as bad as anywhere in the rest of the country. It’s so bad that they were nearly wiped out in the last elections in 2021, having only three members left in the lower house. As a journalist wrote, you could fit the entire lower house party on a two wheeled bicycle.

And now the full truth is coming out about “Robodebt”, that evil, cruel scheme thought up by that lying, incompetent scumbag of a prime minister, Scott Morrison. It wasn’t only him, but he was the main man pushing it in 2016. The public servants were too afraid to tell him the truth about its illegality. The few who did speak up and say it was illegal were ignored.

The result was that at least two people committed suicide when they were being harrassed by Centrelink for debts they didn’t owe.

How can anyone support a party which will do this??!! It’s evil. If you vote for the party, you are supporting this evil scheme and these criminal people. How do you feel about that? How can you justify it? How can you hold your head up high? It’s disgusting and you should be ashamed!

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I’ve just noticed, this WordPress blogging software has a new AI Assistant mode. It lets me change the “tone” of my writing, summarise, expand, change the writing to passionate (I thought the above already fitted that description), serious (ditto), emapthetic, romantic, confident, sceptical and so on. I haven’t worked out how to use it yet.

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I don’t usually think of myself as a sports person, but I must admit I’m a bit wrapped up in the test cricket at the moment. It helps that Australia are winning so well, I suppose.

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I’m way past the stage of buying a villa in Bali, but bloody hell, if I won Lotto I’d be up there with my bank card at the ready for this place!

It’s in Jimbaran, which is on the side of the “Bukit”, the hill on the south side of the airport runway.

It’s a three bedroom, three bathroom villa, two storeys, pool as shown. It’s US$495,000 (AU$742,129) freehold. It’s completely useless me thinking about it, but I can dream, can’t I?