The Shambles, York, UK © P.J. Croft 2008, 2013

Here’s another shambles. An item on ABC News last night said that a class action is being started (in the USA of course) against the makers of the diabetes drug Actos due to its links to bladder cancer.

"But even before the drug was released to the market, studies showed 
that Actos was linked to serious complications, including heart 
failure, bladder cancer, blindness and bone fractures. However, 
patients were not made readily aware of this. They were simply told 
that this once-a-day pill was the best solution to offset the 
dangers of diabetes." 
http://www.actosbladdercancer.as/actos-information.php

I’ve been on this drug for nearly five years! The doctor didn’t tell me anything about these possible side effects. In fact, he’d switched me from a similar version, Avandia (rosiglitazone) due to that drug’s links to heart attacks. Avandia has been withdrawn from the market, but I was on it for about three years.

As of this morning, I have stopped taking Actos. Bloody hell. As if I haven’t got enough problems already.

In the USA, “… Actos carries a black-box warning, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s stiffest caution, regarding its link to heart failure. The drug can cause an increased heart failure risk in patients both with and without pre-existing heart problems, the warning states.” [same source as above]

I’m a bit upset about this. It’s still approved and sold in Australia, but at least a doctor should have told me of these potential effects.

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 Busselton, 1990  © PJ Croft 2013

I’ve just had a phone call at 1.05pm from a guy with an Indian accent in a very noisy call centre environment telling me that he’s calling from Melbourne in Victoria. He just wants to tell me that he’s from Telstra and from next month on, there will be no line rental charge, and all my local and interstate calls will be free.

I’m thinking, why? Why would Telstra ring me to tell me everything’s free when I’m with iiNet? He says, no, iiNet is just your carrier, your line is with Telstra.

Then he just wants to confirm my details. He knows my address, except he gets one digit of the postcode wrong. Then he asks me to nominate one friend’s mobile number and all my calls to that number will be at a flat rate of 95c. I say no, I don’t want to nominate any number.

Then he tells me my monthly fee will be $59.95 (I already knew that) and asks for further confirmation of my address. By this time I’m getting very suspicious and say, “No, something’s funny here.” He says “What’s funny? You tell me what’s funny.” So I hang up on him. He hasn’t called back.

What the hell was that all about? I think it was an Indian call centre scammer, but if he has my number and address, why does he want me to confirm them? Is it just to get me to give him some friend’s mobile number?

Bloody hell, raps on the door, scam call, bangs at night making me wonder whether to get up and investigate. What’s going on?

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I had a bad night last night, too. I woke at 4am needing a loo stop, and my Atrial Fibrillation started up. A bit of angina, a cold feeling on the back of my neck. Scary, in other words. You lie there wondering whether it’s bad enough to phone for an ambulance. And for some reason, I needed to pee six times over the next two hours.

It settled down after that and I slept until after 8am.

1993

I was a bit worried about this, and it’s happened.

At 5.30pm last night there was a loud rap at the front door. It wasn’t just a polite knock, it was a loud, hard, rat-a-tat-tat. I was immediately suspicious and said, “Who is it?”. No answer, so I looked through the bedroom window and there was no-one there.

This house is right on the footpath and people are always walking past, including lots of kids and “young people”. Presumably it was some person out to stir me up. I’ve been a bit worried this might happen and here it is. It’s only once, so I won’t get too alarmed yet, but I hope it’s the last time.

I may have to fix a video camera above the door and start recording. It’s easy enough to do these days. I should add that the front door is solid, heavy. No-one could break it down. I doubt anyone could do the TV trick of putting their shoulder to it either. The deadlatch is solid.

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Speaking of which, this house has a full alarm system but the battery light is flashing all the time. I assume it’s a backup battery for mains failure/disconnection, so I got up the ladder to look into the control box the other day. Only then did I discover a phone connection plug and socket. The sellers didn’t say anything about it being monitored. There are stickers on the windows with a number to call, so I’ll have to check and find out. I’m sure they would have told me because there would be fees to pay.

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I had my eyes tested on Friday as my eyesight has deteriorated in the past year (always myopic, I now have presbyopia as well).

The result was, no wonder I’m having trouble reading. One eye is markedly different to the other and both need new prescriptions. NB: as my HbA1c has fallen, so my eyesight has actually improved as my blood sugar has slowly fallen. My distance vision is good even with my single vision computer glasses. I just can’t focus up close any more.

I also have no signs of retinopathy damage. But it showed my intraocular pressure is borderline between normal and high, the first signs of glaucoma. Dad had it so I’ve been expecting it. I just need annual checks from now on, that’s all. Gettin’ older.

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I finally got to IKEA on Friday to see what I’m thinking of ordering. It made me change my mind about a lounge fabric colour, and I saw a desirable tub chair I wasn’t aware of, so it was good. I went on to the rugby klub afterwards, but there was a game on and it was packed out. I don’t like crowds like that so I gave it a miss – a pity because that’s the first time I’ve made it there since about January.

I set off to negotiate Marmion Avenue to home on a Friday at 5.30pm expecting traffic jams, but it was a breeze all the way. The full 80Km/h and no congestion to speak of. No problem.

Windows86 - Malacca, Malaysia
Note: this is a hotel where you can book
online and stay. I nearly got there in 2004
but had to change plans. Nice place.

I got my latest blood test results this morning. HbA1c = 6.1 !! That’s down from 6.7 in January. A reading of 6.0 is considered not diabetic. I am virtually no longer a NIDDM.

All my other readings were almost bang in the middle of the good range. Cholesterol 4.5 (less than 5.5 is the goal) and HDL/LDL ratio was 2.3, which is great.

I’m feeling better too. The pills are working. Not 100%, but getting better.

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Very interesting program on SBS last night about fat, obesity and gastric bypass surgery. I know someone who’s had this done and she swears by it. It’s miraculous, apparently. It cures diabetes type II straight away, and absolutely removes food cravings. Weight loss is dramatic – 30% at least, and it stays off.

The problem for me is that (1) I’d have to have the gastric band removed, and wait at least six months afterwards; (2) it’s a bit late in life for me; (3) it’s major, radical surgery. The risks are small, but not negligible. It’s done by keyhole, but it’s still serious stuff and non-reversible.

The program and my GP both say there has to be a pharmaceutical solution. Something changes in the brain when this surgery is done. If they can discover what that change is, a pill could have the same effect. Maybe 5-10 years, said the doctor on the program. I live in hope, but I don’t think the surgery is for me this late in my life.

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I called again at the SJOG Subiaco pharmacy yesterday and finally got a U-handle walking stick like the one I lost. Yet it was the only one there out of about 30 in the racks. All the others are T-handles. I don’t understand it. As soon as I use my wallet, I need two hands and that means I have to hang the stick over my arm. A T-handle slips off. Doesn’t anyone else have this problem?

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I took the opportunity to ask if there is any device to assist with getting pressure stockings off. Apart from a wife. The answer is, no.

I’ve got the frame to get them on, but they’re so tight that getting them off risks breaking the skin, and that leads to slow healing and risk of infection, as I found to my great cost last year. I’ve been using a long plastic shoe horn, but I’m dead scared it’ll break and stab me. A steel one would be better, but it would still have rough, sharp edges.

It seems to me there’s a need for an invention here. But the next thought is that if you invented something and it led to any kind of injury to another person, even from misuse, it would inevitably lead to lawsuits and damages claims. In this lawyer crazy world, you can’t take that kind of risk any more. So we don’t. Too bad.

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I also had two little skin keratoses frozen off my scalp this morning. They were nothing to worry about, in other words. You hear so much about melanomas that you worry. No need.

My nice IKEA wardrobes, gone.

They’re gone. I’ve sold my IKEA wardrobes. A bloke and his son just came and loaded ’em up and took ’em away.

These wardrobes had a long history. I originally bought five PAX wardrobes in flat pack form in about 2001 when IKEA was changing their range. They are wider than the current models and in birch veneer with Baltic pine louvre doors. Beautifully made. I paid $200 each for them, plus another $100 worth of hinges.

But with one thing and another, they stayed in flat form leaning against my bedroom wall until 2008, when I was heading to Europe and having a house sitter in. I had to finally get around to assembling and installing them. They looked great! All five formed a wardrobe wall.

But as these things do, they became the repository for everything – all my junk, as well as clothes. They were packed with stuff.

In early 2011 when I thought I was going to Bali, they had to be emptied and got rid of. It took a huge effort, but we  (Barry and I) did it, and Barry bought them from me and took them away in full assembled form, with his mate Brian to lend muscle.

Then Bali fell through and I needed them again. I bought them back off Baz for the same amount and he and Brian brought them back. Each wardrobe took one trip from Sorrento to Trigg on its own in his Land Cruiser.

They went back into the same place, the same room, but on bare concrete this time because the carpet had been stripped out.

Then in July 2012 I had to get the house recarpeted for sale, so they had to come out again! That meant clearing them again! This was getting boring. This time I disassembled three of them and stored them in the workshop in flat form again. At least, two guys I was paying to help me did. Trouble was, they stood them straight on the concrete floor, which was prone to flooding in heavy rain. That meant after they’d gone, I had to move them to one side in the workshop, put some bricks and timbers in and move them back again off the floor. Did I say boring?

After the carpet was in, the remaining two came back inside and I lived with them for the next seven months until I had to clear the house again after sale in February. So they had to be disassembled again and put into the storage lockup. Then they came out here in the big move in April. I should have sold them while I was at Trigg, but it was just too much to think about, too much to cope with at the time.

They’ve been in the garage since. Luckily there’s plenty of space there, but I can’t use them here, so a couple of days ago I put them up for sale on Gum Tree. Wow. I got the first call within two hours. Fast work.

But he only wanted two of the five. I said, no, it’ll be harder to sell in ones and twos – I need to sell the lot. Anyway, it’s an absolute bargain – $250 for the lot. He said he’d talk to his wife, but didn’t call back.

Another guy rang next day and asked if I had them in white! What? I’m not a dealer – they are as you see in the photo. Oh.

Then yesterday I got a woman again wanting to buy only one. Same deal – no, prefer to sell as job lot. She’d get back to me.

Then only five minutes later, another woman rang from Wanneroo, very enthusiastic, just what she wants, can she come tomorrow? Wants them all. Terrific.

Then the first lady emails me – she wants to come and see them. I say sorry, they’re sold now. She emails back, “I could pay you more if you like.” She’s sorry she missed them and wants to start a bidding process. I say, “Sorry, I’ve committed to a prior sale and it wouldn’t be fair. If the sale falls through, I’ll get back to you.”

But it all went smoothly and the husband collected them just now. Didn’t quibble, didn’t want a closer look, just handed me the cash and started loading up. They fitted his trailer perfectly.

So, all gone. I liked those wardrobes. You can’t buy that style any more. It’s all either white or metallic or mirrors or bold paint colours. No louvre doors. Au revoir.

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That was my first experience of Gum Tree and it worked fine. I’ll try to use it again. This morning I’ve just discovered another auction web site for photographic gear, and it’s a West Australian development. It was mentioned on PetaPixel, a US web site.

It’s like eBay, but only for camera gear. You can pay by PayPal, so it’s safe enough. There’s not much gear on it yet, but I really need to get rid of a lot of my “treasures”, so I’ll put them up and see what happens. Good idea.

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I finally managed to shift enough boxes yesterday to retrieve my cheap laser printer, so at last I’ll be able to print again. I can see the Canon multi-function printer, and my big Epson photo printer, but they’re too far down to reach yet.

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I think Minnie is confused by all the quartz chip ground cover, and she doesn’t know where to poo. There’s no exposed soil for her, so she’s pooing anywhere. Got to clear some ground.

She came out into the back lane while the guy was here and started sniffing the fences. The little terrier dogs behind the fence went mad! I’m surrounded on all three sides by these little yapping silky terriers. They are very annoying with their barking. It’s yapping, going on and on at times. Minnie barks with one woof about once in two or three hours on average, just to get an answer from me or to say, “Hey, have you seen the clock? It’s meal time.”

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I put a new letterbox up a few days ago. The old one was so small and low down that it was constantly full with the junk papers. The new one is A4 sized and higher up so I don’t have to bend so much to look in. What to do with the old one? It’s stainless steel. Who would want it? There’s a Salvos shop nearby, but it’s not the kind of thing they’d want.

Nice, eh? It's York, in England.

Singapore 1990

Real rain at last. Can’t complain about this, can we? But who said they love the sound of rain on a tin roof? If you’ve got a tiled roof, I’ll swap you. The noise can be so loud I can’t hear the TV.

Minnie is amazing. She won’t come inside, no way. Even when she’s partly in the rain and getting wet, she just lies there. Oh well, it gets her a bit cleaner. I must admit she and the house are a bit pong-ey. I’ll have to get the carpet cleaner in. She soiled all four carpeted rooms to some degree when she came in last week, but after I put her outside, she’s taken the hint and doesn’t even try to come in any more, even if the door is open.

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The title refers to having to update Kaspersky Internet Security. It’s been giving error messages lately, about not starting properly. When I followed the link, it told me to update to a newer version. OK – a 200MB download, but on ADSL I don’t have to worry about that any more, thank goodness.

The first attempt to install it told me I had to let it uninstall MS Security Essentials. OK, I let it do it. Then it told me I had to do it again. I let it do it again. And again! I rebooted and tried again. Same result. OK, manual uninstall then. Half an hour gone by now.

Reboot and run the Kaspersky installer again. It seemed to work for about 6-8 mins, then started giving error messages about being unable to copy various .sys files. I couldn’t get past these, so had to cancel and that killed the installation process. An hour gone now.

I follow a link to the Kaspersky web site for error messages. Nothing about this problem out of about 40 error codes! Reboot and search for all .sys files on the computer, thinking the error message ones may have their Read Only flag set. There are hundreds of them! I checked a few of the likely ones, but none had a Read Only setting. Drop that idea. 1 hr 20 mins gone now.

Reboot and this time a message came up that I needed to download and install the Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool. OK, but it turned out to be another 200MB download. Another half hour wasted in downloading and running it, with no problem found. Nearly two hours now.

Reboot and this time a new message comes up – “Do you want to update KIS? If so, you have to turn off Kaspersky. Do you want to do this?” Yes, of course I bloody do! So I accept, the icon turns red and I wait. Nothing happens. Once again, I run the installer, and this time it all works. I can tell it’s a new 2013 version from a slightly different look to the icon.

So all up, about two and a half hours to update my antivirus program. Not funny. Only from experience did I know how to deal with this. Not good.

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While I was doing it, I was listening to a CD, and it reminded me that a couple of months ago I was in DJ’s at Karrinyup (it seems an age ago now). Some jazz was playing that I recognised and like very much. It went on to a new track that I didn’t recognise. I said to one of the assistants, “This is great. Where’s it coming from?”, meaning where’s the music sourced, from the office?

She pointed to the ceiling and said, “From the speakers up there.”

(Pause)

Duh. I should have known better than to ask someone under 40 years of age, I suppose.

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Minnie’s done it again. I gave her a lamb neck slice and she went and buried it under the quartz chips again. This is highly unusual. I hope she’s not sick. She seems OK, coming to the door all excited about getting her food. Yet she doesn’t want to eat it.

She disappeared down to the back and didn’t know that I was watching her through the back door. She just spent a long time sniffing around, in the rain, then did a poo and explored some more, then went back to the patio. I think she must know now that the garage is a dry area, but is not interested. Wet or dry, warm or cold, she doesn’t care.

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I made a mistake last night. I took a diuretic tablet by mistake instead of the one I wanted (for foot pains). As a result, I was up four times from 10pm to 3am to pee.

All these tablets look the same. The only difference between these two is that the one I take at night has a chamfered edge, while the diuretic doesn’t. Both are white, the same size and almost the same thickness, with a break mark.

I’m finding that the chemists substitute the generic brands at will, which vary wildly in size, shape and colour. Sometimes they’re plain white, or smaller, or much bigger, or a different colour, or shape, or … Many times I’m not sure I’m taking the right ones (but I am, it just takes longer to be sure). I don’t like these generic brands. More profits for the chemists, though, which is the important thing isn’t it?

Trigg bushland fire 1989  © P.J.Croft 2013

At last, I’ve found a new walking stick. The chemist at Quinns Rd shops had a small range of proper aluminium ones, unfortunately only with T handles – yes, all seven of them.

I bought a black one and immediately found out why I want the U handle – you can’t hang the T handle on your arm or anything else when you need both hands. But at $19.95, I can put up with it until I find a better one. That’s a lot less than the $27.95 I paid for my old one.

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This Quinns Rd centre includes an IGA  – that’s why I went there, to get lamb offcuts and bones for Minnie. Coles doesn’t sell dog bones, dammit. This IGA is one of the best I’ve seen, so since it’s only 5 mins drive away, they might get more of my shopping.

I have a mate from Ch7 days who lives near there, but boy, he’s a hard man to contact. C’mon Dex, where are you?

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Not much effect from the pills yet, but it’s only been a week.

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Minnie’s just done a strange thing. At 5pm I gave her the usual lamb bone offcut and she immediately took it down the side path and buried it under the quartz chips. Why? This is highly unusual.

She dug the quartz away with her front paws, but pushed it all back over the bone with her nose! Those chips are sharp. Dogs don’t feel pain like we do, that’s for sure.

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I unpacked another box today, and found a Robert Goddard novel I haven’t read. Excellent. I thought I’d read them all, all 24 of them so far. It’s not great literature (he won’t win a Booker Prize, like Hilary Mantel did), but I find them very satisfying. One reason is that I can visualise some of the locations he’s writing about now, having been to London and Edinburgh fairly recently, for example. And Google Earth now takes me right there if I want to see the street. Who’d a’thought it?

GPS, Google maps, Google Earth … what marvellous inventions. I worked in electronics and computers all my working life, but I didn’t see these coming. What next? Google Earth in real time, for one thing, maybe. There’s a long delay between taking the aerial photo and it being processed, updated and published. On the other hand, maybe we don’t want to be observed in real time all the time.

Canal rocks container 1993

I lost my walking stick a few weeks ago. I thought I’d try to do without it, but I need the feeling of stability it gives me sometimes.

I’ve now been to six suburban pharmacies looking for a new one. None of them has anything but the screw-together sectional type in a small plastic bag, or full size wood ones which are not adjustable, of course.

This is crazy. I asked one place, “What’s going on? Why has the range disappeared? It’s not as if demand would fluctuate.”  She said people seem to prefer the collapsible type now.

I find that hard to believe. I reckon it may have something to do with reduced need to stock a range and smaller package size for the shelf. I’ve told them, “No sale, then. I don’t want what you sell.”

I’ve also called in twice to SJOG Cambridge St to find the pharmacy closed both times! Holy smoke, this is a hospital pharmacy. Surely they would have a steady trade from patients and visitors at all hours? But no, 5.32pm weekdays and Saturday afternoon, closed. This is getting very frustrating.

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One month here now, and I’ve just about sorted out the keys. There would be about two dozen keys, at least, and not one of them was marked. It’s been a long process of trial and error. Still a few to go, but I’m nearly finished tagging them. Now I need a key cabinet.

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I took a drive around the Joondalup business area the other day, and I’ve realised that nearly all the things I need are there – RAC, Jaycar, tyre places, Battery World, Brewmaster etc. It’s 14Km, not too far.

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I did another beach stair descent, all the way to the bottom this time, and climb back up yesterday. I have to stop and rest a lot, but it’ll be a good way to measure progress.

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My mobile phone is with iiNet now. Vodafone was costing me a fortune! I was getting low credit warnings about every two weeks at $30 per recharge. Now it’s $20 per month flat fee. The carrier is Optus, so maybe I won’t be getting the “Service busy” messages all the time either.

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I need furniture, but I’m having trouble making decisions. How long am I going to be here? I feel very mortal. What’s the point? How much future have I got? The medication ain’t working yet, in other words.

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I’ve started the novel Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. What an unusual writing style. Not hard to read, but it’s a thick book. At a few pages in bed each night before I go to sleep, it’ll take months. It’s the same story as A Man For All Seasons, the play by Robert Bolt about Sir Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII, one of my favourites.

At last I’m on ADSL. It’s only 12Mb/s and my wireless connection to the router is only 4/5 bars, so it’s not quite as fast as I expected, but after all these years (more than 12) I hope I can finally relax about dropped connections and hopelessly variable speeds.

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What a waste the rest of yesterday was. I had to go to the bank to get printouts of my bank accounts for Centrelink (my printers are buried in the pile of boxes). So I thought I’d go to Karrinyup and go to the Electoral Commission office at the same time to change my enrolment address.

The bank took a loooong wait, about 15 mins, watching staff take ages to explain things to the customers in front. Why should it take so long to explain bank account features? All the while, I was watching the shorts of the guy in front slip down showing his jocks. He’d pull them up, then they’d slide down again. No belt. Stupid.

Got the printouts. Then up to the AEC office on the top floor, only to find that it had closed permanently the week before! It had been there as long as I can remember, since the Northcourt building was built in the late 70s. But when I needed it, it had closed on the 24th April. You have to go in to St George’s Tce now. “We apologise for any inconvenience.” Yes, it IS inconvenient. I sure hope it can be done on the web.

I need a new walking stick – I’ve lost mine. I tried my local pharmacy on Sunday – no, only a silly multi-section screw together type and a choice of one.

On Monday I stopped off at Ocean Keys – same thing, only that collapsible type or one wooden, non adjustable type. Wasted trip.

So yesterday I went to Karrinyup chemist where I bought my old one, only to find that they had only three in stock, but all of them the collapsible, screw together type. That makes three pharmacies I’ve tried this week that only have this type. No, it’s not suitable.

Then to Jaycar in Newcastle St to buy a small toolkit shown in their current catalogue. Quite a long drive. But no, even though it’s a March catalogue item, stock hasn’t reached Perth yet. So I wasted my time.

Then to an appointment in Mt Lawley – that was OK.

Finished that at 5pm and thought I’d go home via St John of God hospital pharmacy, Cambridge St, which had a big range of walking sticks last time I was there. Got there just after 5.30pm in peak hour traffic, paid for street parking, only to find the pharmacy closed! What? Suburban pharmacies are open usually until 6 or 7pm. It never occurred to me that a hospital pharmacy would close on 5.30pm. So that was a wasted trip too.

I obviously couldn’t keep track, but I’d reckon I spent more than an hour waiting at traffic lights yesterday, wasting time. The traffic has become heavy in Perth. The drive home along Marmion Ave at 5.45pm flowed reasonably smoothly, but the traffic is nose to tail all the way. It was nearly 6.30pm when I got home. Boy, everywhere is a long way from here.

And Geoffrey, cyclists in the emergency lane at dusk in peak hour, a few with no lights – talk about a death wish. So many and so hard to see. Good luck. They need it.

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Re my grouch about Resmed restricting supply of their machines from US web sites, it suddenly dawned on me – Fisher and Paykel make CPAPs too. Their other products seem pretty good, so I looked up their auto pressure machine on a US web site. It’s US$990 and despite a good look, I can’t find any supply restrictions. They still want a doctor’s prescription, but they don’t specify a US doctor and allow you to email a copy to them. And there don’t appear to be any shipping restrictions either.

Next step will be to email them to ask for sure.

However, HBF only allow a claim once every five years, and my five years aren’t up until August. My old machine seems to be OK, so maybe I should wait out the few months to go. They allow about 50%, so it’s several hundred dollars.

I’m better today. My heart rhythm was back to normal when I awoke this morning (very easy to tell) and I feel better. Very light sleep last night, though, full of dreams, and I feel very tired. Saw the doc this morning. “Keep taking the tablets and see me if you have problems.”

And no, he doesn’t know any doctor in the US who could prescribe a CPAP for me, but says why not try Hong Kong or Singapore or KL? Yeah, hadn’t thought of that. Go and pick it up, maybe.