Nice People Thread Number 11 - A Treasury of Nice People

Nikkster

lostinrates wrote: »

Its been the pits. The absolute pits.

Oh lir. I hope fir is there with you this weekend?

PasturesNew

Spirit wrote: »

In our last house searches showed up a restriction on us keeping a hovercraft.

That's a deal-breaker!

I wish covenants etc were part of the EA details....

lostinrates

Doozergirl wrote: »

My son lives in the real world. He understands and sees how we struggle to put him through his education. If I was satisfied with the state system, he would be there. As it was, he was an invisible child, ticking the boxes and floating for his year at middle school.

He is being taught the value of hard work - it pays. I won't provide him with the deposit for a house. He is also flourishing in sport. He does hours more than he would in the state sector and more variety, as it is, he's turning into an athlete. Every child has something they are good at and they are equally respected by their peers. He has also retained a few years of his childhood - invaluable to me.

I'd love it if we could all come out of the state system having been supported correctly academically and our other, softer talents nutured but it doesn't work like that.

DD will most probably stay in the state sector because she is very bright, has a natural work ethic, is competitive in everything and a bit pretentious. She will make sure that she is noticed.

Where as I'd submit DH and siblings, state educated, were more cushioned from real world than I was in boarding in many ways. 'Real' world isn't one dimensional in anycase, its multi faceted.

Its also not true that all private kids are pushed. One niece went to Lydia's school, the other did not. Because they benefitted from different environments. The bestt primary they went to is not very 'old money' but was very very successful at balancing different needs and strengths. Sports? Acting? Super. The dyslexia support was fab, and niece one got decent prep for an academic school I think. I think youngest niece might have benefitted from staying there, but parents wanted somewhere a bit less 'arriviste'. Pity, because old money doesn't necessarily buy better education, getting the right environment might do though.

I'm opposed to restriction of freedom of choice and a one system approach.

lostinrates

Nikkster wrote: »

Oh lir. I hope fir is there with you this weekend?

Yes, he came to day, we had to go for the hospital straight to my GP on the way home for another check of things. Just got back. He's going some work quickly.

PasturesNew

lostinrates wrote: »

Yes, he came to day, we had to go for the hospital straight to my GP on the way home for another check of things. Just got back. He's going some work quickly.

Well, it's nice to be home, where you can, at least, stroke animals and howl.

lostinrates

michaels wrote: »

I've heard nothing but good things about the alumni of that 6th form college

I think the Hampshire system on making secondary education from 11 to 16 and then sixth form spereate works really well putting kids in the right sort of school at the right time. No 18 year olds to terrorise the 11 year olds and the 16 plus can be treated as young adults plus have a really wide selection of courses due to the pooling of large numbers. I don't know why other counties don't copy.

Grammar schools I'm not sure about, in the past they brought huge social mobility but now they can be gamed by tutoring to such an extent that they don't offer the same. I think academic streaming within comprehensives is the best way to go.

18 year olds don't have to terrorise, and not all buddy systems are like ETon fagging! I was ascribed to an 18 year old 'sister' who was just wonderful. A long way from home and family, the older girls were nicer to younger ones than girls often are with in age group. Large groups of girls can be vile and I despised that and stayed right out of it

lostinrates

Generali wrote: »

Good. Tired from the op still but good overall.

The story in full is thus (I gave this as a 3 minute speech at work today which was kinda fun):

In the dead time between New Year and Australia Day I found a lump.below my right ear. I waited for a couple of weeks for it to go as, as I have discovered, as you age you get odd lumps, bumps and things. It didn't disappear and in fact got bigger.

I went to the GP. He told me to go and get a diagnosis. I went to PHP Diagnostics who said it was a cyst via ultrasound and suggested I came back the following week to have it drained. No problemo!

I went back the next Saturday. I got a nice big fat local anesthetic and we went in with the thin needle for a cyst draining. However, a problem became apparent; it wasn't a cyst. Ok so next steps.....

We do a biopsy 6 jabs with a fat needle. It was fine with the local but when it wore off it hurt like bejeesus. The biopsy gets tested and I am told I have a Whartin's Tumour. Benign, basically as dangerous as a wart.

If you have a scary lump then that's a pretty decent diagnosis. I took that to the specialist. He has a poke and a prod.

"Hmmmm", says he, "you're not 70, you don't smoke, the tumour is in the wrong place and it feels wrong. F... off and get a proper diagnosis".

So off I f. I get a third diagnosis which is that I have a lymphoma (Australia's second most popular cancer) in my parotid gland. As I'm sure you're aware tom but to help the more stupid readers the parotid glands are a one of three pairs of glands which produce saliva.

I get booked in for a PET scan. A cancer grows fast so needs energy. Your energy comes from glucose although that might be created from things like starch or other forms of sugar. If you inject someone with radioactive glucose then any cancers will grab as much of that glucose as they can. They then shine up like fairy lights under the right sort of scanner.

A couple of days later I got booked in to have the lymphoma removed. Whoever stitched me up should become a tailor because they'd be as rich as Croesus.

Then the lump gets sent away to be checked out. Lumps aren't homogenous like blood pretty much is so even a biopsy with 6 spikes can miss stuff so we find out what it is so we can treat if required.

1st response: Not lymphoma.
Dr: BS. We had lymphoma cells in the biopsy. Re-diagnose and tell me it's a lymphoma.
2nd response: Nope, not a lymphoma
Dr: Ok. What about Whartin's?
3rd response: Nope.

So now I'm back with the specialist. He imparts the above and says that as a 55 year old (?) doctor he's only once come across a situation like this. A back of envelope calculation says he's seen about a thousand lymphomas so this is statistically significant.

So I don't have Whartin's Tumour, a cyst or lymphoma. The next step is to go to a hematologist to rule out really rare or unusual stuff. The great thing about about maybe having a very rare disease is that you're really very unlikely to have it!

Now here's the twist that any TLDR people will miss. The hematologist I'm off to see is the only other patient that my specialist has seen who has had a mysterious disappearing lymphoma.

Oh jeez.

Well, its a nice twist. But, I feel sorry for you being a rare case. Its a bad place to be medically. Interesting is NOT cool.

Yorkie1

PasturesNew wrote: »

The under cupboard is a max of about 3' high. I'll look tomorrow, but I think, after that, the rest of the slope's in the living room. It's one of those blank areas in my mind where I can't remember what happens, but I can remember what I remember looking at/in .... and the photos in the brochure don't show that bit

There's a very small under-stair cupboard in my house, and you can get small hoovers whose long tubes collapse or roll up into that size space.

I have my ironing board between the side of a wardrobe and the edge of the wall.

michaels wrote: »

BTW, how many pages since 10.30 last night?!

Anyone else badly affected by either the pollution or just the pollen? I have had several days of cough, sneeze and to be honest gallons of snotful misery

I was coughing as I cycled to work this morning, and perhaps that was why.

My song is Chaka Khan "I feel for you". Don't remember that one, I think :cool:

lostinrates

lemonjelly wrote: »

Hoping LIR's appointment goes well.
Also hoping the journey there was ok, after the conundrum yesterday.

Answered appoint ment question I think.

We took our car which behaved its self, I didn't check how much fuel we'd used, I'm guessing two thirds of a tank. Its chugging through fuel ATM. I drive there so was roughly what the sat nav said it would be, a bit less. Went through places hadn't been in YEARS, and that was fun.

DH drove back and drove faster than usual because Of need to get to GP. We thought we'd be there ( hospital) half an hour consult plus half an hour waiting time ( I like to be early, have time for paper work, a widdle, and a look see). We were there 3 and a half hours. :eek:

Yorkie1

PasturesNew wrote: »

I just bought a house.

This deserves a multi-quote all to itself :j:beer::D