Get a grip woman!

rtandon27

Suffolk_lass said:...Anyway, I have discussed it with him but the conceptual drawings are needed to ensure nothing is lost in translation (!) between client (me) and designer (him). It sounds rather formal but our experience of working with each other is that he now asks and checks with me before each step, which does minimise instances like the mirrored bathroom cabinet at a very safe height for excluding children (if I stand on tip-toes I can see my eyes, my Mum can only see the ceiling) - he is tall 1.97m you see.

SL - what a laugh 🤣🤣🤣 - my OH and I have similar communication arrangements on many fronts - makes for less strops and more smiles!

greent

Ooof - lots of doors and work! 

Suffolk_lass

So DH's pension drawdown lump (less tax) arrived in the account yesterday morning so I encouraged him to by £10k of premium bonds to see if this makes any difference to his non-winning streak of 62 years and counting!

He has also had to write to them about his original £1 bond that is not linked with the rest (it has not escaped me that this is nearly as much in postage!). Fingers crossed it is sitting there with a whopping great win unclaimed but somehow, I am not that hopeful. He has rarely won anything in the 33 years I have known him with the exception of £2.30 or a free play on euromillions once!

Suffolk_lass

Today is the start of lent and I am going to suggest to DH that we forego meat until Easter - I'm not going to frame it as lent as he is an atheist. In the meantime I need to keep up my abstinence from chocolate and alcohol but this will be until mid-March because that is my birthday.

Meanwhile, I am reflecting on how I feel as one of the asthmatics who will now not receive their vaccine ahead of their age (only one group later) unless being overweight pushes me in again. Having kept so much to ourselves for a year, I have not had my annual chest infection with associated emergency treatment for pleurisy and pneumonia so apparently, I'm not at risk. It feels like it is a real case in point of doing as you are told and effectively being punished for it. My surgery literally received the vaccine the day after the asthma announcement, and has contacted the diabetics in the Village. And does that mean that if I am at no risk of death I should have volunteered to do more? Then another 1.7m people are to be included in the vulnerable shielding group, resulting in another 800,000 added to the priority list for vaccinations. I think I had really been mentally building up to the invite and was very excited in anticipation of being called. Now I feel pretty depressed about this to be honest. The light at the end of the tunnel has been dimmed. Of course I will suck it up and just carry on but on here I need to be honest about how it is making me feel. I wonder how many asthmatics there are that are now not in the 7.9 million in group 6?

Suffolk_lass

Well, I could not see how many but I went on the Asthma UK site to have a read (and also read the background papers that are linked to the blog that seeks to reassure how we come to be "at lower risk") including the BMJ article that sets out the period and who they looked at - my first concern is that the study period was initially Feb-30th April 2020 and then a second study period to the end of June 2020. I thought I was frustrated but that is as nothing to the comments under the blog that Asthma UK have published here.

Nobody seems to have noticed that autumn and winter are the worst times for asthmatics and for me, this undermines the conclusion that asthmatics are less badly at danger of death based on deaths from COVID from Feb to June. 

Karmacat

Of course you need to write about it, SL - I've not known much to get you down, so this is really important.  It's the advice that's only just been changed and you were due to get the vaccine really soon under the "old" rules, yes?  And the new rules are based on badly timed research   this is horrible for you.  

That thread you linked to is astonishing - not because of the responses, their anger is entirely understandable, but the tone-deafness of Asthma UK.  The photo of the in-house GP at the top looks like it's meant for four year olds on their first visit to Sainsbury's.  And whoever it is who's replying to responses, under the moniker of "Joe, Asthma UK" needs to get a grip.  Every single response I've seen, he signs off with "take care and stay safe".  That would send me absolutely **crazy**.

Anyway, for you, SL, thinking of you, and hoping you avoid that annual bout this year.  How do you think your weight loss interacts with this?  Does it help?

greent

Am not surprised so many people are angry on Asthma UK site They don't appear to have 'got' their audience for this at all! 

Fingers crossed that the delay you now have is short - much as I haven't agreed a lot with how this has been handled by the govt, it is hard to find much wrong with the speed of the vaccination roll out programme so far

shangaijimmy

I share your asthma frustrations. I hadn't given much thought to my being called for vaccination until others started to tell me that I've be in the next group. Inadvertently you start thinking about it then. My worst part of the year is actually May & June when it combines with 'my' hayfever season. 

And yes I agree it feels like I end up getting punished for 'managing' asthma and 'only' needing a steroid inhaler rather than steroid tablets. I said to Mrs SJ that I should have taken up smoking and exercising like the great unwashed that refuse to take responsibility for their asthma!

Rant over...sorry...felt good though 

trix-a-belle

I feel for you SL & keep your fingers crossed for you as I know many others in the same boat, the continued change in rules is enough to make you loose balance its spinning around and around that much.

I can see a monumental cluster f*** coming anyway as up to now they have only been needing to tackle 1st injections, now they are adding 2nd injections into the mix, to date you have had to wait for a letter or a phonecall but now if you fit the category you can just go on willy nilly and book - I know of several including my own mother who are adamant they will wait for a letter inviting them (which may never come) [as far as I can tell now she will also now qualify for both cohort 6 and also existing conditions relating to immunosuppression so hoping 1 catches up to her]

& round my way people who can and are trying to book an appointment in this weeks carnage can't get any appointments in the mass centre for the region (Norwich) and instead the closest option is Bury St Edmunds, hardly encouraging you to stay in your local area is it sending them 50 miles down the road?!  Are they are just not shipping us enough (or even anything) as we were already noticeably falling behind other areas of the country based on family and friends getting their invites.

I wait for the government patting themselves on the back for a job well done while the local coordinators and region mass centres sit blinking with confusion & those of us in the lower bands loose any hope of getting anything this side of christmas...

Suffolk_lass

Thanks everyone. Yesterday was topped off when someone I follow intermittently on ywitter re-weeted a journalist in Liverpool who was called, booked and then phoned his GP to check why. He is 6'2" and a little overweight at 17 stone 6. They had his height at 6.2cm and his BMI had tripped the algorithm at 28,000 instead of 29 or 30! He did the decent thing and unbooked. He was on R4 PM last night, talking about it. Loads of others have had similar things.

There are also various people I am directly aware of who have involved themselves in the last few months by volunteering for things that they thought gave them a good chance of being vaccinated. One in particular is a close friend and where she is (closer to London than us but still in EA @trix-a-belle) she has already been and had hers. She is overweight but no other health concerns and she compiles bags to take out to the vulnerable and sorts out a charity's duty rosta - so back office but the charity deals with homeless people so all their volunteers have been done. Along with 60 local volunteers who have used up end of day stocks at the GP's. I am not going to dwell on it. Just quietly and furiously fester from time to time.

I think being in a bad mood is really bad for me so having a bit of a vent on here and finding kindred spirits has helped. DH was quite frustrated with me and explained he was always going to wait longer and has been in this with me, shielding/staying away from everyone to be in it with me. I don't think I have given him enough credit for this and I need to apologise when he gets up. It was just the poor way the rug was removed that has upset me. I'm seriously not at all upset by 1.9m being added to the shielding list (or the 800,000 within that added to the current groups being called). That is as it should be.

My asthma is also routinely worse in the hayfever season @shangaijimmy - the seasons I mention are those recorded by Asthma UK and British Lung Foundation as worse. I satisfied myself with weeting a few journalists and an isitok to the Last Leg on the back of someone else's asthma related response - to be honest they are the most likely to pick it up. I did also consider asking a question via the Government portal but have not. DS suggested we could put on loads of weight to get to the morbidly obese threshold but that is not going to happen. He was trying to be helpful.

I don't think my weightloss is material to the decision @Karmacat - when I had the asthma nurse call me last week she did not ask about my weight (normally they weigh me when they check my peak flow at my annual check) - but she also did not recognise the term "happy wheezer" when I said that is what I am - it was a doctor that first used it. I happily wheeze without it escalating until I get a chest complaint, and then we are into rescue packs, oral tablet steroids and sometimes hospital for nebulising with oxygen (usually in an A&E corridor hooked up to a cylinder) for a couple of hours until oxygen levels improve. I recognise it coming so have not had a repeat of the pneumonia but I'm told the lung scarring is there, along with the damaged respiratory tract - so part of me remains really upset. I know they use tick boxes as part of the asthma check and so none of this is captured.