Dusty's Frugal Fortnights Return!

dustydigger

Morning people! A bit drizzly and definitely cooler,14C,which will be good if I pull myself together enough to do some walking! .

+ health - Counting the days now for my B12 jab. I am just yawning hugely almost continuously. I assume that's my body's way of attempting to get in more oxygen to utilise red blood cells,but since I have no red blood cells  in my stupid body its not very effective! Just counted,I yawned 5 times in the last minute. Heaven knows how many times in a day.

Trying to sort my way forward to attempt to lose weight. Had doubled my weight loss from 1 to 2 lbs a month from April. Doesnt sound much,but since Jan 2021 I managed to get down from 17 st 2lbs to 15 st 10lbs,very satisfactory,slow but steady,was quite confidant in getting into the 14 stones by end of year,and if the B12 improves my blood and I am able to do sustained walking,I could do even better,as I have shown in the past. Now I am on metformin things are not looking so good.  I've gone up and down ,15st 10,to 8,to 9 up to 12,back to 10, then 11.Back down to 9lbs now.Must do lots of research on thyroidism and weight loss. Wanted to share some points now,but I'm off to the kitchen to start dinner. I am in the dog house with Mr Dusty because I defrosted the beef from the freezer and then forgot to put it in the slow cooker. Brisket takes a huge amount of time to be tender enough to please him,doubt if he'll even get it for supper!  Just put it on at 9.30 am,so not lookin' good,folks.   Am raking the cupboads to find something he might eat,but he rarely eats processed food,there's nothing in the freezer except veg. I do have a tin of jalfrezi curry.He dislikes the sauce (so not a fan of indian food) but I'll do what I have done before,make potato and onions,wash off the sauce on the jalfrezi chicken,fry it up in the onions,add garlic ,and make a pie!

Honestly I have always had alternatives or batch cooking to always have something in reserve,but this last month has been totally disruptive,I am all at sixes and sevens. Mr Dusty doesnt understand about thyroid or PA,and I havent told him about the possibility of pancreatic cancer,so to him I just seem as if I am getting Alzheimers.

And people,dont bother berating me and him about changing his ways,or cooking for himself etc etc etc,its not going to happen,He is the King of Stubborn,and at 82 and very slowly but surely losing some cognitive functions ,sometimes distressing memory issues,change is NOT going to happen.

Once I get my B12 jab I will have more energy and hopefully less brain fog and can get back on top of advance planning and preparation in the way I have been doing for the last 50 odd years.So,off to the kitchen.

Beanielou's mantra is ''keep on plodding'',mine should be ''off to the kitchen''

 

dustydigger

I allocated £107 to asd@ deliveries this fortnight,and yesterday's came to £46.99,so thats £60 for next week available. Easy-peasy,wont need to use my buffer .

Mr Dusty and I just had an argument (wow! so unusual!). He is still moaning about me not putting the meat on last night,and says he dererves something nice. He wants braised tongue! Aarrgghh! As if these days you can just walk in a butchers and find fresh raw tongue,and actually cook it quickly. Havent had a pressure cooker for years. I explained all the problems and he reluctantly gave up for now,but he now definitely has it in mind. I HATE cooking tongue. It has all that slimy fatty stuff underneath,and once cooked you have to peel off the white coating on the top. UGH!. Must be a good 7 years since I cooked that,but back in the 80s with 4 small children I made it once a month or so - till our local butcher closed down! Yay,what a relief,no more tongue,but I did do it a few times a year at our last butchers. Now he has closed down am I going to have to cozy up again to a new butcher.

And no,he wont eat ready cooked thin sliced stuff ,he wants whole chunks.

Good job I have you people to rant to,or I really WOULD need a club and a spade

annieb64

I hate tongue hot or cold. It's the texture I think. One of my aunts used to serve it hot on Boxing day and my mother would often cook one at Christmas.  I can remember her having to peel off the skin then curl it up into a cake tin and put a plate with weights on the top.

beanielou

I loathe tounge.
Won't have in the house, or liver!

dustydigger

annieb64 said:

I hate tongue hot or cold. It's the texture I think. One of my aunts used to serve it hot on Boxing day and my mother would often cook one at Christmas.  I can remember her having to peel off the skin then curl it up into a cake tin and put a plate with weights on the top.

Yuck! At least I dont have to press it,he just wants the whole tongue cut up into pieces and fried.

dustydigger

Morning all! Last day of June,never been so pleased to see a month end.

+ health. I went down to the shopping area,and got the curries I use to make M Dusty's fave chinese curry pasties,a quick and easy supper when I am too shattered to do much cooking. Walked quite a bit,and humped a heavy bag around,so of course today I am aching all over,especially the knees and the shoulders from leaning on a stick and hefting the heavy bag,adding to the abuse to them occasioned by the CAT scan procedure.Badly need my B12 jab,was gasping for breath half of the time. The heat and humidity didnt help either,but I am just happy that I am able to get out and about like a normal person.

Met an old acquaintance who used to use the library while we had our family history group.He came to use the library computers since he had none of his own. He was a major Terry Pratchett fan,so we often had a giggle about the Discworld books. So it was great to meet up 3 years later and have a good moan at the world. He has been just as shocked as I am at the crazy way the UK is pretending  that covid is gone,and we had a lovely time demolished this pathetic govt. Lovely to have a talk with another non family adult!

+ Doing very little work,just clearing benches,swept kitchen floor,washed up after breakfast. Resting a little because I need all my energy to make dinner - roasties,carrots,braised beef covered in onion,mushroom and tomato topping. Lots of processes and lots of washing up too.

+ reading. I have about 40 pages of a book to finish,that will make 14 for the month,though there was a short of short fiction  involved.,probably wouldnt have counted them if I wasnt obsessed with reaching double figures

dustydigger

 We got our phone and broadband monthly bill. I was coectly expecting a £2 increase on our anytime calls boost. Its now £16 a month! Only £7 when I got it originally But the shocker was a huge £63 phone bill. We dont pay for individual UK calls,they are ''free'' because of the anytime boost,and we use an international phone card for Africa since whatsapp is patchy at best for Africa,though we do use whatsapp for calling our son in the USA.Our usual phone bill section shows £0.00 as a result. So this bill was a shocker.Unfortunately it turns out Mr Dusty has not been using his phone card for Africa,he was calling straight from our phone. I was distressed to find  he didnt understand the use of phone cards,after using them for a decade. I had to explain everything to him,and it was so sad watching him painstakingly writing down the instructions,even though he has the correct codes and procedures written down by the phone,and indeed normally knows them off by heart. Ouch £63....

Then this afternoon he was ironing his shirts - which he washes himself by hand,washing machines aent clean enough for him - and showed me a shirt that was puzzling him. He was wondering why he had never noticed an inside pocket in his shirt. I had to show him he had the shirt inside out,he was ironing the collar turned the wrong way. We laughed about it but I was distessed inside. I said the other day to you that he was losing some cognitive functions,but hopefully at a very slow rate. And it could be about the phone calls that he was distressed about his daughter's cancer teatment and got distracted. And that with the ironing today he just inadvertently had the shirt inside out,there is nothing sinister about it That is how I must look at it at the moment. I desperately am waiting fo the scan results before I can focus of our situations.

Anyhoo,lets leave it there for now. New month tomorrow,I am expecting to finalize diet and exercise plans over this weekend,to start a 10 week plan from Monday. when I did it years ago I really improved my fitness and lost about a stone in the 10 weeks. With the thyroid problems I will be happy to lose 4 lbs and get my walking up to 30mins a day. Every little helps.

dustydigger

Day got away from me,I still have to set up threads on my Sci Fi site for the start of a new month,and make the supper.

 I am yawning full time.I phoned for my B12 needle appointment ,supposed to be on Wednesday,but they are fully booked,so earliest is Monday 11th. Mr D had to wait 10 days just for a BP test. Strange thing is that in the introductory info at the start of a phone call to the surgery,the doc blithely announces that they are seeing 58 % of the patients ''face to face''. I was wondering about that then they advised Mr D to get a BP machine,go to a pharmacy and arrange a test there,or come and use a machine located next to the loo in the waiting room. Mr D stuck by his guns said he had no confidence in a home machine,and wanted a nurse to do it. Hence the 10 day wait.And they think they are doing well seeing 58% of patients. The world's gone mad.

So 10 more days of yawning to go........sigh..........

beanielou

How did they pick up the B12 deficiency Dusty? 

dustydigger

 

beanielou said:

How did they pick up the B12 deficiency Dusty? 

Last summer I felt so rotten. Gasping for breath,weak,lethargic. Put it down as thyroid.One day I had gone upstairs and felt so weak I had to lie on the bed. I felt as if I was sinking down ,and thought I was dying! I lay there vaguely thinking if I could pull myself together I must start decluttering the house,tidying it,getting papers together because I didnt want to to leave a mess or problems for my kids. I think I must have been mentally wandering. Anyhoo,my diabetic checkup was about due so I told the nurse how I was feeling,and they added a B12 test,and sure enough I didnt have enough IF - intrinsic factor - to support even a baby with enough red blood cells to function. I had a series of needles over a period of a week ,and then since then every 3 months. The first  needles,October and January semed to make no impression at all,April this year was a little better,and I did feel not too bad in May and June on that front. Brain not so fogged up,which was the main thing for me,,and not so much gasping,easier to walk about etc. For the most part I am much improved on that front but of course the diabetes,thyroid,arthritis still are there to present a charming variety of other delightful symptoms,and then this massive blood spike which terrified my surgery and led to a CA-19 test with ominous results overshadowed everything else. But I can definitely say that compared with my state last year my anaemia is 500% better than it was. No more lying on the bed sure I was dying!

I did at one point join the Pernicious Anaemia website but I soon left. It was so depressing! It was full of poor souls who were bitter with their doctors for ekeing out the needles,one size fits all solution,typical NHS. So many of them vow that one needle every three months is not enough,they need more,and are not getting support or empathy from their docs. So a lot of them buy B12 online,and inject themselves! I found the whole atmosphere sad and depressing. Especially in comparison with the thyroid deficiency websites. They all make jokes about their neverending tiredness and the like,a whole different atmosphere IMO. PA before good treatment seems to sap the spirits even more than thyroid issues.Its very similar to the poor souls with fibromyalgia who get little support. Half the docs seem to believe its all in womens heads,there's no such illness! Hmm,I believe Fibro is one of the few problems that I do not have,and boy am I glad. Got to thank heavens for small mercies.

But its a sad fact that thousands of people ill with chronic diseases who never have a day without pain or suffering have no faith or trust in the doctors.

NB. I STILL havent decluttered the house,sorted my papers,or got my act together. I'm a totally hopeless individual