Ascension Baptism at St Mary's

A very disturbed night. I ended up sleeping on the sofa and being woken up at eight when Ann and Clare got up at eight. We went to the St Mary's Parish Eucharist at ten. In addition to the regular congregation of about seventy, there was a large family group attending for a baptism during the service. Fr Steve preached a stirring Ascensiontide sermon, as well as celebrating and baptizing a baby girl named Lola. He wasn't wearing a radio mic. and used his strong voice to announce and give instructions, quite a strain nevertheless, as it's a big church with two aisles as well as the nave and chancel

There was a buzz of excited chatter to start with. After the Christening it was much quieter as the baptism party left the church during the exchange of the Peace. It reminded me of hearing Greek Orthodox clergy declare 'The Doors, the Doors!' before the Peace, the moment at which Cathechumens were excluded from the eucharistic Mysteries and left the church after the Liturgy of the Word in the Byzantine rite. 

I returned to Croft Court straight after the service rather than go with them for coffee and a snack lunch. I was feeling the after effects of sleep loss and in need of peace and quiet. I dozed for a while, then cooked myself tagliatelli with the remains of the black bean sugo I made a few days ago. Clare and Ann returned and I went out for a walk as far as South Beach calling in Tesco's to buy a couple of tins of fish. I'm staying in tonight, while they eat out. I still find restaurants uncomfortable, especially when I'm tired. Too much stimulus to cope with. I just crave peace and quiet.

I had the apartment to myself for supper with rye bread and sardines  then went out for a sunset walk. Ann and Clare returned satisfied with their enjoyable meal. Ann had to prepare for her return journey on a Bank Holiday weekend, involving a change to the Paddington train in Cardiff. Not as simple as it sounds. TFW Metro system trains arrive at the peripheral platform zero, from which a lift descends to the booking hall for access to main line platforms. Allow for a five to ten minute walk, depending on the number of people on the move at that time and there's an element of uncertainty about making the connection. Best for an older person walking slowly, lugging a case to avoid or plan for. 

In addition a timetable change had taken effect making it more difficult to establish the accuracy of information provided when booking the ticket. The TFW website isn't user friendly, too much information, no place where you can view a train timetable directly of the kind you'd see on a station platform. You can only access information by giving information about the ticket you propose to buy. There's an assortment of train apps which are equally complicated. Google provides a schedule summary fortunately, but this doesn't always display unless the right wording is used. We could find no reassurance to the uncertainty this produced. In the end, we all attempted to get an early night.

Landmark moment?

It seems that I'm feeling the cold much more than Clare or Ann. Both find the apartment comfortable and warm, and wonder if it's something to  do with my metabolism or a side effect of the medication. I'm none the worse for yesterday's medication chaos, but getting up in the night half a dozen times to empty my bladder, I lose body heat and it takes ages to warm up and return to sleep. If I leave an arm trailing outside the blankets, the arm gets cold, then my exposed shoulder ... etc. Eleven hours in bed last night, four hours sleep lost. 

I remember this effect during my covid sojourn in Ibiza. Night time sea air seems to draw heat from my body when the temperature is ten to eleven degrees. If it's ten degrees higher, the air doesn't have a chilling effect. At home I can add a fleece jacket if I feel cold, but didn't bring one with me as I had too much to carry. I'll have to wrap up warmer from now on, bed clothes aren't enough. I may have less sub-cutaneous body fat now as I'm fifteen kilos lighter than I was in my sixties. Waking up and getting going was a slow process. 

It was cloudy with occasional drizzles of rain when Clare and Ann went shopping after breakfast. I stayed behind and rested to recover mental and physical energy and cooked lunch for myself, as the others had a snack lunch in town. Then I slept for over an hour before going out for a walk when the rain stopped. The wind is a little warmer today than it has been since we arrived.

 It's been nine months since the stroke. Rufus said it took him nine months to be rid of brain fog and regain clarity and mental sharpness. It's a landmark moment in recovery. I think this is true for me, sort of. I'm not getting the quality of sleep I need to avoid cumulative brain fatigue. This affects the coherence of my perception and memory. I don't forget much over time, but retrieval and retention is slow or erratic, and linked to my need for visual or memorised cues. Working hard to exercise and rebuild the required neural pathways in the brain is essential, but fatigue sabotages the effort. It reminds me of how physical muscles behave when recovering from exercise or from a night's sleep. I'm anxious about losing control and failing to get done that which must be done, conscious of time running out. Sometimes I feel as if time is accelerating and I'm lagging behind.

Owain called and chatted with us after supper, and Rachel later on, both using WhatsApp. I chatted with Ann face to face after Clare went to bed, and ended up going to bed later than is good for me.

Meds muddle

After a fair and relaxed night's sleep, another day with a strong cold wind, sunshine and cloud. When I came to take my meds at breakfast time, I was shocked to discover that I'd made an error in my routine self dosage. Instead of aspirin in the aspirin package there was a strip of Losartan. I have no idea how that happened, but it meant that for the past couple of days I have been overdosing myself without realising. The writing on the back of the foil strip packaging is so small it's easy to make a mistake with my visual impairment. Clare and I walked around to the neighbouring Cottage Hospital where I was treated with motherly kindness by two experienced nurse practitioners. My blood pressure was sky high with the shock and from responding to their diagnostic questions. If I had critically overdosed it would lead to kidney failure I was told. No sign of that. Bladder working normally so far.

The outcome was the need to check with a blood test, which could only be done at Withybush Hospital, an hour's journey away by bus or train. By the time this was proposed I was tired, hungry and thirsty and unwilling to put myself under any more pressure and increase my stress levels. I declined, knowing what the impact on me would be. Having searched high and low for the missing aspirin, I went to the pharmacy in town on my way back to Croft Court and bought some. At half past five I had a phone call from an A&E nurse at Withybush to say they had been expecting me, as the nurse I saw at the Cottage Hospital had alerted them to expect me, despite my saying that I was too tired to make the journey. He expressed concern about my high blood pressure, and I explained this was normal, and something I lived with. The A&E nurse stated his concern and told me that if there was any change in my condition, to call 999. The perils of country life with no car! My misgivings about taking this holiday were justified. Having skipped my morning dose of Losartan as a precaution, I felt there was sufficient justification to take if following this conversation, which doubtless raised my blood pressure for a second time in the day. After this call I felt hot headed, a symptom of high blood pressure I used to experience when under stress back in the day. I took the Losartan dose missed earlier, in the hope this would stabilise me.

I cooked rice to go with a can of sardines for supper, as I didn't fancy fish and chps. Then a half hour walk as the sun set  there was no wind and the sea was still. A lovely calming sight on my way back for an early night. 

Early for Ascension

Another wakeful night, disturbed by Clare's noisy snoring  leaving me unable to recover from mental and physical fatigue, feeling stressed out. If only I had remembered to pack my ear plugs. As a precaution against overdosing on aspirin, I cut the pill in half and dissolved one half in water. It took over an hour to do this and it tasted disgusting.

I made the effort to walk to St Mary's for the Ascension Day Eucharist, and arrived an hour early. I didn't check the time before leaving, and didn't want to be late. I intended to go to the pharmacy and ask them to check the aspirin dosage prescribed, but went to the church to confirm the service time. Several women were there preparing flower arrangements for a wedding, but they didn't know anything about the service time. At half past eleven, Vicar Fr Steve arrived, and the Verger lit the candles and prepared the altar, then there were a dozen at noon celebrating the end of Easter-tide together. I enjoyed waiting, quietly watching the 'liturgy before the liturgy' unfold' letting the stress drain away. I had a brief chat with Fr Steve after the service.  I was surprised he recognised me from our previous holiday visit nearly two years ago.

The pharmacy was closed for lunch when I got there, so I returned to Croft Court and had sardines and rye bread for lunch. Then, back to the pharmacy to inquire about the aspirin dosage. Apparently there was no mistake, but I still can't work out why the previously prescribed ones were more readily water soluble and didn't taste so unpleasant. Clare and Ann had lunch in town. I slept for a much needed extra hour until Clare and Ann arrived.

I went out for a walk to clear my head with fresh air after and drive away the tiredness. Up the hill behind Croft Court there's a long car park which serves holidaymakers and visitors to the Cottage Hospital along one side of the site. Described as a nurse-led walk-in treatment centre, it operates from ten until five on weekdays, dealing with minor injuries and illnesses without a scheduled appointment. It's staffed by Emergency Nurse Practitioners, therapists and GPs in one of fifty centres referred to as Community Hospitals in Wales - a new medical enterprise which has developed in the past decade.

When I returned, Ann and Clare had cooked sausages and baked spuds for supper, followed by stewed apricots, the taste of these reminded me of being in Ibiza during covid lockdown, watching apricot trees blossom and a month later, buying and stewing them for pudding. After supper, Clare and I rearranged the lounge furniture to set up a separate bed I could sleep in without disturbance, hoping to be able to shake off the fatigue that's plaguing me at the moment. Ann and I chatted about ways of recovering from trauma until it was time for sleep.

Back to the Prayer Book (1984)

Another night with the east wind, despite the background heating, needing to get warm in order to get back to sleep after getting up to empty my bladder again and again. Somehow I got seven hours' sleep, but the tiredness persisted until mid morning. I posted today's YouTube link to Morning Prayer on WhatsApp when I got up at eight thirty. A mix of sunshine and cloud with the fifteen degree air temperature feeling like seven.

After breakfast Clare and Ann walked along South Beach and had a coffee before doing food shopping. I went to the noon Rogationtide Eucharist at St Mary's Parish Church with a congregation of fifteen retired people in the congregation, for a 1984 Prayer Book service, including the priest who preached last Sunday. He read the lessons with the confident relish of a man who loves to read scripture in public while the Vicar took  the service. I enjoyed the calm of joining in a familiar liturgy known by heart. I left without speaking to anyone, savouring the inner silence after a disturbed night. I called Clare but got no answer, and sat for a while on a bench in the entrance hall of the market, as we'd made no plan to meet. An hour later I had a call to say they'd walked home, and returned to join them for lunch.

After the meal I slept for an hour and a quarter, then went for a walk.  I was surprised and disconcerted when my nose started bleeding as I was about to turn around and return to Croft Court. I was walking slowly and wasn't exerting myself at the time. I think it was a consequence of being prescribed a double dose of aspirin to go with the other platelet reducing medication I'm taking. I took the pill when I wasn't fully awake and didn't dissolve it in water. Six hours later I paid the price for lack of vigilance. In future I'll dissolve it properly in water and drink only half of it, to reduce the concentration to the equivalent of the first prescription of pills issued to me the first time. I don't know what went wrong, but it was disturbing to read the information on the back of the pack stating that aspirin shouldn't be taken with blood thinning medications.

Clare made a fish pie for supper. I went for a breath of fresh air as the sun was setting, got caught in a shower of rain and had to change my wet trousers when I got back. We're meant to have warmer weather from tomorrow. Feeling it is believing! Early bed tonight to compensate for broken sleep. I so need to reduce the accumulated tiredness. It's so demoralising.

Fatigued

It was after nine when I woke up this morning. Eleven hours in bed for seven hours of sleep, I was awake for four hours, traipsing back and forth to the toilet. When I got up it was sunny with clouds on the move, and less wind today. I felt mentally and physically tired for most of the day. I've not yet adjusted to the change of environment. Clare and Ann are enjoying being in holiday mode, I still feel I'm in survival mode and this seems to absorb a lot of my energy. 

We walked into town to buy vegetables and mixed dried herbs with a fragrant aroma at the organic stall in the Old Market Hall. We went to the Sea View cafe and restaurant at lunchtime, but I wasn't hungry. I sat drinking a cup of tea while Clare and Ann ate lunch. Then I returned to Croft Court where I had a snack of rye bread, hummus and walnuts before dozing on the sofa until they returned. 

Later in the afternoon, once I'd recovered and my head cleared, I went out and walked again for an hour before supper. I prepared and steamed cauliflower and carrots while Clare cooked scrambled egg on toast for herself and Ann. She turned some vegetable protein into a bolognese style sauce for me to eat with bread.

I completed my daily step quota walking around the house while Clare and Ann went for a sunset walk on the beach. I felt too tired to go out again, and started getting ready for bed early.

Welcome visitor

I slept fairly well and was up at eight, wishing I could have slept for longer, but wasn't quite warm enough to doze off again. Clare, on the other hand, complained of being too hot in the other single bed. We walked to the town market after breakfast, where there's a lovely organic veg and wholefood shop. The wholesale veg delivery hadn't yet arrived, so we went to Tesco's to buy bread, pasta and passata, then returned for a cup of coffee. Clare had a dish of crab salad, while we waited. After buying veg we needed, we returned to Croft Court, in a headwind which blew light rain into our faces. As Clare had eaten I cooked a veggie sugo with tagliatelli for my lunch.

On our way to meet Ann at Tenby train station we went to the market to buy local potatoes, then to Tesco's for wine and prosecco, though not for me because of the meds. We mis-timed the walk to the station and were three quarters of an hour early arriving there. It's unstaffed. The waiting room and toilets were locked so we sat outside in the sun until the train arrived.

We walked back to Croft Court with me dragging Ann's suitcase. Clare cooked the fresh sea bass fillets bought yesterday. I scrubbed new potatoes, recently pulled from the ground. Both delicious! After supper we sat around chatting, catching up for the rest of the evening.