A slight case of overblogging

We've booked our wedding venue, and will be getting married on 18th September 2010 at Queens'. We're very excited. Have to go do the Notice of Marriage at the Register Office in the next few weeks, and next weekend me and mum are going to look at wedding dresses. I shall try not to go on about it too much :)

No new health news :) Back to Addies on Monday to get rescanned to see if the kidney stone has really gone. Still waiting for the results of the blood tests they took at the end of September to see if my hormone and calcium levels have gone back to normal. Otherwise pretty well though, scar is already visibly fading, and I'm still slowly losing weight. 5.5kg to go until I'm no longer obese, at which point I might think about trying to maintain my weight instead. We'll see.

A couple of lovely parties fairly recently for Laura and Karen's birthdays. Other than that life's been pretty quiet: lots of reading, lots of watching DVDs, not much else. It's all good though.

Oh, and I'm vaguely considering upgrading to Windows 7, since I can get it cheap as an academic, but it seems my graphics card isn't compatible with their shiny new "Aero" style desktop, I'd need new drivers for my ethernet card (not so bad), my AV won't work on it, I'd need more memory to run the 64-bit version, and it's not clear whether any of my games and so-on would run on it. Oh and it definitely won't do the virtualised WinXP compatibility stuff. So it's not looking like a great move really. I might just buy the extra memory instead :)

It's been a good couple of weeks: my scar's getting much better, my shoulder isn't aching any more, and I no longer have to drink horrible effervescent calcium tablets twice a day. We had a fab weekend in Bath for Rae and Adam's wedding, where Mike was bridesmaid complete with electric guitar, and we're generally taking it easy and enjoying life.

Tomorrow I'm back at the hospital again though for litrotripsy on my kidney stone. This is where they bombard it with ultrasound waves through your back in order to break it up. Being sensible I just dug out the paperwork yesterday to make sure I was ready for Monday morning. Being less sensible I hadn't really looked at in detail since the beginning of August when they sent me it, and *now* I realise they suggest I take the rest of the week off to recover and bring someone to take me home, since I'll have been sedated and not fit to drive. Ooops.

Now obviously I wasn't intending to drive anyway, since hey, I don't have a car. Hopefully they'll let me go home in a taxi on my own, but I've grovelled to Paul to ask if he can give me a lift home mid- or late-morning. Sometimes I really am a bit of a muppet! I'd best email work and tell them not to expect me in after my appointment :)

PS *phew* Paul says yes, so I've got a couple of people I can call on just in case. Thank goodness, and sorry for being so disorganised!

Sprained/chipped ankle: sufficiently better that most of the time I don't even remember I did it any more. Even when doing things like attempting to scale a climbing wall. Success.

Hyperparathyroidism/hypercalcaemia: Have appointment to see surgeon on 28th, at which point they'll make an appointment to actually have the operation and take my overactive parathyroid out. Relatively minor day surgery, will need to take calcium/vitamin D supplements for a while afterwards until the other three glands reset to normal operation.

Kidney stone: This is almost certainly caused by the excess calcium in my urine because of the above. CT scan results are in and I have a 4mm stone in my left kidney. At this size it's 50/50 whether it's worth treating, but since I have symptoms (pain again this Tuesday, and I can still sort of feel it now) the GP has referred me to have it broken up using external ultrasound. No idea how long this referral will take. In the meantime I still have enough diclofenac left to deal with the pain.

Metabolic Syndrome: Having lost some weight I've discussed this with my GP. Since I have a strong family history of diabetes it's very likely that even if I lose more weight I'm still going to get diabetes later. He'd rather I continued to take the Metformin and statins, since apparently they can have a protective effect and will hopefully delay its onset. I'm not terribly happy with this, but will review in maybe 6-8 months time, at which point I'll ask them to re-do all the sugar/cholesterol level tests too. This does mean I still can't drink.

Weight loss: 13kg so far to 97kg, which is over 10% of my weight and more than 5 BMI points. I expect to reach 90kg (around BMI 31.5, and my next target) by mid-September. I need to reach 85kg to no longer be classed as obese. Still following Slimming World online, still trying not to go on about it.

Thanks all for the well wishes on the last post. It appears you are all more powerful than you think, or perhaps I'm just incredibly lucky, and believe me I'm touching wood right now, well laminate, but I've woken this morning in no pain at all. Maybe drinking lots and lots of water has helped it break up quickly, perhaps it's just moved a little and will get stuck again somewhere else, but for now I'm feeling very relieved.

And we had a nice evening in London visiting Pete and Val (Mike's brother and his fiancee) at their rather eclectic place on Tottenham. We enjoyed seeing their place, having a look at the artwork they've got up on the walls for an event they're running over the weekend (with bands and DJs as well as the art), eating chinese and playing some rather eccentric pool (with a young cat joining in), and generally had a good time. It was nice to see them. We got rather mislaid on our way home and failed to find which bus stop to get off for Tottenham Hale, and in the end realised we were so far past it that it was easier to stay on until Liverpool Street, where we were too late for the intended train but still able to get the last train for Cambridge, so getting home rather later than intended - and with a taxi ride for the last leg, since the last train for some reason stops at all the usual stops *except* Shelford.