boring is good

Just when I thought my life was a bit boring....

Alistair received threatening text messages while at school and was too frightened to come home on his own. The messages were properly nasty and included threats to the rest of his family, and our property. After speaking to the school community police officer, we reported the threats to the police. We were asked to drive Alistair to and from the school gate, and be generally vigilant. The police took this very seriously, maybe more seriously than we did at first. They managed to identify the senders, two contemporaries of Alistair thought it would be fun to prank Alistair, who is quite vulnerable. I don't know about you but to me a prank might involve sticking a yellow note on someone's back that says something silly. Not threats of violence, or threats to burn the family car. I am sure the boys' parents were not pleased to have the police show up on their doorstep. 

I went for a gynaecology appointment after an urgent referral by my GP. What follows is not for the squeamish, or anyone not interested in the indignities of possessing malfunctioning female reproductive organs. I think it is important to talk about such things but you can of course skip the rest. I have postmenopausal bleeding, which is almost constant now. This can be a side effect of HRT but should not persist. The wheels of the NHS turn slowly and I therefore didn't expect to have an internal scan at my first appointment, nor having a biopsy of my uterus lining taken. I can't say this was pleasant and I felt like curling up into a ball with a hot water bottle for comfort. The endometrial lining of my womb is considerably thicker than it should be. The biopsy has been sent for analysis and I have to replace the nature identical progesterone with a synthetic progesterone in my HRT treatment. I have to go back for another scan and biopsy in three months. Unpleasantness aside, I want to thank my GP (a man!), who did exactly the right thing by picking up the phone to speak to a gynaecologist at the menopause clinic, then referring me on. The consultant gynaecologist was also very good, reassuring and gentle. Most of all, the process was fast, two weeks from GP visit to referral appointment. Those of you living in the UK know just how long waiting times are to see specialists and I had already resigned myself to spending next year's holiday money on a private consultation. I am glad I didn't have to. 

This is in contrast to Alistair, who is now 23 months into waiting for his full ASD/ADD assessment... not counting the period before he had his initial clinical assessment. 

To add insult to injury, I just found out that I messed up this years timetable for my large course. I was trying to spread out live teaching days without taking into account that the corresponding online topics needed to be covered before each. Now, the live teaching days are confirmed and I somehow have to make it work. I am so glad my colleague noticed when she was adding date restrictions on our virtual learning environment. 

What takes the biscuit is that I scalded my left hand and foot with boiling water because I was not paying enough attention to the kettle when filling my hot water bottle at the end of a tiring day. That was before the three days of summer that we are currently experiencing in Glasgow. On a positive note, I am still able to swing my left leg up and hold the foot under the kitchen sink tap to let the cold running water soothe the scalded skin. 

So this weekend is for recovering from what was a tiring ten days... my biggest and hopefully only challenge will be to decide if I should make the button holes for Richard's shirt for a 10 mm or 11 mm button. And the laundry of course, as well as trying not to get too cross with James who creates chaos wherever he passes through. Tomato sauce on the the breakfast cereal box? Paprika stains on kitchen towels? Pee on the bathroom floor? A dirty sock in the hedge? Ask James. 

As always, thank you for visiting 😊