The Buckingham Blog

I got my hair chopped today, from almost my waist and curly/knotted
to this......

Opinions??  Will try to get a better photo as this was just on my phone when I got home.

Julie.xx

I have to say back in the days of TTF, I never thought I'd see my son dancing to Real Love!!  This is on our kitchen ipod and when it came on tonight Kory sprung up and started dancing like a mad man!   For those who may have no idea, TTF were a Scottish  group (I use the term loosely) who James and I were both into before we met, who played/made dance music in the early 1990's.

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday dear Blog
Happy Birthday to you!!

I honestly can't believe I've been doing this for 4 years now! 

Julie.xx

We've had a Wii for a couple of months, but when my Mum was up last week, she bought us a Wii Fit Board (was a bargain in Asda, right place, right time!)

So here are a couple of videos of Kory and James using it.  I've not had a shot yet for obvious reasons, but can't wait to get on board!

This year, Kory wanted to dress up as a pussycat.  He was a cat last year, but who am I to argue with recycling a costume?!  So a pussycat he was.  In the morning he had to go in fancy dress to nursery.  It was really nice seeing all the kids dressed up in the morning.  They weren't having a "Halloween Party"....oooooh noooooo......it was an "Orange Day Party"....potitical correctness gone to far in my opinion.

Anyway, they played with green spaghetti, sang songs (in the hairy scary castle??!!) , made orange playdoh and ate orange and green jelly, yuck!  That's all I got out of Kory, but I'm sure there was more.

In the afternoon, Krystal got dressed up like a wee fairy and we headed to Leanne's house for a party.  She'd done the house up really nicely, and arranged games for the kids (brave - it was chaos!) like ducking for apples, dipping apples in chocolate and decorating them & hunting for skeleton limbs.  There was loads of food too.  The kids had a ball.

In other news - my Dad went home last Thursday as he's gone off on his hols.  On Sunday, Mum and Tom arrived.  We went out for a chinese buffet which was nice.  I hadn't been sure if I was up to going before it, but am glad I did get out the house.  Mum did the nursery run all week (I went on Friday to see the kids dressed up!) which gave me a lovely break. 

On Tuesday Tom headed back down the road, and mum got stuck into our ironing that had somehow got very behind over the past few weeks, despite James doing loads while I was in hospital.   I also have nice shiny bathrooms, thanks Mum!

On the whole I'm feeling a bit better than, say, 2 weeks ago when I got out of hospital.   I am completely wiped out though, which is not like me at all, I'm normally running about like a mad thing.  I still have chest pains which make me feel like I can't get a breath sometimes and still have a tingly face and neck, although my arm has lessened in tingle levels. 

By Wednesday evening, I was getting cabin fever so decided to go to the big Asda for a nosey.  It was the first time I'd driven and it was fine.  They had a bargain on which Mum decided to treat us to.  A Wii Fit Board for only £64!  We had been asking for one for Christmas between us as most places have them for £100, and the only couple who have them for less have been out of stock for ages.  Again, thanks Mum!  As I type, Kory is hula hooping and has just finished snowboarding!

Today (Saturday) Mum got an early bus down the road and we've been chilling out doing nothing as I seem to have become accustomed to!

Julie.xx

I've been home now for a week, but not felt up to updating the blog.  This is the short version! 

As you can imagine I've had a few weeks from hell. It started with heart palpitations, I then got pains in my chest, then I was feeling so ill, sick, dizzy, lightheaded,faint etc. My medication for the heart palpitations was reduced and I did feel marginally better. Then my doc wanted me to have an "echo" on my heart but called head of cardio for second opinion. He said either an urgent referral or admission to acute medical ward. I chose urgent referral.

2 days later I got tingling down my left side, upper body and face. I went to bed hoping it'd go away, but by the morning it hadn't and I called NHS 24. They calmly told me to get to A&E very quickly and if it worsened I had to pull over (James driving) and call 999.

I was in A&E for a few hours, got a chest x-ray done and ECG and some bloods I think. The doc there spoke to cardio who said they were happy it wasn't a heart problem, but doc wasn't happy for me to go home, so she spoke to neurology who wanted me kept in. I was moved to the acute medical ward. I cried at the first doctor who spoke to me as it was scary, everyone was old an most had dementia. Then after I was assessed there, a lovely lovely irish doctor came to see me. He said he wanted me on his ward, but not to be alarmed when I saw it was a stroke ward. So about 6pm I was taken there.

I had to be wheeled through the males bit to get to the female bit and all of them were in bed, mouths open and things up their noses and masks on. When I arrived at my bed there were 2 ladies sat in wheelchairs staring into space, each about 90. Opposite was a lady flat out with oxygen on and lots of drips and machines beeping and lastly was one in the next bed, about 60 talking to herself and halucinating.  It was grim.

On Monday I had my neck arteries scanned by ultrasound, I had blood taken so many times, I had ECG's done loads, Tuesday I had a holter monitor fitted to monitor my heart rate for 24 hours. Wednesday I had more X-rays I think, I had an MRI on Thursday, a CT scan on Friday. Most of these things were coming back clear which only caused more confusion as to why I had all these things wrong.

I then had to speak with a neurologist, who decided he wanted a lumbar puncture done. I had this at 5pm on the Friday night and have never been through anything worse in my life. Labour and my 2 c-sections might have seemed bad before, but this was in another league. I was screaming in pain, they kept giving me more anaesthetic (had "5 or 6" in total) but still I could feel the needle in my spine. They attempted to gain fluid from my spine 5 times, but I begged them to stop. I lay sobbing for an hour afterwards and was (am) a bit traumatised by it all. So all that for nothing, not a drop of fluid to test. I was in agony and it stopped me moving about much for days.

Anyway, the outcome is that I did have a stroke, but as nothing is showing up on any scans it's officially unconfirmed.  I feel like I've been poked and prodded and bled in all directions and have still no proper answers. Although as my lovely irish consultant says, I "do" have answers, I now know I'm not going to keel over from anything brain related, heart related, artery blockages etc. So anything sinister is ruled out.

I absolutely could not fault the NHS system in handling my case. They could have done a test or 2 and sent me home, but I was in a week and had all possible options tested, tests that cost a lot of money for the NHS and tests that some people wait 3 months each for, I had the whole catalogue in a week! The ward was spotless, the staff were brilliant despite being run off their feet, nothing was too much trouble.

Thanks to Maria especially for looking after one or both kids every day for a week to let James get to hospital.  Also thanks to those who came to visit me in the evenings to stop me going (more) insane, Katy, Gillian, Dave, Maria, Sarah (with the McDonalds!) and Julie.  Thanks to Dad for coming up last week and putting up with my crying wobbler! 

Julie.xx

P.S.  The inevitable question - some have asked, no doubt everyone is thinking it.  This has NOTHING to do with my diet.  I spoke to the consultant who is one of the top in hospital, and also a dietician about it.  First of all I was not starving myself, and secondly I am vegetarian so was not doing Atkins which is the diet that got the bad press (though even if I was it'd be fine too) I was eating lots of fresh fruit & veg, eggs, cheese, just no pasta rice and potatoes, which is actually fine by them. 

For those that haven't heard, I'm not sure who reads this that I've not been in contact with, I thought it best to blog what's been happening over the past few days with Julie.

She mentioned in the previous post that she's been having health problems and on Sunday morning things "came to a head" with the whole thing. She started complaining of pins and needles down her face and arm when she woke up so after a quick phone call with the doctor we were asked to come down to A&E.

As things stand the Doctors don't actually know what's wrong with her, the main reason being that if it was just pins and needles they would say that she's had a very mild stroke but the heart issue is causing a bit of confusion. Needless to say they're running some tests on her to find out what's going on.

Generally she's pretty comfortable and her normal cheery self. Boredom seems to be her biggest problem at the moment :-).  She's not on any medication yet apart from mild painkillers so that's all positve.

 Anyway I'll blog more news when I have it and when we know what's actually going on.

James

I guess most people know why the blog has been quiet, but I suppose seeing as it's a big thing in my life right now I should put it on so that when I can't remember when it was, I can look back! 

I've not been posting recently as I've not been well.  It's been a couple of weeks now, in fact the evening before we went to the safari park. 

It started when I was brushing my teeth, my heart started racing like mad, I got hot & shivery and generally felt horrible.  It was actually pretty scary.  I assumed it was a panic attack and moved on.  At the safari park it happened a few more times. 

The day after that I started getting a pain in my chest as well, which by the Thursday was getting worse.  So off I trotted to the doctors.  I had an ECG and bloods done which seemed ok.  I was put on tablets and referred to the hospital.

The tablets seemed to work, stopping my heart racing.  However as the time has gone on I've felt worse and worse.  I started off being freezing cold and very tired.  I was also wheezing loads.  I knew from asking my personal pharmacist (thanks Jenni!) that these were side effects and were ok.  Towards the end of last week there was a sick bug going round Kory's nursery.  All weekend I felt very sick and barely able to get out of bed. 

By today I could also add light headedness into the mix.  I feel like I'm coming out of my body or something.  Anyway, I decided to put in a call to the docs, who are concerned (though it would seem not overly so as they not seeing me until Thursday!) that the tablets have decreased my heart rate as planned, but managed to lower my blood pressure enough to make me feel ill.  Wonderful!

So I'm back on Thursday for another MOT and maybe change tablets.  I got my hospital appointment through as well for mid November.  So I'm sleeping more than normal, and not actually doing anything worth blogging about.  Poor kids must be bored stiff in the house so often. 

Julie.xx

P.S.  Needless to say no more diet for the time being until it's all sorted out.

On Friday evening Coral & Chad arrived for the weekend, accompanied by Jasmine (our niece - James' sister, Kelly's daughter)  As it was quite late the kids were in bed, and we didn't stay up much past their arrival!  

When we got up on Saturday morning, Kory was delighted with Jazzy being here.  I thought he might be shy, but nope, off they went to play.  We had a bit of a lazy morning in the house and garden, then in the afternoon we went  to the beach with the intention of going to Rambo's.  However when we arrived it was absolutely mobbed and they were not allowing any more people in.  

So we went across the amusement park to something Kory has never been to before called the "Foam Factory" Basically it's 3 floors of fancy machines sucking and blowing foam balls up and down collecting them in big buckets at the top and randomly tipping them all down again!  At first Kory was terrified as it's so so noisy, but he saw Jazzy getting involved in it all and he was soon fine with it.

We then headed over to Jimmy Chungs for our dinner.  Unusually Krystal didn't eat much (though maybe not so unusual, she seems to do it when we're with other people making us look stupid saying she eats constantly!!)  but everyone else had a right good feed.  We ended up getting a free round of drinks as they took FOREVER to bring me my main course, everyone else had finished their puddings!!

I thought by the time we finished there, Krystal would be wilting, but she wasn't.  We had to cut through the amusements bit, and somehow "Nana" was talked into parting with cash for rides and 2p machines!!  

Once Krystal was in bed, Kory and Jazzy got to stay up late to play the Wii.  They stayed up later than their Grandad too, though no surprises there!!  

This morning we headed out to Asda to get a couple of bits and bobs, and decided to head to Brewsters for lunch.  An hour later we were STILL waiting for food, the kids had already eaten theirs and were getting fidgety.   By the time our food arrived we'd complained twice and the manager came to refund the cost of the main courses!!  Not a bad weekend for freebies food wise.

However it left us pretty late for our next event, which was a trip to the photo studio.  As this was the first time Jazzy, Kory & Krystal had all been together, Coral and Chad wanted to get a nice photo.  It was a bit of a disaster as Krystal had nowhere near enough sleep, and was really miserable.  Getting 3 kids to look in one direction was not easy, poor photographer man!!  However from the results, you wouldn't know that any of the kids were anything other than little angels!  

So by the time all that was finished, we raced back to the house, shoved some sandwiches down their necks and it was time for them to head back to the airport.  Kory was telling Jazzy he was going to miss her and once they were gone, he was a little upset.  He really enjoyed having her around for the weekend.

Thanks for a nice (busy!) weekend, now we're all exhausted!   

Julie.xx