Don't tell me I'm 60, tell me lies instead.

It is so hard to believe that tomorrow 1st June 2007, I'll turn sixty years old.

I don't feel it. Except when I looked in the mirror today as I was getting a haircut and thought, "gee, you don't look too good". Or when I later sat down on a seat in the shopping centre waiting for Janyne who arrived just it time to hear a passer-by ask me if I was alright because I looked so bad. He happened to be a paramedic. Anyway we gave him an abbreviated version of my recent medical history after which he advised me to take good deep breaths and try to get some colour back in my face.

What a great way to end my fifties.

I haven't updated this blog in a while mainly because I haven't been too well lately. I felt it wasn't appropriate to complain about my state of health on the anniversary of my lung transplant on 4th May.

However, on 25th April, I was diagnosed with shingles. This is NOT a fun disease. It affected me on the left side of my face, from the middle of my scalp to the base of my neck. I went on Valtrex immediately which is a drug commonly used to alleviate the symptoms of shingles. Some time into the disease I began to have episodes of the most excruciating pain I have ever known. They would last for anything from 1.5 minutes up to 3 minutes. It was like someone pouring boiling hot liquid over the left side of my face and left me literally screaming and crying like a baby. It would strike without notice and a few of my friends who may have been visiting at the time simply couldn't believe such pain. Fortunately I finally had enough and I asked Dr Hopkins if there was anything I could take to stop them. After consulting a colleague, he prescribed a drug which is normally used as an anti depressant and after taking this for a couple of days the pain spasms disappeared, thank god.

I have to admit that this is the first time, since I was diagnosed with Lung disease in April 2002, that I asked the question, "what have I done to deserve this?". So again you see, a lung transplant is not a cure, but it is an opportunity to live a better quality of life then would have been the case. If we hadn't taken the offer of a set of lungs in May last year, I am certain I would not be here today. So what ever life throws at you, face the next day with confidence and enthusiasm. You'll be amazed at the result.

Oh by the way, on 5th May I was, and had been for a few days, suffering from severe diarrhoea. I phoned Dr Hopkins and he advised a few days in hospital to receive intravenous fluids and see what could be done about it. So again, a day after celebrating the first anniversary of my lung transplant, I'm back in Hospital. In fact I'm starting to know many of the Doctors and nurses there. Yes, Prince Charles Hospital is indeed a second home.

I am going back to hospital next Monday for a normal clinic session and will ask Dr Hopkins why I am feeling so lethargic but my guess is that it is caused by the cocktail of drugs I'm currently taking. It just amazes me how all these drugs know exactly where or what to attack, particularly when I take a large number at a time.



Anyway it is getting late so I'll finish off now.



Talk again soon,



Regards,



Ben