Why is having a Pacemaker expenceive?

I have found out that now I am one of many people who have a pacemaker, things have got expensive. Living in the UK my visits to the hospital are free, thanks to the wonderful thing that the NHS is (God only knows how much I would have had to pay if I lived in the US). So, thinking I could now start learning to drive again, I thought I would check how much insurance would cost me.

Well, after putting our details into one of those price comparison sites with me as a named driver my husband's insurance would jump from around £250 to a whopping £800+ and that is if I have passed. If I went on as a provisional driver it was well over £1700! If I didn't mention the pacemaker it dropped to around a nice £550.

However, I'm not sure that a driving instructor's insurance would cover me anyway.

Also, if I go on holiday abroad I need insurance for that too but again it goes through the roof for a person with a pacemaker and I don't see why. I have my pacemaker to stop me collapsing. I was more of a risk before having the PM than I am now.

I also have to tell any organisation, who I belong to, that needs public liability insurance for events as this will make their insurance go up and all to cover me! But I am probably the only one in a group that will not have any problems as my heart rate is kept at a nice 60bpm.

Then there is life insurance. I am lucky that I already have some but if I didn't that would have gone up too.

Migraine Again

Well I woke up on Sunday with a Migraine, it is the first one that I have had in three months.

I should be used to them by now, I've had them since I was 10. The first one I ever had was horrid it felt like I was being hit by a sledgehammer every second or so and all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball or hit my head against a brick wall to try and stop the pain. I am very lucky as my mother also has migraines she knew what was going on, with out her I don't think I would have coped.

I have Migraine with Aura, please click the link to find out more, I get to see many patterns of light flicker across my vision. For this condition I was put under the care of a neurologist at The Royal Free Hospital in London.
In my time, I have been on many medications including anti convulsants and anti depressant  medication, here is a list of  medications, I have been on most of them. With some of the medications I got fat, it was a side effect. I also had to inject myself with one of the triptan medications I had. My boyfriend (now hubby) came home one day after I had taken it and he said I looked like a deranged rabbit cought in head lights. It did make me quite hyper, well more hyper than normal. I was bouncing off the walls and even had a chat to the cat we were looking after about the rain and he was talking back to me! (I am not mad)

I am currently on Maxalt which has helped a bit, you put it on your tonuge and it melts which helps if you get sickness as there are not pills in your stomach for you to vomit up. I think that I am going to have to change medication again soon, nothing seems to work for very long on me.

I also have the problem of having Salicylate Sensitivity and an allergic reaction to NSAIDs and I can't take these sets of drugs as they trigger migraines and I come up in a rash that looks like a burn!

Today I have had to take Tramadol and this seems to have cleared it up no end, as you can tell by me writing this blog. I am hoping that I will only get these a couple of times a year at most now. In the past I could have a migraine for 5 out of the 7 days in a week! When I was pregnant with my daughter I stopped getting them. Then when I got Vasovagal Syncope I didn't really get the migraines at all just very bad headaches and only then once in a blue moon.

One thing I have found is that my pacemaker seems to work overtime while I have a migraine and I wonder why? I think I shall do more research into the matter and I will get back to you with what I find.

My lovely Bath

Oh how much I love a bath.

A shower is all well and good if you're in a rush and need to get clean quickly, and I know that a shower is better for the enviroment, but to have a bath with my fave Molton Brown bubble bath is heaven, I could lie there all day if only the children would let me. If they do I will let them in the bath after I am done. So really there are three of us getting clean in one bath when I know for a fact that I would use more water if we all had a shower.

How do I know this I hear you asking? Well, one day we tested it by putting the plug in while we all took a shower and when I finished washing my daughter and myself the bath was full. So in our house the bath fills up on two people, well one person and a small child.

When we became the owners of our house we had to replace the bathroom as it was old and very, very broken with one of the pipes leaking. So I went shopping for a nice pea shaped bath with taps, sink and toilet included, for only £500. It was a bargain. The pea shaped bath was ideal as I could still lay out even if the children had joined me, which happens quite a lot in this house.

But back to the bath, the thought of it now is just so nice I'm almost tempted to go and put one on.
The warm water just eases those tired muscles and the bath gives me time out from the monsters.

The only thing I have to be careful with is my pacemaker. If the water is too hot when I get out my pacemaker will start pacing me as soon as my heart rate drops (when you get out of the bath this will happen as the blood vessels all open up due to the heat and take the much needed blood from the brain and vital organs). This is very bad for me as blood will pool in my legs and, if I didn't have the pacemaker, my heart would stop and I would collapse. But now with my lovely pacemaker none of this happens. So I can have the bath as hot a I like and I don't need to worry.

Making a cake

Today I am going to make a cake.

I am going to try a victoria sponge as it is simple to make. You just have to remember that sugar, flour and butter must always weigh the same.

8oz of butter
8oz of sugar
8oz of flower
2 tsps of vanilla extract
4 medum eggs
Jam for the middle

This is all you need to make a simple victoria sponge.

So you start by creaming the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy. I used an electric whisk as my arms are not up to doing it by hand.

Then you slowly mix in the eggs bit by bit, until the mix is smooth. Add the vanilla extract then slowly add the flour. At this point I added some pink food colouring as the cake was meant to be made for Valentines Day.

Then pour the mix into two greased 7" cake tins. Put them into a pre heated oven gas mark 4. For 20 to 30 mins.

Then take out your cake and allow to cool completely before adding your jam or cream or both.
We had added some pink icing and pink sprinkles in the pic below.

Then you can stuff your face :-)
Enjoy.

Happy Valentines Day

Today is the day that we are supposed to show our love to our partner. But shouldn't you be showing your love every day of the week, not when some card shops tell you too?

Well this is what I got today (pic below) and I must say I love it. But we have not given each other cards this year.

As my lovely hubby was on the early shift at work I have not seen him yet. I think I'm going to bake a cake for him. Will try to blog about it later or tomorrow.

Pancake day

I love pancake day as we get to stuff our faces with pancakes and not feel guilty about it. I love the lemon and sugar ones but also love Nutella®. What are your fav combos? My daughter has asked for maple syrup, lemon and ice cream. I think she learnt about it in school.

But there is a reason why we do this.

Shrove Tuesday - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

With the children at a church school they are learning about why we have lent which starts tomorrow. 
I think that I should give up something for lent but don't know what as we have many birthdays between now and easter so cake is out. I could do sweets but I don't eat meny any way, same goes for biscutes. So I am going to give up fizzy pop. This for me is hard as I do like a bit of fizz. I now have to think of what I can drink instead.

Our open fire

Today I finally got the open fire going. The house already had it when we bought the place. We had it checked and cleaned while the builders were in fixing up the place.

But it has taken us almost a year to get it up and running. We had a buy a few things first - fire guard, a fire side set with poker and finally a CO2 monitor which is very very important.

But after today I just wanted to put it on. We have snow and my daughter got sent home from school as they had a power cut and the heating went off. When I got the text message I was waiting to see the doctor for my son who has a lump in his neck. It is fine, it is just a lymph node that has come up because he is fighting a virus.

Back to the fire, it did take a little while to get going as I couldn't get the wood to catch fire! But after a whole news paper it is now roaring away and heating us up quite nicely.

The only thing is I have found that I'm not so good at making fire. I now smell of burning and the fire keeps going out! Think I'm going to need more matches.  By the time I get better at this fire making we will be in late spring and I won't need the open fire.

Sleeping Children

Don't you just love sleeping children?

I love the point at night where they are in bed and sleeping so we can have some adult time. At the moment this is happening about 9 to 9.30pm even thought they are put to bed by 7.30pm with the lights out by 8.30pm after story time. But they are still up talking to each other. I should mention that they share a bedroom.

I have added, at the end of this blog, some cute pictures of my two that I have taken over the years when they have fallen asleep in strange positions or just look cute.

I have often wondered what they dream about. I think my son dreams about cars as they are always on his mind. He can name any car just by looking at the badge and if he doesn't know it he learns it for next time. We often walk down the road on the school run with him naming every car that passes us.

My daughter on the other hand dreams about cats. She loves cats and anything to do with cats. She is more of a cat person than me. I think. I will try to get her to draw her dreams one day when she is off school for the holidays. I will be intresting to see what she comes up with.

I have been very lucky that we haven't had meny, one or two so far, bad dreams. But the ones we have had mean that I and my hubby don't get much sleep as normally everyone, with all the crying one child will have normally woken the other, and they jump in our bed. Luckly we have a king size bed, it just about fits my husband, two children the cats and me!

Are you a cat person or a dog person

Well in this house we are cat people. We love cats, as you will know from some of my other blogs we have two cats. One Baskervile who is 8 months so still a kitten and our new cat Sushi who is 4 and fully grown. Well when I say fully grown, over weight is more like it, she has lost a little in the time that we have had her.

I always wanted a cat as a child but as my mum is alergic to animal fur so I was never allowed one or two or three. All we could have was fish but as first pets they were ok until I went to clean them out and I used hot water while they were still in the tank, I was only 10 at the time. In those days late 80's early 90's you didn't have all these nice fliters and you cleaned out the tank fully every week. Now we know that for the best fish health you need a fliter and only need to change 10-20% of the water every two weeks and only do a full clean every 6 months.

But anyway back to the cat or dog person. I think that as nice as a dog would be my house is too small and if I go to work when the children go to school full time the poor dog will be left on it's own for too long.

So for us cats are just right. You can leave them and they will come and go as they please as long as they have food and water they are fine.
They are welcome to sit on our laps for fuss and this is always on their terms. We make sure that they are groomed every day for our medum hair cat and once a week for our short hair cat.

It is lovely to have the little faces at the door or sitting on the sofa when you get in after you have been out. Baskerville is a very friendly cat who loves attention and will come sit on your shoulder and purr in your ear.

I think I'm going to become that old lady with the cats lol.

Six month check up

Today is my six month check up since having my pacemaker. So I am on my way to The Royal Brompton. But what a day we have had just to get to this point.

First we had my daughters parent teacher consultation at 8.30 this morning, as I couldn't do it this afternoon. She is doing very well and her teacher is pleased with her progress. We have to get her asking questions though and we must try to get her to do artwork that represents something that she has done. Now it is thinking caps on to go and do something that she can then try to draw or paint. I'm thinking maybe I should get her a art book of some kind that she can draw in and it could be her project for this term.

From a very good report we left her at school to enjoy her day. We did have to pick her up early though as she normaly finishes at 12noon and I would have to be in London for my appointment at 2pm. It takes about 45mins to get to my mum's house where the children would stay while I went down to the hospital. We were to meet my sister at 12 and then get strate off for my appointment but she was not there. In the end we had to wait for 25mins before she turned up.
So now it was a quick walk to the tube station and onto the London Underground.

Underground was running very well and we got to the hospital with time to spare. We had a quick sandwich and waited for my appointment. Well the appointment went well and I am now discharged but I do have the email and phone numbers if I need anything. I am very happy to report that I have not had any collapses since having my lovely pacemaker implanted. The only thing I have had is a small dizzy spell when I was ill. But I will still have to keep drinking lots of water and adding extra salt to my food. During the summer I must not get dehydrated or I could have more dizzy spells. But at least I won't collapse any more, well until the battery in the pacemaker needs replacing that is. I will be staying on the meds for the time being though.

So all in all a very busy day and it is not over yet.  I think I need an afternoon nap!