Rest ?

It's been another busy day. It was back to the hospital for an early appointment with the rheumatologist. I did try presenting him with a table of all my various joint problems but as he deals with soft tissues he was only going to deal with the pain I have around my hips. The rest comes under the orthopaedic dept. He did a general check and confirmed that I have osteoarthritis in my knee and hand as well as my back problems. His thoughts on my hip pain was that it is due to bursitis which simply means inflammation of the soft tissue around the hips. It had been ruled out 5 years ago when I first went to my GP because she injected steroids to no effect. The doctor this morning tried to be diplomatic and said it's sometimes better when a specialist does it and also GP's tend to use very little local anaesthetic while he was drawing up bottle after bottle into each syringe. I guess the anaesthetic kick starts the reduction of the inflammation. Then he advised me to  rest for the remainder of the day. An afternoon of teaching is not that restful but I did go home and sit at the PC for an hour before heading out to work. I have to admit to being selfishly relieved that it was raining in the afternoon and the children didn't question working on their art right through playtime.

 It has been very misty for most of the day. I took these photos on my way home from the hospital at 10.30.

The tooth saga also drags on. Having finished my second course of stronger antibiotics I rang the dentist because I've still got a lot of pain and I was worried that a lump below the tooth hole was an abscess. They gave me an appointment straight after work and the dentist is happy that all the infection has cleared up, the lump being simply a normal bony bump which just happens to be bigger on that side. She said that the pain is from a nerve (I worked that out as I've got tingling in my lip, tongue and gum) which might continue for weeks or even months! so she is sending me to the hospital. I assume that is the dental dept at our local hospital and not the dental hospital in Bristol and she has flagged it as urgent because it usually takes a while to get an appointment. After the dentist I dropped into Tescos and got a few bargains including blocks of Double Gloucester cheese with chives and onions for 1/6th of the price. Cheese freezes well so I bought 8.
PS I had been wondering how Vytas was doing as there have been some of those dreadful bush fires in the region of the farm where he was working but I've just heard that they are both in Sydney, Sally's about to get on a flight to Auckland and he will be following in a few days. And so the next chapter begins.