The emails and texts arrived at 18.15...negative. I cried and cried. Still am very unwell, and now have a king size headache, but at least I know we haven't got THE virus.
So husband can have his tooth out, and more importantly his foot op. And I haven't infected the friends we visited.
I can't tell you just how worried I've been, how guilty I've felt, how low it's made me.
It's been a stressful few days. Husband and I have been sleeping in separate rooms and trying to keep our distance, as he's self isolating leading up to his operation on the 31st. Not entirely easy or successful when you live in a small house(!) but we've done our best.
Monday during the night I didn't feel very well and hardly slept at all. Throughout the day on Tuesday I felt worse....hot and feverish, coughing and with a much reduced sense of taste and smell, it all came on quite rapidly. By the afternoon I was wondering if it could be the dreaded Covid, so went online to the NHS Covid website, did the questionnaire and ordered tests for myself and husband. They arrived early afternoon on Wednesday - very quick - we did them (not pleasant, made me cough even more) and despatched them as per instructions in the kit.
I've swung between feeling sort of alright, and feeling really ill ever since. Husband feels fine, he has no symptoms at all, thankfully. Waiting for the results is incredibly stressful. I don't feel at all well this morning.
...only it won't be a secret now, of course! Recently, we'd given serious consideration to moving to Devon, and actually went to view a property there (it was the day we got held in stationary traffic on the M5 for several hours, as a result of a fatality on the motorway). This is how it came about.
Much as we love living here, and we really do, we know it won't be possible to live here forever, for lots of practical reasons. To cut a long story short, we'd had a lot of discussion about where we'd like to live, and what would be the best option for us for the future, bearing in mind we're not in a position to buy a place. We have friends who live in a park home on a retirement park on the east coast...they love it, both the house (it's one of those so-called 'mobile' homes, double wide, which looks just like a modern bungalow), and the active social life on a lovely park full of like-minded friendly people, and close to a town. That really appealed to us, both the lifestyle and living in a small friendly secure community. Most of those park homes are owner occupied, I had no idea whether any have rentals, although I thought some might. After extensive internet research I found a few, and sent off some emails. Several replies said either they don't have any vacancies or they don't allow dogs (so no good!).
Then I had a reply from one park in North Somerset, who said that whilst they didn't have a vacancy on that park, they did have one at their sister park in mid Devon. However....it wasn't one of their park home bungalows, but a two-storey cottage on the site, their suggestion was that we might like to consider renting the cottage until such time as one of their rental homes (they have several there) became available. They'd apparently just totally refurbished the cottage following the departure of the previous residents (they'd moved out, not died!).
We love living here in Somerset, always have done - from the minute we moved down here 10 years ago I felt like I'd come home....I hadn't lived here before but it just felt so right. So we hadn't really considered moving to another county...but the proposition was so intriguing we just had to go and have a look.
The cottage was gorgeous, built originally in the mid 1800s but extended and remodelled over the years, from once being a 2 up, 2 down it's now a large 4 bedroomed house, with lovely refitted kitchen and bathrooms, big range cooker, wood burning stove in a large stone fireplace in the huge lounge, master bedroom suite with big dressing room and an en suite shower room that's bigger than our bathroom. Good size manageable tidy garden with a large patio and shed. Separate garage too. It was really lovely, but too big for us, and the rent was more than we could afford...although they said they were open to negotiation (we'd have had to negotiate quite hard though to get the rent down to an affordable level!).
After a lot of discussion back at home, we decided it wasn't for us. Whilst we do like that area of Devon - well, all Devon in fact - we don't really want to move out of Somerset, we have made so many good friends here for a start, and moving to Devon would make for a much longer journey to visit our close and extended family up in the Midlands. Long drives wear husband out nowadays, he really doesn't like it anymore. So we had to decline. Pity, as the park was lovely as well as the cottage, and we got the impression that the park manager (who was a really nice man) was quite keen for us to move there, he said we were exactly the type of residents they like and was sure we'd fit in really well. When I got back in touch to say we wouldn't be moving there, he said please ring him if we ever change our minds. Nice of him.
So we shall continue to look, but only in Somerset.
(I have no idea why the font has changed and I can't seem to change it back, sorry about that!).
It wasn't a good day yesterday, for either of us. We went to town in the morning, had a list of a few things we needed to get - we don't go to town very often, and that'll be the last time for at least 8 weeks now. In Wilkos (which frustratingly didn't have a couple of things I wanted, as they're clearing shelves making way for Christmas stuff), a man literally bumped into me - so much for social distancing. He did have a mask on, thankfully. I noticed several people whose masks were pulled down not covering their noses - none of us like wearing them do we, but what's the point of wearing one if you're not going to wear it correctly? And there were several discarded masks littering the car park - ugh, disgusting, what is the matter with people?! Forcing somebody else to have to pick up and dispose of your potentially hazardous used mask is even worse than general littering. So I didn't manage to get everything I needed in Wilko, and completely forgot to go in another shop to get the lavender pillow spray I like that I've run out of. Hey ho.
In the afternoon husband went off to do a job for a friend and overdid things (I'm always telling him not to, but does he take any notice?). He felt dizzy and had to sit down a couple of times, a combination of heart not pumping efficiently and low BP caused by bending over a lot...he's on meds to keep his BP down anyway, because of his heart failure. When he got home he didn't feel (or look) very well, so sat down and promptly went to sleep, he looked better when he woke up. However, in the kitchen later he dropped a large glass storage jar full of flour - smashed glass and flour all over the kitchen floor. His hands were shaking from the work he'd been doing earlier, so he had no grip. Never mind, fortunately he didn't cut himself and I had a couple of spare bags of flour, having stocked up.
Something I was really hoping to do yesterday didn't happen, and now there won't be another chance for weeks, if at all, which upset me a bit.
My hip was sheer agony yesterday afternoon, hurt to stand or sit, I just couldn't get comfortable in any position. My TENS machine did nothing for the pain, nor did my hot wheat bag or deep freeze spray. In the end I had to resort to taking codeine twice, which means I'll be constipated for a couple of days...hence why I rarely take them.
C'est la vie! Tomorrow (today) is another day (to quote Scarlett).
Well, I'm getting more confused by the minute with all this medical stuff.
Husband went for his pre-op assessment today, he had to go alone due to Covid restrictions. I normally (in pre-Covid times - remember those days?!) go with him to all health appointments....a case of having to as he never asks relevant questions, doesn't really take in what he's being told, and forgets to tell me everything that was said. Fortunately, he brought a load of paperwork home with him, which I've just sat and read through, and it's all quite confusing and even contradictory.
He has to self isolate for 14 days from this Saturday...ok, I was more or less expecting that. A note stapled to the front of the paperwork states he must not leave the house for any reason. However....he has 2 further hospital appointments next week, one connected to his upcoming operation, the other for an unrelated matter - he was told at the assessment that he can still go for these appointments, as they are in a sterile and safe hospital environment! That's all very well...but he has to drive there, park in a public car park then walk past numerous other people to get to the places he has to go - so how does that work then? How is that self isolating?
Apparently, I don't have to self isolate - it says so in the paperwork - but we are supposed to stay apart from each other, preferably in separate rooms and using different bathrooms. Impossible, we only have one bathroom, so I'm going to have to clean it after every use. Lovely 😡. But seeing as I don't drive and there's no public transport here, I can't go anywhere anyway.
He has to go for a Covid test 3 days before his op, and then go into strict isolation until the day of the op. But a neighbour is taking him to the hospital....she won't have been isolating! And I don't have to have a test, despite living with him whilst he's self isolating, so let's hope I haven't got the virus.
My head is exploding.
Yesterday I had yet another text from the surgery, confirming my (non existent) late night appointment for tomorrow, that I hadn't even asked for and they told me was a mistake when I rang to query it the day before 😒. I shan't bother ringing them again, if they sit there waiting for me to appear late tomorrow night then that's their lookout 😂. (They won't, obviously, they don't do late night appointments).
Had a brief visit to my lovely best friend and spouse today....it's most likely the last time we'll see them now until mid December, seeing as husband will be incapacitated for weeks 😕
I went to bed very late last night...well, early hours of this morning actually, and slept like a log. Perhaps that's the secret to me sleeping better - go to bed later. A lot later. Didn't wake up until 07.22, which is a massive lie in for me!
It's been a lovely day, bit cloudy at times but nice warm sunshine in between, we sat outside in our friends' garden.
Got a busy week, husband has his pre-op assessment on Tuesday, when he will be told how long he (and thus me as well) has to self isolate for prior to his op, if it's the full 14 days then we're in quarantine from this coming Saturday. Which means I have to make sure we have everything we need beforehand...I think we probably have. The garden needs tidying up for winter, the lawn needs a final cut, pots of summer flowers need emptying and replanting with spring bulbs. Weather is forecast to be good from Wednesday onwards, thankfully.
