Happy New Year

Today's question

What if we did not have this earth and the other planets? What would we have?
Emptiness, oblivion, nothingness, blank space, silence?

Stop signs and winter

This cold (it's all relative, but +7C is cold here) weather must be impacting some people's ability to drive a car. A dark blue Chevrolet Malibu ran a red light and nearly hit me lat week. I just hope the camera in the intersection caught him! Idiot. And yes, I had a green light.
Another near miss yesterday. I was on the main road and I see a taxi (Chevrolet Tahoe, possibly. A big SUV anyway) approaching from the right and he would have definitely seen me coming unless he was blind. I am beginning to believe that he was blind, because he couldn't see the stop sign!Stop sign! You know that red sign. I applied brakes just in time, because this guy just kept coming! As a result all my stuff on the backseat flies all over the place and same goes with the stuff in the trunk. Just that moment when it all happens so quickly, my first thought was to get out of the car, take a photo of the guy and his car and then beat him up. Instead I drive away shouting abuse at him.
I've learned my lesson after the first near miss (why is it always a Chevrolet...?) and my dashboard camera was on.The camera angle wasn't exactly right, but I got the footage I needed and the driver will soon be caught and barbecued. He had no passengers in the car, thanks be to God.
If I was a suicidal lunatic, I probably wouldn't have stopped.

C'mon guys, it can't be that difficult to stop at a Stop sign and have a proper look. Maybe I should also add that both of the drivers were men. Nothing against men driving, but I'm just saying.

According to Wikipedia: "A stop sign is a traffic sign to notify drivers that they must stop before proceeding", and here's the sign- I hope it's big enough. Thanks Wikipedia.

Traffic safety part VIII

This definitely is one of those traffic related posts, again, so if traffic and stupid drivers don't interest you, just wait for the next blog post.
Everyone, even schoolkids (who are actually very smart these days) know that days get shorter and nights are longer. Therefore it can still be dark in the mornings. Would it then make sense to find out if your car has something called "headlights" and once that's done, then learn how to use the headlights. If your car is not equipped with headlights, consider taking public transport or painting your car with a fluorescent color. If your car is grey, beige, some sort of dark color, it kind of acts as a camouflage and I can't see you and your posh Nissan Maxima coming from wherever you are coming from. Even worse, if it's a so called luxury car. You would not want anyone to bump into your precious car, would you? So headlights do help. They may save your life and mine. My car is black, but that does not matter, because my headlights are on.

Don't even get me started on motorbikes and cyclists. Often you see them when it's already too late.
I'm not even going to mention those who drive 20mph, when the speed limit is 70mph.

Working with a psycho and driving amongst fools

Enough is enough.
I don't even know where to start. I slept on the living room sofa last night, news channel in the background. Sometime in the early morning hours I woke up to a sound of TV! Switched it and slept until 5.30am, groggy and disoriented and headed straight to shower. Well, I felt kind of ok then.

Bloody idiots in traffic! It takes me 10-15 minutes to drive to work, but there always a tailgater behind me or someone in front of me driving 20mph. Some of the cars apparently don't have a signal. It does not work when turning left or right, overtaking; it simply does not exist. No matter whether it is Toyota, Lexus or Peugeot, it's always the same. Wouldn't be polite to use the signal when overtaking, not just take off and suddenly cut in front of someone..? I recall writing blog posts about traffic on more than one occasion and it never gets better.

Psychos at work. Did you do this? Did you do that? That same old accusatory tone as always. NO I did not. It was a question about signing some sort of useless document- which I did NOT sign. I said so, adding that "I would not do something that would embarrass you or our department". That's it and then I turned my back and walked out of the psycho's office, nose toward the sky, but at least I did not slam the door shut behind me. This was morning. Then in the afternoon it was as it someone had won a lottery. His face was brighter than the sun and there was no trace of that grumpy old man in the morning. I don't know if it's written in their contracts that they have free rein when it comes to bullying. F..k.
Someone very wise said to me last week that I need to get out of there.

Yeah. I think I agree now. It if's not work that drives me crazy, then it's the traffic.

#PrayforParis

Bullying is for forever

Isn't it ironic that I chose to write about bullying in one of the university essays, and now bullying is an every day occurrence in my life in one form or another.
Maybe I'm the type of a person, who attracts bullies? This is not the first time, but now I am totally at a loss and can't think of what to do next.
I'm definitely not depressed about this, not yet. I started going to gym, because long periods of sitting in front of the computer made my back hurt. I still go horseback riding and enjoy lots of things in my life, but my feeling is that the end is near. Not an end as such, but maybe a move to another place, another country is an option. Just because it's an option and just because I can do it if I want to. Just because I want to escape the bully that is making my life hell right now.

All I can say is I have to keep my options open, including the fact that I could well be staying here for little longer.

Enrique Iglesias - Bailando (Español) ft. Descemer Bueno, Gente De Zona

The Love of My Life

Broken heart...?

Last week I felt a strange heavy feeling in my chest. I chose to ignore it and hoped it would go away. Then I went to work as normal, did my normal stuff and then the pain was back. I thought I was hungry, so ate a bit, but the pain got no better or worse. Few hours later the pain gets intolerable and I am forced to go to Emergency.
After blood tests, EKG, painkillers and several hours of monitoring, cardiologist walks in and tells me I need to be admitted overnight for more observation. At that time I wasn't in pain, but because my friend was standing next to me I said okay.. reluctantly.

Everything was normal, but the intensity of the pain really scared me, so it was probably best to spend the night in hospital. More blood tests and serial EKG's followed, bad hospital food and a CT Angio next morning. 
The verdict: acid reflux disease and hiatal hernia.
I kind of know about the former, but a hiatal hernia is something totally different. CT angio did not show everything clearly, because there were motion artefacts (me..? Was I moving? Surely not?), but it appears it's not the heart to blame this time.
I'll be doing my homework now and read about the hernia, because I really don't know much about it and more importantly, can it be fixed?

And yes, I know the EKG shows a 1st degree heart block and bradycardia.

 

Dreams

Strange dream: Shopping mall somewhere in France. There were curious looking posters, which turned out be written in Polish. All of a sudden a dark figure emerges from behind the poster and points a gun at me. I try to escape, but don't get far before the attacker shoots and the bullet hit me in the back... and exits in the front just below the left collarbone. And then.. that was it.
Some would call it a nightmare.

I have to refer to my Dream Interpretation book, which says that I could be interacting with people, who don't have my best interests in mind and that I experience conflicts in my daily life.
Well, damn right, conflicts in some form or another. Daily, weekly. I've learned to live with some of them sometimes with more success, sometimes less.

Another thing: this has also been a week of insults. One of my colleagues are share the sentiment. If it's not an insult aimed at the way you look (Oh man, you look terrible!), it's an indirect insult (For Pete's sake, what are you eating..?? = that's why you look the way you do).
What happened to diversity, acceptance, tolerance? Let everyone live the way they choose.
Besides, people can change. The person, who looked terrible and fat just yesterday, could well be looking awesome tomorrow and you get to eat your words.

Flowers

Working hours

9 to 5. Normal, routine working hours. Report to work on time, leave on time. Be a proactive self-motivated, good team worker, sensible, smart employee, meet your goals and always strive to do your best for the Company.
Company is happy, but your boss isn't, as it's usually the case. One day you report to work at 8.30am and expect to catch-up with emails and such, knowing there shouldn't be anything urgent to deal with until 9am. But as luck would have it, The Boss walks in and says there is something urgent and if it's not dealt with, it will lead into a chaos and disaster. Something unpleasant that is. Ok, you do what is asked of you, even though it's not time to start work yet. A smart employee as we all are, we then (wrongly) assume it would be awesome to get out of work earlier than 5pm.
Ask the boss: can I go home earlier, since I started earlier? 15 minutes earlier please?
The boss' facial expression is of total disbelief (how could you even ask..!???). He says no.
You swear this is the very last time you come early.

It should really be "give and take". The Company (i.e. your Boss) robs you of your precious time, and that in my opinion is not right.

It works for some people, but for some it does not. My time is mine and it is important to me.

If The Boss carries on stealing my time (and if I, in my stupidity, continue donating my time), I will go on strike and stop doing any extra stuff for him. I can report to duty at 9am as mandated. Leave at 5pm sharp. Lunch hour is an hour, I won't leave a minute too early, neither will I return too early. 

Period.
.

A bizarre event at night

Bladder prolapse and cough, not a good combination. So when I decided enough is enough, a visit to my GP resulted in chest x-ray (which was normal), a referral for pulmonary function tests and a prescription of Panacod and Atenolol for relatively high BP. Codeine apparently relieves the cough symptoms and yes, when I took one last night, I think it worked. I woke up once. Not coughing, but with a terrifying feeling of blunt constricting chest pain. I got up at once thinking I need to use the restroom, ran in there, but nothing happened. Well, I was expecting something like diarrhea that would have explained the "cramps", but now almost 12 hours later I can't be sure if they were abdominal cramps or chest pain..caused by what? Panacod? Atenolol?
Whatever the cause was, it was scary. I was about to call the ambulance, but the pain subsided and I slept. 
I don't often have the time to think about what happened at night, if I am going to work or there is something else, but it's weekend and I had plenty of time to think. 
I thought about it again after breakfast.
Then I watched the "12 Monkeys" movie and thought about the nightly horrors again.
Then my friend came for a visit and I had to be 100% fully present so I could not think. I didn't share the narrative of the nightly events with my friend. We had a chat and had to share the sofa with the neighbor's cat. 

That heading up there may lead some people to think I had had a stranger in my bed or something. No, not quite, even though I wish it had been a stranger rather than excruciating pain.

Dealing with complications

September 24, 2014. I underwent hysterectomy almost a year ago and I have not regretted even for a day. Not until mid-July. I have been noticing some symptoms of a prolapsed bladder; feeling of fullness, inability to empty my bladder, but I was not sure if it is all in my head. I went to see my gyn in May 2015 and he diagnosed grade I-II bladder prolapse.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing, but it explained the symptoms and in a way I was relieved to know there was nothing more than that going on. Then I caught a cold and a horrible tickly cough few weeks ago. One of those coughs, that irritate your throat and you have to cough no matter where you are. Since I started coughing, I have noticed the prolapse getting worse. 
My gyn warned me last time that bladder prolapse surgeries may also fail and one of the complications is urinary incontinence! That's not what any of us wants for sure, but I am not sure how long I can live with the "bulge". I am also scared of possibility of another surgery and  even before the actual surgery may or may not happen, I fear that the bladder can just fall out one day. 
Before the hysterectomy I thought I could still improve the uterine prolapse by pelvic floor exercise. There was some improvement, but it was minimal really. I just can't face another operation so I am willing to try anything, more pelvic floor exercises, yes bring it on. Then I read about treating the prolapse with Brufen and estrogen cream and more exercises. Self-help books are full of ideas, web pages offer more, when I run out of my own. Hospitals, operations, urodynamic studies etc freak me out... but wait a minute, who said anything about urodynamic studies...?? Isn't it one of those age old hospital routines that ALL patients with bladder prolapse are referred for these types of studies? No. Absolutely not. 
The prolapse will no doubt get worse, gravity will take care of it. 
I admit that it is not certain that the prolapse is a complication of the surgery, but it may well be. I signed the consent form and have to deal with the consequences.

Life.
 

Wrong size- good buy (bye) shoes

A quick visit to world famous store last week. result: shopping bag full of nice blouses and a pair of shoes, which I could not wait to wear. I thought I'd save them for the following morning and left them in the bag. After all, I had tried them on in the store and they fit perfectly. Only I had tried on another pair, which looked like it had already been in hundreds of other customers' feet, so I chose another pair on the same shelf. Checked the size- or so I thought.

Not quite the same size, obviously. There was a nice added touch too:

Early in the morning, when I was packing and about to go to airport, I first noticed the security tag and then the mismatched sizes. Crap! I was sooooooo p.....d off that I left the shoes wherever I was staying and thought well, fine, good bye £35. Would I even have worn those shoes after all...? It's not the first time, but honestly, one would expect the cashier or the salespeople to look after their products and place them on the correct shelf. Some stores also love to use size "12 hangers" for size 20 clothes. Or the other way round. 
Well, I contacted the customer service of the store and am hoping they might reply (...and say what...? Apologize lol?).  My loss was £35, and the store probably can't sell the other mismatched pair either. Next time I'll check what I am actually buying or even better, not go shopping at all. Some staff are more diligent in checking and this definitely does not happen in every store in every part of the world, but in some it unfortunately does. The cashier guy was serving two other customers before me in this particular store, chewing gum, sporting a gold chain around his neck, appeared totally fed up with his job and piled the products into shopping bags. I guess he had no time/motivation to check anything else except for scan the stuff and get the customer's money and send the customer on their way.

I said I will check my purchases next time, but will I really do it or trust the "professionals"? Ha.