Well that didn't work....

The weekend experiment of using foam and opsite for my dressing didn't work. The nurse thinks it got a bit 'cooked' because there was a green tinge to the exudate on the foam and on the material they use to pack my wound. Green means infection, and in this case, green is definitely NOT good for me. Sigh. And since there was a lot of exudate this time, I'll be seen by a nurse again tomorrow (normally it's every other day) just to check it and make sure it's not still green. If it is, I'll have to go see my GP. The thing is, I'm already on antibiotics (been on them for a month now), and finish them up this week. I'll probably be seeing the GP anyway this week for other issues. On the brighter side, it'll be a full month since I last had to see him. Better than once a week like it had been. And, my heat experiment also didn't go well, because the opsite doesn't allow the area to breath, by adding heat to it over the weekend, I just made it so the environment was warm and dark, which is all that's needed to give it a dark, warm, un-breathing environment to cook an infection in. Great. I'm currently back to having alion as my dressing, temporarily, at least.

My eyelashes have disappeared. I've noticed that one eye has really puffy eyelids, but was really surprised to see that my eyelashes have just vanished. When I see the GP I'll mention it as it's pretty odd.

I have a new favourite green tea blend. I still drink green tea to help keep by blood glucose levels lower, and really I'd hate to see what the levels would be without it lately as that cortisone shot I had a few weeks ago is really showing up in my test results lately. A few weeks ago I bought myself a one litre tea pot, and have worked out I can have 6 or 7 green tea bags (or various flavours) and one regular tea tossed in for the caffeine. Last week a couple of green tea samples arrived from Lipton - they have two new flavours - apple and peach. Both are quite nice, but I'm more partial to the apple. It really have a nice taste. I've never been keen on peach, and that still holds, but if it's mixed with vanilla and chai green teas, it's pretty good. A bit like a liquid guilt free peach cobbler. My favourite blend of late is:

1 Regular black tea bag
2 plain green tea bags
1 New Deli brand Chai green tea (it's very strongly cinnamony tasting)
3 vanilla flavoured green tea
1 apple flavoured green tea

I let the mix brew and then to make a cup of tea, I pour half a cup of just boiled water in my cup with two equals, and then fill the cup the rest of the way with the brewed tea. It is VERY YUMMY. It's like an apple pie.

On the computer side of things, since Rod told me all about it and showed me how cool it is, I installed a VMware server and added a Windows virtual machine so now I can have access to all the programs I've had to use my laptop for, such as my glucose meter, the Turbo Lister software for eBay sales, and of course Publisher for clients that send me files in this format. The neat thing is my linux box has far more memory and a faster cpu than my laptop so all these things run much smoother/faster, and I don't have to change position or keyboards to access my Windows computer.

If my eldest son is reading this.... vmware would certainly be the way to go if you want Mrs Eldest Son to use your computer and she wants to use Windows. It's much nicer than wine in that everything just works.

Well, I've been falling asleep typing this, so I better get it uploaded so I can get to bed. Tomorrow's another early day.