A week of freedom!

It's always nice to finish work and turn off the computer.  It's something that I only do a couple of times a year as I need access to my desktop from home in case things go wrong.  But, when I am leaving for the week I prefer not to have the temptation of being able to access the office from home so I turn everything off.

It's been a very busy week making sure that there has been enough of a handover for my projects, and to try and ensure that things will go smoothly over the next week.

And I did something really daft :) There is a project that is supposed to go live in a couple of weeks.  However, it would be nice for the business if it was live earlier than that.  So...  I offered to do what I could to get it live early so that the business unit who wanted the project could benefit.

So my team has been working extremely hard, and I have been extremely stressed (and working too many hours when I should have been cleaning up the spare room for my parents!).  And...  We managed it - with a little luck it will be live a week early and just at the time when they need it.  I hope they appreciate the effort that went into getting it there a week early!

After I left the office I had a few appointments before shopping for the weekend.

First was with my optometrist, it's been 3 years since I last had my eyes checked (something I only realised when I had my sunglasses adjusted and asked them how long ago it was).  So they checked for glaucoma (no problems there) and did an automated check of my eyes.  +0.25 in one eye and 0.00 in the other.

I then had a chat with the guy doing the real exam about how I wear my glasses (when tired, stressed or with a headache) and he check the eyes closer.

And told me to leave the glasses alone in future as whatever there was with my eyes 10 years ago when I got my perscription is not there now.  And wearing them could actually cause me more problems by making my eyes lazy.  So now I have to try for a few months and see how it goes.  If I am getting regular headaches then I have to go back and have them double checked (no doubt with the droplets that relax the eye), otherwise I am fine for another 2 years.

Then I had my last session of laser for the summer.  When I started at the beginning of the year I brought a course of 6 sessions (I meant I had one session free) and this was the last one.  They have suggested that a break over the sunniest months is a good idea, and to be honest with what is left I am thinking of switching to electrolysis (which reading comments along the lines of 'I thought laser hurt until I started electolosys' recently on a few blogs isn't filling me with joy.  The results, sure, the idea of something that hurts more than the laser did today...  Not so much.

And, wow!, did it hurt today.  I had lots of one 2 ones, that were out in the open and I think I may have spent too much time in the sun.  And I forgot the paracetamol that I took to reduce the pain last time last time...  I had tears in my eyes before she started on the upper lip.

But looking in the mirror it's worth it!

Right, time to prepare for a long weekend...  Cleaning, introducing Stacy to my sister in law tomorrow evening and then fetching my parents from the air port.

I'll apologise in advance for my lack of on-line presence next week.  I don't know how often I'll have time to read...

Stace

A little bit of pain...

Well it seems I owe my nephew an applogy...  Yesterday at work I called my dentist to make an emergency appointment for Monday afternoon.  I picked Monday as it wasn't that bad that I needed immediate attention, but at the same point it needed looking at.

Throughtout the day it was getting worse, and I was really starting to lose concentration and getting exhausted from the constant pain when I moved my head, swallowed or just the constant dull, throbbing pain that had moved to a tooth where I had a filling last year.

At about two I had had enough, I popped some paracetamol and called the dentist a second time to get an appointment as soon as possible.  Unfortunately my dentist does not work on a Friday afternoon, but had a colleague that had some time if I could get there quickly.  I made the appointment, let my boss know that I was leaving and ran to try and make the next intercity train back home (running with a throbbing tooth is really no fun thing!)

I managed to just make the train, and called Mrs Stace (who was thankfully working from home yesterday).  I had an issue in getting to the dentist quickly.  I work 30 miles from home as the crow flies and as Mrs Stace was at home she had the car so that she could do the weekly shop instead of me.  This meant I had to use public transport to get home.  Now, the Dutch public transport system is fantastic - but even so it means that you are reliant on their timetable - and it adds a lot of time to your journey.  So...  I called Mrs Stace and asked her to pick me up from Schiphol Airport (the last stop of the Intercity) and take me to the dentist (a further 20 miles from home) in order to get there in the time agreed with the dentist.

She picked me up and we made it in plenty of time.  Actually we made in in enough time to read through 'The Gruffalo' in the waiting room.  We brought this for our neice and nephew on our last trip to the UK and wanted to know how it was translated to Dutch (we read the English version to our neice and nephew - they are not going to have a language problem when it comes to their English lessons at school I think...  My neice is only 5 and can already count to 10 in English - actually she has been doing it for a year or more, and is constantly asking for translations from Dutch to English from Mrs Stace and myself)

In the dentist chair I started to panic (I am not a good patient! I am terrified), and had to work hard to calm down.  She prodded and poked and found the problem.  Seems I had chipped some of the filling somehow and the nerve was exposed, and very sensitive. A quick x-ray later and she had the confirmation that the filling needed to be removed and replaced.  She offered a temporary solution of using a liquid to close off the nerve for the coming months - but as it would just be delaying the inivetable I decided to have it replaced whilst I was there and already in a panic.

I won't go into detail of the procedure, but she was fantastic at her job.  She did everything she could to keep me calm and talked me though the entire procedure and checked with me every step of the way to make sure that I was not going into too much of a panic.  Stopping and helping me relax at the most painful points.

Last night I was exhausted from the day - why is it a simple tooth ache can take it out of you so much?  We went to bed early (for a Friday) and I was asleep almost as soon we as turned the lights out.

On a different note...  I do appriciate that the issues of my day are insignificant compared to what has happened in Japan in the last 24 hours or so.  The images shown were too horrifying for words - the sheer power of nature is...  Well it's indescribable.  My heart goes out to those affected.

Stace

I can't beleive that he got lost!

On the Thursdays when I am not in therapy I run with a group of people from the office, some are training for the Hilversum 5km run (I'm one of those) and others just want to get fit.  We split ourselves into two groups: One 10km group, and one 5km group, go our seperate ways and see each other during the acros the Gooische Hai (can someone who know's Dutch better than me correct that spelling please :p)

Today started badly - I was accosted by a colleague just when running upstairs to get changed so I had to rush in getting ready - almost forgetting my heart band in the process!

We started our run and were busy with the warm up when someone fell and knocked her head on the ground. She was OK afterwards, but decided to head back to the office rather than carry on running.  That left four of us.  We completed the warm up, did our stretches and then started running - through the neighbourhood where the office is located and then onto the open country side.

In spite of the cold (and boy was it cold in the wind!) is was a nice day for a run, once we got up to speed we stayed warm enough.  The wild life seems to have returned to the parkland, thankfully not Melissa's wild life but deer and highland cows - though the cows are not my favortite creatures when you have to run within a few inches of them either!

4 mins, followed by 1 min rest and then we started on the longest run of the day - a 15 min semi competition pace run.  All went well - we passed the 10km group as they were coming the other way and made quite some distance.  Too much apparently...

My colleague who was doing the organising managed to take a few wrong turns.  So instead of 4 + 15 + 8 minute runs taking us +- 5 KM's we added another 8 minutes trying to get back and another 3km's.

I'm not really complaining, I just thought it was funny (until we came across the cows a second time!) and at least I have earnt my cider and wine tonight :)

On a less fun note I have a real problem with my jaw today, it is really painful!  I don't know if I have a filling that is going bad (I am going to call the dentist in the morning and try and get an appointment for Monday) or if my nephew managed to cause me some mischeif yesterday when he was playing / struggling to stay in the bath.

He has taken to trying to tickle people constantly, but has yet to learn the difference between pinching and tickling once he gets excited.  And yesterday he grapped the flesh under my chin quite hard, and I am wondering if that has caused a bruise.  Alternatively...  I was giving him a bath last night and he really, really did not want to get out and jammed himself in and gripped the sides making it hard to lift him out.  I had to twist into the shower (where his baby bath is put) and try to free him and am wondering if I stretched something wrong trying to do it.  BTW contrary to what Mrs Stace thinks, I am not try ing to blame him for the pain I am in right now... More trying to convince myself that the pain is that rather than something with my teeth :)

The reason why I am wondering though is my tooth aches a little, but the pain comes when I hold my head in strange positions.  I can touch the tooth, eat normally and tap my jaw with no problem.  But when swallowing, or moving my head or touching the fleshy bit under my jaw it hurts.  I'm going to get the tooth checked anyway - rather get it checked for no reason than not check it and it turns out that is the problem and it goes even worse...

Three sessions and four days...

Friday afternoon, when I had finished work for the week I had my next laser session.  That makes three now, and marks the halfway point of the initial course that I paid for.  As such I thought that I would do a quick update as to how it is going so far.

The results really are so much better than what I had been expecting from before I started.  Down the left hand side of my face there is almost nothing left - smooth skin has returned for the first time in 10 years.  Down the right there is a little more, but nothing too bad.

The only real problems area's that remain are my lip and chin - which whilst much better than before are still quite covered in hair, which I know are the most dificult bits to clear.  Here I also have an issue where clumps of hairs are left - meaning of course that they stand out a little more than I would like against the surrounding smooth (pale) skin.

With the obvious improvement in facial hair I expected it to be a slightly less painfull experience than before.  Hahahahaha.  Stupid Stace...  Of course not!  The woman wielding the pain started with my upper lip this time and, oh my god, yup...  It still hurt like hell and tears were rolling down my cheeks almost instantly. My neck and chin were painful too, but nowhere near as bad as my lip.  It's really at the points of the clumps - you feel the heat and then the buzz of the EF afterwards and my whle body jerks with the pain.  It doesn't seem to matter what I do to avoid it - my yoga breathing just goes to pot as soon as the pain hits.  My cheeks are at least at the point where they do not hurt anymore - not really surprising I suppose as there is almost no hair there of course.

I was going to say that at least the recovery time is getting better as I could wet shave the next day...  But...  No, I'm afraid not.  The after pain had just not come out - I am now at the pain point again, with the difficulty of shaving that goes with it! Why oh why are fried hairs so difficult (and painful) to shave off? :)

Oh, but it is so worth it in the end...  The woman commented about how well it was going  - saying it's far better than they would have expected - let's hope that means that I don't need to order another 6 sessions in July!

That stings a little...

Auw, Pijn!

Today was the first day that I did something that was not undoable.  Ctrl-Z is not available, for the geeks out there.

I went for my first laser appointment.  I booked it for Friday afternoon to give my face the weekend to recover; I can do without people I work with asking me what on earth I have done to my face.

How was it?  You know that is a tough one to answer.  There were places where I hardly felt a thing – where there was not much hair anyway (I’m lucky in that I don’t have that much coverage!).  On my chin and lower lip it was excruciating!  On my upper lip less so – but that is the area that brought tears to my eyes for some reason.  But if I think back I could not actually describe it.  Maybe that’s a good thing :)  I do know that I’ll try to remember that the next time I am on the chair with the mouth hygienist – as bad as that is, it’s not a patch on this…

I have another appointment in 4 weeks.  I think that I’ll try some painkiller pills next time, if I can avoid the hassle of the cream I will.  I’m just glad they didn’t start on a higher setting.

To throw a cliché in there: and people think this is a lifestyle choice…

Guilt squared

Well after the joy and fun of the last few days I came down to earth with a bit of a bump yesterday.

I actually had a great day, but a couple of incidents left me feeling quite guilty.

The second (less important to me, but it still got to me) was yesterday evening. I arrange to meet someone I used to work with to watch the Six Nations match between England and Scotland. We met at the station and got chatting about how she was doing, after being unemployed for a number of months she has finaly got a job and she was radiant with it. She asked about how things were going for me, she knows about the recent re-organisation which has left me with a team dedicated to mainly small maintenance - which is not the most exciting of work. She asked if I was OK with that and I just said yes I could do with the simple life for now. She then asked if everything was OK at home and I just said yes fine. I hate lying, but there is no way I would come out to her, and I can't say how things are at home without mentioning it. It just felt wrong and got to me a little on the way home.

The first was yesterday afternoon. Mrs Stace was getting ready, putting her contacts in in front of the mirror. I stood behind her giving her a hug and kissing her neck. She smiled and then suddenly got a strange look on her face. I asked too much too soon? She said no, but looking at my reflection in the mirror I just looked so much like a boyish woman.

She was not being nasty, she wasn't angry. But she looked hurt and confused. I felt awful for her. But... The guilt comes from me taking it as a compliment. I felt terrible for her, but to me it was such a nice thing to hear. I feel like such a git for taking it that way - but I can't see it in any other light no matter how hard I try.

4 days, 5 hours sleep! Or: A Temp Remedy for the GD

Or at least that is what it is starting feel like at the moment. I must have woken up in excuciating pain every 20 mins last night. It got that bad I moved to the spare room so that Mrs Stace could get some sleep as she had to get up for work.

Paracetammol isn't touching it anymore. The doctor has given me a different type of painkiller to gargle with alongside the paracetamol (how do you spell that?) to see if it helps. She doesn't want to do penecilin yet (fine with me if I can avoid it). So far today it's *better* but not good...

And having the pain for the last 4 days has definately blunted the GD in the short term. I am too focused on my tonsils. Not something I would reccomend though :)

Oddest thing... My doctor was ill so I had a replacement. Another person that now knows who I am. It was strange reading the last conversation (*that* conversation) I had with my doctor on the computer screen.

Update: I've just noticed that this is my 41st posting. I never thought I'd make it this far when I started.

Ouch!

Well what do you know... More than a week without a post and then two in one day...

I just wanted to post this for two reasons...

One to say how do you mix crossdressing and DIY? (Not at the same time I have to add) I've just removed most of my knuckles removing tiles from the bathroom wall and left my hand that rough that I'm worried if I put anything other than 60 deniers tights on I'd rip them to shreds in seconds if I tried to put them on now :)

The second... Slightly more thought inducing. I have a colleage who I get on with very well. Most of the time. But over the last week I've taken to eating salads for lunch. Partly because I was bored with sandwiches, and partly because I want to loose weight! This guy now spends a few mins each lunch telling me to get some testosterone instead of eating this womens food. What can I say 'little does he know.' But, I have to say it also winds me up to some extent - but there is nothing I can say about it. I certainly couldn't tell say that to him :)

Anyway... That's all for now... Not trying to be negative here - still shining brightly for now.