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What was your fasting blood glucose? (full on chat)

RFSMarch said:
Bloods came back at 48 so .... talking to the more sympathetic GP next week when he gets back off leave.
No details on Cholesterol (looks like it was not even tested for - Liver Function, Renal Profile & Full blood count all normal.

Updated sig.
Click to expand...
Good result.
 
SilverK said:
Just had my latest blood test results. They still don’t know why I’m tired and hurting all the time but my Hba1c was 118 at the end of September and now it’s 68 Yes, I know it’s still too high but I’m really pleased with that. My cholesterol has dropped from 6.5 to 3.5 too.
Sorry, just felt the need to shout about it.
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Going in the right direction, well done.

Hug for tired and pain.
 
geefull said:
good evening all :)

4.3 this morning

a wet and windy day here in the far North ;)
Spend yesterday evening doing the Christmas cards (instead of finishing my painting :sorry:), at least those that needed posting are now gone :angelic:

Hope your day is treating you well

@RFSMarch and @SilverK very well done for your blood results :joyful:

@SlimLizzy - good news that they've caught it early :)

@Krystyna23040 - good progress for Archie :)

@lindisfel - a lovely set of pictures :)
and now you've mentioned sweet Fanlight Adams I have an earworm, George Formby singing 'Fanlight *****' :hilarious:

@Muddy Cyclist - snazzy! ;) especially like the tricorn :D
there is a serpent in the Abbey at Selby (I was baptised there ;))

@gennepher - stunning picture of the viaduct, the strong light and the foliage have worked particularly well :)

@dunelm - another fine picture, adding someone contemplating the vista has given the river gorge great scale, I like the buildings peeping through in the background too :)

art bit -

based on a photo I saw on the net :)
View attachment 46192
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I do like you seascape and sky, reminds me of visits to the west coast of Scotland with its white sand beaches and distant islands.
 
ianpspurs said:
Sorry guys but I found this so funny that I couldn't resist sharing. She has a wicked turn of phrase which tickles me. Happy to delete and enjoy it all to myself.
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I like the one about him telling the truth being like a cat bringing up a six kilo fur ball.
I bet she enjoyed putting that article together.
I wouldn't like to be any man in her life who gets the wrong side of her! :)
 
ianpspurs said:
Sorry guys but I found this so funny that I couldn't resist sharing. She has a wicked turn of phrase which tickles me. Happy to delete and enjoy it all to myself.
Click to expand...

GLORIOUS.

"There are seats of button-backed mahogany in that room that have given deeper thoughts to the implications of no deal than Priti Pate"
 
RFSMarch said:
Long post - TL/DR? Sorry for being snappy - still feeling bereft and lost but continuing with futile acts because ... I need to do something I suppose, even though it feels like there is very little point. Thank god for being OCD and needing to finish tasks. But I take no joy in anything at the moment.

Long post starts here - feel free to completely ignore.
Firstly I need to apologise for being so snappy in light of a major setback with regards to future freelance work. After having chased that role for 18 months and worked so hard to put the demo together, it was such a slap in the face, but more so it was the last lead I had opened to me. So to all of you and particularly @gennepher and @lindisfel .. I am sorry.

Some context. I worked for 20 years in IBM and finished my time as a respected IT architect by projects and clients but was bullied out of my role and ultimately out of the company by a manager who wanted me to drop down to an IT Specialist role, relocate away from London, and even wanted me to lose my company car and hard earned band-rating and drop me down to a less well paid band below. I was off work with stress for the first time in 20 years at the end, and looking back now, I was clinically depressed at the time.

I took voluntary redundancy much to his rage and I managed to get a job in another outsourcing company but was re-training to be a journalist using the redundancy money and the increased salary to fund it.

I am not going to lie to you - it has been a grind. Over 40 in a young industry is no easy job. I was being rejected right and left for journalism roles so I threw all my efforts into a sports website I created with my best mate from journalism school. I had a role with a tennis live streaming site but the guy there was a bit of a tyrant and I also had a role as an IT Analyst for an IT site and the editor there hated the fact I also did a bit of sport on the side. He bad-mouthed me around the industry and it slammed my confidence a lot.

Ultimately I struck out on my own, and used my own savings to fund the site, and travelling to tournaments in our own right to build up the brand and the site's reputation finally cracking the ultimate in accreditation - getting Britwatch accepted into Wimbledon. I used my own funds and inheritance from both my parents now gone to fund this, but this is not a bottomless pit and now I am just about out of all those funds.

Traditional press HATE website press. And I mean HATE. They feel we have no right at all to be at tournaments and the amount of ... rubbish... I have had to put up with to be at tournaments is phenomenal - and not in a good way.

I freelanced for a while at ESPN and when I landed the freelance role at Sky Sports News I was delighted. However the person I was assigned to decided after 3 days she did not want to train me. So I managed to persuade the managing editor in another part of the business to let me train with his group and had just finished my training and was going to be recommended to his sub-editors for shifts Mon-Wed when COVID hit.

Since then apart from covering a few tournaments for the LTA and doing a couple of articles for British Rowing during Black History Month, I have had nothing else on the work horizon.

I know and respect that people think things will improve and the sun will come out some other day - but that doesn't help when money is tight NOW. Knowing things will improve in March means nothing when I have to determine what I can afford to buy to eat now.

I spent an hour literally crying on the phone to my best friend who's been a constant source of support (in fact to each other as she was made redundant in Feb and qualified for nothing during lockdown) and have spent the last two days doing not much because I haven't slept the last two nights fretting about how to survive this.

I still have no real idea of what to do next, but I can't let the financial situation get away from me like I did through the summer, so today I am going to have to do company admin, personal finances, do a shopping list and really make veggies and tins last for 3 weeks to minimise how much I am spending in a month.

I am sorry if I have offended any of you fine people on here. I will lurk and at some stage when I can actually be bothered, I will chase the surgery for my blood test results and update that sig, and will eventually re-engage here, but for now, I am lost and I have no clue what even to try.

I will eventually update my portfolio and sort through my radio clips, but for now my confidence and my self-belief is gone. Everything feels utterly futile. I have failed in two careers and the simple economic fact is I lack the funds to consider a third.

I am not posting this for people to 'fix' my issues. Right now, like many others, I am more consumed with how will I continue to put food on the table and how will I be able to afford to keep my nice roof over my head. With the greatest of respect to you all, people responding with the security of a job or pension are extremely lucky right now. I am one of many many self-employed directors who are older and greyer than the young emerging workforce that everyone is more focussed on helping. And that adds to the anxiety.

Thanks for reading and sorry again if I offended anyone.
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Hugs for the pain & distress.

Good post
Respect

Not easy to lay it out, but as said elsewhere, might help to vent like that

Your smart enough to know most of us won't have the answers, but still want to reach out

so while we aren't of much use, we just want to let one of us who is hurting....know.

Your not alone,

there are people here, happy to listen, nod when needed, and cheer for every point earned.

Can we fix it, sadly no.
But we are team @RFSMarch
.
You're one of ours now, so we do what we can.

we'll commiserate from the sidelines and hope you come back from a defeat with a stronger ground game & a wicked backhand to life and all it's convoluted twists & turns.

So don't go, but if you do, ...don't be away for too long.

There's always a space here for those that return.
 
geefull said:
@gennepher - stunning picture of the viaduct, the strong light and the foliage have worked particularly well :)

art bit -

based on a photo I saw on the net :)
View attachment 46192
Click to expand...

Thank you @geefull

A great painting. The sea and land - you have used a slightly different technique, and I like it. Your skies are always developing, and depicting the different rainstorms...
Your paintings allow me to 'travel' within the painting...
 
Seems unlikely that last post here was 1 hr 34 mins ago when I'm looking at 7.37 am. Any old how, Swipey claims my fbg to be 4.3, Even if true I don't actually know what it means or what to do with that data. No doubt some kindly person will explain it all to me with reference to J Fung Esq, eating raw liver, cabbage casserole or other twaddle I don't need in my little bubble. I'm always a cheery soul until the third litre of tea. Toodles guys and gals.
 
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Hope you all have the bestest Saturday possible.

Emerging news that the roll out of the vaccine is not as organised as claimed, but I hope not as organised as a fox in a hen house! :)..I am not holding my breath!

What's more important than the virus is the sillyness of the claims about co2! Recent ones I have come across. 1. That co2 went down this year! It didn't go down it went up slightly less than usual, but it is still cumulative and this carbon will take 100's years to remove, unless science can down pump it.....a massive task.
And it may well have started positive feedback already, releasing 10,000 of years of trapped co2 and methane.
2.To the religio/political fanatics who say its presumptuous of men to think man can damage the planets climate....get re-educated, its your grandchildren who face disaster.
These thoughts put my little problems in perspective.
D.
 
Good Morening Ladies and Gentlemen and all who juggle medications on their journey through life.

A 7.3 this morning on that scheming meter of misbehaving and naughtiness.

Well fellow posters, painters and gamers, I miscalculated my insulin / exersize balance regime yesterday and ended up having a hypo with a reading of 2.9, shakes, sweats, slight disorientation, a mile or so from where Mrs J could collect me. That little episode curtailed my plans and Mrs J's plans for my afternoon. All part of life's rich pattern or so the saying says.

It seems that the schools around the Reading area are having covid problems and quite a few year groups are isolating, staff and pupils. Hmmmm I might just put myself back into lockdown.

Enough of the grim stuff. Christmas lights, some wonderful displays around here, a joy to see.
Hand and footnote, must buy shares in power companies. Now koffy calls.
 
alf_Josiah said:
Good Morening Ladies and Gentlemen and all who juggle medications on their journey through life.

A 7.3 this morning on that scheming meter of misbehaving and naughtiness.

Well fellow posters, painters and gamers, I miscalculated my insulin / exersize balance regime yesterday and ended up having a hypo with a reading of 2.9, shakes, sweats, slight disorientation, a mile or so from where Mrs J could collect me. That little episode curtailed my plans and Mrs J's plans for my afternoon. All part of life's rich pattern or so the saying says.

It seems that the schools around the Reading area are having covid problems and quite a few year groups are isolating, staff and pupils. Hmmmm I might just put myself back into lockdown.

Enough of the grim stuff. Christmas lights, some wonderful displays around here, a joy to see.
Hand and footnote, must buy shares in power companies. Now koffy calls.
Click to expand...
Take care today young Alfred. Back into lockdown, workshop, domestic bliss and keeping in touch with us sounds like an excellent plan.
 
jjraak said:
Hugs for the pain & distress.

Good post
Respect

Not easy to lay it out, but as said elsewhere, might help to vent like that

Your smart enough to know most of us won't have the answers, but still want to reach out

so while we aren't of much use, we just want to let one of us who is hurting....know.

Your not alone,

there are people here, happy to listen, nod when needed, and cheer for every point earned.

Can we fix it, sadly no.
But we are team @RFSMarch
.
You're one of ours now, so we do what we can.

we'll commiserate from the sidelines and hope you come back from a defeat with a stronger ground game & a wicked backhand to life and all it's convoluted twists & turns.

So don't go, but if you do, ...don't be away for too long.

There's always a space here for those that return.
Click to expand...

I understand that people want to 'fix'. But if I had a pound for every well-meaning person who has told me "oh but you WOULD have been fine if COVID hadn't hit' or "things will get better next year" - then I really would not be worrying about making ends meet now, would I?

The best response I had was from a mate I was supposed to talk to, who sympathised I have had more than my fair share of cr-ap to deal with on this second career... but also acknowledged that does not pay the bills or put food on the table.

You can only apply for work when you are in a decent mind set to do so. I know. When I was being bullied out of IBM I made myself go out on interviews when quite clearly I was struggling with clinical depression and of course never got anywhere but could only look back and see that several years on with the benefit of hindsight.

At the time I just put it all down to stress and brushed it under the carpet. I only realised it was depression when I was listening to a journo-friend's account of her depression years before we came together on the course. I realised everything she was describing was me back then...

All in all this week is right up there with the sudden death of both my parents (not at the same time) and my best friend described it as a kind of grieving as that last thread of hope got stripped away.

I have the money I got for some writing in the summer that I can 'ration' and maybe I can set myself a goal from next Monday to at least get Britwatch up to date before the tennis season starts and sort out my journalism portfolio/radio showreel by the end of the year. But... I need to be in the frame of mind to do it, and right now, all I seem capable of doing is playing games or watching TV.

See how I feel next week I suppose.
 
Fbg 6.2

Been doing this painting in ZenBrush3 since my last post. which appears to have been about 2 hours 26 minutes ago. Inspiration from Zhang Daqian.
But iPad overheats when I used ZenBrush3...badly. And so I had to have it on a chill mat to continue.
Also ZenBrush3 app is the biggest battery drainer I have ever come across. It was 100% when I started 2 hours 26 minutes ago. Then less half hour later (using ZenBrush3), it was down to 50%. This is usual with ZenBrush3.
So I had to recharge iPad, and had a nap until it was 100% again. Then started again.
iPad is now down to 48%. And so it is impossible to do a painting in one sitting in ZenBrush3
Annoying.

In Procreate it may use 30% of battery to complete a painting.

I am sure time has stretched because I feel like I have spent hours on this ZenBrush3 painting, and I had a longish nap while battery was recharging, which cat was pleased with as he relaxed on my chest...

Now onwards with the day...
Take care.
Stretch time if you need some more of it...it appears quite amenable for a bit of stretching...

DF4B3B41-3DFC-40EA-8E2E-3846D8A1D6BB.jpeg
 
5.6 this morning and my resting heart rate is finally below 100. Yesterday's average was 103 so hoping for better today.

Enjoy the weekend as best you can :)
 
alf_Josiah said:
Good Morening Ladies and Gentlemen and all who juggle medications on their journey through life.

A 7.3 this morning on that scheming meter of misbehaving and naughtiness.

Well fellow posters, painters and gamers, I miscalculated my insulin / exersize balance regime yesterday and ended up having a hypo with a reading of 2.9, shakes, sweats, slight disorientation, a mile or so from where Mrs J could collect me. That little episode curtailed my plans and Mrs J's plans for my afternoon. All part of life's rich pattern or so the saying says.

It seems that the schools around the Reading area are having covid problems and quite a few year groups are isolating, staff and pupils. Hmmmm I might just put myself back into lockdown.

Enough of the grim stuff. Christmas lights, some wonderful displays around here, a joy to see.
Hand and footnote, must buy shares in power companies. Now koffy calls.
Click to expand...
I would like to offer both hugs and winner. But only one emoji allowed @alf_Josiah
I will go for winner!
And here is your hug...
t4614.gif
 
gennepher said:
Fbg 6.2

Been doing this painting in ZenBrush3 since my last post. which appears to have been about 2 hours 26 minutes ago. Inspiration from Zhang Daqian.
But iPad overheats when I used ZenBrush3...badly. And so I had to have it on a chill mat to continue.
Also ZenBrush3 app is the biggest battery drainer I have ever come across. It was 100% when I started 2 hours 26 minutes ago. Then less half hour later (using ZenBrush3), it was down to 50%. This is usual with ZenBrush3.
So I had to recharge iPad, and had a nap until it was 100% again. Then started again.
iPad is now down to 48%. And so it is impossible to do a painting in one sitting in ZenBrush3
Annoying.

In Procreate it may use 30% of battery to complete a painting.

I am sure time has stretched because I feel like I have spent hours on this ZenBrush3 painting, and I had a longish nap while battery was recharging, which cat was pleased with as he relaxed on my chest...

Now onwards with the day...
Take care.
Stretch time if you need some more of it...it appears quite amenable for a bit of stretching...

View attachment 46196
Click to expand...
A really good colourful landscape, well worth all the overheating. I do like these Zenbrush pieces.
 
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