Huan Driving? Worrying Test Results, I’m Still Alive & Still a Woman!

August 11^th Why do we always choose to stay in the same hotel? There are three reasons, first, it is very near the hospital, just across the road in fact. Second, the mattresses are some of the most comfortable we have slept on in Chinese hotels. Third, more for me than Huan, is the communal balcony on the fifth floor, the floor we always stay on.

Our plan today was to visit Baishanmen Park in the morning before collecting our results in the afternoon. We added some more photos to the Baishanmen album, you can find that here - https://photos.app.goo.gl/er7R8gM8WTTxcm9HA A good time was had by both, we even made a video in our little electric car. That has been uploaded to Youtube, you can see it here - https://youtu.be/ogr_JywWxfg And we’ll give you two photos to boot!

Out at sea I could see some memories, not that I ever went offshore in China mind you. I have been offshore in the UK, in Europe and in the UAE, loved it!

Before going back to the hotel we had to stop for lunch. Huan was quite peckish, I had drunk a few cold drinks, (NOT alcohol, driving in the afternoon), so wasn’t so hungry. Whose lunch would you rather have, Huan’s or mine?

After a short nap in the hotel, and uploading files to the laptop, it was time to visit ‘The Grocery’. We found everything on the list except gravy stuff, which I’ve seen there before but was absent today. They have a small café in the store so I treated myself to an espresso, the first for a long time. Like all good cafés should, they also provide a nice glass of cold water with the coffee.

From there it was off to the hospital again where we picked up the blood test results just after three o’clock. The machine, (very clever here you know), printed out six sheets for me, some with one or two results, others completely covered. So far I can’t make head nor tail of them but some of them do look a little worrying. No doubt Dr Tim will advise me once he sees them on his computer.

All that was left to do was to drive home which was a darn site easier than normal, having had a night’s sleep in Haikou. I wasn’t struggling to keep my eyes open. Our drive home was incident free again, we think, apart from the dashcam yet again failing when we stopped for dinner. We took photos of dinner but all with Huan’s phone, none were worth keeping for ourselves never mind sharing them with you!

Once home I carefully avoided Dr Google and didn’t read any of my results. However bad they are, a day or two isn’t going to hurt me I’m sure. (Famous last words?) Besides, I had a lot of uploading stuff to the computer to do. Went to bed leaving the dashcam work in progress, best to do it when the computer is not busy, it’s very memory hungry.

August 12^th Another admin day for us today, shopping of course as we didn’t go yesterday, photos and blog for me as well as continuing with dashcam work.

We still had some bratwurst in the fridge so that was dinner today, with onions, Huan loves onions. She can actually eat them the way I eat apples, not only that, she can eat raw garlic the same way. The one in the second picture is mine, I gave Huan twice as many onions!

After dinner I managed to upload last week’s blog and make a start on this week’s. Chinese and guitar also needed some attention, I didn’t do either yesterday or the day before. Bad boy!

August 13th We went to bed with rain and woke up with it too. However, that’s a good thing, the reservoir may fill up a bit more and I had more admin to do anyway. All the results from Haikou needed scanning, filing and of course checking with Dr Google. The scans will not be included here but I will give you a summary. 1) X-Ray of my right lower shin and ankle, which has a dull ache inside somewhere, fine. 2) Three monthly PSA tests, all ok. 3) TST test, fine, I am still a woman! 4) Full blood count, no worries. 5) Multifarious blood tests, mostly OK, Glucose little high, I can control that, Cholestorol, the same. A few other tests are worrying to say the least. 6) Thyroid, OK I think. 7) Something called ESR, also worrying. For the ‘worrying’ results, I will wait and see what Dr Tim has to say before going into worry overdrive!

Rain stopped any play for the rest of the day. I found two more songs to add to my “I can’t play very well” list, both of them 500 miles, one by Peter, Paul and Mary, and the other by The Proclaimers. Huan did more singing and keyboard practice. She watched Chinese movies and I watched Adam Dalgliesh, aren’t we the busy ones.

August 14^th Rain stopped play yet again, both of us stuck indoors, good job we get on with each other isn’t it! I spent most of the day trying to download more piano tutorials and lessons for Mrs Beethoven, with limited success. The ‘Great Wall’ was up and down like a yoyo and each ten minute job took half an hour or more!

Message received from Dr Tim, you’ll be pleased to know that there is nothing seriously wrong with me! Just as well he let me know as I had already checked with Dr Google this morning and thought I had at least one, if not all three varieties of blood cancer and who knows what else! I need to take a little more care of my diet and keep up my walking. Maybe we’ll have to use some other milk for our cereals and no doubt Huan will try and modify my diet and have me drinking all kinds of strange Chinese tea concoctions, “they’re good for you” you know. He also suggested more tests in three months so in the meantime I intend to keep the changes to a minimum, apart from sugar and fat.

August 15^th Rain didn’t stop play today so it was off to singing school for Huan. I really didn’t want to go anywhere; I felt terrible and had a stinking headache and swollen lymph nodes under my chin. In fact I would have been happy to go back to bed. However, my left foot had been enormous before I went to bed last night; two days of no working had done me no favours, so I forced myself out today. Lottery tickets had to be bought for the weekend anyway! I’m glad I did force myself, before long the smiling faces and greetings of people made me feel much better and it didn’t take long for my foot to return to a more normal size. My walk was limited to town though, the rain clouds were hovering. This is the ‘bottom’ shopping street as we call it, and then a view up to the ‘top’ one.

On my way through town, via the main street, I took some photos of a couple of the motorbike shops; we have many, for use later! My plan was to meet Huan from school although she didn’t know that but being a little early I took a detour. Here is a different view of the “Stairway to Heaven” or, to give it its real name, the lift to Shangri La.

When Huan appeared she was alone, it seems Yu had woken today feeling bad and with a terrible headache. Maybe there’s a bug around somewhere.

Anyway, I showed her the photos of the motorbike shops and told her that I had put a substantial deposit down for her to choose which three wheeler she wanted to take home with her. After she’d ranted and raved for a while and called me stupid, more than once, I let her know that I was only winding her up. She took it well, didn’t hit me much at all!

The rest of the day I spent much like yesterday, sorting out piano stuff for Huan, all done now though. I think she has enough to be going on with for a few weeks, or even more. I could get back to Adam Dalgliesh, guitar and Chinese.

Ended up with a late night! Huan was trying to learn from the piano course I had given her but had managed to skip a lesson somehow. Remember I told you before how once she has something in her mind she doesn’t give up? I ended up taking her through the two previous lessons and then making sure she got number three before moving on to number four. It didn’t help that she was tired and making mistakes with what she was writing down. All done for now though, she should, if she follows my, and the teacher’s advice, have nine chords before she moves on to lesson four. Maybe I should try learning the keyboard instead of the guitar, my fingers may find it easier. I’m not ready to give up yet though!

August 16^th RSP hence NTR except Taobao, coffee, tea and granola.

August 17^th Miserable weather yet again but today was shopping so no worries. Our shopping included what you see here, supposedly to help my liver. The top row, from left to right is Cassia Seed, Honeysuckle and Astragulus the bottom row, also left to right is Wolfberry and Golden Chrysanthemum. I’ll let you know later what it tastes like!

Personally I would have preferred just some normal Chinese green tea to start and finish my day with, staying more normal with coffee and British tea through the day. Because of my test results we were also looking for alternatives to full fat milk for our drinks and cereals, even Soya milk is 3% fat! I can’t stand skimmed milk and I’m not so keen on semi-skimmed either. Anyone got any ideas?

Huan turned up with more possible bad news, a Chinese article saying that Aspirin is highly dangerous and should not be taken every day. This seemed to be a translation from an English article so I forwarded it to Dr Tim and asked him if I should worry! What a nice way to finish the day and the week. Oh, I forgot, Huan’s ‘tea for my liver’ doesn’t taste half as bad as I thought it would although a spoonful of sugar would make it far more palatable. Of course, that is not allowed, I’ll just wait until it isn’t so hot and drink it fast.

Can’t upload this today, can’t get over the wall!