I retired in 2017, I was offered voluntary redundancy from my job as an Engineering Technician/Fitter on the railway with Balfour Beatty I was 64 and the depot where I was based was closing down, so I thought this is the time to retire. I took a part time job collecting and delivering cars with a local garage, the first pandemic lockdown came and went and I suddenly came down with shingles. Shingles is a horrible painful nasty thing to come down with. I eventually slowly recovered and I returned to my usual fitness regime of going to the gym 4 – 5 times a week and going for 10 miles bike rides 3 times a week. But I felt as though I hadn’t fully recovered, I couldn’t actually put my finger on what was actually wrong with me but I felt something was wrong. If I went upstairs I felt out of breath, when I took the dog for a walk, my legs ached, I thought this isn’t right I should be super fit with all the exercise I do and I’m not overweight so what’s wrong ? Getting to see a doctor was quite difficult but I managed to speak to the nurse practitioner at my GPS surgery and she booked me in for a blood test. I went along for the blood test and the next morning at 04.00 I had a phone call from a hospital laboratory technician who was doing the tests on my blood sample, saying that I should come into hospital immediately and have a blood transfusion as my blood count readings were very very low !

The other symptoms I was experiencing were fatigue, I was falling asleep during the day and I felt cold my fingers would go white and numb and take ages to come round and warm up. Anyway I didn’t go straight to hospital as suggested but waited until my GPs doctors surgery opened spoke to the receptionist who got the doctor to phone me back, I went to see him and he did another blood test and in the afternoon he phoned again he had the results of the second test and for me to come and collect a letter to take to hospital and for me to go immediately as my red blood cell reading was 42, should be 130, platelets 23, should be 135, white blood cells, 2.9 should be 4 – 11. With that I drove to hospital accompanied by my wife.

I went to hospital about 5 o clock in the afternoon and I was there for just over 24 hours. In that time I had 2 blood transfusions, an ECG, X rays, an ultrasound scan, ( a CT scan was carried out a few days later) basically all the organs in my body were checked. But the worst of all pain wise was was the bone marrow biopsy, where a very large needle is thrust into your hip bone with a lot of local anaesthetic but it still hurts like crazy. The chap who was taking the sample seemed to be taking ages, he said I had extremely hard bones, but thankfully he eventually managed to extract enough bone marrow for their tests, but that was extremely painful and was really glad when he had finished!

After the hospital team had finished all their tests and examinations I was allowed to go home, as I said I returned a couple of days later for a CT scan. I then had an appointment with a consultant specialist doctor in haematology the diagnosis after all the results of the tests had been examined was that I have a low grade non hodgekins Lymphoma.

Over the next six months from November 2021 to April 2022 each month, during one week of that month, on the Monday I had to have a blood test, on the Tuesday the haematology doctor would ring me and tell me what the results of the blood test were, and then on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I would go to the Collingwood centre at Colchester hospital to receive chemotherapy, the people at the centre are absolutely fantastic and I quite enjoyed going there, it wasn’t a bad experience at all, even though actually having the chemo isn’t that comfortable, you just have to grit your teeth and say this is going to make me better. The blood test apparently had to be a specific type of blood test, it had to be a hot block test, which just means it had to be put in special heated metal block to keep the test at body temperature in order to get a more accurate reading of blood cells.

Gradually over the months the blood count readings slowly started to come back to normal, red blood count should be between 130 and 180 and it is now 155, which is perfect, platelets ( the cells that stop bleeding ) were 27, should be between 135 and 450 and it is now 99, not quite right yet but has improved with every test, and white blood cells were 2.9, should be between 4 and 11 are now 3.8 again not quite right but improving all the time. So it’s about a year and a half since my diagnosis and things have improved dramatically and nearly back to normal. ( touch wood )

When my blood readings were starting to come back to near normal again, around last Christmas time, I decided to rejoin my local gym and have been going for a bit of a workout 4 or 5 times a week since. I was going to go back to martial arts classes as I am a 2nd degree black belt and I was tempted to go for a 3rd degree black belt, but I thought I would go to Tai Chi instead first, Tai Chi is a type of Kung Fu but performed slowly. This largely because I thought I had given myself psiatica doing a repair job in the garden, as I was getting pains down my left leg, but I eventually went to my doctor who sent me to get my hip x rayed and it turned out my left hip has arthritis, so now I have got to maintain a good level of fitness with an arthritic hip. I went to see a physiotherapist and he gave me some exercises to do and basically said keep moving.

When I retired in 2017 I was a bit overweight I was thirteen and a half stone and as I’m 5ft 7ins I thought I would like to get my weight down to what it’s supposed to be, which according to my body mass index calculations should be about eleven and a half stone. I asked the gym instructor for advice, he gave me a fitness program and said cut right down on beer and wine ( empty calories), I also cut down a bit on carbs but not out completely, also doing cardiovascular exercises I was advised to monitor my heart rate and use the formula of starting with 220, minus your age which in my case in 2017 was 63 to find my maximum heart rate for my age which was 157, then find 70% of that and that is 110 beats/minute and that is where apparently your body burns the most fat to lose weight and it worked for me. I would do 40 minutes of cardio every workout, then did a bit of weight training. modern cardio gym machines have means of measuring your heart rate and I tried to keep heart rate at around 110 bpm, and I gradually got down to eleven and a half stone my target, after about a year, which means you don’t have to flog yourself to exhaustion to lose weight.

So my challenge for a 68 yr old chap with non hodgekins lymphoma (in remission) who has a dodgy arthritic left hip is to maintain a good level of fitness. One advantage I have is that I weigh a healthy weight 11st 6lb and I’ve just taken my blood pressure and was 125 over 69 which is pretty good, so I’ll be doing my best to keep it that way !

x-r

Keeping busy, gardening

I spend a lot of time in the garden mowing the lawn, trimming the hedges, digging the garden, planting stuff, hoeing, weeding, then harvesting the lovely home grown stuff, if the bugs and birds don’t get it first, but it does help to keep you moving and active.

Keeping busy, making things

Last year after I had finished chemotherapy to keep my granddaughters entertained when they come to visit I thought I would make them a Wendy house. Initially I was going to make it completely out of disused wooden pallets that my son had got from the company he works for, but that turned out to be a bit impractical, so I went up to the local wood yard and bought a load of shiplap timber boards. So I made it out of a combination of both and it turned out ok. I painted it their favourite colour, purple with a splash of white here and there, and it’s turned out to be a success which is great and they call it their Fun House.

Keeping busy, continued, making fire wheels.

As I said previously I go to Tai Chi classes once a week and there is such a thing Tai Chi weapons. Now this has nothing to do with hurting anyone etc, but had more to with giving monks in ancient China a cardiovascular workout or maybe a way of practicing using these weapons in different movements and positions. The Chinese monks I refer to are/were Kung Fu and Tai Chi experts.

In Kung Fu and Tai Chi you can learn and practice Forms which are similar to Katas in Karate. These are predetermined movements done in a specific order that can take some time to learn, but are quite good for fitness and memory.

One of these weapons is Fire Wheels. In ancient China these were metal discs with sharp spikes sticking out that were somehow set on fire and then at the enemy in battle. The only trouble was the enemy threw them back, so they were a bit useless, so I think they then evolved into a hand held weapon ( one in each hand ) for close combat fighting. Then Forms were developed for Fire Wheels possibly for combat practice.

In my Tai Chi class we recently started doing the Fire Wheel Form, but you don’t necessarily need the Fire Wheels to be made from metal, wood is much cheaper, but the instructor ( Sifu ) didn’t have enough Fire Wheels for the whole class, so I said I’d make some for him.

I had some wooden Fire Wheels myself to use as a template from previous Tai Chi lessons I’d been given a few years ago. I bought a 8 foot by 4 foot sheet of 6mm MDF board from a local wood yard who also cut it up into 16in squares for me, enough for nine pairs of Fire Wheels.

I then set about making them by drawing round onto the blank boards, then cutting out new Fire Wheels using a variety of saws, drills and sanders. They used almost immediately in class.

I painted my own Fire Wheels with metallic paint and put some hand grip wrapping on the handle part of the Fire Wheels.

One of my next jobs will be hopefully, when I get some stainless steel plate, will be to make some Fire Wheels out of metal.

Keeping fit, walking the dog

If you have a dog, especially a largish and lively dog like a boxer, they have to be taken for a walk, and hence the dog gets exercised and so do you. Our boxer dog Bella was once extremely lively and needed two good walks a day, but now she is is approaching 10 years old and recently has slowed down a lot, she has had two cruciate ligament operations one on each back leg which hasn’t helped, but she still needs to go for a walk at least once a day, no matter what the weather is doing.

Keeping fit, riding the bike.

A few years ago, I think it was for my fiftieth birthday my wife bought me a bike. I did ride it but most of the time it was in the shed gathering dust. But when lockdown came and the gym closed I dusted it down, gave it oiling and a squirt of WD40 here and there, then in the absence of the gym I went off on near daily 10 mile bike rides to keep the fitness up. The Gym opened up after lockdown ended but I still go on bike rides when the weather is Ok, it’s nice on a sunny day pedalling round the local country lanes, but cycling is excellent for improving fitness.

Making Award trophies for Annual Kung Fu Club Day

I was asked by the Kung Fu club shifu ( teacher ) if I could make some Award trophies for the annual club day, and these would represent the five Chinese elements, Fire, Water, Wood, Earth and Metal, and also one with the club emblem and one with Ying and Yang. This is what I came up with

The top ones are obviously the Metal, Water, Wood, Fire and Earth trophies complete with Chinese writing, and the lower are the Club emblem and Ying and Yang trophies, I didn’t do the art work on the last three, that was done by a very talented artist lady member of the club, but I did do the first five.

These trophies were given to various members of the club who had done particularly well in a certain field Kung Fu during the year.

Update on blood readings

Last month, 4th June, I had my 6 monthly blood test, and guess what, everything is back to normal, haemoglobin, ( red blood cells ) should be between 130 – 180, is now 155, white blood cells should be 4 – 11 now 7, and platelets should be 135 – 450 now 155. So I couldn’t thank the Collingwood centre at Colchester Hospital enough they were absolutely brilliant, I’ll just have to do my best to keep it that way.

Visits to Centre Parcs

Last October ( 2023 ) we all went to Elveden Forest Centre Parcs and this June we went to Woburn Forest Centre Parcs and both times we all had a fantastic time. I can highly recommend zooming down the water flumes in the Subtropical swimming paradise, like the Tropical Cyclone which is probably one of the most extreme I have been on, the rapids and the Lazy River, zooming down the Zip Line before which you have negotiate a quite tricky assault course which gets you up to the top of the launching tower. My son and I did Field archery and did very well and the whole family played crazy golf and had a great time, finishing off the week with an Italian meal.

The main reason we all went to Centre Parcs this June was to celebrate my son being 40 this year and me being 70 in a couple of months time, there were ten of us in total, including the grandkids and I can say without a shadow of doubt that we all had a fantastic time!

Gym fitness regime

I’m a member of the local gym just round the corner from me, I swim twice a week for 40 minutes each time and go in the gym for a workout normally five times a week I usually have Wednesday and Sunday off. In the gym normally I do 20 minutes on the treadmill, walking, then 20 minutes on the reclining stationary exercise bike on resistance setting 10 for cardio, I then go and go on various resistance weight machines, leg and upper body and also some free weight exercises I sometimes go early morning before breakfast and sometimes later, all depends on what we are doing that day, all in all it doesn’t take more than an hour and a half.