Climbing new heights

Today was a very nice day, after two days of working early (China stuff) and late (Arizona stuff) with colleagues on the phone (dont get me wrong after last weekend feeling good enough to work is just brilliant and I actually enjoyed all of it). The day was good for a number of reasons:

1. As Lee was at a conference I was in charge for the day so I took the girls climbing at Ratho and all three - Poppy Holly and Lucy (poppys friend) made it to the top of the pink climb 50feet up, more than once. Actually we climbed from 11 until 4pm which was a lot of fun for all, I doubt I could have made it to 20feet myself but holding the rope on the ground was easy work, little Holly making it to the top was a treat. Our two are sleeping like zombies as a result tonight.
2. I had my first glass of wine in three weeks, now being off the deadly antiboitics for 48 hours and feeling like a minor celebration I had a glass with my lunchtime sandwhich just to feel normal again. These little acts of rebellion keep me going.
3. I met my old friend Sam for lunch and we chatted, in the comfortable way you can only do with folks you have a lot of history with, about things we both were worried about in Asia - it happened by coincidence that there was a Gore meeting at the same climbing centre - I only found out about it the day before from Sam that he was in the same place and not in the USA, he is also someone who is working through some health issues, and we set up things in China together, so to see him face to face I enjoyed a lot.
4. Finally regular readers of the blog will know this was the evening for House on TV so a mellow evening was had by all (Lee out at Motzart with our friend Ian).

Poppy made the mistake of thinking I was watching the TV to discuss on the phone all the ins and outs of the various boyfriends and relationships with a close friend in the same room, so now I have the full scoop for Lee on the up to the minute situation in school romance!

Other than that all is well on the health front, some colleague still look at me funny when I dont shake hands, (sorry Tom and Carole anne) but that is usually fine when I explain, otherwise to the outside I am fine and my digestive system is returning to normal slowely. By the way here are my personal top tips for avoiding infection while not living in a bubble and trying to enjoy meeting your friends:

1. Do not shake hands or hug your friends meet in open rather than crowded spaces.
2. Have your own towel in the house and keep it outside the casual reach of the bathroom
3. Wash your hands a lot and try not to touch hands to mouth/nose (try it, its hard)
4. Open doors with your sleeve not your hand
5. Push buttons with the top of your car key (good trick learnt from SARS in HK)
6. Use hot air dryers in public loos
7. Stay away from anyone who is spluttering sick of any kind
8. If you do have a sick visitor clean doorknobs, keyboards cups etc with antiseptic once they leave.

So far that has kept me in good shape and allowed me to visit work/see friends despite low immune function, and not cause offence, I think the eye infection was from the dust I cleaned up and the tooth problem was probably ready to happen just needed the immune depression to get a hold. Fingers crossed I can keep it up for the next eight weeks and get to the other side of this thing !

So all in all things are good, there are a few close colleagues around the world I am feeling the need to visit and talk to in a way you just cannot do over the phone, to see how they are really feeling about things that are worrying me me, the feeling of disconnection is growing, but the phone helps a lot. In some ways its OK to be on the phone to folks in Arizona, in that you can say what you need to say, but you miss all the reactions, passion and body language, feeling and outside hours chances to straighten out misunderstandings. So thanks to the colleagues who have to put up with the disembodied voice on the phone, hopefully unlike Bernise tells me happened in ER, I will not get put in a cupboard ! Perhaps I deserve that.

Andy sent me the Pete Goss book (see earlier) about his adventures in the round the world race which I am looking forward to reading in my week off next week, and Kenny and Feldma have got me back into Neil Diamond, thanks to all of you for the kind cards and notes they all really help.

Cheers for now

Gerry