Serious Headaches

I have not had a good weekend. In between arguments with both my sons I've had to un-install four different anti virus programs from my youngest son's PC which he installed in the belief that more is better. It took about five hours to get back to just the one - most of the time being taken up with waiting for one av program to let go of the other long enough to un-install it.

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Sayings from my son.

My eldest son is acquiring an amazing turn of phrase these days. Two of his latest:
"As useful a reset switch on a landmine" when referring to gaming site.
"A worse noise than a jet engine full of squirrels!" when referring to his nine-year old brother's guitar playing.

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The doctor is in.......

Happy New Year all!

It's almost two months since I wrote anything, mostly due to lack of time: if I haven't been working, I've been sleeping.

This weekend I've been holding a "laptop clinic" for the family. The result is one repaired and working keyboard, one cleaned and working DVD drive and one completely trashed BIOS - not caused by me I might add.

The keyboard - fairly simple. A liquid induced burn out fixed by an eBay purchase.
The BIOS - no solution really.The laptop is a geriatric Acer TravelMate with  a seriously screwed chip. Randomly set BIOS passwords and nothing past the time and date shown on the Basic Settings screen. It was to the point where it wouldn't even recognise any of the hardware properly. This will be cured again by eBay I suspect. I was able to salvage everything of importance of the hard disk so no real loss.

Now the DVD drive. If you have a family who like to grow their hair long, and you start getting problems with their computer and home entertainment kit, don't go looking for you nearest repair man first, go looking for the large hair ball (or similar) wrapped around the central spindle of the drive. It'll save you money!

Go careful out there people - it's a rough world.

Tribute to an Ordinary Man

In Memoriam

Donald Daniel Simmonds

7th May 1931 - 13th December 2009

My father died on the 13th of December 2009: he finally succumbed to cancer at about 6.00am that morning. It was expected, just not this soon. If anything can be considered good about someone’s passing it is this: he never got to the point where either the cancer or the drugs could cause him any pain – physical or psychological.

Born 7th May 1931 in Fulham, South East London, he spent most of his childhood dodging the best the German Air force could throw at them. First a cub scout, then a scout, he and his contemporaries acted as the communications for the emergency services of the day, and as extra man-power for the LDVF and ARP, erecting table shelters in people’s houses. This was on top of a full day at school remember. He first met Mum in the scouts and guides (Her first name was Marion actually, but she preferred her middle name, June), who would later become his wife.

After school, came an apprenticeship with the North Thames Gas Company (Bad Smell and Smoke Company to the employees), and the re-acquaintance June.

WWII not having been over for that long, most if not all young men in the UK were still subject to National Service: Dad served in Klagenfurt; Austria, near the border with what was Yugoslavia. He fell in love with the country and the people and vowed he’d come and visit the place again. After National Service, it was back to work, and a change of direction, becoming an instrument maker for St. Thomas’ Hospital in Central London.
On 30th April 1955, Mum and Dad tied the knot at St. Mary-le-Park Church in Battersea, literally a stone’s throw from the Park, and three years later they were safely delivered of a son: yours truly.

By this time, Dad had taken on a new job as a service engineer for the fledgling service division of the BOC’s medical equipment division. Based at Brentford, his “patch” was most of South London, Kent, Surrey and Sussex: I remember the days when he would take me as company on the long trips to the furthest calls, including a nursing home in Brighton run by a group of Nuns. I always seem to make an impression on them as Dad told me of the frequent trips up and down the long corridors on a trolley pushed by a giggling group of novices!

While I was still young, Grand-dad Simmonds died of diabetic complications causing gangrene, and Dad inherited the four-story Victorian terraced house in Clapham where I spent most of my young life. The top two floors were given over to flats and two Tongan’s lived there. Daniel worked at John Lewis’ In Oxford Street and David worked at the Ritz. Tongans are an outgoing race and many times we were invited to “do’s” around London. Invariably we would end up back home with 20 or 30 of the community back at the house in Clapham with the food, drink and music flowing into the night.

Eventually, we had to move as the house was costing just too much to maintain as flats. We said a heart-felt goodbye to the Tongans and moved on. We settled in Surrey and stayed there until Dad became an instructor at the company’s training department in Harlow. We moved as a family to St. Margaret’s, near Stanstead Abbotts and immediately became actively involved with both the church and the Scouts and Guides in the area. It is amazing how quickly news travels in the Scout Association…. within two weeks of moving in, the District Commissioner for the area was on the door step welcoming us to the area.

Both Mum and Dad threw themselves into the life of the community and fund raising for various restoration jobs that the beautiful little Church in the village, becoming church wardens, and Dad becoming Crucifer and server at the Church.

Shortly after Dad retired, they decided to move on and settled in Hickling, a small village right on the Broads in Norfolk, again becoming actively involved with the community and St. Mary’s – the parish Church in Stalham – the nearest town, but as Dad put it ”….having a rest from the Scouts.”

In 1996 he became very ill very quickly, losing somewhere in the region of 70lbs in less than a few months. Diabetes had finally caught up with him. As usual, his attitude was, “OK, how do we cope with this and get back to normality?” It didn’t take long before Dad was Dad again.

We lost Mum in 2005, again to cancer – this time it was an un-diagnosed problem, not the cancer that eventually took her. Dad in his usual way outwardly took it in his stride, but you could see the pain of loss: suddenly being without someone you have been with for 50 years is not easy.

Even at this time last year the cancer still had not shown itself. Only at Easter was it noticeable that something was wrong, so wrong that he actually went to the doctors. His weight had started to drop again, losing his appetite and he was constantly tired. Initially the diagnosis was anaemia and he was sent for tests to try and find bleeding in his intestines: the classic way it hits someone of Dad’s age. After several sets of tests – including colonoscopy – they couldn’t find any bleeding, but he was still losing red blood cells. Regular transfusions kept him going and a CT scan was conducted. The results were clearly visible to see and the reason why he was anaemic was there for all to see.

The cancer had started out at the base of the oesophagus, where it splits into two for the lungs. It had finally spread to the lymph system and carried to the adrenal glands, and it was this that was causing the anaemia. It had been slowly spreading for quite some time: it was only Dad’s lifestyle and constitution that had hidden it for so long. It was now just a case of not IF but WHEN.

On the 2nd December, he had a fall at home as his legs were getting weak and was admitted to Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital. As he’d been preparing a meal when he fell, we as a family went up to try and get the house tidied up for when he came home. As I had to come back home for work, the last time I saw my father was the Sunday before he died.

My father wasn’t famous, he wasn’t one of these people that does something heroic, he was an ordinary man who could never turn away if someone needed help.

He had time for everyone.

He was slow to make friends, but he made them for life.

He was always ready to “muck in” and get his hands dirty. If you were stuck, he’d be there to help.

To the best of my knowledge he never held a grudge to any soul, living or dead, no matter what he thought of their character.

The one thing I will say about him is what he once said to me:- “Father by Birth, Friend by choice.”

The Worst of Times. The Best of Times

I got the phone call I was dreading at 6.25am this morning.
My father left this world peacefully around 6.00am. He felt no pain and was still compos mentis. From what the staff at the Norwich & Norfolk Hospital have told me, it was more that he ran out of energy trying to fight the cancer, rather than the cancer causing anything to fail.
If there can be anything to take solace in it is the fact that he has died now before the cancers started to cause any pain, and before he suffered the discomfort and frustrations of the chemo-therapy that they were planning to start.
Via this blog, I offer my heartfelt thanks to the staff at the hospital that looked after him in these past final days, and to all the wonderful, generous and helpful people in both Stalham and Hickling who have offered their help and support to both Dad and myself over the past six months or so.
May God go with you all and may his Peace be with you for ever.

In memoriam:

Donald Daniel Simmonds

May 1931 – December 2009

Dad went Ouch!

As you may have gathered, Dad is suffering from "The Big C". Between it and the treatment, it's left things like his legs very weak.

He had two falls last week on the same day. The first just ended up with a short visit to the A&E (ER) to be checked out, the second led to him actually being admitted because of the large gash and bruise he sustained to his left eyebrow. Although it doesn't show physically his ego also sustained a fairly major bruise and he's feeling a little silly to say the least.

A good friend and neighbour has also taught him how true it is that the human race is excellent at stating the obvious, to whit:

"Oh, you've fallen over and cut your head. Are you alright?"

In his estimation he held nothing back and the reply was Anglo Saxon/expletive-rich/profane (take your choice!) to say the least.

He's also now realised he has to swallow his pride and let people help him where he needs it. There are a lot of people who will gladly do this for him because of what he and Mum did for them when she was alive.

Thankfully because of this it's now apparent to him that people like the physiotherapist, District Nurse, Doctors, GP, and Social Services Visitors are not actually having a go at him, but are also actually trying to help him.

We went down at the weekend to clear the debris for him and install a few bits and pieces to make life a little easier when they finally release him. I think between ourselves and his GP we can get him organised.

Random Thoughts 2

Health, wealth and happiness.
I haven't felt up to communicating in any form lately. I'm trying to fight off depression again, but it's not easy especially when Dad got diagnosed with cancer the week before last. From what the medical profession are saying it's been there some time - possibly two years - slowly eating it's way out from the centre of his chest. Part of the reason it's taken so long to find is that he only started feeling ill at around Easter time this year - the point they reckon it may have spread to the lymph system. What hasn't helped in his diagnosis has been the number of different consultants and doctors who have seen him in the past nine months. I can personally testify that this story in the Times is no exaggeration. It's now affecting the top of his lungs, his adrenal glands, and it looks like it might be attacking the pancreas now. My father being the character he is, takes it all in his stride and is determined to go down fighting.

Jane suffers from a problem some you other ladies out there may know about - fibroids. However, our GP finally got her an appointment with a specialist and in the new year they'll actually do something about them

My own health problems pale into insignificance beside this, I'm still walking around as if I'm drunk and occasionally scaring colleagues and by-standers by falling over for no apparent reason. I make the excuse that I'm tripping over my own big feet and leave it at that. I sometimes get that look from them that they'd like to know more, but I can normally avoid going into all the details. I'm also still a sweet person - clinially

The insanity of Life.
The news last night (UK time) about a shooting on a US army base was saddening to say the least.
Despite the knee-jerk reaction from the majority "red-neck" populace of the USA the man wasn't a terrorist. I will say to anyone like them:-

If there isn't anything to read between the lines, don't invent it!

Maj. Hasan was just someone who eventually snapped after incessantly hearing about all the horrors that the troops from all over the world face on a daily basis in that troubled part of our planet. It seems even those who have to heal the head are just as prone to losing theirs.

This is the legacy that extremism forces upon us. At the moment Islam is in the spotlight: the Taliban being the current major force in this. But there is no major religion on this planet that at sometime in the history of Man has not been guilty of the same thing. It seems that the saying: "Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it" is a truism.

and on that tack....
Carbon Trading or Confidence Trick?
Well, there's a question. The initial idea behind Carbon Trading was for companies to build new, greener industry that had a smaller carbon footprint as a trade-off for having to upgrade existing installations/factories/power plants/etc. What actually seems to be happening though is that it's being treated like another commodity like mortgages and small trade-offs are being bundles into corporate packages and sold off in the same way. I think we've got another "sub-prime" situation building here.


But for the Grace of God.......
I've been there! I know this is true!
A study by NICE has said that the loss to industry in the UK because of stress-related illness is approaching £28bn (GBP)and bad management is mostly to blame.

Some good news for once.

At long last the British educational system is actually investing some money in respect of specialist support for dyslexic children(BBC News 22/06/09). Ed Balls, the Children's Secretary has announced 10m(GBP) to help train teachers in coping with dyslexic children and how to spot the signs. One of the biggest dyslexia charities in the UK, Dyslexia Action, has welcomed it.

Classic Dyslexia - word blindness as it used to be called - is only one manifestation of the condition: being married to one and having both son's suffer from it, I can vouch for this. It is evident throughout my wife's family, stemming from my father-in-law who, along with my sister-in-law are "classic" sufferers.

My wife and eldest son suffer from a curious form in that they cannot tell which way round any writing they are viewing is actually written or printed: my eldest son has also been described as having "eccentric spelling".

The condition is no barrier thanks to the dedication of carers, enlightened teachers and parents and I suspect a lot of people wouldn't realise just how many house-hold names are sufferers. Look here for just a sample.

My youngest son has what has been described by one specialist as "dyslexia in extremis". It manifested itself at the age of two, when most children are starting to communicate: he didn't. One of the unusual symptoms was that he seemed to find it strange that the group of sounds that made up words never changed, the concept was totally alien to him. Slowly but surely, with the expert tuition and help from our local primary school, he is coming to terms with it.

One point that rarely seems to get mentioned in any article, conversation or discussion on the condition is that of the frustration that comes with it. Not just for the parents and carers of the sufferer but of the sufferer themselves. My son has been tested for ADHD more than once because of his extreme frustration at not being understood, and I can understand why being the subject of his rage more than once.

It is nice to know that in these cases, the best medicine is not some form of oral medication but just being there to hug and cuddle this poor, confused, frustrated child until his anger and rage passes.

And to answer those of you out there who would pose the question, would you have it any different?.... yes and no I would love for him not to have to suffer this extreme version of the condition, but would he be the same loving, forthright, outgoing person that it has made him into?

Most importantly, he is my son, and I love him dearly.

Relax! It's a new week!

It's been a few weeks since I posted: the wonderful Dual D's of diabetes and depression kept me off the web for a week, and then a week of enforced leave with no internet connection for another.

Enforced? - Yes. My GP said that if I didn't take some time off I'd end up a gibbering wreck huddled in a corner somewhere.

Last week was "half-term" week in the UK so I took advantage of this and took the family out to Norfolk to see my Father: the boys thoroughly enjoy visiting him. As usual there were the odd one-or-two jobs that needed assistance, this time clearing my father's attic out so that some new insulation could be put in. It was hot and dirty work, but it's incredible how a week of doing something completely different like this can be so relaxing, even if it's even a mundane task.

So re-vitalised I return to work. Even aggravation from our own pointy-haired boss doesn't get through to me to start with. Now, that has to be some kind of success!