I have declined heart surgery

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:06]Hello.

[00:00:10]Wow.

[00:00:12]It's a pleasant enough day. It was a bit cold this morning when we woke up, but it's nice now.

[00:00:32]So, this video really is just a bit of an update. Um, which I promised really that I'd make for a couple of people who's asked.

[00:00:42]Um, so I went to see my heart specialist yesterday as I'm making this. Well, it's Friday as I'm making this. bloody Chinese night. That's the most important thing.

[00:00:58]Um, okay. So, I went to see my specialist and uh it was a big long appointment which involved lots of stuff really.

[00:01:13]But, uh, mostly it was chatting, so that's good. And I got to ask him loads of questions and uh, very forthright questions as well. I just wanted answers to things. So I said, "Right, what is the prognosis? What's happening with this? What what are we going to do? How can we uh progress or or you know, what is likely to happen to me? And how long have I got left and I asked him lots of things and uh to cut this video short really cuz otherwise it's bloody boring. What you doing, man?

[00:01:52]Okay, so essentially we know that Oh, what am I doing? Bloody treading on a lead.

[00:01:58]Microphone lead. It's so long. Why do they make these so bloody long?

[00:02:03]Look at them. Should I put it over here and then I know where it is?

[00:02:10]That's better.

[00:02:12]So, we know that I've got heart disease.

[00:02:18]Uh, and we know really what that entails.

[00:02:23]So, what I've got, like there's lots of different heart diseases, but I've got hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, right? Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

[00:02:33]Oh, who's that?

[00:02:36]There's not many dogs.

[00:02:38]Come on, B. Don't mess around now. Don't want you playing or fighting or kissing.

[00:02:48]Oh no, she's got bloody dogs. Come on, Bode. Here, B.

[00:02:54]>> Bing this off. Seems to be lots of gold.

[00:03:06]Okay, so where did we get to? So, yeah, my heart disease is called I probably said this five times. It's called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

[00:03:17]Now because things have progressed well let me tell you about cardiomyopathy uh first of all at least hypertrophic cardiammyopathy what that essentially means is swelling of muscular material. So on the left side of my heart, the muscle of the heart is much much more swollen than it should be.

[00:03:46]And I've seen a cut through through my body and uh it's quite frightening in a way to look at uh where it should be.

[00:03:58]Say it should be both sides of the heart should be as thick as my little finger.

[00:04:02]So, it should go up the bottom left chamber, uh, top left, top right, lower right should all be the same. And it's all the same all the way around till we get to the left side. And it's like that.

[00:04:18]So, that left side causes a lot of pressure on the right side.

[00:04:24]Because it's causing pressure, I cannot get a lot of oxygen in. You hear me?

[00:04:34]Because I can't get a lot of oxygen in means I cannot really exercise much because I deplete my oxygen levels and having no oxygen then causes me to get dizzy and potentially faint. I haven't fainted um but you know potentially So, it's not a good situation. Um, the mode, we're going this way, love.

[00:05:08]The muscle does grow when you've got this disease.

[00:05:14]That's why it's a disease because it's not at ease. It's disease means dis ease, not at ease. God, they're stunning through there. Look at that.

[00:05:27]Let's have a quick look there.

[00:05:34]Wow. Lovely.

[00:05:37]Nice to see a bit of color even if it is white.

[00:05:48]Yeah. So basically my uh my heart isn't at ease now because of the swelling.

[00:06:00]That means it's trying to rectify itself which fires off electronic s signals. As you know your heart runs on lots of things including electric electricity.

[00:06:14]So the electricity okay so the electric part of my heart is trying to rectify things by increasing heart beats sometimes stopping the heart sometimes doing what they call ectopic beats which is the odd big thud that I hear you won't hear it so don't listen out for it but I bloody hear it and there's Lots of other problems in my heart. Mostly the two problems are palpitations and I'm getting a lot more.

[00:06:54]Just last night um sat at the computer nice and calm, nice and quiet, nice and gentle, nice and peaceful and I suddenly thought, "Oh god, what's that?" You know, I was hot, I was sweating, couldn't catch my breath. My heart's going like that. So, I put my little finger uh monitor on for my pulse and I was doing 121 beats per minute, which you wouldn't do that if you're running down the bloody road. And there's me at rest.

[00:07:24]And that goes on for a while. And I've learned to semi control things.

[00:07:32]So, I hold my breath for a while.

[00:07:36]I I leave the finger thing on to so so you know see what I'm doing. Um I breathe deeply after holding my breath. I drink cold water. Uh I just sit and calm down and I feel my heart. It's like willing willing my heart to slow down. Slow down.

[00:07:58]And I say we're fine. Cuz you're at fight or flight. Then your heart is in a a traumatic state and that fires off chemicals within the mind in the brain that says panic, get out of there, move, do something, you're being attacked, a tiger's going to bite your ass, whatever. So, you're all over the place.

[00:08:21]So, I try and take care of all of that and say, "No, I'm fine. I'm just going to have a high heartbeat and it's going to rest and we'll be chilling." And I watch it and I watch it come down sometimes.

[00:08:34]Come on, P. What are you doing, man?

[00:08:37]It's probably licking.

[00:08:39]Hello.

[00:08:42]Um, so hopefully I'll watch it come down.

[00:08:46]Now, sometimes it comes down, it goes back up, and we do that six or seven times.

[00:08:51]Sometimes it doesn't come down at all.

[00:08:54]And I say to myself in my mind, you know, I'm doing all this calming stuff.

[00:08:59]I'm saying, "Oh, that's better. I'm starting to feel good. Start. Even though I feel bloody awful, I say starting to feel good. Starting to feel better. Oh, it's going back to normal.

[00:09:06]Starting to feel good. That's what I tell myself over and over again.

[00:09:25]Nice.

[00:09:27]Nice as you like.

[00:09:53]So that's um I said two symptoms but this is one symptom which is the heart palpitations and also the ectopic beats.

[00:10:02]Bird I did tell you all good boy I've threatened him.

[00:10:08]I said, "You licking? You're going back on the lead." And I showed him the lead.

[00:10:11]I think he's got an understanding. I think we have an understanding.

[00:10:19]Come on, my love.

[00:10:46]So yeah, I got get lots of uh palpitations or rapid heartbeats, whatever you want to refer to them as.

[00:10:52]But how that um the second thing I'll get to in a minute, but how that affects me is can't breathe properly. I get very very drained and I feel quite ill, quite a bit giddy.

[00:11:07]I can feel sick in my stomach. I can feel my headache starting right at the very back of my head starting boom boom boom like that. Uh especially if it's gone on for a while. I had one couple about four days ago now and it went on for 3 hours.

[00:11:25]When it's a long one like that, I just got to go to bed. I can't do anything but. So, I just went to bed and uh eventually it calmed down. So, I got back up and it was good. Well, it was good when it calmed down.

[00:11:39]So, anyway, it does a lot of stuff, but it depletes my energy levels completely.

[00:11:44]I feel totally washed out. I feel like I've um I don't know, been on the go for a couple of days with no rest or something. And uh yeah, it can make you feel really quite ill, quite um washed out, very very fatigued, very tired.

[00:12:01]And at times, I haven't had this lately, at times it can make me a little bit emotional as well because it's not a nice thing to go through and it is your heart. And what happens is when your heart is in distress, it starts releasing certain chemicals into your bloodstream.

[00:12:18]And uh that's a worrying thing, you know, because it's if you're going to die and you're going to die of a heart attack, then your heart releases chemicals and what have you to um to alleviate certain things and uh calm the system down so you just go with the flow, which is I know this is horrible why people they say, "Oh, they died peacefully." Well, it's the chemicals inside really that makes you die peacefully.

[00:12:50]So, you know, it's a difficult thing to deal with. That's that. Um, what happened was they increased my because the heart, you know, the disease has gone up a little bit. They decided to increase my um bicoprolol which is my beta blocker.

[00:13:07]I've been on 1.25 for whatever two or three years and it's been great. more than that. But anyway, five years maybe. Uh that's been great.

[00:13:18]And then because of the change that's going on in the heart, they decided that 2.5 What's that red thing over there? Oh, it's a person. I don't want to put that.

[00:13:29]Oh, she's putting her dog on a lead.

[00:13:32]So, I'll do the same with mine. I'll be back in a sec. We'll talk about meds.

[00:13:40]You better lead trapped up.

[00:13:43]There we go. I think that's better.

[00:13:48]So, I was on 1.25, then they decided to put me up to 2.5.

[00:13:55]Uh, the very following day, uh, I started to feel unwell and, um, I had lots of heart palpitations during that day. What I get now is probably probably every other day I get no it's probably probably every third day I get quite a big heart palpitation that goes on for a long time. A long time to me a long time is any more than 10 minutes. So it could be an hour or two or three. Uh but a short time really is 3 minutes, four, five minutes. That's a short time.

[00:14:34]So, I started to realize that I've got um increased amount of heart palpitations, but also not even with the palpitations, I got this pain in my heart that I've never had before, which is a squeezing like that. Very quickly, it's as soon as it squeezes, it let lets go three or four seconds like that.

[00:15:00]And it was really quite painful.

[00:15:03]That's when I went to the doctors to explain the situation and said, "Could they um hurry up the um my appointment with the um heart consultant?" Uh and they did.

[00:15:23]So, that's good.

[00:15:25]So, I had to wait 6 weeks rather than a year.

[00:15:28]6 weeks is frightening and a long time to wait, but it's not a year. So, we got to put up with whatever we put up with in this bloody country, you know. Uh, so went to see him yesterday and he said, "How are you?" And I said, "I'm a bit concerned." I said, "I know that my heart disease has progressed. I know that. I understand that, but I'm getting more and more palpitations. Uh, sometimes lasting in the hours. I had one for 3 hours just a few days ago.

[00:16:01]Uh but not with that. I'm always going to say with it as well as pain. And I said I've never experienced pain in my heart. Even though I've been told you got heart disease, I've never experienced pain.

[00:16:17]Uh but I am now. And he said, "What sort of pain?

[00:16:22]How long?" And blah blah blah.

[00:16:25]So anyway, we discussed that and uh I said, "I think it's the beater blocker." He said, "Well, it wouldn't What's that over there? Is that a house?"

[00:16:35]Yeah, I think it is.

[00:16:38]Never seen Never seen a house in here before. Mind you, I never come along here.

[00:16:44]Um, so he said it's hardly likely to be the beta blocker cuz as you know the beta blocker prevents or does works a long way to preventing uh your heart palpitations but also pain. it kind of eradicates that or manages it.

[00:17:16]And I said, "Well, I did nothing else."

[00:17:22]So, I haven't drunk alcohol. I haven't taken drugs. I haven't smoked a cigarette. I haven't uh exercised like crazy. Um I haven't, you know, eaten a lot of old [ __ ] food or whatever. I've just lived a normal life that I normally live and doing what I normally do. So, how how do we explain that? What do we put it down to? And he said, I have no idea.

[00:17:45]He said, I can't explain it. I said, well, in that case, I think it's the beta blocker. I know you said it's not, but that's what I think it is. And I said, I don't do well sometimes with medication.

[00:18:00]And uh so I've never been here. Do we go up there? Do you reckon we go that way? But this seems to be intriguing to me. I don't know why. Let's have a quick look, shall we?

[00:18:22]That's calm.

[00:18:25]Calm and peaceful.

[00:18:28]I said I don't do too well on change of medication sometimes.

[00:18:34]And the reason why I'm on bicoprolol is because I was on uh one a beta ber called am something amippine or something like that. I don't know. Oh my god. And an ambulance was called and everything else. You know all that.

[00:18:49]But yeah, I was I was ill on that.

[00:18:51]Really ill. Let's look at the hills.

[00:18:54]Okay.

[00:18:56]Oh, tired.

[00:18:58]There we go. Look at them.

[00:19:04]How lovely.

[00:19:13]Nice.

[00:19:19]Anyway, There we go.

[00:19:47]Anyway, so um yeah, I said I'm sure it's the meds, but he disagreed and that's fine.

[00:19:54]He can disagree all he likes. But uh the way I look at things, a doctor is not the be all and end all. A doctor is not if you believe in God or or some higher power or whatever. A doctor is not that. A doctor is a doctor. So they don't know everything. Who knows your body better than a doctor? You. Me.

[00:20:16]So I disagreed and I said, "Well, you know, we we'll agree to disagree." I said, "But I said, 'What I've done on the back of that is I went back down to 1.25 uh and that's where I'm remaining." And he said, "Oh, okay." I said, "They weren't happy at the doctors and they kept saying, "Oh, no, you you want to try and remain on that?" "Well, I can't remain on it, so uh hard luck." Um I said, "But I said, you sound disappointed or something." And he said, "I'm not." He said, "But you do need a higher dose really." and I said, "Well, I'm not taking a higher dose. Sorry, but I'm not." Um, anyway, that's it. So, that's medication. So, I've sorted them out with medication, so I'm on the lower amount. Um, basically, uh, the end of the conversation or towards the end of the conversation, three things are likely to happen or my my three options then.

[00:21:12]Okay, you can look at me belly, big fat belly. Here's me bloody lead. I got to put this away. So my pre options.

[00:21:21]So he said when you've got well I've got heart disease it will slowly progress normally and you need something done about it eventually you know and some people are lucky and they can go on for a long long time. Other people are not quite so lucky. I've had about five or six years so far. Um so the three options number one is heart surgery.

[00:21:51]Uh so what they do they open you up.

[00:21:53]They go to the heart. They open the heart. They they stop you so you're not you you're dead ain't you? They stop you so your heart's not beating. They then cut away with a scalpel. They cut away the left side and they cut it enough to match the right hand side.

[00:22:10]Um, and normally that's fine and it doesn't grow back normally, but they've had the odd time where it does grow. So, they can't give you 100% on that, but they can say it's a it's a very good um and well-known procedure.

[00:22:28]So, that's all good.

[00:22:31]Um, anyway, explained about it and I thought about it and I said no.

[00:22:40]So, I've rejected that completely because it involves opening me up, breaking my rib cage and opening that and then cutting through, going into my heart, uh, stopping my heart, cutting my heart open, chopping it away, sewing my heart up, sewing me insides up, putting the ribs back together, pinning them up. Oh god, even the thought of it, I've said no. I'm not going through major major heart surgery.

[00:23:13]I don't think I'd survive it. I really don't think I would survive.

[00:23:20]Maybe I would, but I never know. I'm not doing it. So, that's out the window.

[00:23:25]Okay.

[00:23:29]And it was all yellow.

[00:23:45]B, you're eating loads of grass today.

[00:23:50]So that's out the window. No.

[00:23:53]And I know what my mind's like when I make up my mind. So that's gone. So that's never never happening. Okay. The other thing they can do is a thing called ablation.

[00:24:04]So ablation is a lot less traumatic and severe and bloody awful, but it's still awful. So what they do, they feed a probe basically into your vein, uh, which I suppose it can go through the neck down to the heart or it can go up through the groin into the heart. I don't know. I haven't looked into it, but I know sort of about it. Oh, these are sticky.

[00:24:33]For some reason, I like these cuz they're sticky.

[00:24:38]Oh, they're not too sticky.

[00:24:40]There's just a little bit.

[00:24:45]Yeah, ridiculous blust. I do like them.

[00:24:47]I like sticky things sometimes like that. That's cool.

[00:24:53]So ablation, what that means then is they send this probe down basically and it goes from the main vein and it finds its way into your heart and they they work remotely so they just watch it on a a big television screen.

[00:25:07]Um, and sorry, I got trapped up.

[00:25:16]And when they get to the heart, to the left hand side of the heart, uh, this little probe points out something that's got 100% the alcohol on it. And they rub the heart muscle. And if you rub a muscle with 100% alcohol, you destroy the muscle. You destroy the the fibrous tissues within the muscle. And they can control how much goes away. And it's literally like rubbing out pencil markings.

[00:25:49]You can rub it out as much as you like or as far as you like or as deep as you like. And they can take their time or work quickly or just do a little bit, do whatever. Um, so that's ablation. So that is a lot less, you know, traumatic and what have you.

[00:26:07]I'm still not happy with that.

[00:26:10]And I said m like that. He said, but we do have a now a third option cuz that was it. But we have a third option for you 2023.

[00:26:20]And it's a drug. This drug has been developed especially for and only for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

[00:26:30]Patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, nobody else can take it.

[00:26:34]It's been absolutely designed for thickening of the heart walls.

[00:26:42]How clever is that? What a world we live in. So maybe I was born at the right time because if I was born 10 years earlier I'd be dead by now because you know there is or would have been nothing but 2023 so only a couple years ago.

[00:27:01]And what this drug does, you take one tablet per day and that directly affects the muscle uh tissue within the heart. Nowhere else in the body, but it affects that basically it slowly kills it off.

[00:27:22]um any additional muscle that shouldn't be there is killed off but it doesn't affect any other muscle normal muscle the normal amount and it was all yellow.

[00:27:43]I know this is long-winded, but this is just an update for people if they give a [ __ ] and it is uh is complex and it is um it's a lot to get through. But anyway, it was a long long uh appointment.

[00:28:00]So, this uh medication, if they can supply it, it's potentially I'm going to go on it. Wow, look at these.

[00:28:09]See, this is why a video takes me a while.

[00:28:22]How beautiful.

[00:28:29]So yeah, that third option is the uh my preferred option.

[00:28:35]Obviously, I'm not going for option one.

[00:28:38]Have your ribs cracked open? No.

[00:28:42]So, uh he's going to see if I'm a viable patient. The criteria uh is quite extreme, but you know, I've got the disease. The disease is progressing and if uh nothing happens, you know, and something will happen one day. Uh so, it's all good really. We're going to um just see what happens.

[00:29:14]So, he has sent off a recommendation that I get this drug. This drug is called something like uh it begins with M and it's I'll put it on the screen then because I can't really remember. So, it's it's Mav 10.

[00:29:34]Mavonte.

[00:29:36]Mod contempt.

[00:29:40]Anyway, so it'll be on the screen if you want to have a look, do your research, but I'll tell you something frightening. Couple of things frightening.

[00:29:52]Number one, the price of this new medication is for 28 tablets for one month. Currently the price is £1,073 which means if I'm allowed it every month it's over £1,000 meaning per year it's about £13,000 to keep me alive.

[00:30:23]I've got to think am I worth it? Do I do I deserve to live? I don't know. I don't know whether I do or not at that bloody price. we shouldn't put life down to a price. But um you know, of course I want to live. Of course I do. But that's a lot of money.

[00:30:38]And I'm thinking, could that money be better spent on a baby, a children's unit?

[00:30:48]somebody who hasn't experienced life who could if uh if I wasn't so bloody greedy is to want £13,000.

[00:31:04]I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how I feel about it. It was only yesterday and uh I know he sent off the paperwork and I said, "Look, I need to think about this." He said, "Of course you do." And I said, "No, I don't know if I'm going to go for any of the three options. Yes, number one is out the window. The abilation or abilation ablation sounds like it can work." And he said it does, but he said it's um it's not as good as cutting the um the muscle away. You can rub it away, but it invariably grows again. And uh you might find that you have to keep on having it done. I don't want that.

[00:31:44]I really don't.

[00:31:50]So, I think we're down to medication.

[00:31:53]I don't know.

[00:31:56]And uh will my body reject it? I don't know how I'm going to do on the medication if I'm entitled to it. I might take one tablet and go a bit bloody loopy.

[00:32:06]And here we are again waiting for something else to pop up. I don't know.

[00:32:10]So, anyway, it's all up in the air still. everything else. Um, currently how it leaves me is I've got more palpitations now than I've ever had, which which is not nice, you know.

[00:32:24]I also get quite a lot of pains, that gripping pain and releasing like that.

[00:32:30]And I get that um that's every day, every single day, quite a number of times per day.

[00:32:41]So, it isn't great. And I hate to you bleed on. Oh dear, poor old me. But it's not great really. And I am struggling a little bit with it. My heart, you know, it's um it's not great. But anyway, so the other questions I asked him, I said, I get breakfast while I'm walking. He said, "Of course you will. You know, your heart is really really struggling and blah blah blah." And um you know, he said, "Uh what you got to do is limit really your exercise.

[00:33:11]um exercise if and when you can do but um I said that's difficult. I said look at the size of me. Yeah. 20 stone. Oh hello.

[00:33:23]See another dog. Oh hello. Hello.

[00:33:30]Let me turn this off a sec. I got surrounded by dogs.

[00:33:36]Anyway, see it gets me down, you know, thinking about I don't like bloody medical stuff and what have you. So anyway, the second thing is I said two things. Number one is the cost. Second thing is if I do go on this medication, it's a bit like uh chemotherapy or something sitting on the wall because every 30 days you got to go into hospital for half a day and they uh oh [ __ ] they um you go all the way through all these tests again uh you know which I don't like but anyway or whatever. So, you have an ECG, you have a chat, you have a CT scan, and every now and then you spend a little bit longer. So, you have the full I can't remember what it's called. It's not an MRI. I It's horrible. But anyway, it slices through the body. Maybe it is an MRI.

[00:34:40]I don't know. I try and pretend I'm not there.

[00:34:44]So, that would be every month if I go on this medication.

[00:34:50]Now, let's look at the bright side, the positive side, because there's a guy called Chris, and I saw him on some medical website. Well, I saw him. I read uh read about him and he's younger than me and his heart is more knackered than mine.

[00:35:15]and he ended up that he couldn't really do anything and they used to be pretty much just laid in bed and and really couldn't do anything. Couldn't exercise or do anything much.

[00:35:28]And uh this new med came out in 23 and he was one of nine patients the first people to try it.

[00:35:39]So it affects everybody in different ways but only if you've got our specific disease which um I keep saying so it's hypertrophic cardiammyopathy um and within 12 weeks cuz that's the third his third month of going back for half a day back for half a day back for half a day uh they realized that his heart's muscular tissue had decreased by 50%.

[00:36:14]Right? No um abilation, no opening up, no knives, no ripping your ribs apart.

[00:36:45]You know, I said I get hot. That's uh that's part of um my particular disease.

[00:36:55]Makes me very very hot at times.

[00:36:58]When I get hot, I've got a tendency to start panicking. So, um I have to try and keep myself cool as much as I can.

[00:37:05]But because I'm on a massive amount now of um a massive amount of anti-depressants. It keeps the panic disorder at bay mostly.

[00:37:21]Mostly I also part of my thing is this big fat elephant. Look at that.

[00:37:33]that redness and saw and I put cream on there. You'd never bloody believe it, would you? And this is a sexy leg. Look at that.

[00:37:42]So, that is uh Hello, B. Just look at my lovely legs.

[00:37:50]So, that's another part of my particular heart disease.

[00:37:55]Apparently, another um thing with my particular heart disease is I urinate a lot at night. Um you know, most men of my age do or I suppose most people I don't know. I've never been a woman. Although in this day and age, who knows?

[00:38:19]Bri Brianiano.

[00:38:30]So some nights without drinking too much I can go to bed and during the night I can get up for a wee six, seven, eight times. Bloody ridiculous.

[00:38:49]But on average, I get up twice, sometimes three, and uh talking to friends and what have you. That's nothing. A couple of times a night, especially at my great age of 26. Did I tell you I'm 26? I haven't yet.

[00:39:05]So anyway, what where are we going? I was going to be talking about other things.

[00:39:13]Well, same thing, but Okay. So, yeah, it's left me uh not up in the air. Just left me.

[00:39:22]We're waiting and seeing what the score is.

[00:39:25]Uh not a lot I can do with the pain at the moment. He's hoping that that will just settle down. They don't want to overload me with too many drugs cuz I'm on enough as it is.

[00:39:43]Uh on a negative point, I think there's going to come a time one day when I'm going to say I've had enough, you know, and uh I hate to say that, but I think all humans are only here until it's a struggle to be here and your body is given up and what have you.

[00:40:08]So, uh will there come a time? I don't know. Who knows?

[00:40:12]Uh maybe.

[00:40:18]But I bloody hate going to the doctors, going to hospital, trying new meds, doing this, doing that.

[00:40:27]I'll just lay you down, lift your t-shirt. Let me uh Oh, let's listen to your heart. Let's do Oh, oh, your your pulse is very high today. Of course, there is. You know, I'll just check your blood pressure. Don't bloody bother.

[00:40:37]It's through the roof.

[00:40:39]My blood pressure.

[00:40:41]I get very hot from my heart as I've just said and then I have to walk from wherever the bloody hell I park. Like yesterday I had to park at the furthest point away and then walk to my appointment. Now, luckily, I was 10 or 15 minutes early, which meant I could sign in, walk up the corridor, around the round the bloody bends, and uh take a seat and wait. There was one seat available out about 50. It was hot and busy in there, so I don't like it cuz there's too many people.

[00:41:38]He was an hour late seeing me. So, um, they called me a midway and I went through the the usual rubbish, you know, I do your check your blood pressure, your height, your weight, and D.

[00:41:58]I'm walking up here just to see what this red is. That's the back of the leaf, that's all.

[00:42:05]Anyway, I seem to have lost me little dog.

[00:42:13]So, I sit in the first bit and she says, "I just do your height and your weight and everything."

[00:42:19]Bode, where are you, mate?

[00:42:22]Bode, can you hear my voice?

[00:42:25]Bodie.

[00:42:28]Bodie.

[00:42:31]Bodie. Hello, Bo.

[00:42:36]Bodie.

[00:42:38]B.

[00:42:40]Bodie, where are you, mate?

[00:42:45]B, come.

[00:42:48]I don't know where he went to. Bodie.

[00:42:51]Bodie.

[00:42:53]He's got a bit of a bad leg. If he's gone down to the stream, he may not be able to get up. B, where are you, mate?

[00:43:00]Bodie. Oh god. Bodie.

[00:43:06]Birdie, there you are, man. Oh, I'm so happy to see you. Oh, I thought I'd lost you forever. Oh, man. Thank you for coming back. Hello. Hello. Oh, man. Oh, where did you get to? You went the wrong way.

[00:43:25]You went to where we where we came from, not where we're going. Oh, I'm so happy to see you. Do you know that?

[00:43:32]Hey, B. Later. rice, chicken, and chips.

[00:43:36]Yeah, I know. You want a big drink? So do I. I'm getting thirsty.

[00:43:42]So, um, anyway, she says, "Okay, there's your height. There's your weight." "Oh, you're really skinny." She said, she [ __ ] didn't. "Oh," she said, "You're half skinny." I said, "I know." Yeah. I said, "Look at me." And she said, "Um, actually, what she said was, can you just hold your belly and I can't see the bloody screen?"

[00:44:03]I said, "It's just me t-shirt. It's all just hangs over."

[00:44:07]And she said, "All right." So, she looked at that and she went, "Christ."

[00:44:14]She said, "Have you got a backpack on?"

[00:44:17]I said, "No." She said, "You're carrying a small elephant."

[00:44:21]Anyway, so she said, "Take a seat there and we do your blood pressure." And I said, "Look, that's going to be through the bloody roof."

[00:44:28]And she said, "Why is that?" And I said, "I'm hot." Like, "I'm hot. I'm anxious.

[00:44:33]I would be panicking, but I'm on the lead body meds to stop me. And I got white coat syndrome. As soon as I get into a hospital and smell that smell, see them nurses in their little blue uniforms, hear them soft shoes and clatting up the bloody uh corridor.

[00:44:52]Oh, call them in name. It goes on. It goes on. So, uh, anyway, it wasn't too bad.

[00:45:07]The blood pressure, just let you know.

[00:45:11]So, yeah, the situation is, you know, the pain hopefully will subside. I think it has a little bit, you know, over the last couple of weeks or whatever. Um, come on, boat this way, please.

[00:45:25]the uh the rapid heartbeats. I don't know.

[00:45:31]Hopefully, they'll settle. I don't think they will, but whatever. Um and then we'll see about this medication if they allow me it. Uh do I take it or not? I don't know. I've got to got to think it through really.

[00:45:45]So, that's the situation. I've been asked to update a couple of people and I know my friend always asks um from America Peg. So rather than sending a great big email, my lovely friend Martin, he always says, "How are you?

[00:46:03]What's going on?" my friend FF, my lovely friend John, my lovely friend Marian, and several other people always say, "Oh, let us know you got on, please."

[00:46:18]And they mean it as well, and I know they do. I can feel it. So, really, this video is for them and anybody else who gives a monkeys.

[00:46:28]Right, we're off. Take care then. Be well.