Posts Tagged ‘Health’

I’m not even going to bother trying to apologise for my levels of crapness this week I’m just going to throw this one out there, but I can assure you that you can be safe in the knowledge that this weeks theme Autumn could not be more appropriate, I thought summer this year was generally pretty awful but goodness gracious me do I always forget how much I hate the cold grey misery of Autumn, funnily enough by the time winter proper comes around I generally have re-acclimatised and cope fine, but these last few weeks as the nights draw in are sheer hell for me.

throw in kids who are teething, kids with inexplicable temperatures, me and Mrs BC with constant coughs and sniffles, a silly work load and I’m frankly amazed at how little I’ve been ranting in these pages, maybe it’s just exhaustion that has made me too lazy to bother.

Still the local council suck for giving me a parking ticket whilst I waited to collect a sniffly miserable Mrs BC from the station, they didn’t even have the guts to give it to me there and then rather they just chucked it in the post to allow me to rant no doubt fruitlessly at their on-line appeals process. I might win, they say I was parked on the walkway, I say I was parked in a driveway, time will tell if they’re going to get their sixty pieces of silver.

I guess this photo kinda show’s where I would rather be on a cold miserable Autumn evening

steamy warm pub

Until the next time, which hopefully will be soon.

TTFN

Mr Bunny Chow

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I have failed to find you a sunset within the prescribed time frame so have decided to go with a spooky moonrise as a substitute.

Moonrise over Croydon

Time has kinda run away with me this last week with Grandma Bunny Chow now having returned to Zimbabwe I hope to be able to dedicate a little more time to you all in the coming weeks.

I haven’t forgotten the deadline is fast approaching for Nick and Shannon’s monthly community collaboration project either, although I may have to miss out on this one as time and idea’s are rapidly running away from me, we shall see.

Next weeks theme is going to be metal and I already have some great idea’s lets hope that I manage to execute them in a timely manner.

for now though

TTFN

Mr Bunny Chow

 

first off I wanted to say a huge thank you to all of you who read these random ramblings of mine, I’ve now reached the landmark of 100 wordpress.com followers and having that support and following has been great. As some of you longer term readers will know I started rambling around on the web in frustration at shoddy customer service and to give poor Mrs Bunny Chow a break from listening to me whining. At the time I’d never even read any blogs and had no idea that this community even existed or dreamed that I could become part of it.

Blogging has become a hobby for me and keeps me out of trouble, I became really down a week or so ago when a close friend began questioning why I would be “doing shit drawings and putting them all over the internet” well my friend I do them because it’s my hobby and I gain pleasure from it and thanks to you good people out here in the blogosphere seem to gain something from my photography and art, I could have retaliated in person and attacked his passions and questioned what led him to do what he does in his free time but I was grown up enough to drop it and remember that art is subjective, just because he might not like what I am doing that’s entirely his right to make that decision and whilst my feelings at the time were deeply deeply hurt and poor Mrs Bunny Chow had to listen to me griping and whining, having allowed myself time to simmer I realise that in reality I would defend to the end his right to his opinions, I may not agree with them but the internet is a wonderful democracy and if he chooses not to enjoy my artistic that’s his prerogative, I’m not going to give up my hobby because it doesn’t float the boat of someone else, be they a real life friend or the occasional internet troll.

Next I’d like to talk about artistic inspiration, it’s a topic I’ve covered a couple of times before in these pages but would like to touch on again inspired by the lovely Patricia over at Pixygiggles who asked about artistic Mojo and how creativity can be commanded, well the simple answer is that it can’t be commanded, well at least not by me, there are plenty of weeks that go by where I battle to keep taking pictures but I keep going. I draw my inspiration and ideas from a variety of sources, Google+ and especially the Project 52 list have thus far inspired at least 34 posts with plenty more to come, Nick and Shannon from www.nickexposed.com and http://seeingspotsphoto.wordpress.com/ have been equally inspiring with their monthly community collaboration projects.

Then there are just people like the aforementioned Patricia who goes out of her way day after day to share her interpretation of the world and what it means to her at any given time, I’ve discovered so many people who inspire me to go out and create on a daily basis, I don’t share every failure with you but I do share plenty of them and do you know what sometimes I cringe but more often I’ll just look back with pride and think I created that, sure I’ve learned a lot about photography in the last year or so and might approach things differently if faced with the same opportunities today but isn’t that what learning is all about, do golfers ever shoot that perfect round and think sod it that’s enough I’ll quit now?

Phew this is turning into something of a rant, deep breath, I started writing today because I wanted to thank all of you who have welcomed me and inspired me to keep going and enjoy myself, at the end of the day this is my little fiefdom but all of you make it a happy little fiefdom so thank-you for being you.

My last little ramble is to ask opinions of phonography and the proliferation of filter apps like instagram and hipstamatic, I keep changing my mind about them, they’re fun, they’re quirky, they’re always in your pocket but the pictures that come out of them are crap, yet it’s that same crapness that I somehow like about them and keep finding myself drawn back to even when editing my photographs from my camera I find myself drawn back to retro feeling editing styles, is this because of the cliché or just because it’s what I’ve always found aesthetically appealing, I’m not sure I can answer that at the moment so I’ll leave the floor open for your thoughts.

The pictures interspersed throughout this post are not new, they’re just a few I’ve chosen because I liked them and felt like sharing them, I’m pretty sure they’ve all been seen in these pages before but if they’re new to you I hope you like them and if you don’t then that’s fine too.

Comment your lives away.

TTFN

Mr Bunny Chow

outside of my project 52 and collaboration projects with Nick and Shannon I’ve been quietly working on a little personal project which although it may seem a little sad and depressing, has actually helped me avoid feeling that way as I wade my way through the misery of a dank and wet British summer, relied on the NHS to hack me open and fix my hand and generally try not to feel too sorry for myself I thought that I’d try to capture some gritty dark and depressing style photo’s.

I’ve shared a few of these style pictures with you throughout the year and whilst I’m not entirely sure what draws me to them as they are undoubtedly pretty dank they are the style of photo I most enjoy capturing and getting just as dark, grainy and depressing as I can in post editing. I think what I’m trying to say is that dark and depressing photo’s make me happy.

I hope that by sharing these I make one or two of you smile too even if it’s just with my stupid captions.

Journey through the light

Hold my hand as the light at the end of the tunnel shines bright.

this is summer 2012

Global warming my arse, it was pouring with rain and freezing cold when I captured this shot last week.

just another teen romantic

What did your teen bedroom look like?

Get out-of-the-way old man

Can’t you see I’m far more important than you and am rushing to very important places.

she knows how to use them!!!

This just reminded me of the ZZ Top classic Legs.

Love Fades

I love the way this chalk etching is slowly fading away within its brick frame.

do you have the key?

I’ve got a real thing for old locks, I think it’s the mechanical beauty and precision in their manufacture that draws me to them time and again.

past glory slowly fading

I love this old Merc and can’t help but wonder about who purchased it new as an aspirational tour de force with its rock solid build quality and how even after all these years it’s still going, is it still owned by the same person or has it been passed from owner to owner and loved a little bit less with each successive tenure.

whats the bet the wheels will be gone come morning?

I’m positive this car doesn’t belong to a drug dealer

the lonely vigil

Is he longing for escape, is he waiting for his owner to come home or is he simply surveying his kingdom?

Once again I hope you’ve enjoyed this little insight into the type of pictures I find myself seeking out when not shooting with a particular idea or theme in mind.

What type of art inspires you and makes you happy?

TTFN

Mr Bunny Chow

tut tut tut I have been naughty, I apologise for my laziness when it comes to my original photography project, I have been shooting through out my times of absence and although I was distracted by the scavenger hunt from Nick and Shannon and then my ouch series but I think it’s high time for a bit of a catch up, the pictures were all taken in the correct weeks I’ve just not had the time or perhaps just not made the time to edit and post them here.

Week 25 the theme was love and as I’m in a rush and still feeling anti computer and lazy I’m just going to go with a cliché night shot of some roses.

Love

Week 26 the theme was water and again I’m going to stick with roses

Water

Week 27 the theme was red white and blue.

some people take patriotism a touch too far

Week 28 the theme was my home town which as I don’t live in what I consider to be my home town wasn’t easy so I’ve used my adopted home town of Croydon instead. As Croydon is a pretty grimy, dingy and depressing place I’ve tried to reflect that in my chosen editing style for this shot of Croydon’s iconic 50p building. It has been identified before as one of Britain’s biggest eye sores although I quite like it.

Croydon

Week 29 the theme was Summer/Winter and as it has been such a crap summer so far I’m again going to share a picture of a dripping wet rose with a grey miserable sky as I’ve yet to get a pretty summers day captured on sensor.

global warming my arse, this is summer?

Thankfully the weather this week is a vast improvement but seeing as I’m still pretty down I’ve stuck with gritty black and white for week 30’s theme of The S-Curve

I promise I’ll do my best to get things back on track and my posts up to date moving forward.

Both this months project from Nick and Shannon and Week 31’s suggested post are “silhouette” so hopefully I’ll be able to combine them and bring you something new and exciting next week.

As I’m sure you can tell from the above pictures themselves I’ve been pretty disheartened and feeling sorry for myself over the last couple of weeks but the sun is shining today and my hand is feeling better every day so whilst I have a few more dark and dreary things that I want to share with you in the pipeline fingers crossed that this dreariness is all in the past now.

TTFN

Mr Bunny Chow

Apologies for the delay to this post but I’ve been doing my best to avoid the computer for the last week or so.

My surgery went ahead as scheduled or rather rescheduled on the 12th and the initial prognosis is good, upon opening up the side of my thumb it has been established that there is no tendon damage and that whilst there was a lot of scaring around the median nerve it too was in tact so they were able to do something called neurolysis which essentially consisted of un-sheathing the nerve and cutting away the excess scar tissue, this process is unlikely to return the sense of feeling to the tip of my thumb but should theoretically at least do something to stop the nerve from sending phantom signals back up into my hand and arm saying it’s in pain.

Hold on I’m not sure that makes much sense so I’m going to try to explain a bit better the reasons I was pushing for this surgery in the first place, not having any feeling in the tip of my thumb has not been the end of my world, it’s made my typing a little clumsy and I’ve burned it while cooking a couple of times but what has been unbearable is that the median nerve that serves the thumb has known there was something wrong with it and sent random shooting pains back up through my thenar (the pulpy bit of your hand beneath your thumb) and into my forearm. These pains have been fairly random but were largely brought on by things like having to drive long distance especially in difficult conditions like heavy rain or stop start traffic where I might subconsciously be gripping the steering wheel harder than normal. My boys also have an uncanny ability to single out this weakness and bite, kick or grab out at it resulting in often days of being unable to sleep properly.

Right back to where we are now they’ve done the surgery, I’ve been through a week of being stoned out of my box on happy pills that barely dented the pain nor helped my sleep and  I’ve been back to have my dressing changed and spoken with a specialist hand nurse who’s given me some simple exercises and things are definitely improving, I’ve run out of the hospital prescribed happy pills and am now just subsiding on over the counter analgesics, these do seem to be working though and whilst I’m still getting cramping through my thenar it’s believed by the specialists that this will improve with time and I may even regain some feeling in the tip.

My stitches come out on Friday and they’ll take a decision then as to whether or not I will benefit from physiotherapy, they will also decide then whether I will need to return to see my consultant surgeon in either two months or three as this is the soonest that things are likely to have settled down enough to judge if there has been any permanent improvement and whether or not further surgery might be necessary.

I’m allowed to drive again once the stitches are out which will be of huge relief to the wonderfully patient and kind Mrs Bunny Chow who has borne the brunt of childcare duties and been running around trying to do the school runs etc.

I’ll leave this there as I’ve pretty much exhausted my patience for one-handed typing.

thanks again for all the kind messages and support.

TTFN

Mr Bunny Chow

you’re probably wondering how I’ve been able to type this so soon after surgery to my thumb and the simple answer is that I haven’t had the surgery yet, I went through all of the de-lousing, fasting, stressing and panicking and presented myself to the day surgery unit yesterday at the prescribed time where I waited and sat about for a while before a kindly nurse led me through to the inner sanctum and went through the checking in procedure with me, checking that I’d done everything I was supposed to, ensuring that I’d removed my wedding ring watch etc, fitting me with an ID bracelet explained the infamous backless gown, paper underwear with flattering giant access panel and super sexy anti deep vein thrombosis leggings.

I then got to be fitted with an ID anklet just in case I managed to lose my id bracelet when I was told that my surgeon was there to see me, excellent I thought she’ll just want to discuss what they’re doing again and prod and contort my battered thumb some more before making some drawings and explaining her plans. My initial assumption was initially proved correct, she battered, prodded and contorted me whilst asking if she was causing any discomfort, I nodded in the affirmative to all of her prods and pokes whilst doing my best not to scream, when eventually after all this (she was probably only at it for five minutes but it felt like hours) she said that unfortunately she was going to have to cancel my scheduled surgery due to an emergency that had come in. She then went on to apologise that I had wasted my journey and time off work and that of my carer etc. She then went on to say that she would try to fit me in again after her holiday in 3 to 4 weeks.

I fixed her with my best steely gaze, she obviously understood this to mean that I was preparing to wreak havoc or cry, either way she suggested that on second thoughts that although due to the complexity of my procedure only a consultant would be able to undertake my operation she would speak with Mary the bookings clerk and see if she couldn’t perhaps postpone one of her scheduled operations from Thursday (12.07.12) until after her holiday and slot me in then.

At this point I was dismissed to go and get back into my normal clothes, disposing of my gown, sexy socks and flattering paper underwear.

I was then taken in by a kindly nurse of the old school who could clearly see that I was rather unimpressed and given a strong sweet tea and a biscuit whilst Mary ran around and did her thing, presumably with some success as I’m to present myself for surgery again at 12 tomorrow.

I do hope that they actually go ahead this time as I’m in agony today from Mrs Surgeons proddings and pokings and not sure if Mrs BC can take any more of my grumpiness.

TTFN

Mr Bunny Chow

I’ve mentioned previously in my ouch posts that somewhere along the line between stabbing myself and now I have picked up some sort of superbug/infection that could cause major problems to post operative patients and as such beginning this morning I have to put ointment up my nose three times a day, wash my entire body and hair with a special antibiotic soap (hair’s only every other day) and then powder my armpits and groin with an antibiotic powder, in addition to this I have to obviously wear fresh clothing (I do anyway although trousers may go a couple of days) but much to Mrs Bunny Chows joy and delight also a fresh towel and bedding daily.

English: A ruptured MRSA cyst.

This photo from Wikipedia should give you an idea of why I’m going through with the de-lousing.

If you really want to know more about MRSA (no it’s not just one bug) but a type of bugs then have a read through or just accept that whilst it doesn’t seem to have affected my life so far too badly aside from never-ending coughs colds and sniffles and more spots and the like than your average pubescent.

Wish me well and think of the poor long-suffering and very sweet Mrs Bunny Chow.

TTFN

Mr Bunny Chow

this is going to be my final post for this months Scavenger Hunt with Nick and Shannon

can you complete the line from the song for this Lyric Quotograph?

  • “Chuck Norris Was Here”
  • “Big Foot Footprint”
  • Reflected Love
  • Abstract Self Portrait
  • Framed Moon
  • “Whats your sign”
  • Anti-gravity
  • Unusual Perspective
  • Abandoned
  • Silence
  • Pride and Joy
  • Emerging Star
  • Buried Treasure
  • Sparkler fun
  • Clownin Around Upside-down
  • Lyric Quotograph
  • Summer
  • Patriotism
  • Night


 

woohoo, great news the NHS have finally pulled finger (pun wholly intended) and scheduled me in for my thumb operation on Tuesday the 10th of July.

I’m not going to go into great detail explaining my injury again but you can read my older posts here or just go through life happy in the knowledge that I stabbed myself whilst being an idiot and not paying suitable attention to what I was doing.

My numerous visits to hospitals and healthcare professionals afterwards also meant that I picked up a nasty superbug type infection that I’m not allowed to treat until the week before my surgery, meaning lots and lots of niggling sickness, colds flu’s etc.

The only thing I can be truly grateful for is that I stabbed my thumb not the neck of my mate that was behind it.

Be safe, be careful and remember that whilst knives are cool and macho they are not toys and should be treated with respect.

TTFN

Mr Bunny Chow