| lesley153
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Won't you miss them horribly?
Do they know you haven't got the right machine to play them on? If not, it might be worth a phone call to see if they can help a bit better. Good luck! |
Reply #1401. Sep 03 10, 9:45 AM
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| lesley153
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The Virgin engineers arrived mid-afternoon. They said my problem was a very old modem. At least four years old because it's that long since they took over NTL.
So why have they left their customers with ancient modems? Because they haven't all "fallen over" like mine yet, but some of them are starting to.
They gave me a new modem, and did a speed test. Instead of 1 meg download speed, I can now get just under 10 on Firefox and just over 10 on Chrome. They also made it clear that they won't make it easy for me to claim a backdated refund for getting a tenth of what I was paying for.
And I forgot to tell them that the O2 package arrived this morning (naughty me). Jonathan and I will play with it when he nips back next Wednesday. |
Reply #1402. Sep 03 10, 12:20 PM
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garrysouders 
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Can't wait to hear how fast things are with the new modem, my whole system has been slowing down. No one at the company seems to know why, but they assured me they would look into it.
Reply #1403. Sep 05 10, 9:20 AM
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| lesley153
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It's a little bit faster - sometimes. It certainly doesn't feel like ten times faster - ever. I still spend a lot of time staring at the hourglass, waiting for something to happen.
Perhaps the line is now capable of providing 10 meg but perhaps the download is only as fast as the system. Time for a new system, when I have some money. Any year now! |
Reply #1404. Sep 05 10, 10:00 AM
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satguru
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You don't notice page loads much but if you download any programs it is many times faster. Do a free speed test, it should be near 10 megs as the cables are pretty consistent.
Reply #1405. Sep 05 10, 11:10 AM
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| lesley153
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Thanks, David. It's at times like this that I need someone-who-is-young-enough-to-know-everything. Jonathan has probably taught me most of what I know, but that's nowhere near most of what he knows.
It was 9.95 on Chrome, and ping 17ms - a little less than when they tested it two days ago. Perhaps it's the time of day that slows it down.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Garry, have you managed to speak to your satellite dish people yet? |
Reply #1406. Sep 05 10, 11:52 AM
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| lesley153
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Good day today.
We walked home from the town centre - two miles! - via my new surgery. I climbed small staircases here and there, a huge staircase in a shop, and a steep Victorian staircase at the surgery.
I've met my new GP at last and am pleased with his manner and his attitude. He's said I can start driving again, and suggested that I start with short drives, which strikes me as sensible.
He looked at my blood test results and said that everything, including kidney function, is fine: my iron is normal and my haemoglobin's up from 9-ish to 10-ish, which is still a long way off the ideal 13-15, but that was a fortnight ago, and I do feel surprisingly energetic, so perhaps it's getting a bit closer now.
The best one was the cholesterol, which he said was fine, and I haven't taken any statins for five months. I was never happy about taking them but my old GP said I needed to, and refused to discuss them with me.
Q "What changes can I make to my diet and lifestyle so that I can take a lower dose or perhaps not take them at all?"
A "No, it's too high for your diet to have any effect on it. Just keep taking the tablets."
(Thanks, that's very helpful.)
But the cardiac consultant at Bedford took me off them, and nobody's wanted to put me back on them, and now it looks like I don't need them.
When Jonathan drove me to Bedford Hospital in July, three days before I was due at Papworth, he left me in the car while he went into A&E to get me a wheelchair. He remembers that I was breathless just sitting in the wheelchair. A two-mile walk then would have been beyond the wildest of my wild dreams. Definitely a good day today.
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On Wednesday I'm going to cardiac rehabilitation at Bedford hospital. One of the things they're going to do is see how I cope on a treadmill. If you hear loud noises, it's me falling off it. |
Reply #1407. Sep 06 10, 3:57 PM
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| Lochalsh
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I'll catch you when/if you fall. ((((((Lesley)))))))
Reply #1408. Sep 06 10, 4:40 PM
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| lesley153
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| Thank you. :) That's the nicest offer I've had all week. |
Reply #1409. Sep 06 10, 4:53 PM
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| Lochalsh
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Mon plaisir. *curtsey*
Reply #1410. Sep 06 10, 5:44 PM
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satguru
|
That's a new lease of life there, such a relief. I've never got pinging (except to know the internet's actually functioning but not the figures with it) but 9.95 is dead on and varies from moment to moment in a small range. Cables aren't affected by location so just the volume at the time can slow it a bit.
I wonder if many people realise our brains are partly made of cholestrol? It is essential for life, and the majority of excess is from a genetic inability to process it from diet which is visible early in life and affects about 25% of people, while another similar amount are virtually immune to any amount. Those in the middle really shouldn't get busy as it's not as dangerous as most of the things we do for pleasure.
Reply #1411. Sep 06 10, 5:59 PM
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| lesley153
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We need cholesterol for our brains and nerves to work, and the amount we get from food is insignificant in comparison with what the liver manufactures. But all that is lost on the great cholesterol witch hunt.
It's a bit like the report that first said we need this amount of water and left off the bit that said "and we get most of that from our food."
I suspect that my OLD (!) GP prescribed statins for me after my diabetes diagnosis, as a knee-jerk reaction to received wisdom that if you have diabetes you need statins. And that may explain why he didn't want to talk to me about it - he didn't know what he was doing. Nothing else he did gave me any indication that he knew what he was doing. His medical repertoire consisted of prescribing antibiotics and writing referrals.
It'll be interesting to know (although I don't suppose we shall be told) how many patients follow them and how many can't wait to join a new practice. |
Reply #1412. Sep 06 10, 6:35 PM
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Jazmee27
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I find it rather sad that so many physicians jump the gun ad prescribe pills-wether a patient needs them or not. I think it's the mark of a good doctor if he/she examines the patient and considers every available option and, as a last resort, medication.
Glad to hear you're improving, Lesley-and don't worry about falling off because no one will let you!
Reply #1413. Sep 06 10, 8:07 PM
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Rowena8482
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They get paid for hitting targets on prescribing statins. The more new prescriptions they write, the more money they get in bonus. Same with inhalers, innoculations, smear tests and a couple of other things. The previous government decided that forceful prevention would save the NHS money on treating people who develop various conditions, so by bribing doctors to give everybody something, we would all live forever and be able to work and pay taxes and not bother the NHS anymore. Like all their other stupid ideas, it failed miserably. (Unless you're a doctore on £100K+ a year with £20K of it bonuses for prescribing statins)
Reply #1414. Sep 07 10, 2:47 AM
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| lesley153
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Jazmee, that's one of the things that put me off the GP I've just left - his refusal to talk to me. I saw my new one today, and he was talking about options, not just reaching for his prescription pad. Thank you - and I hope not!
Rowena, that makes a lot of sense. Explaining why my old GP did the things he did, I mean, not why he was instructed to. (What doesn't make sense is a Bedford GP who is famed for never prescribing anything for anyone.) I wonder why the old one looked down his nose at the inhalers his locum prescribed for me - perhaps because he didn't prescribe them. And I wonder if that's why he didn't bother to send me for any steroid levels tests in the eleven months between my getting them and leaving him. Oh hang on - he never followed up on anything.
And it's cumulative - the less joy you get from a GP on one thing, the less likely you are to ask him about other things - specially if he's just said you're a liar and a hypochondriac. After all that, it still took the petty vindictiveness of his cancelling my patient transport for me to shift myself and leave him. Excuse me for a moment while I go and kick myself. |
Reply #1415. Sep 07 10, 4:11 AM
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Deunan
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Lesley, freeze. Do not kick yourself. Save it for when you might run into the ex-doctor. Kick him instead.
It took me reading my records, and discovering my birthdate listed as the date I saw the doctor. Mistakes are still coming to light (almost a month later).
I hope you didn't kick you.
Reply #1416. Sep 07 10, 7:23 AM
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| Professer
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Well said Deunan Kick the Quack Doctors is better.
Reply #1417. Sep 07 10, 7:45 AM
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| lesley153
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I froze! I hadn't actually got round to kicking myself yet - too lazy.
You're quite right, of course; he's the one who deserves a kicking, but he may get that when he sees how few Bedford people are prepared to follow him from a useful site near Sainsburys, to a remote site in Clapham, a village outside Bedford, on the far side of the Glenn Miller airfield. There are other practices a hundred yards down the road, and still more nearer the town centre. They will be the only general practice in Clapham, but I wonder how few Clapham people are too happy with their existing GPs to move to a new one just because they're closer.
We have learnt that we can no longer expect to find a GP within walking distance, and we can choose on preference rather than convenience. (Not that I care enough to wait and find out.)
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Jonathan's nipped back to London for 24 hours. I got him a minicab to the station and joined him but hopped out at the shops. I bought milk and bread, and I er hardly bought any chocolate at all, honest (!) and walked the half a mile back. I have a bit of laundry and dishwashing to do, and a million knitting needles (mother-in-law's, I think) to sort by size, and a couple of corrugated cardboard boxes to cut up to recycle. That's a few hours' work now, not a week's.
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Tomorrow is Cardiology at Bedford hospital, for an assessment, and a stress test (treadmill). I was asked if I wanted transport - yes please. Should be fun. |
Reply #1418. Sep 07 10, 8:03 AM
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| Lochalsh
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What they're not telling you about the transport is that you have to walk a temporary treadmill all the way from your house to the hospital. Two birds, one stone, you see. ;-)
Reply #1419. Sep 07 10, 8:10 AM
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