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A Rough Time for The Fascinating Man

By Health, LifeNo Comments

Do you remember The Fascinating Man? Well I caught up with him a few weeks ago and he’s recently been diagnosed with epilepsy. He told me that the doctors said it was something he always had but been triggered by recent stresses his life.

The Fascinating Man told me about the effects it has in his life, seizures that sometimes he feels coming on at other times he doesn’t. He said that he’s been started on medication to control the seizures, but they haven’t yet got the right dosage for it to be fully effective. I was sad to hear his University has stopped him graduating (a few months before he was due to do so) as they couldn’t insure him on placement until he has 1 year seizure-free.

I realised that he’s lost his driving licence as you have to be seizure-free for at least twelve months in order to have a UK driving licence. I asked him how he was getting about. He said that his boyfriend was driving him where he needs to go. Last time I spoke to him (see The Fascinating Man) I got the feeling that he wasn’t completely happy at that time with the relationship, so I asked him how things were. He seemed to indicate that the epilepsy had brought them closer together and that the boyfriend had been really supportive, which I was pleased with.

I know what it’s like to be diagnosed with a medical condition that’s life changing (see How I was diagnosed with Diabetes). I also know that it’s probably effected him in more ways than he expressed in our brief conversation. But I feel so much empathy for him, especially when I’ve seen him work so hard to complete Uni, only to be told he needs to repeat the entire 3rd year with a few months to go. I let him know that I was sorry to hear about his epilepsy and tried to reassure him that everyone has something. Explaining that I have diabetes and a friend of mine has a heart condition. That was then the end to another too brief conversation between us.

While reading up on epilepsy for this blog post I found a really interesting article by Hill entitled The psychological and social impact of epilepsy that could be applied to any long term chronic medical condition. It’s an interesting read and will give anyone not diagnosed with a long term medical condition some understanding of the psychological and social impacts that a person with a long term chronic medical condition experiences.

Write soon,

Antony

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Wednesday 22 August 2012

A Catch-Up

By Friends & Family, Life, TechnologyNo Comments

Hi all,

I really haven’t had chance to blog recently, so I just thought we would have a general catch-up. So what’s new? Well…

I’ve fully transferred my website to a new hosting provider (see Transfer of Hosting). The main technical glitch was many of the images not showing up. I’ve manually fixed every page and every blog post so they should all be working now. But if by chance you stumble upon a broken image link, copy the address bar in your browser, paste it into the message body on the Contact page and click send. Then I’ll know where the problem is and I can get it fixed.

I’ve had a spell of ill health in the form of lower back pain (see Ouch…Severe Lower Back Pain), but apart from the odd painful twinges here and there I’m now feeling much better.

My good friend Sye is back from Uni and has temporarily come to live with me. It’s great to have him here, he’s good company, I feel happy being able to support him. He knows he is welcome to stay for as long as he needs too.

Sye’s also been a huge support to me in a difficult week I’ve had recently. The reason for the difficult week was financial pressures, Sye was my listening ear (along with a few other people close to me) and has given me some good advice. I discovered I have a leaking pipe under my floor, need to replace the two front tyres on my car and have had some hassle of my buildings management company.

I’ve been to my friend Steve’s graduation-from-Uni meal. It was delicious food in the Hilton in Manchester. Unfortunately I only managed to sit through the meal due to my back pain but I still enjoyed the night out.

I’ve caught up with Simon & Chrys at a recent Food & Fire Evening at Chrys’ house. It was lovely, relaxed and social, just what I needed.

I’ve also been reading Pure by Julianna Baggott which is a post-apocalyptic story about two young people whose worlds collide. Pressia a wretch in a world with deformed people and animals after the detonations and Partridge a Pure from the Dome that was protected from the detonations. It’s a trilogy with the next book out next year and the final book out the year after. It’s a fascinating read and will review it after I’ve read it.

I’ve downloaded OS X Mountain Lion. One of the reviews in the Mac App Store described it as an evolution of OSX Lion rather than a revolution. This review is right, they’ve built on OSX Lion rather than a complete redesign like Windows does. OSX Mountain Lion feels more streamlined, the iMac boots up faster and complete operations with more speed. It seems to just work, it has fixed my sound issues (see Intermittent Sound Problems on the iMac) and has a few cool new features.

The first feature I love is Siri. It’s current use is as an dictation App, but in the future it is likely to be utilitised for starting Apps, putting reminders in iCal and other functions like the Iphone 4S. I think it’s very clever how it learns your voice characteristics and uses this learning to improve the dictation. I like the Notification Centre but it doesn’t work as I’d like. For example, my new emails don’t appear in the Notification Centre like on my Iphone 4. The share button in Apps is useful and being able to post Twitter updates from my desktop makes life easier. But I was disappointed that Facebook integration is only coming in Autumn as this was one of the features I updated for.

That’s about all I’ve been up to. However I’ve got a few events here and there, working on some creative projects I hope to share with you soon and am coming up with some good ideas for thought provoking blog posts.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Thursday 9 August 2012

A Good Way to Reduce Your Alcohol Consumption?

By Happiness & Joy, Life, Shopping, ThinkingNo Comments

I recently discovered these cans of pre-mixed Smirnoff Vokda and Diet Cola:

They taste delicious, much better than if you mixing your own and slip down rather nicely. At £1.75 and only 1.6 units per can, they are ideal if you’re not a big drinker or want to reduce your alcohol consumption.

Think of it like this: if you pour a vodka and diet coke at home you’re likely to pour more than a pub measure (25mls shot) 1 unit. Your likely to pour at least a double at 2 units – if not more, whereas these cans are only 1.6 units.

Of course it depends on how many of the cans you drink – but in theory, they are a good way to reduce your alcohol consumption.

Blog soon,

Antony



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Monday 9 April 2012

The Fascinating Man

By Gay, Life, Thinking2 Comments

I met a man recently. His attractiveness caught my eye. He has a young-looking face but his eyes give the distinct impression that he’s older than he looks. He can be masculine but equally effeminate dependant on the circumstances. What I had observed of him fascinated me and I wanted to know more, so I asked around…

I found out that he’s gay – which I’d sort of guessed. That he’s taken (in a relationship) and that he has foster children. I wasn’t sure if this was right so I asked him…

The brief conversation we had fascinated me even more. All of what I found out are true. But what was more fascinating was how intense our brief communication was. It felt as though through his tone of his voice I could sense what he felt about what he was talking about. This fascinated me even more…

So I steered the conversation towards one of the safer things that fascinated me about him and his life: his foster children. I told him that if I ever fostered children with a partner, that I worry that the children would get bullied because of my sexuality. It was a this point that our conversation was interrupted…

I said I’d like to continue the conversation sometime. Since this brief conversation I have thought about this man and his life. Especially in regards to the foster children. A long time ago I crossed things off a list I’d never be able to do…

First getting married. That couldn’t of happened at the time of this list as no legislation allowed it. That’s changed now, gay people can have a civil partnership and the government are looking into the prospect of calling it gay mariage. Second was children…

People always said to me “you can foster”. But I always said, I don’t think society has progressed enough in it’s views to accept two gay men raising children. Perhaps this has changed as well? Something to think about…

Blog soon,

Antony

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Sunday 18 March 2012
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