Yesterday was a fairly significant downer.
Terrible news on the home-front, and all plans were off.

Bad news is what it is, and there's not a lot I can do about it, but it's certainly something that puts a stop to all the things you're doing.

Today I'll try to get my mind back into its normal place, and see if I can make a game.
I've been saying all week about how much I like Foldapuz's new Five Blocks game, so I'll probably end up redoing that for Shoebox, today.

That's the plan, anyway.
We'll see how it goes.

Went for a checkup this morning.

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It's 7 years since I first posted the Jiggity post, waffling on about my health, and the tumour, and all of that gubbins.
As is tradition, here's my annual health update post!

Feel free to skip by this post, it's all about my crappy health issues, and since nothing's changed, you probably know it all anyway!

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At 3pm I have to be at the town hall, where I'm having a discussion with a council worker about my upcoming disability tribunal.
Oh the fun!!

As such, any and all coding will probably be abandoned for much of the day, as my mind whizzes around trying to decide what I'm going to say, and all that kind of gubbins.

Not a fan of this kind of thing, if I'm honest.

Hopefully I'll get back on track, later tonight.

As much as I've been struggling on with a flu, for the past few days, yesterday completely floored me.

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I've never had to wear a wrist strap, before, but the sheer agony in my wrist, yesterday, was on a whole other level.



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The trip to the Diabetes Doc went pretty smoothly.

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I have to head off into town, today, to have a diabetes checkup.

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6th of March 2012 was the day that I was rushed into hospital with a brain tumour. Oh joy..

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Today's the day I have to go for my medical, and talk about how bitterly depressing it is being stuck in the house all day, every day.

Everything's been posted early, all daily chores are done, and I'm now going to get a few hours sleep before having to head all the way into the center of Manchester.

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Yesterday's task was to wake up early, prepare myself to manage the walk to the local Doctor's GP and back.

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Although August 13th isn't a significant date in my health matters, it is the date that I wrote this rather lengthy blog post, back in 2012.
It's now become a bit of a tradition for me to post an annual update on this date.
Other Jiggity Posts

The posts are given the title "Jiggity", because my original post was titled "Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig"!
*shrugs*
It's a handy keyword when searching for these health posts.

The Tumour

A tumour/cyst/blob was wedged in my head, somewhere between the Spinal Cord and Cerebellum, near the Fourth Ventricle.
Thankfully the tumour turned out to be none-cancerous, but once they removed it, the balance issues kicked in, and I ended up stuck in the hospital, on various drips and oodles of medicines, vomiting daily, for literally months.
It wasn't a pleasant time.

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A lovely salad for dinner, but a single slice of cheese was enough to kick off a killer migraine!

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Six years to the day that they found the great big tumour in my head.

In the time since, I've created over 130 games, built 3 different Frameworks including the recent C++ one, and drawn a heck of a lot of daily Pixelart doodles, tons of ALChoons, completely rewritten two fairly large websites, and a whole load more.

None of this would've been possible without the great Neurosurgery team up at Salford Royal, (specifically, Dr Leggate's team) and the wonders that are the British NHS.

Thanks to all who contributed to the removal of the thing which brought great pain over many years.

.. All except my local GP who consistently told me, FOR YEARS, that I just had a cramp in my neck from "Bad Posture", sitting at the computer all day.

A standard Xmas in the house of Jay.
The morning was spent unwrapping the insane amount of sweets that I'd been gifted.

Since folk know not to buy me Chocolate (since it gives me migraines) and they're desperately trying not to resort to buying Xmas Socks, they all seem to end up buying me a curious variety of sweets.
Each one trying desperately to find the most unique sweet they can, in a bid to outdo each other.

I unwrapped an alarming number of Jelly Beans, yesterday!

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Four years ago, I made this post, all about my hospital and brain tumour gubbins. It's been a long time since then, so I guess it's time for an update...

In general, my health is about the same. Over the past few years, I've learned the sort of things that can cause me to get queasy, and am attempting to avoid such things. I've learned that over-exerting myself can cause a lot of unexpected sickness, and that if I want a somewhat pleasant day without feeling bad, I generally just need to sit in one place and not move.
It's certainly not the greatest lifestyle in the world, but at least I can get my coding done.
.. :/
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Three years ago, I posted this post, all about my time in and out of hospital having a rather large splodge of evil-stuff removed from the middle of my head.. It's become something of an annual ritual to post a similar blog each year.

Balance

Most of my current health problems stem from a lack of balance.
The head is a fluid-filled place, and it all tends to slosh about in there, but it's all closed off so the sloshing of the fluid doesn't usually cause an issue.
When they removed the large tumour/cyst/whatever from my head, it left a bit of a hole, where all this fluid is sloshing about, and causing some pretty severe balance issues.
Essentially, if I move my head slowly about the place, the sloshing isn't too bad, and I can cope well. But if I move around too quickly, or tilt in "just" the wrong way, my head starts to spin, and I become completely off-balance.

Being in the house, this isn't too much of an issue, but when I go outside, I instinctively tend to look around. Watching for oncoming pedestrians, and trying to cross the road, requires a large amount of head tilting and spinning. As such, it's incredibly difficult for me to be outside. There's too many variables, and things aren't good for me.

Similarly, lying down can be difficult! If I move from a seated position to a flat-on-my-back one, the fluid rush causes a HUGE issue in my head, leading to my eyes rolling around, and me being unable to move for a short time due to the insane dizziness. Really not a good situation, and it means I have to gently lie down on my side, and maybe roll around to get comfortable.

Another complication is when there are people talking around me. Listening to a conversation between two people, shifting my view between them, and again sloshing that goop about inside my head. It's not very nice, and is hard to cope with.
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March 6th 2012 : Taken into hospital with High Blood Pressure and Vomiting
March 8th 2012 : Brain Surgery for Tumour removal.

Previous Health Updates
Aug 2012, Feb 2014, Aug 2014

2012 wasn't a very fun year for me.
I spent the better part of 5 months stuck in a hospital ward, and most of that time I was throwing up every single day.
A myriad of pills, patches and injections were used to desperately try to stop the vomiting, but eventually they gave up trying, and sent me home.
Luckily the daily vomiting's died down.

Three years on, and I'm somewhat settled into my new life. I can't really do anything too physical. My balance is messed up, and too much movement tends to bring back the sickness. (Putting up the Xmas Tree is a particularly queaziness-inducing event.) But for the most part, I've learned that staying sat on the couch all day, is a fairly decent way of ensuring I'm not in constant need of my sick-bowl.

I currently spend most of the day sat on the couch, coding games, drawing silly Platdude pictures, and all those other things that fill up my Twitter/Facebook feed.

I don't get out much, but am seemingly capable of getting into the village and back without being too sick, as long as I only attempt it on a "good" day. "Bad" days tend to leave me much queazier, and if I dare attempt a trip outside.. .. Hopefully the sickbowl isn't too far away!

I'm thankful that I'm still here, that the surgeon's were fantastic at what they did, and that my Blood Pressure was so remarkably high that they needed to perform a CT scan to figure out why!! (.. Because just a couple of weeks earlier, my GP had sent me for an xray, and told me there was nothing wrong..)

*phew*

Three years on.. I'm not perfectly fit and healthy, but I know it could've been much worse, and that I've been extremely lucky.

God Bless the NHS!

Last week saw the two year anniversary of this post, where I waffled and rambled on about my health condition. Mum suggested it was about time to write an update, so this is that!

Two years on, and although I'm marginally better, I'm still somewhat stuck in a fairly similar position.
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Not normally the type of thing I post, here. I tend to leave AGameAWeek to the gamey stuff, but folk keep inquiring, so I guess it's something that some people seem to love to know about!
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