Those unexpected Moments !

 There you are just going through life, nothing appears to be going your way, things appearing to be static, mundane, boring and nothing to really look forward to, then all of a sudden in a heart beat whilst you are lying on your bed feeling sorry for yourself, you get a WhatsApp message. As I reached for my glasses in order to pick up my phone and see who had contacted me, I saw that it was my friend Dragos, with a somewhat cryptic clue... 

  

Love & Hope International Film Festival

"Looks like you are Practicing your Spanish".

Huh!  

This was then followed with two images and a brief explanation that Dragos had posted on Facebook. 

As I read Dragos's messages it became clear that we had been officially selected to take part in the Love & Hope International Film Festival in Barcelona... Wow !

This was for the short documentary Dragos had shot, which portrayed part of my journey from taking ill in 1995 to overcoming some tough times and rediscovering my passion for cycling.

Once the excitement of the news wore off a little I immediately set about stressing. Why you may ask. Well if you follow my blog and stories you will know that of late I have been rather unwell. I have now been off work for going on 4 months, with a horrible disease called ulcerative colitis. I have only just been diagnosed and I am currently on treatment. 

So my stressing started when Dragos asked " Have you got your passport"?

"Omg! Dragos actually would like me to attend the event in person" and spend sometime with him and other members of the team who made the film, as well as all the people who would attend the festival.

 

Love & Hope International Film Festival

I informed Dragos "No I hadn't gotten around to sorting my passport", as we had discussed this months earlier, explaining I had taken unexpectedly ill. That said now that the treatment had kind of improved my symptoms I could look into getting my passport sorted. Dragos sent me a link to a dot Gov website to get my passport done urgently. I had a quick Scooby at the website then got off my bed, went and had a shower and a shave and tidied myself up. I then went immediately up to my local Post Office in Stanley to see if I could get a Passport sorted there quickly.

At the Post Office the staff were amazing, so very helpful. I explained the situation and was informed that if I got the passport done at the Post Office there would be no guarantee that the passport would arrive in time ( It had to arrive before the 17th September). I discussed the info I had read on the government website and the Post Mistress explained there was a Passport office in Durham and that I could make an appointment with it online  to receive an urgent passport.

I asked would it be possible to have my identification photos taken at the Post Office, just I didn't want to risk taking them myself, and them not being approved. Again the staff were ever so helpful and did all the selection and button pressing of the Photo Booth machine. Thank god they were there as there was no way I could have done it myself, I am blind as a bat without my gigs on and after removing them I couldn't read any of the instructions and prompts. There was a little bit of a stressful moment as the photo machine wouldn't accept payment in coins, however it eventually accepted two £5 notes. Job done.

I returned home and began my application which was pretty straight forward. The passport cost just over £207 and I now have an appointment to attend the Passport office at Durham, I should then receive my passport one week later.

Following this I wanted to give my manager at work a ring. Again stress getting the better of me. I mean here I was in my mind planning a trip away, yet I was and have been on the sick for around 4 months. When I spoke to my manager she was very supportive asI explained my situation, letting her know that I would be returning to work before I planned to head off to Spain, asking would it be okay to put some Annual Leave in for the days off. There is no way I would have sneaked off on a quick holiday or get away whilst on the sick.

It's funny how my mam springs to mind whenever I am not feeling well. You see my mam was old school. When I was a child if I was sick and off school  I was not allowed to go out and play. That was the rule and that rule has lived with me right until this day. So now that I am off work, regardless of what aliment I have I only ever go out unless it is absolutely necessary, like for hospital or doctor appointments. If you are too ill to goto work, you are too ill to be socialising or doing anything that involves being out and about rings in my ears in my mothers voice.

After speaking to my manager I felt a lot more relaxed not just about the trip, but also about moving forward in my return to work.

Next I got back in touch with Dragos with a quick message, Dragos then rang me and we had a back and forth conversation. From here things moved really quickly and before I knew it Dragos had arranged dates, booked flights and very kindly paid for them. I have to say I felt guilty about not paying my way. I am not used to such generosity and from day one of meeting Dragos he hasn't asked anything of me other than friendship and the opportunity to promote his work, which I am only to happy to do.

We now had an itinerary and plans for my visit to Spain, this involved Dragos meeting me once the plane landed in Alicante, driving to his villa in Valencia, a few days there, then a 3 hour drive to Barcelona for the film festival and time permitting some mountain bike riding back in Valencia, before flying back home. A lot to fill in in 4 to 5 days.

I am not well travelled, my last and only trip away was when I went to America, way back in 2013. This was an epic 3 week adventure where I had to wear my big boy pants and it really gave me a sense of independence and adventure, and now all these years later I have another opportunity, which I am both most grateful and feel very fortunate for.

Loosing my leg was a huge blow to me, however in hindsight in some bizarre and highly weird way it has been a ludriciously positive turn of events. I can honestly say if I had my own two legs I probably would never have travelled, and upon my life journey I would not have met some of the most amazing, friendly and supportive people around the world, who have gone on to inspire me.

I will make sure to blog of events upon my return, hopefully with some interesting pictures.

I now kind of have a diagnosis!

Following on from some of my previous blogs about having to go into hospital for some investigations, well I now have a kind of diagnosis, which is on the one hand a relief , whilst upon the other it's like, (and please excuse the language),  it's just this is real life, " fucking hell man, how much more do I have to go through".

I have been off work now since May the 5th, it all started probably way before May if I am honest, however I thought I had just picked up a bug, and as things got worse, maybe possibly a Clostridium difficile infection, known as C.diff.

I won't go into the gory details, however diarrhoea, terrible tummy cramps, back pain, confusion, headaches, joint pain and even itchy eyes, along with a sense of being really fatigued and irritable.

Whilst visiting my G.P surgery I was given a weeks course of antibiotics, which didn't work at all and then when I returned I had to give various bodily fluids and samples and it was the poo samples that came back with irregularities.

My first colonoscopy was a fail, put down to poor prep. I swear I tried to drink as much of the vile laxative drink, Omg! it was disgusting, far worse than the first procedure itself, where yes I chose to be somewhat sedated. I mean who wants to be aware of a camera being shoved up your hoop.

As I awaited a second colonoscopy appointment I was becoming increasingly concerned, about my symptoms and as we all do turned to Google., though I do have to say I did NOT visit misinformation sites, sticking more to NHS verified sites.

Obviously the scary scenario I had in my head was that I would require surgery and have to have a colonoscopy and wear a stoma bag.

The first colonoscopy that wasn't successful I was informed that the results looked like I had Colitis. The second colonoscopy which was a little more uncomfortable and painful confirmed I had ulcerative colitis.

Moving ahead an appointment was made at the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinic where I saw a really friendly and supportive speciality nurse. This appointment was probably one of the longest one to one appointments I have ever had in my whole time as a patient, and I got to ask lots of questions and garner a lot of information in moving forward. One of the first things the nurse did when she met me was reassure me in kind words, something along the lines of "Glenn we will help you to deal with this and with treatment you will start feeling much better".

As my blog title says "I kind of have a diagnosis". You see although what I have is classed as Inflammatory Bowel Disease, which stems from something going wrong with my auto-immune system and then my body attacking itself, as for the Ulcerative Colitis diagnosis the consultants report was a little ambiguous. During the investigation it appeared I was mainly inflamed in a certain area and not as expected throughout. All I understand is it has made me feel miserable and I don't normally ask the question "why me" when various health issues have occur din the past, however this time around it has really got to me, so I have been internalising with a lot of swearing "WTF!". In my head I have put two and two together and blame all the horrible medications and treatments I have had over the years which have seriously affected my immune system. Anyhoo no good dwelling it is what it is.

As the appointment went on the nurse provided me with a website that the NHS recommend which is crohnsandcolitis.org.uk which is a very useful and informative site and saves me going through what Crohns and Ulcerative Colitis actually are.

I have now been placed on 2 months of steroids and tablets which I believe are for calcium. The steroids are called Prednisolone and the nurse informed me they can come with some side effects and that I must not stop taking them and make sure I finish the complete course.

Upon taking the steroids, within a couple of days they had really helped and this was such a relief. I have experienced some minor side effects, well unless its all in my head and psychosomatic I just cannot sleep, even though I am taking the medication around 7 am each day, and today, day 6 of taking the meds I am experiencing some low mood. This could be of course as I am bored out of my tree, still not feeling 100 % and missing going out on my bikes, especially as i now have my new Bartlett Tendon knee which I haven't even taken out of its protective box. Add the fact I have lost weight due to being ill so my prosthetic leg is not fitting great again.

Anyhoo the main reason for this somewhat personal blog is to not only tell my story, but to also maybe reassure anyone going through this horrible disease that it is good to talk about it and take support from where you can, in helping deal with it.

For me I have learnt I now have this for life and that it can be controlled through medication and that possibly I may have flare ups in the future once this flare up is settled. As with my Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma, it is no good putting my life on hold, everyday is a new one and it's better to live in the moment rather than worrying what is ahead.

Its always bloody wheel fitment I have a nightmare with!

My dad and I have finally got my new wheels sorted on my wee Abarth 124 Spider.

I bought the new OZ wheels around about a year ago believe it or not, and have only just got around to fitting them, this has a great deal to do with the awful weather we had from last year, leading into this year what with all the rain and salt on the roads. Plus at the same time I had a set of Yellow Speed Racing coil overs to go on my car and wanted these fitting first.

As Bodyworx had done such a good job on both my VW Beetle, installing new springs and in doing the tracking I asked would they be able to fit the coil overs and then align the Abarth. The whole job was carried out for what I thought was a very reasonable price £200.

Abarth 124 Spider lowered

When I went to pick up my car Kelvin one of the mechanics explained that the front wheels were very and I mean very close to the front Brembo callipers. When he said close and we inspected it, you couldn't even get a credit card between the rim and the calliper.

Wheelbase Alloys who had supplied the wheels assured me the correct offset would be sent out and looking at the invoice the offset did match the standard wheels as I recall, something like an offset of 42. Thing is I think a more negative offset say 35 would have been a better option. Too late to send the wheels back, we had to look at other options and this was wheel spacers.


So upon reading up what other people were fitting I decided to purchase a set of H&R 18 mm TRAK spacers, I then recalled putting lower profile tyres on my car and larger 18 inch rims, the standard rims being 17's.I also opted for for 215 tyres instead of the standard 205's so started panicking that the 18 mm would be too wide and I would have to mess around with the camber on my car to prevent any rubbing. So I returned the 18 mm spacers and ordered some H&R 9mm hub centric spacers. These came with what they call shank or shaft nuts which allow the nuts to be put on to the standard wheel studs allowing more turns.

As I recall I could get about 7 to 8 turns using the provided Shank/Shaft nuts, however I could only get about 4 1/2 turns when using my tuner nuts.

  

Shaft Shank Nuts

   

H&R 9 mm wheel spacers, with incorrect studs

Well this is where more problems began. I did some online research on the Abarth 124 forums to try and find out info on extended wheel studs and the correct fitment, so length, thread pitch and spline size. Long story short after ordering various wheel studs on 3 separate occasions, ranging from 47mm to 63 mm they all came with the incorrect spline size of 13.1 mm. All the forums I visited definitely said the spline size was 13.1, simply not true. This size won't even fit past the shoulder of the stud into the hub.

My dad used a micrometre and after much searching we discovered Demon Tweeks had some  "Hub Buddies Mazda Wheel Stud 12.82mm Spline Diameter 73mm Long Under Head Rear/Front", so I ordered 16 x of these and when they arrived we cautiously cut one stud down to around 51mm so that it would fit without removing the rear hub and gently pulled it into the hub. We then test fitted a wheel with the disc back on and the H&R spacer fitted and managed to get 10 turns on the tuner nut.

Following this my dad cut all the wheel studs to 51mm and we used a burr tool from Machine Mart to finish off the end of the stud threads.

  

Hub Buddies 12.82 spline 73mm long M12 x 1.5

I am now pleased to say my new wheels are fitted and look great with no catching or rubbing issues and my car is sitting pretty.

Studs pulled in an cut to length plus burred ends

Only one other thing that has really pissed me off whilst my car has been in the back yard with our gates closed, whilst awaiting getting sorted, my bonnet has been dented yet again in exactly the same place as last time, so that will be another £120 to get it sorted.


Once I am back to work I will restart saving as I have other mods planned, just at the moment I am having to try and work around this poxy illness I have been diagnosed with and its been difficult and really debilitating, Anyhoo that's another story.

Hopefully get out soon and get some shots of the wee Abarth to post when I get her cleaned and dent free.