My diagnosis: Osteoarthritis

I went in yesterday for a scan of my bones in my lower back and right hip.  You can read the report here

Basically, old age has caught up with me and I have a degree of bone degeneration in my right hip and lower back.  And that gives pain in response to certain movements.  I can walk without pain and sit in a chair without pain but other movement tend to give pain to some degree.  Since walking and sitting in a chair in front of my computer is all I do, I have got off lightly.

There is no cure but pain killers give some relief. Alcohol does too!  I have also learned how to move when doing various things and can often do them without pain if I go carefully.  I can still drive, for instance, but getting in and out of the car is a bit tricky.  My biggest beef is that it always gives me some pain to get in and out of bed.  I have normally had a couple of lie-downs during the day so that is a pest.

I believe that about half of all men of my age get osteoarthritis somewhere so time has just caught up with me

The Humber and a bad back

Yesterday I did my back in.  Most movements are now difficult and painful.  I am relying on aspirin to speed recovery and I think it has already done some good.  I think I did it by lifting a heavy kitchen benchtop into my car at Bunnings.  It's still there in the back of the car.  I am renovating an old kitchen sink downstairs.  The invaluable Dudley is doing the work.

Then today the sale of my Humber was finalized.  It took me over a month to get a roadworthy certificate for it as it needed some work that required replacement parts. There was however only one man who had the parts and he was in hospital!  So we had to wait until he got out.

Then the wife of the buyer went into hospital so that kept the buyer preoccupied for a few weeks.  So both the buyer and I had to be patient. So seeing it finally depart was a relief.  I bought it for $8,000 and sold it for $7,000 -- plus I spent a lot on it while I had it but I got some fun out of for around 10 years it so that is all fair enough. I sold it to a man who seems to be a collector of old cars.

I am due for new hearing aids soon -- at $8,000 -- so the Humber sale will help pay for that.

Lucky I have a cheerful disposition

Today I had a long set of sutures taken out of my arm.  I had a new excision from my neck.  I had a punch biopsy on my cheek. I had cryotherapy for a few things.  I booked a big (Moh's) procedure to remove some lumps in a few weeks time

And I don't feel the least bit bothered.  It helps that I have had a lot of that stuff done in the past

An interesting Sunday

Sunday night was another night of secret men's business.  Graham was up from Victoria, Christopher came and Joe joined us.  I cooked my usual savoury mince for 6pm dining.  Not flash food but satisfactory. The dessert was also humble: Tinned fruit with ice cream.  But the fruit was mango slices so that was good.

The others were all amazed at my method of serving ice-cream  -- with a carving knife.  You would have to see it to believe it.

The occasion was one for conversation but that was rather assisted when straight after dinner Christopher unveiled his collection of WW2 German daggers.  A dagger was part of dress uniform at that time and each branch of the armed forces had its own uniform and dagger.  There was even an SS dagger with Meine Ehre heisst Treue engraved on it.  Roughly translated that means "My honour is to be called faithful and true".



So Graham told us a lot about how to use daggers and we talked a lot about WW2 generally.  Christopher is also a gun collector and is very knowledgeable about them so we talked about the Sturmgewehr and many of the modern military rifles.  I was surprised to hear that the Tommy gun was used by American forces in WW2 -- though with a stick magazine instead of the famous circular one.

As part of our political discussions, I asked Chris whether Eric Butler's League of Rights still existed.  They were pretty far Right and Christopher used to have some interest in them but he  no longer does so, apparently. I see however that they still exist online.  They had some funny money beliefs (Douglas Credit) in the old days but I am not sure if they still do.

Graham wishes to publish a manual on the art of fencing and Joe advised him on how to do that as an E-book.