This is not...an improvment.

The Vertigo.... still got it

Overall its been fairly managable, unpleasant at times, but mostly confined to periods where I was lying in bed, and  turning on one side or another... occasionally leaning sideways to look inside the fridge... 

But generally it wasn't impacting much on my day, but for safety and an abundance of caution, I decided not to drive or ride the bike. A dizzy spell while travelling could be quite nasty.

Yesterday we went for our 3rd check with the doctor and she again did a series of positional placements designed to move the crystals in my ear into safer spots... but I think she made it worse. Much much worse.

The actual head tilt this time produced, the...worst...dizzy..falling into a cavern... experience ever... just monumental dizzy... apparently she'd never seen my eyes bounce around as fast to date... The vertigo attack causes Nystagmus to occur and boy did it occur.. It was so ovewhelming that it took nearly a minute to pass rather than the normal 10-15 secs,  and she decided only to do 1 cycle of positions.

I assumed that I'd get the usual after effect, a little ikky feely for a few mins, then basically normal but not cured... not so....not so at all.

Ok, so she wants be back in 5 days... and didn't give me any more Serc 24 meds to control the dizzyness... apparently they just make me happy (never been so bloody miserable in fact) So on the surface this seemed positive.... but I noticed as I was walking to the car, that I was having trouble keeping a straight line...actually quite a lot of trouble.

And when we got moving in the car, I also noticed that I felt incredibly motion sick the whole trip, so much so that half way I asked Jirawan to stop and we'd go get some noodles, just to give my head a break.

Now normally after a quite bad dizzy spell, in bed for example when I get up I feel a bit ugg for an hour or so, then feel fine as long as I avoid another dizzy spell.. but yesterday... the whole fucking day... I was unable to walk around, look around the house, or just basically engage with the physical reality of life... I felt like utter shit the whole day... and spent most if it in a recliner chair keeping my head as still as possible, it was genuinly awful.

Today I've been up about an hour... I don't feel quite as shit, but I am still experiencing the dizzy when I look around or try to walk...I'm a drunk without the benefits.... and I don't like it.

Jirawan is going to go to the pharmacy and get more Serc 24, to see if it helps, if so I will point this out to the doc... but I'm really struggling with this.  2 weeks so far... I've seen online reports it can go in a few days or a few months... it better get tae fuck a bit quicker than that.

Ahthankyew

Glen Hansard died.

Last week, he passed away, apparently crashing on his motorbike near Dublin,  and I've been surprised by just how much this as impacted on me. 

I truely love this mans music.

I don't have all his albums but I have quite a few, and many especially the Swell Season, Strict Joy, are pretty much on every play list I have.  

I watched so many of his live performances on Youtube, often just him and his beat up guitars, playing and singing with more emotion and fire than anyone I ever saw. I wish I'd got to see him live, but he never played anywhere near where I was...pity.

I sang his songs with bands, and more often by myself, poorly but with feeling, and really felt he was one of the most gifted and talented songwriters and performers alive. His songs really get into your soul if you want to be poetic, there was just something about them, love, loss, happiness, anger, sadness, remorse, guilt, redemption,  he tickled every heart string with poetic words and that amazing voice and passion he put into every one.

And now he's gone, the sense of loss that his fans are feeling is deep.

I watched his wake and funeral live on Youtube and could see the amount of love and sense of loss that his passing has caused, I've shed a few tears watching his loved ones and his fans express how much they will miss him..

I will miss him too.

Far too soon. RIP.

Ahthankyew

More health scares?

Had something horrible happen to me when I woke up Saturday very early in the morning, and turned over in bed... the room just started to spin at an astonishing rate and like a gyroscope pushing back against motion, I was totally unable to complete the turn, I fell back overwhelmed with motion sickness as the room flashed before me.

The spinning took about 20seconds to stop... Bugger, I must have been drunk last night, was my 1st thought... but... nope, I literally had one small glass of whiskey and lemonde as a thrist quencher rather than a session..

So I carefully get out of bed, slightly uneasy and get myself some water and go back to bed...noting that I can't move my head left or right without the spinning. I fully expected this to go away with a bit more sleep

It didn't... I was able to pinpoint it happened when I put my head in certain positions, and from then tried hard to avoid those, but this was very odd..

A bit of googling revealed I had something called BPPV, a type of vertigo that can be caused by....nothing at all, just happens.

I decded to wait till Monday to see if it died down, but it didn't ...off to the docs. Jirawan called a local clinic for me but they were not open, so she called the hospital to check if we could go in...yes.

Off we went, Jirawan driving as I can't honestly be trusted to drive if I get a dizzy spell. Registered at the desk and took basic details, then informed us the doctor was in surgery till 2,30 could we come back.

No problem, since we were going to go to the house site and take videos.

Off we went, and came back... I was seen by the doctor within 20mins, and she diagnosed the BPPV , though an attempt to check my ears was thwarted by 60+ years of accumulated ear wax, which she happily used a vaccuum tool to remove, with great delight showing the lumps of a future candle to Jirawan...
BPPV is harmless but unwelcome, it's caused by little crystals in your inner ear getting into the semi circular parts of the ear and throwing your balance off, the crystals are usually in a different part of the ear naturally but somehow get detached...your inner ear tells your brain you're falling when you're not and then you get intense motion sickness and balance issues that take you off your axis.

I was then taken to side room, to sit on a bed, where a series of positional head movements are done, which are designed to move the crystals back into the safe part of your ear, but.... in the process it triggers the vertigo, and you have to not move....which... is.....horrible.....

Anyway, she repeated this horror 2 times... and told me to be very careful not to move my head around too much or too quickly for a day or 2...and to sleep as upright as I can..

She also prescribed some drugs for the motion sickness, and some vitamin B12....no idea why.

Total time in the hossie, about 1.30mins, total cost... about 34 euros... wow... good service, good price...

I still have the vertigo though, it is better though, but its not quite cleared, but I have a follow up on Friday, and a Doctor friend of mine on Facebook has given me details of  very similar positional excercises I should do 3 times a day, so I will try those..

In the meantime, no driving...

Ahthankyew

Quick and cheap health care

edit, this a few weeks ago, but for some reason I didn't publish it, it got stuck in draft....

Yesterday I had an appointment at RAM skin clinic, to check out what I thought were two large moles (chest and back) which I'd had for a while but noticed were growing after seeing some holiday photo's from a few years back.

Booked appointment, was a bit late due to traffic, and went to main Hospital clinic, but got a golf buggy shuttle to the skin clinic who were ok about my lateness..
Saw the doctor within 10 mins. He reassured me they were just harmless but large, skin tags, a bit big for the band removal method but possible. What would I like to do?

I wanted them gone so he agreed to cut them off and I took a seat in the waiting room. 10 more minutes and I was called into a treatment room.
Small injection, stings a bit but not too bad, chop chop, bit of cautarization and flip over for the one on my back.

All done in less than 30mins, total cause 3,348 bhat... less than 90 euros.

Now... when I was in the NL (we left Dec 2025), I went to my doc in August, who sent me to a specialist in November, who was going to refer me to the local skin clinic for removal sometime in 2026.... I didn't really have time to follow that through as we were about to move to Chiang Mai...

Now I'm told RAM is one of the more expensive places to pay for things out of pocket, but honestly... I'm very happy with the service, the process and the price.

Oh btw I do have insurance, but because I'd seen the doctors in NL beforehand, it was excluded as a pre-existing condition.

We will continue to use small clinics, or government hospotals for minor issues we can pay out of pocket. The insurance we keep for big emergencies.

Ahthankyew

I'm legal again

I made mistake, quite a big one... in thinking that my International Drivers Permit allowed me 3 years of driving in Thailand.... it does not. While the IDP is valid for 3 years, in fact you are only allowed to use it for 3 months in Thailand...oops...this was a bit of a shock, and as soon as I found out I curtailed my driving and started collecting the paperwork to get my license exchanged.

This, turned out to be a bit of a chore, for a number of reasons.. First I needed a Certificate of Residency...actually 2, car/bike. A quick trip to Immigration and 120baht later, I get.... a tracking number for my post in about 3 weeks.

oh.. oh so we wait, Jirawan has to do the driving.

3 weeks come... and no sign,... But I get a call from a Thai number that immediatly hangs up on me when I greet the caller in English... 30 mins later, the Thai chat app, Line, pings me with what I assume is spam friend request, I get a lot of those.. but no... it is in fact someone in our neighbourhood who got my CoR.. her boyfriend was the hang up who didnt speak English. It seems our house numbers contain the same digits, but in a different order...and those wrong numbers are on the paper work..ooops.

I assume that I must have filled out the form wrong and transposed the digits, but no... they send the certificates to..the address on your TM.30, a legal document you get from immigration that registers where you are living....and on checking, indeed the TM.30 is wrong, but we'd never noticed it.

So I start panicking as I am prone to do when official things go wrong. But Jirawan calmly takes my tm30 to immigration, gets if fixed, then we collect the faulty CoRs, and go to immigration to get them fixed....next day...excellent.. no charge. Jirawan is amazing at doing such fixes.

So... now I have the paperwork. we go get medical certs, which is nothing more than a rubber stamp of health if you can actually walk into the doctors office with a heartbeat...... 800baht. and I need 2, 1 for bike, 1 for car.

Next step, according to the DLT website you can no longer walk in and wait....so you have to register with the DLT smart que app......its not smart... in fact, its the opposite of smart... but after struggling with it for hours, if finally let me get to the point of booking a day.....in October, 3 months away... my certs only have 30 day lifespans.

arrh... I again start stressing and getting wound up when Jirawan says just turn up.. I can't, I snap, they say I have to book.... 
But Jirawan calls them up... talks to someone, who tells us to get down to the DLT now, they will check our docs and give us a quicker date..

We rush down, to get there before closing...and indeed they check our docs, and give us a date.... tomorrow.

wow.

Now tomorrow is today and off we went at 9-30, was seen almost immediatly, docs, checked, some very very simple eye and co-ordination tests taken. And wait for 30 mins... 
Number called, pay 310 baht, go to queue for photo...

10 mins later I walk out with 2 shiny license.

Yes there is a lot of beaurocracy in Thailand, so much paperwork and steps to be taken, but the simple fact is, if you have a brilliant Thai wife... its all sabai sabai.

Ahthankyew

Ok... that is a lot...I mean... a lot of rain

Smokey season was interesting, it basically didn't start, despite all the warnngs, and doom sayers, Feb then, March.  April came with nothing to worry about......then......

When it did come it was horrific, the air was rancid, the sky was at times blocked out and it really was shocking, for about 4-6 weeks Smokey season was all anyone could talk about... We stayed in with our air purifiers running full tilt.. Going out, we didnt' actively wear masks, but some days, ok it was just safer to wear one...

But it passed, and gave way to the "rainy" season, the 1st rains were light, refreshing and cooling and most importantly washed the skies clear we had some truely wondeful weather, and despite a few showers which did that clearing, rainy season didn't really rain a lot. I scoffed at rainy season..

Lots of lovely clear days, I got a nice set of tee-shirt then vest, tan lines riding my bike around. Things were good until maybe 5pm when a nice light shower would clear things and we'd have a warm maybe humid evening to look forward to.

So rainy seasons, didn't really start.........

And now it has..... I'm thinking of building an Ark.... I may be able to persuade the neighbors to help... we need to be quick.

Ahthankyew

A cure???

Time for some embarrassing medical issues, a few years ago, I noticed some issues with my bowels... basically, a lack of regularity, and timing issues. I went from being a normal poo in the morning person to, 2 or 3 poos at semi random times... 
Not the most unusual of things in old fat jocks with a liking for fried fast food.. But I did notice in my 50's a lot more urgency to get to the loo...and on 1 occasion some unpleasant consequences to finding the train station loo closed......oh yes, had to do the waddle of shame to get home...

Now... like most old farts I didn't really do anything about this, didn't go to the docs, even when the urgency of needing to go went from being, when you get home go to the loo, to, you're going to shit yourself in 3...2.......

Then I had a an episode where I had severe pain and felt very ill, and went to the docs, who did that palpation of my tummy trick which just about knocked me out from the pain..... I had a problem... and was hospitalized. Where they discovered I was having an episode of Diverticulitis... basically an infection in my bowl that could have turned very nasty... 

The primary cause was an undiagnosed underlying condition called Diverticulosis... you can look it up, but basically there are malformations of my bowl resulting in little thin pockets forming in my gut, and can from time to time pop or otherwise become infected, leading to the Diverticulitis.

This... explained my irregular bowel movements, my gut has issues moving things down to the colon, which means the regularity and consistency of my bowel movements is highly variable.

Ok so I got an issue, the problem is there's really no cure for it.. Other than taking drugs like Loperamide (Imodium ) to shut your bowels down, which has knock on issues and can give you constipation if you do this a few days in a row... also not nice as struggling to poo can make the diverticulosis worse.....

But for the most part I have managed this for a few years, taking Imodium when I know I have to be out and about for a few hours, and trying hard to stay at home the next day, or 2, not taking any, knowing when the Imodium wears off, and I can get access to the loo. But this is rather restrictive.

Now... there are of course contributing factors to this, my weight and my diet being the 2 biggest things I have some control over.

I'm afraid I have been very bad at managing my weight, and I'm surrounded by so much wonderful food in Thailand, but a lot of it is low fibre, when I need a high fibre diet.

I tried various granola/cereals but they have the opposite effect on me, providing loose movements, and the added random 3,2, 1 go... problem.

So to the point... I think I have discovered something, though only a few weeks into it. I tried to do a bit of a fasting diet... and don't eat now until around 5. And.... I've noticed there's a direct connection to my eating and an hour or 2 later...needing to go.

Basically if I don't eat, I don't shit...... which is a perfect, but impractical result... it sounds more obvious than it is, but there's sound reasons behind this.. my system kinda shuts down when there's nothing to digest, but when  there's  food to be processed, my digestive system kicks in, but starts with initiating the clear some space now protocol, which is causing most of my issues.

If I don't eat in the mornings, I seem to be ok for the rest of the day, after I eat however, all bets are off....But that gives me some margin of control when I can be at home/near a loo.

Lets see how it goes?

Ahthankyew

NOW its almost 6 months

I kinda miscalculated the 6 month mark, but its coming up now.. I have to do my 1st 90day report this week, which is going to be a big step... After this 1st one in person, I can do it online each time which saves a lot of waiting in line.

The house is progressing well, though there's a bit of a conflict over the window arrangement on our extended bedroom 4. I missed the plan which has 3 windows in the room, 2 narrow opening ones, and a larger square sliding one. The sliding one isn't very obvious on the plan... and yeah so we have 3 windows, 2 different types... it looks a bit silly and prevents clean walls to place beds/wardrobes etc... sadly we didn't see this till the brickies built the wall.. We hate it.. so we're having to get that changed, to just 2 windows, Jirawan favours 2 of the square ones. I'd prefer the 2 narrow ones... But am not pushing hard, Jirawan gets the final say but either way it means knocking out bits of the wall to fix it.. so that's a cost... not massive but annoying.

Other than that, the sense of scale of the house is starting to make itself felt. It's going to be a  nice cosy home, nowhere near the massive scale people said it would be, its a cosy house with a 4 good sized bedrooms. But the lounge is medium sized, the office is small, the kitchen is decent...the Thai ki...ahhh that's a point

We have had to change that.. the idea of having two kitchens at the rear of the house had to be dropped, when we realised Bed4 was just too small. Hence we extended that room into where the rear Thai kitchen was.. That made the Euro kitchen a little bigger, with an added pantry.  But had to drop the Thai Kitchen. But only for a while, we plan to build it as an extension.

We did ask the builder to draft an extension to the back of the house with a Thai Kitchen, laundry area and BBQ patio, but they wanted far too much money for it, 475K... We couldn't see a way to cost that out in our budgets even though we can trim or drop some things (like solar) so we are going to wait till the build is done and stabilize our funds, then see what options we have, 

When we do get that extension done, then the house will seem bigger with that outdoor area opening things up..

Aside from that... we're now at the costing for fixtures and fittings, aside from bathrooms, we don't get partial furnishing with this, unlike a house purchase, so its up to us to source and fit, or get fitted, all the basic furniture we need. 

We currently rent, so we have had no reason aside from TV's and computer gear to buy anything... so kitting out the whole house is expensive.. But we are going to go minimal to start with and build up. Once the big outlays are done we can make minor purchases over the coming years, like everyone else does.

It does however mean fitting 2 main bedrooms, getting basic content in 2 others. Lounge and Dining Room furniture and of course the  now main kitchen, with the Thai kitchen to follow a few months later.

Another big expense will also be Solar, we have nearly 100m2 of roof we can put panels on, and we will use as much as we can afford to power a 10Kw inverter and battery system, to help us power the house, from the sun... We won't be entirely off grid, but we should be able to count our electric bills in pennies rather than 10's or 100's of pounds 
Scheduling the pricing for that is fun, but we've got a few quotes now from 320-420k, we will be looking for one more... surprisingly the lowest may not be the best as their quote lacks detail in the type and quality of the components but it does gives us a window into how much

Life here however, continues to be calming and peaceful... I spend far too much time on the computer without being especially productive though... So we're trying to get out more as part of the Kill Brian with Exercise campaign.. Both of us need to lose weight so we're going out and about more to sightsee and walk and cough...exercise.

Ahthankyew