Donna Matthews

Blog

  • I love my technology but…

    …my mother has always called me “gadget girl”, because I am constantly looking for the latest and greatest tech BUT sometimes it does let me down. I’m sure you have all experienced this numerous times and it makes you feel frustrated. When this happens to me I try to remember what it was like before mobile phones, tablets, and the Internet. This usually works however this time it did not.

    I live in the UK but was born in the US and I do follow baseball when my team makes it to the postseason. I have every sports package on the planet because I love most sports. Yesterday was game one of the baseball World Series and the first pitch was scheduled for well after midnight. Gadget Girl made sure the recording was set up (checked twice) because I hate it if I record the non-HD channel by mistake. I went to bed safe in the knowledge that the game would be recorded and ready for me to watch in the morning.

    I grew up a Yankees fan but after the move to Texas and the Rangers joining the league I slowly switched to the local team. This is the Ranger’s first trip to the World Series since 2011 so it is a big deal.

    I woke up thing morning armed myself with a cup of coffee and settled in front of the telly. The game was back and forth after the Ranger’s early lead. The Diamond Backs rallied and took the lead. Late in the game the Ranger’s tied the score and forced the game into extra innings. It is now crunch time, bottom of the 10th inning with the score still tied. It breaks to the 4,000th commercial of the game and STOPS! I am sitting there with my mouth open, staring at the frozen telly. No, I could not think about what it was like before you could record games or what life was like before self driving vacuum cleaners!

    I started this blog with the fact the I love technology BUT sometimes it can drive you absolutely nuts. We are in 2023, men have walked on the moon, there is an active space programme to take a crew to Mars, AI that is so good you don’t know it isn’t real. So why can’t TV providers figure out a way to put a buffer at the end of games!! I had to grab my iPad and look up the score, all the while not taking a single breath. Through squinted eyes I saw the final score and let out that breath. We won in the 11th inning. Which was great news but it would have been nice to see it.

    Here is a recommendation to broadcasters, why don’t you put some of the pre-match build up time to post match summary to avoid this happening? I know that there will always be games that go to multiple inning or extra time but surely in this day and age we should be able to solve this problem!

  • A Preview of my Later Years

    This weekend a had an opportunity to spend a couple of days with my mom prior to the start of my conference. My mom lives in an apartment complex for over 50’s. I had a glimpse of what is in store for me in the future. Everyone has their own apartment and is totally independent, however the older end of the age spectrum have their own very close community with daily and weekly activities. My niece happened to be in town so she twas able to share part of this experience with me.

    Daily events start with morning (well sometimes afternoon) announcements. The office staff are not the most organised which means these announcements don’t actually occur at a specific time. I think this keeps the residents on their toes. Also, the content seems to vary, there is no structure to them and in my opinion sometimes not even a point. In one recent announcement after giving an update on pest control the announcer randomly said, “…and I am sterile because God wanted it this way.” That got the rumour mill buzzing!

    Megan (my niece) and I got a chance to go to Bingo and Coffee Club. To say this was an experience is a huge understatement. Bingo is Monday and Thursday’s at 2:00. Coffee Club is at 3:00 daily. At 1:30 one of my mom’s inner circle called to say he was off up to the dining room (aka Bingo Hall) to get everyone’s cards. Apparently one must send an advance party to ensure you get the “good” cards and are not stuck with the dreaded green cards. Since each of the inner circle play 6 cards at a time the advance party is required. Oh, also to ensure the preferred table is secured.

    We arrive just as the group is assembling and my mom and her friends start to give us a run down of who’s who. “Don’t talk to her”, (hand up to cover the finger pointing in the direction of “her”), because she is crazy. She thinks she is a spy.” Okay, Megan and I both make a mental note about “her”. Then the Bingo caller makes her way to the front of the room and takes her place behind the Bingo ball machine.

    Megan and I are given two of the dreaded green cards to play. My mom says “if you win you will need to give the card to one of us to shout “Bingo” because the “oldies” might be upset that an outsider won.” I asked what we were playing for. Mom said it appeared to be “crappy” prizes supplied by the apartment management. On days like today you might be the lucky winner of a can of asparagus or a roll of toilet paper. Other days are sponsored by insurance companies, health care companies or sometimes a local community group. Those are the good prizes.

    The machine rumbles to life and we are off. The caller calls the first number. “B17” croaks out and kicks off a wave of people repeating for those who did not hear the first time. Then someone says to their neighbour “B16” which gets reactions from those who heard correctly “no it was B17”. Confusion reigns until an appeal is made to the caller, who has been oblivious to the dispute because she can’t hear either! Once the debate is settled we move on. By the time the first 3 numbers were called Megan and I understood how they could all play 6 cards. This was owing to glacial speed at which the game moved. Finally someone yelled “Bingo” which solicited groans from everyone else in the room. The card was taken for verification by caller and deemed good. Now the winner chose their prize, a paperback book, and it was game number two. Each number called was followed by the repeats from those who could hear. (Megan and I were in hysterics at the intensity of players.) Things heated up when we had a false “Bingo” the too be winner was too quick to call “Bingo” as they still needed one number. More groans and a few looks from the players and the card was returned. Megan is recording a video for her boyfriend because he did not believe her texts as she was giving him a play by play. The hour finally ended with one of our table winning the final prizes which consisted of a hand crocheted hot pad and pot holder as well as a fleece blanket.

    Coffee Club stared with a gentleman giving an update on one of the club members who was in the hospital. He explained that visiting hours were from 9:30-11:00. Someone said “8:30-11:00?“ Someone else said “no 9:00-11:30”. This went on for about five minutes with every time under the sun suggested until Megan finally settled the debate by loudly repeating the correct times for all to hear.

    It was an eye opening two hours and my mom said “you may not think it now but someday this will be you.” I know she is right and we shouldn’t laugh but it was very funny to watch.

  • Never Stop Pushing Your Boundaries

    A few years ago I thought that I had reached a point in my career where I should start to throttle back and stop looking and reaching for the next thing. Maybe it was time to put this endless drive , to do better and be better , into a lower gear. I tried and failed miserably, I had to accept I am someone who thrives on pressure.. I actually perform better in this kind of environment and I was not ready to stop pushing my own boundaries personally or professionally.

    On the personal front I decided it was time to get a hobby and learn an artistic skill. I was entering my later 50’s when I made this decision. I chose to learn to throw pottery. I will tell you that I do not have a creative bone in my body but I have always admired potters. Pamela bought me a short taster course and I was hooked. I started taking more courses (one and two day chances to improve) I am still not not a good potter but that doesn’t matter to me because I love it. It is the first time in my life that it did not bother me that I wasn’t “good” at something I do it for the enjoyment. Wow!

    What was next, job change, yes that was another boundary push because we were just coming out of COVID and the world was suddenly an uncertain place but for me no better time to take the next leap. I landed at an amazing company with a fantastic job.

    One year in and loving my potting and my job I got a chance to fulfil a life-long ambition, to learn to speak Italian. My awesome employer provides a learning platform which has one to one instruction on everything from Pilates to business coaching to languages. I took this incredible opportunity and after six months of classes 2 times a week I finally I had a breakthrough.

    My instructor, who has the patience of Job, would tell me to “think in Italian not English.” She might have well said go take a walk on the moon. I had no idea how to do this. She says “it will just happen if you keep trying. “ So, when I have meetings with my Italian colleagues I always try to use my Italian. When I get to visit Italy, I order my food, I don’t always get what I thought I ordered but that is an adventure too. I talk to the taxi drivers who don’t mind me trying my nascent skills out on them, but I still can’t “think in Italian”.

    Well today that changed. While on a flight to Dallas I was listening to some short stories in Italian. (A friend who is learning French on the same platform told me that it doesn’t matter if you can’t really understand it, it will help your pronunciation and accent. ) It has been frustrating not to understand what is being said, catching only a few words and short phrases but today when I was listening I subconsciously stopped trying to understand and just let the words flow past me me. Suddenly, I realised I could understand the context of what was being said. How did that happen? Then I got it, I was thinking in Italian not in English! I still have a long way to go before I can get more words than I miss but I could understand!! What a feeling, it truly is hard to explain the joy and satisfaction I felt.

    The moral of the story is in the title. Keep pushing, keep testing yourself. It is worth the effort.

  • Back to Normal Life

    Well a week post hospital discharge I had my first full night’s sleep. It is amazing how quickly we become institutionalised. For the last week I have been waking up every few hours, even though there was on one standing beside my bed waiting to do my observations. No squeeze of the blood pressure cuff or medication being offered, yet I still kept waking up. I have never been a breakfast person but each morning at 07:00 my stomach was telling me the breakfast trolley would soon arrive. After the first day, rookie mistake, of ordering toast (I still can’t figure out how you can make toast rubbery), I would be sitting up ready to ask for porridge and coffee. The coffee (unlike the rubbery toast) was very good. The next big event on the schedule was ordering lunch and dinner. I made a few choices that ended up in the “I don’t think I will have that again” category but soon learned what the safe choices were.

    Other than meals arriving and obs being taken, the day was interspersed with the tea trolley, pre-lunch and pre-dinner soup offerings. There was the newspaper delivery (your choice of the Daily Mirror or the Financial Times), if you were lucky the book and magazine team would appear. I found myself looking forward to each and every event even if it was just say “yes please I would love a cup of tea” or “no thank you I would not like carrot soup or anything else carrot for hat matter)”. (Carrot cake being the only exception to the list of all things carrot).

    What I haven’t mentioned were the daily rounds made by the medical team and the occasional visit from the cardio team. These particular events in the day were the most unpredictable so you couldn’t set your watch by them but they were always interesting. On day 4 I got a visit from one of the doctors that saw me when I was in A&E. He popped his head around and said “Hi, I’n not sure you remember me but I saw you on your first day.” I did indeed remember him because he brought 3 students with him that day. He went on to say, “I have a favour to ask, could I bring in a group of 4th year medical students to practice taking a patient history?” Eager for additional activity in my regimented schedule I agreed. I had quite a bit of fun with them and made them work to get my information. Then I provided input where I felt they should have asked more questions or dug for more details. This of made the doctor laugh as said “Since Donna has already taken care of my feedback section, we can move on.”

    The “new normal” takes hold so quickly and in a way you don’t even notice. Once out of the hospital you think that settling back in to your “normal” life will happen seamlessly but it really doesn’t. You feel a bit at sea for several days and it can be disconcerting. I can’t imagine what it is like for people who have to spend weeks or months in hospital or any other institution. Hopefully this is my last prolonged hospital stay for a very long time.

  • Day 6 starts with “all change, all change here”

    At about 10 PM on Day 5 we are told that our ward needs to be handed over to the Bed Manager, so they can make room for an influx of male patients. (Obviously not a good day for the guys in the Big Smoke). Immediately we were all told to pack our meagre belongings for an imminent move. Then…nothing happened. The clock on the building across the street ticked on and nada. I fall asleep somewhere around 1:00. At 1:30 the ward turns into Piccadilly Circus at rush hour! Beds are being moved, those areas cleaned to within a inch of their lives (which was nice to see) and then the procession began.

    One by one my ward mates leave for their new digs and I remain. I fall back to sleep at some point only to hear a, far too cheery voice, announce that it is my turn to vacate. When they started the move they told us we were just moving around the corner. So when then started to take me right where everyone else went left I began to wonder what was in store for me.

    Much to my surprise I landed on the 15th floor in a room by myself with a stunning view across London! Watching the sunrise crawl across the city was awesome. Well that is how Day 6 started, let’s see where it takes me.

  • Day 5 of the Unplanned Hospital Visit

    What an experience this has been, so many little stories to pass on. I will try to capture the essence for your reading pleasure. The ward I am on has 5 beds and other than myself there is one other constant fixture, the rest of the beds have been revolving every 8 hours or so. The turn over is pretty fast. A new arrival yesterday morning was a young patient and her mother. How to explain this to give you a good picture…okay think about the guy on Jeremy Clarkson who no one can understand, cross that with the guy from the Vicar of Dibley who always said “yes, yes, yes, no”, got it? Now form a female version of this and you have the mother. For some reason she thinks we are friends and that I want to know everything about her life. Unfortunately she does not understand subtlety so my attempts at thwarting conversation have failed. The only good bit is that I still do not have a clue what she has been telling me! Eye contact is not an essential part of communication for this lady as she has spent numerous minutes talking to the side or even back of my head totally undeterred.

    My other new experience today was to have a CT scan with contrast. Now for those of you who have had regular CT scans without contrast count yourselves lucky. To say that the sensations you are about to experience are “odd” must be the biggest understatement of the new millennium. “Odd” could only be a descriptor used by those who have never undergone the procedure. They do the first set of scans without the said contrast and then you get to to do it all over again once the inject your IV with the “syringe of Hell” Hell is truly the word as it feels like they injected fire into your veins! You feel the burning liquid as it makes a full loop of your circulatory system. Once the loop has completed the next sensation is one of wetting yourself. I cannot explain what was going through my mind at that moment because I was too worried about the apology I was going to have to make once I came out of the scanner. Much to my relief it was only the sensation there was no actual embarrassing accident to apologise for. Until the next instalment take care and when someone tells you something is going to be “odd” watch out!

  • The NHS, How Lucky are We?

    The service that we take for granted far too often. I had an unfortunate health issue late last week and have been treated by the NHS since. I have seen most of the services that make up the NHS. From the Ambulance Service to the A&E team, to the nursing staff and two specialist teams. What can I say other than we are so fortunate to have this incredible organisation to look after us when we are unable to do it for ourselves. The ambulance crew were exceptional, the A&E team were top notch and my nurses on the floor work tirelessly to ensure everyone in their care is given excellent treatment.

    I know it is easy to take this care for granted but when you see the little acts of kindness on top of the day to day heroics it is quite humbling. This morning the machine kicked into gear with the morning routine, meds were dispensed, clean towels were handed out to those who could dress themselves, coffee and tea orders taken (and prepared by the nursing staff so we did not have to wait for the breakfast crew to come around). Breakfast was delivered and the gentleman did not hear me ask for a sugar so one of the cleaning staff who was busy nearby darted after the breakfast man and came back with a packet of sugar and a smile. Not his job but he obviously didn’t care about that he did it because that is who he is.

    The next time someone bad mouths the NHS remember these things. I know not everyone’s experience is the same but they have never let me down and I will always be grateful to these every day heroes.

  • It Has Been a While

    Hi Everyone, it has been way too long since I have posted anything and I want to get back to it. Let’s see a lot has happened for all of us recently and I wasn’t sure where to start. Maybe the best place is on my recent travels as traveling is always great fodder for my blog.

    My wife joined me on a recent business trip where we traveled to Copenhagen. Like many of you, my wife, had not traveled much since COVID as the thought of being on a plane with people coughing and sneezing still does not appeal. We just boarded the plane and in the row in front us on the other side of the aisle, a man sneezed or rather more like exploded. He did not even attempt to cover his mouth and Pam elbowed me in the ribs and said “don’t breathe!” This is our code for pull your shirt up over your face so you don’t breathe in someone else’s bio matter. We just resurfaced when the guy erupted for the second time, again with no attempt to contain the sneeze. The instruction not to breathe was given again. At this point Pam was either going to deck the guy or get off the plane. I managed to get her to stay on the plane which was a good thing since we were already taxiing.

    The next day we ventured into the city early to have a look around before meeting some friends for lunch. As we walked around a lovely pedestrianised area we saw a man pulling a food van with the name “Dan’s Sausage” written on it. We both laughed out loud. Then we saw a nice arcade of shops. Pam pointed to the sign arching over the entrance. It said “Joric’s Passage” again we broke up laughing. I said if we tell people how spent our morning they wouldn’t believe us. “Well we started by seeing Dan’s Sausage and then strolled up Joric’s passage.” Not what you would expect of a couple of middle aged women.

  • Caution: COVID – 19 May Cause Your Family to Spend More Time Together…

         …are you prepared? If the schools and universities close and businesses tell people to work from home that is going to mean a whole lot more family time. Forget stocking up on toilet roll, make sure your Internet is working! Netflix and Amazon Prime will be a must along with the games your kids will be playing. Don’t forget some schools and universities will move their lessons online. All those devices laying around the house (yes the ones you always ask your family why you need them all) will be put into action.  Let’s hope our broadband infrastructure is able to cope with all that extra volume plus the increased number web based conference calls and virtual meetings. 

         If not, it might be time to dust off those old box games that have been packed away for years. Who knows maybe Monopoly or Kerplunk could save your sanity! 

  • “Cone of Shame Weapon of Household Destruction”

    In December we adopted a rescue dog from a local charity rescue centre. We knew that since he was a stray we would have some training issues to deal with. We also knew that he would have to be neutered which was all fine. The day came this week for his operation. We were given the option of a Buster Collar or a T-Shirt/baby grow. Trying to preserve some of his dignity we chose the T-Shirt.

    After the surgery we picked Ted up and he walked out of the vet’s office looking cute in his onesie. We got home and he seemed settled and was not bothered by his new apparel. An hour later he popped his head up, looked down at himself and realised he was wearing some kind of clothing. Within 30 seconds the poppers were removed and the shirt was ripped off. He then figured out something was afoot with his anatomy, something major was missing! Immediately he went for the wound site and starting to pull the stitches. It is now 7:00 P.M. and the vet’s number rolled over to the after hours emergency number. I explained that Ted ate his T-Shirt and was now focused on the wound. I was advised that we needed to get him a Buster Collar tonight because he was in danger of opening the wound. So much for trying to save his dignity we now had to drive 45 minutes in the pouring rain and fog to the after hours vet to get his collar.

    When we arrived it was quick and easy to get it fitted and the vet nurse explained that Ted’s spacial awareness would quickly adapt to the cone. He might bump into things tonight but would easily work it out.

    #NoOneToldTed we are currently in day 3 of the Cone of Shame and Ted is operating like a runaway bumper car! There is not a door frame, piece of furniture or cupboard that he has not smacked into at high speed. Both Pamela and I have bruises up and down the backs of our legs from him trying to take us out by ramming us behind the knees.

    Anyone who has seen one of these collars knows that they are made of strong plastic. Well when you look at Ted’s collar you can see the creases that he has made by the impacts it has taken. You would think that after running into stuff you would soon figure out that maybe you should slow down a bit because you are wearing a lamp shade on your head. Nope, not Ted. He has turned this medical device into a weapon of household destruction! Pam has removed furniture in a bid to minimise the number of objects that he can crash into and still we hear the constant sound Ted trying to smash his way through a doorway.

    Pamela just looks at me, shaking her head and says “get a dog it will be fun!”