Archive for the ‘COPD – Codgers Old Puffing Disease’ Category

The Canaries

After a traumatic start to 2026, A nice, 20-night cruise, while the Azura relocates from the Canaries to the Mediterranean was just what was required.

Once again, Podge & Tubbs return to their other favourite ship, The Azura. This cruise however was a lot longer than the last 7-night cruise. This one was a whole 20 nights long with an itinerary of such promise.

As before, the cruise started with a flight to Tenerife. Once there the itinerary was, Madeira, Fuerteventura, La Palma, Tenerife, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Valencia, Barcelona, Naples, Palermo, and Valletta from where they flew back to the UK with BA (Business Class of course).

The flight itself was a good flight, departing a little late but otherwise no issues. Their arrival however was when the problems started!

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A short cruise – a short post – a very short post – by Podge’s standards

This time, Podge & Tubbs return to their other favourite ship, The Azura. This was to be a short 7-night break primarily to celebrate Podge’s Birthday, even though Tubbs’s Birthday Cruise was 14 nights long. But let’s not worry too much as Podge has a 42 night cruise at the end of 2026 for his next birthday while this time, it will be Tubbs who has to make do with a 7-night Birthday Cruise. Poor Tubbs.

This cruise starts with a flight to Tenerife after which they visit Madeira, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, then back to Tenerife where the main birthday activities will be packing for the flight home the next day 😞. But at least they’ll be on a P&O ship and there’s nowhere they’d rather be.

The flight out was only 4.5 hours but long enough to have a couple of drinks (wee drams for Podge and Fizzy Pop for Tubbs). The silly person asked Podge if he wanted anything with his whisky! Yes please, he answered rather cheekily, another one please 😋. Tubbs was paying so, why not?

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Podge saw his GP on Friday (23/01) as part of his long term care plan. At the end of the review she said all looked good but did say that he should try to keep more active. So with that in mind, on the Saturday he decided he really needed to get the garage tidied so that he could get both bike and treadmill operational. Part of this involved upturning a garden chair and putting it up, leaning over his bike to do it, onto a storage box. Naturally, Podge being Podge, he lost his balance, totally, and fell straight to the floor (even his head bounced though that part seemed ok) and ended up trapped under the chair & bike. He couldn’t move: He tried waving to  Tubbs who was in the kitchen who thought he was just waving at her so she waved back while turning up the music to listen to one her favourite songs: Then she realised he was actually waving from help. She came out to find him in a mess on the floor and had to, and managed to, free him and help him to his feet and back indoors and onto a kitchen chair.

The pain was quite bad so he took Ibuprofen and Codeine  which made him drowsy, that was good, and so he called it a day and went to bed. The next day, Podge peed blood but this, he vaguely remembered was possibly due to Ibuprofen reacting with his blood thinners.

So, Podge just rested taking Paracetamol but the pain wasn’t going away and both Podge and Tubbs started to worry that Podge had broken something so, come Monday they dialled 111. The initial contact said that they would get a clinician to call him back within 60 minutes, failing that, they would send an ambulance. This upset Poor Podge – Podge doesn’t like ambulances. Eventually somebody did call back though he didn’t really seem to know what was going on or even what day it was, then his computer ‘crashed’. He told Podge to go straight to A&E and he would send ‘a letter’.

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Back to St Maarten today (20th March 2024).

There are in fact four ships in today and, it’s very hot. St Maarten will no doubt be way too busy ( I know the picture suggests not busy) for it to be relaxing. So, there won’t be much exploring today: just as well really, as poor Podge seems to have caught some  sneezing germ making breathing truculent 🥺 – Poor Podge

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Re-Posting in advance of a new Hospital Visit adventure 🥴

Well, there we were in 2020 and it’s been a long time since I wrote anything under COPD. I make no excuses because that’s exactly what they would be, excuses; seeking to lessen the blame; but the blame is all mine :-).

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