Stuart Briggs

Living with sarcoidosis, the good, the bad, and lots of in between.

  • Sarcoidosis the thing and all that

    After nearly deleting ‘the thing’ page I decided not to, it might still offer folks some kind of sarcoidosis in-sight? Its almost two years since being diagnosed as a sarcoid, in that time I kept reasonably positive, yes sometimes I can write rubbish and harp on but its good for the soul? I was so hoping that in those two years I would have been one of the (95%ish) of sarcoids and it leave me, it hasn’t, its active and, well its all guess work now, about 12-ish in the whole Bradford district, so say the consultants.

    It used to bother me when folks say I should be thankful its not cancer, sarcoid is a relative to cancer, it needs the same type of treatments, it is degenerative, its active and really bothers my eyes and lungs, and my mind, oh but that’s normal! the only difference in sarcoidosis and cancer are the names, that is it, illness is not a competition.

    Im still taking on the Atos assessment that I failed on 2nd June 2011, the Employment and Support Allowance ‘system’ is wrong and corrupt, with my case now at the higher courts in London, but, my determination to get a job (probably through Leeds Remploy) is now a priority, I then need a car to carry out my gig/band direction. My third passion of cycling is much harder than I let on, yes third passion cycling!

    Onward, sideways, zigzagging, but like the morning sun, heading in the right direction of upwards.

  • How to open a tin of corn beef meat when the key is missing!

    Do you ever get home from shopping, and sometimes you forget to check all the food in-store before placing it in your basket or trolley? You guessed it, I came to making a delightful corn beef hash (instructions eventually!) but at this important time to open the tin, arrggghhhh,


    The key was missing, but not to panic, this is how I overcame a potential hair raising problem.


    Now, very calmly get your tools out, the mechanical hand tools obviously that’s what I meant silly! using long nosed pliers carefully grab that bit of metal where the key should have been, and then gently wind it around the tin.


    Once you have got back to the start then give the pliers a good pulling to get them out of the tangled spring loaded metal strip, oh, you see the metal was wrapped really tight, so actually try removing them carefully or you will cut your fingers.


    Upon successfully getting the long nosed pliers out give yourselves a nice pat on the back, and then return to cooking the hash, I can smell it from here, hmmm…

  • Jacket potato with fish and spinach

    I felt a little on the hungry side, mind you, I usually only have one main hot meal per day, cereal or toast for breakfast, and then its snacking on fruit through the day, occasionally having cheese on cracker, but look at this plate full.


    Remembering to put hugging’s of butter, well, Flora on and plenty of the tomato sauce squeezed in there.


    And only a little bit of the skin left, a very nice and healthy meal, certainly felt stuffed afterward!

    Total cost was about;

    £0.75 Potato,
    £0.88 Fish fillets (frozen).
    £0.20 Leaf spinach (frozen)

    £1.83

    And some butter, tomato sauce, salt and pepper and electric for the oven!

  • Acupuncture on my tendinitis ankles

    So, we finally came to a decision, the tendinitis of my ankles is more than likely caused by the sarcoidosis, and as I have been on upto 40mg of Prednisolone per day for approaching two years its time to try get off it, well, reduce it and see what happens?


    OK the quality is not brilliant from my mobile, I do have a decent camera but keep forgetting! We know that reducing the Pred will cause some problems to raise an ugly head that it has been masking, so lets see how the needles help with my sarcoid ankles.


    What I will say here, that above needle on the left I certainly felt, but not in the pain as you might expect, it were a very strange yet relaxing sensation that also mildly went up my leg!

    I could find it very easy to drift away while having those little needles shoved in me, hmmm, yes I certainly enjoyed them, oh, its mental pain I don’t like, so lets see what happens over the next few weeks.

  • Saved from the river Wharfe floods – just!

    It came so very close, but the river Wharfe stayed about a foot lower than was required for our ground floor flats to be flooded!


    Here you can see just how brilliant these sandbags would have worked against that huge overflowing river Whatfe at Low Mill weir.


    A little difficult to work out but you can see the ‘tide’ mark, another 6″ then it would have flowed through the sandbags onto the road.


    The river deposited about 8″ of silt just before those sandbags at the gate, the silt would have done a better barricade the those there sandbags ha!


    These sheep had a very lucky escape, from the river too…

  • Tonight im due to be flooded…

    The police at the door, and warned the the river Wharfe is due to rise by another three foot, jeez, that’s the ground floor flats flooded, so to press here are my actions to cope with a flooded flat;


    But the Doc Martens are so important, I have not worn them yet until the red laces arrive, ah, yes some other stuff important on that settee too!


    Just in case you have thoughts about my bed, well that there king size finally comes into reasoning, after ten years it has a purpose, oh, those curves are the nearest I get to curves these days!


    I really do thank a friend for reminding me to look after ‘Scampi’ my Chile Rose tarantula!


    Then it comes to me, my bed is full, erm, OK I will ditch on my settee, two bottles, feet up, Bob Dylan, sit back and take it easy, we can not stop the over powering force of nature – water, today the river Wharfe burst its banks and tonight it is due to flood us!

  • Lance Armstrong and the USADA

    I believe I’m not alone on these thoughts; cycling is moving on, why oh why bring back those times when to finish in the top 20 it was common knowledge they must have been ‘doping’ so they take all the wins off Armstrong, what then, move all the other cheats up a notch?

    A few years ago when cash started flowing into British Cycling, Dave Brailsford  was asked to look into putting a top British road squad together, the decision was to concentrate on the track as it was that common knowledge they knew. Only when the road scene really started getting cleaned up did the Sky Pro cycling team get put together.

    I think it is today’s common knowledge that riders do want to ride clean and the majority of them do, I also believe they would wish the agencies to stop hanging around in those red old days and move on, they would be better off leaving Armstrong alone and putting all that cash into sustaining today’s testing, have three types of ban; 1) Life ban for obvious knowingly doping like blood doping, EPO etc. 2) Five years for masking agents etc. 3) Two years for any other lesser types.

    I’m far from an expert so those three types of ban are abit vague, but they would be more of a deterrent  than those now, for example, Riccardo Riccò, even after all he had done teams were still willing to take him on, the medics knew by what happened to him that he had tried to give himself a blood transfusion, thing is, it seem apparent the blood had not been stored correctly, a little like trying to put a sausage or black pudding in his arm.

    Move on agencies, the era of cycling is changing.

  • Amazingly bad parking here

    I decided to start taking photos of terrible parking, I mean, a busy road and how are we truly expected to safely navigate around these vehicles?

    Thing is though, these are business vehicles, it would be very easy to report them but im content posting bad parking on here, its abit of fun but what if I had a pushchair or pram?

    I don’t know which is my favourite at the moment though!!!

  • Should sausages be pricked for cooking?

    Its a question that seems somewhat poked alot, many say to let the fat cook the meat inside the sausage skin, yet many say poke the sausage allowing it to be cooked in the fat? Regardless of what the photo shows I do not prick my sausages, especially as these days they are getting much less fattier, so we are sold!?

  • Sleeping beauty from the Beeching era

    The 1963 Beeching report suggested cutting back almost all the branch lines, about 5,000 miles of railway line and 2,363 stations, to keeping it short, he said all goods would eventually be transported by road, the short sightedness was that resulted in cluttered roads. Imagine how busy those branch lines would now be for commuters, although Sustrans are turning old lines into public ways, walking, cycling, horse riding, but they need to be maintained.

    This sleeper probably has some real history behind it, its near the river Wharfe, possibly taken from the Ilkley to Skipton line after closure, the good news is that the now Embsay steam railway is hoping to extend from Bolton Abbey station to Addingham, but it would need to terminate before Addingham first school as that is now on the old route.

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