What A Year That Was.....   2019
From Your Roving Reporter  Austin
We Kept Saying Let’s Hope This Year 2020 will be Better and Look What’s Happened
 
Seeing as how none of us can move about I thought I would put some of my own highlights and indeed low lights from the year 2019, where do I start, my own condition should fill a few lines up, January I was in the middle of Urmston and suddenly I was freezing and started to shiver so much I was shaking, now I thought to myself this isn’t right it’s not even cold !! I jumped in the car and shot off home, went upstairs and got underneath the duvet, thinking as you would I need to get warm, now after an hour I thought this isn’t working so I phoned my wife who hurried home from work, on arrival she phoned the nurse who lives on my road, she came straight across and immediately said “get that duvet off”, your temperature is through the roof and that’s not the correct antidote for it. She immediately phoned an ambulance, to which I was gob smacked, us oldies don’t use ambulances or hospitals unless we really have to. The guys were brilliant they did all the tests and in their words said “I was one click away from Sepsis” A few days in one hospital then another I did feel much better but still not 100%, it took a few more trips to hospital until at last a specialist decided I still had a bad water infection, this eventually was sorted with the correct medicine. Missed my Lodge Burns night but there’s always next year and that was January...
 
Anyway into February I had a lot of pain in my left wrist, tried bandages, elastic thumb things all sorts of creams etc, but nothing worked, eventually I had to go to doctors yet again who fixed up an X Ray and Scan, the Result was basically, oh there’s a bone in your wrist which is missing it has been obliterated, and thanks for calling,!!  Next Please.  That was that, yes it’s still the same today.
 
Now I’m thinking about it the year definitely wasn’t all a disaster, in February we had a great visit to Edinburgh with a Brother Mark Mason to celebrate his 50 years a mason, about 70 of us took the trip, with our wives and friends to his mother Craft Lodge, whilst we were there we attended Scotland’s Grand Lodge, Rosslyn Chapel plus a great night at his Lodge, I of course could wear my Mark Chain of office because things are quite different in Scotland, your ceremony to join the Mark is done in the Craft Lodge, can I say I was busting with pride for all of us in West Lanc’s when I was presented to the WM. I was well looked after by a great Mason Eddie Pratt who kept his eye on me all the time we were there. I think we got back to the hotel around 3am..  One funny item to mention during our trip to Rosslyn Chapel, we piled off the coach and looked in ore at the building in front of us, first we went into the visitor centre which had some great items on offer, including some special whisky which I of course had to check out, there were models of the building showing how it had developed over the many years of its existence and a small cafe area with some great local produce on offer.(I tried the huge scones complete with jam and cream, just the job if you’re on a diet, not) We made our way into the Chapel and all found a seat, a lady introduced herself as one of the Roslyn guides, the first thing she requested was that everybody turns their phones off or to silent, all was very quiet then ten minutes into the talk a loud brass band started up, you could have put money on who’s phone it was, everybody turned and looked in the same direction, we were correct, not only did he answer it but where you or I would quickly have turned it off in embarrassment this person started a conversation. !! Brilliant and so funny.  That was February.
 
March arrived, still doing jobs at the Hall complete with a big wrist bandage and watching my team heading towards winning all the Domestic Trophies, my ## birthday was coming up and everyone kept saying to me “By Heck Your Looking Well” whilst I was thinking to myself it’s a pity I don’t feel so good, nothing specific but you must all have had times feeling unwell but couldn’t explain what or why you felt that way. (More about that later)
 
The year wasn’t all bad, had a few great visits to London for Mark and Royal Ark Mariner Grand Lodge Meetings and Grand Stewards Lodge meetings along with our PGM Keith, his executive team and lots of members from West Lancs including our very own web master Mike who does such a great job for us. The saddest part was handing over my Grand Stewards chain of office, I tried stitching it to my jacket but it didn’t work they have a special pair of scissors at Grand Lodge just for any of us who try the same move.
A note to all members of the Mark and RAM degrees you don’t have to be a Grand officer to attend these Grand Lodge meetings, if you haven’t been to one yet put it in your “things to do list” as soon as we get back to normal, anything you need to know regarding booking the train at the best price etc by all means just give me a call, you will enjoy the spectacle and you won’t feel like you’re not important, in these degrees we are all important.   
Pro GM
Cheers
Peter and Tony Harrison
Mike
PGM’s Table
General Views
This next item is a good lesson to all of us.
After several more visits to the doctors, I kept getting issued with different types of tablets and different strengths for high blood pressure of the same tablets, then I was issued with a couple of different Inhalers, why !!, didn’t make any difference, the last straw came when after seeing a different doctor nearly every time I attended I was presented with a guy with a flat cap on and a shorter than average red tie who had a two minute look at my file on the computer which by now is quite large with lots of tablet allergies and Intolerances, the guy, still not sure if he was even a doctor, looked like he’d just come in after driving a Taxi all night. Well I looked at my wife and she looked at me and we both thought that’s enough of that, we asked for a letter to see a Consultant which we would pay for, this was duly granted. I picked it up the next day and contacted the Spire Hospital, before I knew it I had a 30 minute interview with Mr Fox a Cardio specialist, I’ve got to say he was brilliant and listened to every word, he did several checks and within two weeks I was booked in to the Cardiac Unit at Wythenshawe Hospital where they did several in depth checks which resulted in them saying I should have a angiogram. Arrived on the day not really knowing what to expect, but I was soon to find out!!
 
Now for any of my friends who may need this doing in the future I will enlighten you as to the procedure I went through, I didn’t have a clue what to expect but off course people start to enlighten you, most of which doesn’t help.! Before the day I was booked in I had to attend several times for a Pre Op etc, yes they did term it as an Operation. The day arrived and I had to go into a sealed unit with easy chairs in, TV’s etc along with a few others who would be having the same thing done. Eventually I was taken into a full blown operating theatre which came as a shock with lots of staff in gowns and masks, they injected something into my arm above the wrist which did feel a bit peculiar and off we went, a piece of equipment was passing over me and stopping in different places, over in the corner a couple of these masked specialists were scrutinising about 4 TV’s, to tell you the truth I didn’t really look too hard at what was going on, just like when I go to the dentists I just close my eyes. !! Eventually the two guys who were stood in the corner came over and I could see they weren’t too impressed with something, they told me that under normal circumstances if it could be done they would have put some stents in (they hadn’t mentioned that before) but as my main artery was completely blocked and two of the others were 80% and 60% blocked it couldn’t be done, now that was another shock at least I thought, no wonder I haven’t been feeling well all year.!! The next day my arm was black and blue and the hospital phoned to book an appointment with the main surgeon Mr Carey, again he was brilliant he spelled out what was needed a Triple Bye Pass, he did say that I could have had a heart attack at any time, he looked us both in the eyes and said “you need this operation” !!  
Now if your still awake I will give you a quick resume of the Op itself, the date was fixed to be done in less than two weeks, before the day itself I had to attend a couple of times, a comprehensive lung check was carried out, they said my lungs were 100% and didn’t have a clue as to why the local GP had given me inhalers! They did a major scan of all my veins to try and decide where to take them from for the bypass, the legs were shot from playing football for over 30 years, plus they had already taken most of the veins out of the right leg (don’t ask). Between you and me until I retired I was hardly ever at the Doc’s or Hospital. !!
As the date got nearer I was asked to attend for some other test and to go into a meeting of the Ticker club, which was created for all of us with a chest Zip to get together as a support group, whilst I was there the head Cardio nurse came in and asked if I was ok for the Op to take place 4 days early on the next Monday, of course I said yes. On the Sunday afternoon I went in and joined a ward in preparation for the Op the next day, it was ok, there is only six in each unit and they all seemed like decent guys. I just tried to chill out and remember watching a film about Bobby Robson, the nursing staff started right away checking blood pressure, temperature and even blood sugar, I eventually fell asleep to be woken at about two AM to what I can only describe as a Caribbean Carnival down the corridor at the nurse’s station, I still haven’t got a clue what was going on!!
 
Early the next morning I had a visit by the surgeon, anaesthetist and six others they all stood around the foot of the bed talking to me and discussing the details of the operation, I was to be taken to the theatre at 1PM and right on time I was taken to an anti room next to the theatre (not the Gaumont unfortunately) Of great assistance was a second year nurse who had been looking after me on the ward she had asked permission to attend the operation, she was absolutely brilliant and kept me calm, I’m afraid the next thing I remember was being in the intensive care unit, at Wythenshawe unusually it’s a large modern circular open space with walls just dividing each patient who was being looked after by their own specialist nurse right up until the time you were returned to the ward. The rest of my 5 days on ward F6 consisted of constantly being checked for blood pressure, temperature, blood sugar and a piece of equipment to test that the lungs were working correctly. The tests would be done for a few days both day and night, you would just fall asleep which wasn’t easy and you would hear, “Austin blood pressure”
 
That was basically it, as I said before ignore a lot of what you might get told before hand, things like after a couple of weeks you’ll be up and about and in a couple of months you’ll feel like a new man, all I can say is that certainly wasn’t the case with me and others I have spoken to since, you are advised to take it very easy, do not lift things, go to the Cardio Rehab sessions and the Cardio Physio sessions at my local hospital which I did for two months until this lock down. One piece of information I was given by Geoffrey Lee was to take a Teddy Bear with me, why? Because when you are about to sneeze or cough you grab it quick and pull it into your chest, this takes the pressure off the operation area. It Works.
Meet Maurice the Bear
Hope you enjoyed some of my report and didn’t get too bored, I have a few other good ideas which I will start on tomorrow. One of which will be my visit to see the King.
Other notable days during the year,
 
1st May Mark Provincial Grand Lodge at Southport always a 1st class day out and not to be missed a great spectacle and lots of fun, great to see all your friends from all over the Province.  
 
19th July the Korc Ball at The North Euston Hotel Fleetwood, a great night in good company and lots of fun including the indoor cricket match.
 
4th August Wembley where I’m afraid Watford got thrashed.
14th Sept The Grand Stewards Weekend away at Caernarvon, what a privilege to belong to this group.
 
26th October The Mark Ball at Foxfields Country Club, Billington. If you’ve never been don’t miss it this year.
Foxfields
PGM Leads off the Dancing
Tegwyn and Eric
Well Done
Welcome
Cheers
Great Place
10th Nov Remembrance Sunday where I always lay a wreath on behalf of all the Mark Masons in the Urmston area.
 
Keep Safe.    Keep Well.   Stay In.    Keep In Touch With All Your Friends and Family. 
Support the NHS
 
Here’s Looking Forward to Seeing All My Mark Friends And Those I Have Yet To Meet Later In The Year.
Mark Well
Austin
Austin N Fletcher.   Flixton Shepherd Eastwood Mark Lodge. No. 1173