Tales of a C3, a Goddess and some BMW's.

[DickieG]

Time for an update here, well I've been rather sporadic in visiting the forum for the past three weeks due to phone and internet connection problems during which I've had five visits from BT 'engineers' on Thursday my phone line was finally sorted but my broadband connection speed was rather slow at 0.12 MB which meant that loading any plain internet page took about a minute or very much longer if any photo's were on it. Further work was done this afternoon and its now back to normal speed of just over 1 MB.

Car wise one strange thing that had always puzzled me about my VSX (Goldie) was that when cold or the A/C was turned on the idle speed never picked up despite the vacuum relay operating and pulling the bowden cable running to the pump. Following a bit of investigation and a long phone call with our resident diesel pump guru (Jim) I discovered that the idle speed mechanism had been dabbled with or not set up correctly when new. Now bearing in mind that I've owned this car since it was 3 months 1,500 miles old and never played with this it makes me wonder who/when/where etc. Anyway, long story short and it is now working correctly as per the manual, not that its made any difference to the way the car drives or starts but with me being a bit of a perfectionist such things matter!

Two weeks ago I replaced the front brake disc's and pad's on Goldie as due to the low mileage (36k since new) there were traces of corrosion on the inside of the disc's, I then carried out an engine oil and filter change. I also checked the pressures on all the sphere's and found them to be the correct pressure despite being on the car since 2004, this would appear to prove that if a car is left sitting on its bump stops (as I do with this car when not in use) then sphere's do not appear to lose any pressure at all. I then took her for her MOT which she passed with no advisories, mileage this year has crept up to a whopping 1,400 miles, making a total of 5,000 miles since 2006

My HDi was treated to a couple of new front drop links to quieten down a rattle over small road corrugations. Yesterday I noticed a slight whiff of diesel when I turned the engine off and discovered a small leak on the rubber pipe running from the fuel filter to main pump around one of the securing clips, a quick check for damage to the pipe (none found) and a new jubilee clip has sorted that one out.

Shame about the weather forecast for the weekend as I look forward to the DS Rally each year but with a monsoon forecasted she'll stay in the garage warm and dry, in fact the only time she's got wet since I've owned her was on the journey back from southern France when I bought her. Even when washing her I don't use a hose as she only ever gets a slight covering of dust so I use a damp sponge to lift the dust away to avoid causing abrasions to the paintwork. Ironically after buying her I spent quite some time sourcing the correct windscreen wipers (found a pair in Cyprus) in order that they can cope with the steep curve around the screen of a DS, not that they've ever been used other than during the MOT test!!

Health wise I've now only got two weeks to wait for my appointment with a Consultant to find out what the score is with regard to my slipped disc. Having been doing relatively well for the past couple of weeks I decided to reduce the amount of Tramadol I'd been taking in order to see whether my back had improved or whether the Tramadol was killing the pain,,,, lets just say Tramadol is a very effective pain killer and I'm back on the full dose

[XantiaDaveEire]

I found tramadol to be of good use aswell after i had an operation on my back not so long ago and like you had stopped taking them for a while to see if the pain was gone.. The best thing is to slowly reduce the dosage because they are very addictive

[DickieG]

The best thing is to slowly reduce the dosage because they are very addictive

I've heard that from several sources now and I'm bearing that in mind as I'm not a great lover of pill popping, cheers.

[DickieG]

Still not much to report car wise due to my back problems keeping me out of action so to speak, I saw the Consultant a week or so ago and it turns out that I was misdiagnosed from the MRI scan and the sciatic pains are down to a swelling/narrowing in the spinal canal, upshot being that I'm now awaiting surgery to remove the swollen tissue.

On the subject of surgery, my dog Barney is at present undergoing surgery after being attacked by a large Husky this morning, quite why it attacked him I've no idea but it really went for him so I took hold of the Husky and threw it some distance away but as soon as it got up it again attacked Barney this time as I took hold of it I didn't let go even though the blasted thing was trying to bite me, all this hasn't done my back any favours so I'm now limping good and proper. The owner appeared to be a pleasant lady who said "he's never done that before" but for some reason she had one of those electric shock collars on her dog hmm,,,

Anyway Barney's only wounds were a tiny nick on one ear and a small tear to his lower right eyelid, when I initially looked at it I thought just a quick clean up and all will be well but when I got home I realised that he needed something like a steristrip to hold the flap of skin in place so I took him the vet who upon examining him stated that he needed a couple of stitches which meant that due to the location so close to his eye means a general anesthetic. The bill? Pardon the pun but an eye-watering £740 I now know what I'm going to encourage my daughter to train for when she leaves school.

[CitroJim]

Ohh, poor Barney, wish him a speedy recovery from me Richard...

And to you and your bank balance as well..

The bill? Pardon the pun but an eye-watering £740

Gosh, that is outrageous... No wonder the average vet seems very well-off...

How do they justify it though, do they sleep well at night I wonder?

[DickieG]

How do they justify it though, do they sleep well at night I wonder?

I was told its down to the cost of anesthetic drugs, but whatever the cause its a huge fee for what looks like a little nick. I must have looked visibly shocked judging by the vets reaction to my response!!

[bxzx16v]

Hope your dog barney is ok , those huskys are nasty pieces of work , there's one near us and whenever it sees our collie it's goes bananas , shame you couldn't have pulled the electric collar of and shoved it up it's ars*

Mark

[Xaccers]

Hope Barney makes a quick recovery.
On 3CR last week they had a phone in about irresponsible dog owners.
One woman's dog was attacked, and the attacking dog's owner seemed to just freeze and say "he's always doing that" making no attempt to stop him!

Hope you got the details of the husky's owner to send her the bill!

[Citroening]

Sorry to hear about Barney, Richard - I hope he has a speedy recovery.

We used to have three Huskey's (two brothers and the mother) and as the boys were born in the room that they lived/slept/stayed in they were very good guard dogs. Out and about on the lead they were very good and suprisingly never went for any other dogs at all. At home was completely different and they were proper guard dogs - nobody would come near three of them when they were barking at the gate! What made it worse though was that the white brother only had half of a leg due to birth problems and that made him look meaner!

Unfortunately all three are no longer with us but they weren't without there vet prices - not dissimilar to yours Richard and I think that Dad's reaction was probably the same...we had to go back three times for treatment at huge cost - didn't work though.

Dad's after another dog ATM though, a nice Chocolate/Golden/Black Labrador!

Got the two cat's nowadays that we got from the RSPA centre.

Anyway, good luck to Barney.

[DickieG]

Thanks for the goodwill messages chaps, I've just returned home from the Vets with Barney, he's looking rather sorry for himself what with a partially shaved face, a swollen eye and a lampshade on his head!!

When it happened I thought he merely had a scratch near his eye so I didn't bother asking for the owners details, however I'm now going to be keeping a lookout for her starting first thing in the morning!!

[lexi]

The back is a tricky thing Dickie

Lets hope the Man can fix that Disc and he don't charge you doggie prices...............good old NHS.........food apart.

First two weeks of my fracture I was on 8 co-codamol 3 ibuprofen and two Tramadol per day ...........plus the odd Morphine jab to back that lot up Thank God I am off the lot now and normal toilet service is resumed

That Vet must have brothers who run the kind of garages we all know about.

[DickieG]

The back is a tricky thing Dickie

Yes too right they are, the pain varies quite noticeably from day to day not helped by me running out of Diclofenic last night and missing two doses as a consequence. I've been paying for it all day with sharp pains running down my legs which at times were going wobbly making it difficult to remain standing. You wouldn't think that such a small pill can have such a massive effect especially when its one small part of the concoction I take three times a day (2 Paracetemol, 2 Tramadol + 1 Diclofenic).

Barneys settling down with the very expensive lampshade around his head, we're back to the vets tomorrow for a check up.

[daviemck2006]

Hi, I had a big back op 5yrs ago, 2 slipped discs and cracked vertibrae caused by a major dose of sciatica which put me in bed for 6 months. Went private because of horrendous waiting times for NHS up here, was going to be 9 months waiting for mri scan, further 9 months for op. As soon as i said private got scan in a week £500, two consultations with same consultant £150 each for about 5 mins and op three days later, in same hospital and conslltant as NHS for £7500. Still take tramadol, paracetomal and naproxen and still sore most of the time due to damage of spinal cord. Never moan about it though, consultant told me I had a 20% chance of op going wrong and me coming out of the hospital in a wheelchair. Considering I went in in a wheelchair that was an 80% chance of an improvement. It was the best £8300 I ever spent! Hope your op goes well and you get as big an improvement as I got.

[DickieG]

Still little to report car wise other than the ABS light on my VSX started illuminating recently, a ELIT session revealed the culprit to be the N/S/F sensor (as always ) but having now cleared the fault its not re-appeared. One interesting thing was that the old issue with this car since I've owned it from a couple of months old of the ECU 'K' light illuminating and recording a fault with the needle lift sensor hasn't re-occurred since I adjusted the idle speed mechanism on the diesel pump and no faults were recorded on the engine ECU so hopefully that issue has now finally been put to bed

Barney's now recovered from his injuries, I managed to track down the owner of the other dog which attacked him and obtained her details with her promising to contact me which surprise surprise she didn't do, so rather than phone her up and end up having a row I've forwarded her details to the insurance company for them to do the chasing, hopefully they'll at least put the wind up her and get her to be more responsible with her dog and get her to pay the bill!

I needed to see my GP last Thursday as she wanted to take me off Diclofenac due to heart and kidney issues with the drug so she changed me onto Naproxen which appears to be about as useful as a chocolate teapot as I've been suffering quite badly with pain ever since. Walking is now very difficult and exhausting with me shuffling along and limping like a 90 year old man, getting up and down stairs is quite a challenge and sleeping made difficult as my back keeps going into spasms whenever I move or roll over in bed, hence why I've given up tonight and I'm on the forum at this unearthly hour, in the morning I'll be on the phone to the Dr's for an appointment to change my medication.

Earlier today I phoned the hospital to find out if they have a date for my operation as when I saw the consultant 4-5 weeks ago he said the wait was around 6 weeks, I was told my earliest expected date is now October

Now maybe I'm being a little over suspicious but when I heard this reported a couple of days ago of health authorities deliberately delaying operations in the hope that patients will either die or pay privately for their operation thereby saving health authorities money, its fair to say I was not impressed but my own experience would appear to prove this story as true. Not a happy bunny

The law in this country is remarkable, there's a huge amount of legislation dealing with various forms of name calling with a power of arrest to enforce it and the Police actively encouraged to prosecute at every opportunity, yet it appears to be perfectly legal to deliberately deny people operations in the hope that they will die first,,, have the government gone mad?

[Xaccers]

Maximum time between consultation and op for routine operations is 18 weeks, so October would be within that period, although if it's in the second half of Oct I'd wonder if the managers have implemented a 15 week minimum.
Very few people are going to die while waiting for a routine operation, and certainly not from the delay. Accidents do happen though, someone waiting for a hip replacement might fall down the stairs or get run over while crossing the road.