Hi Everyone,

Lisa is recovering and doesn't need me to be around all the time any more. She is still far from fully recovered, but things are looking positive.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, please read the previous entry in this journal.

So the plan is to re-open the shop next week (from Tuesday 27th July).

I have a shop full of completed repairs (!) and will be calling people next week to advise that their guitars are ready to collect.

If you read this, and you are thinking about bringing some guitars in for me to fix, could I please ask you to hold off for a week or so - I was in the shop this morning and, to be honest, it's full! It will take me a week or so to ship out the completed repairs before I can ship in some new ones. Thanks for this.

My plan is for the shop, and all incoming and outgoing repairs, to be back to normal (or what passes for "normal" in a busy repair shop) next week, or at the latest the following week.

This has been a particularly weird and trying time for Lisa and me, and it's still ongoing until she is fully recovered. I'm sure that you will respect this.

To all of you who expected me to be there to fix your guitars as I always have, I thank you for your patience and understanding. I know that rocking up to a shop and finding a "closed" sign is never a happy meal.

But we seem to be drifting onto the sunny side of this particular dark alley.

Thank you all again for your good-wishes and understanding.

Strange days!

Andrew

 

Hi Everyone,

as many of you will know, my shop has been closed for the last two weeks. My answering service, and the sign on the door, advises that we’re closed for “Personal Family Reasons”.

My wife Lisa has been seriously ill in hospital and, after discussing things at length, we have decided to make public the reason for her hospitalisation.

Lisa has had a serious adverse reaction to the AstraZeneca Covid 19 vaccination.

She has developed, almost certainly directly from the vaccination, a condition called Guillain-Barré Syndrome. This is a serious immunological disease and is one of the established side-effects of certain vaccinations including the AstraZeneca vaccine.

She is recovering from the condition, but the recovery time is wide-open…it could be two weeks, it could be two months,  or it could be two years.

But she is recovering.

The most common “side-effect” of this vaccine is the much-published “rare-blood-clot” syndrome that the media has latched on to, but it turns out that the blood-clot thing is only one of several known reactions, Guillain-Barré being one of them. I’m sure that many of you who read this will google “Guillain-Barré”, so I’ll leave that with you! There are a couple of other serious adverse reactions to AstraZeneca documented, including heart ailments, and another condition, just confirmed, called immune thrombocytopenia.

I am not a mathematician, but as a technician I am required to have a reasonable understanding of numbers and I DO have a decent grasp of percentages and statistics etc. And I also DO appreciate that the statistical chance of a serious adverse reaction to the vaccine is teeny-weeny (about 0.004% or something similar). Tiny.

But in our house it is 100%.

One vaccination, one serious adverse reaction.

Twenty years or so ago, my brother’s infant daughter developed Meningococcal Disease. A doctor told him that this was a “one-in-a-million” chance. Paul replied, “yes, and THIS is the one!”

Statistics are usually pretty meaningless, and completely so when you are the “one”.

I don’t usually do "politics" - and generally run away as fast as I can - but I do think that our government may have fucked up a bit and ordered a huge load of a marginally-efficient and slightly-dodgy prototype vaccine (perhaps in a genuine attempt to seem to be ahead of the game). And now they’re trying to unload it on anyone who is spooked enough to take it (whilst indemnifying the doctors that recommend it – yikes!!).

Most of Europe has backed away from AstraZeneca, and the United States FDA refused to approve it from the start. Our government recommends it, but protects GPs from legal action should any adverse reaction and illness entail. Take from that what you will.

Personally, I’m going to hang on until a better one is available to us all. 

I DO know that the chance of BOTH Lisa and I having a bad reaction to the same vaccine is vanishingly small but, after what has happened, how can I now possibly say, "fine, give me a shot of that stuff too!".

I am certainly not an “anti-vaxxer” or any other kind of conspiracy theorist, but I do have concerns about the AZ vaccine. I’m not alone in this, and have the US Food and Drugs Administration and about half of the European Union in agreement. The AZ vaccine would seem to be almost, but not quite, right.

Most importantly, Lisa is recovering, but it will take some time. Hopefully she will recover 100%.

Regarding my shop and guitar-repairs etc. – Lisa is now home from hospital and I will have to spend some time at home looking after her as she recovers full mobility. My workshop is next to the house, so I will be able to catch up on the always-existent backlog of repairs while being there should she need me for anything.

I anticipate being able to re-open the shop in at least a part-time way in two to three weeks. That will allow those of you who have repairs currently with me to come in and collect them. And I should be able to start taking in new repairs as well. But I will be slower than usual at turning around jobs from book-in to completion until we all get back to where we were.

Any questions call or email. I will get back to you, but it may not be straight away.

Thank you all for your understanding and patience.

Andrew