Monday 7th February 2022
Tired
Hi everyone, hope you are all doing well. It’s been nearly a month since the last post, and it’s been mixed. It started off pretty well I felt a real wanting to go and do things and had a lot of motivation to try and push myself to see what my limits are and hopefully improve them too.
The following week I started off at something I should have aimed towards, I decided to try Slieve Croob, as I mentioned in the previous post its normally about a 25-30 minute walk although a hill I thought I would be able to do it without too many issues…
I was wrong, it took me over an hour and a half, I probably shouldn’t have done it but I’m not one to give up on something once I’ve started it and took a LOT of stops and rests. The worst part was the walk down, it’s a road the whole way so it’s not a proper mountain climb, it’s a road up a hill, on the way down I didn’t have to stop as often but I had to from time to time to try and ease my back to keep going and I got home as fast as possible which is now thankfully only a 20 minute drive, and took extra pain killers and vegetated the rest of the day and the next day.
My back was done again with it, not quite as bad as the previous times but the walk alone was just too much and my back just couldn’t cope with it. On the Monday I phoned up about the forest pass that I used to get each year and rather than being January to December they extended the 2021 pass to March, so if I was to get one, I’d be paying full price for three months, I thought about it and on the Tuesday I ended up ordering it. I was hoping it would spur me on to keep doing things and be a bit of an incentive.
I still haven’t received it, but they did send a photocopy of it via email. I printed that out and on the Wednesday I loaded up with pain killers and went to Castlewellan to try and keep doing rather than lying about doing nothing all day. I had predicted that the back would gradually get worse for a few days until about Thursday and then start to improve, Wednesday and Thursday it did get worse and again on the Friday, but again I was still so eager to get out that I went for a short jaunt to Tollymore.
Every right turn I took was agony putting pressure on the ribs on the left hand side and it being country roads too, it wasn’t pleasant despite the lovely views en route. At least with Castlewellan and Tollymore I took it the easy nice flat paths with plenty of time to stop and relax.
The back continued to get worse until the Sunday when I think it peaked and has very gradually been improving, it’s still sore but not as bad as it was.
Apart from that since then I’ve taken a couple of trips to Castlewellan and took it very easy each time and the last couple of weeks kept it very low key as I seemed to lose the motivation that I had at the start of the month.
I had a few appointments the week after all that, I had my lung function test, the normal one at hospital to get my infusion and another to get bloods done for my bone doctor. Over the last while, I can’t remember if I said or not but I think I did, I normally feel fairly rough in the mornings but over the last while I’ve also been feeling rough in the evening, it’s hard to explain the only real symptom is feeling rough. I said to them last time I was at hospital about it but they weren’t instantly concerned and if it was still the same this time they’d organise a scan, and for my knee too. Neither have improved but the doctor I had was new and I didn’t really feel comfortable talking with her, I mentioned to her about it but nothing more.
I also asked her about the lung function test results but she got side tracked and I never heard anything about it. As far as I know it went pretty well, certainly compared to the previous one, I didn’t have to repeat any of the tests, or at least more than she initially said and in a few of them rather than being 3 or 4 goes I got it done in 2. So I’d guess it was pretty good.
The last couple of weeks I’ve done very little, my focus isn’t really there to concentrate on anything and not really being able to get comfortable and my sleep is awful, some nights I’m just lying there all night staring at the back of my eyelids, other times I get to sleep ok and then wake up really early and can’t get back to sleep. Then other nights it’s grand I get to bed fall asleep and wake up at normal time. And most days I would drift off during the day no matter what I do.
Tonight/Last night was one of those nights where I just couldn’t sleep and gave up at about 5 and just got up and now it’s 6 I’m starting to feel rough and will need to take tablets to ease it, it might even help me sleep a bit.
I did take some temazepam last week to see if that would help, I went to bed and woke up early and didn’t really notice anything. Later that morning I fell asleep and then later again in the afternoon and again in the evening and still had a decent sleep that night, it’s just so unpredictable and then you get a night where you are getting a good sleep and you can’t because your back’s sore.
Until next time, hope you’re all doing well.