Visible insights - driving and Doctors

Gosh what a difference! Visible showed me that this latest doctors visit took way less out of me than the previous one, I need to go again in two weeks will be interesting to compare

This is the difference in intensity!!! Now that's huge

And the driving there and back! Big bug difference in impact

Massive difference in intensity 

I got there and back within my daily budget

I had a shower before hand with a good dose of cold water, also tried to calm and mitigate anticipation anxiety which I think helped a lot

More long covid views

I spend a lot of time half way up the stairs waiting for my heart rate to go down 🤦‍♀️

But that's OK I'm getting used to it

This picture is very special to me it's of Broadsea in Fraserburgh, it was painted for me by Georgie Watt, his wife Elsie (wonderful woman) was my grandads cousin. My grandad was a really good artist who taught Georgie to paint. So in this picture I have  a connection to my grandad and to the sea at Fraserburgh,  I love it.

 

Kindness of chums

Awww how lovely, Samuel has a very similar email to mine, he has been forwarding emails to me for years! Maybe as much as 10? Maybe more😊 he always does them so nicely, it always cheers me up

So many lovely chums sent gifts, this lovely flower Wreath was from Wendy

I also got a lovely cross stitch kit from chum Kim but I don't have a picture and it's downstairs 🤦‍♀️

My chum David is lovely at keeping in touch, here is a picture of a hedgehog box he made 💕 he uses the jigsaw he bought when he made my sewing table for me, he's a lovely man

Awww lovely lovely Cath 💕 all so.sweet and thoughtful

Lovely Glinda quilts, red lippy from liberty, honestly how kind and appropriate!

Natalie! Lovely Natalie

Aww bless from Laurie, very funny!

Sue, good chum Sue 💕

Jacky 🤣🤣🤣🤣, next to scoobs she is my rock, this was an in joke when scoobs threw out my washing powder scoop by mistake 🤣

And here he is enjoying his panda biscuits, my absolute rock, no words could ever express my love for this man
 

Personal best 😊

 

OK I want to document this, my physio said to celebrate long covid personal bests and today I had one!

Showering is difficult to keep under your pace points with, steam, lots of arm motion etc, you can see from screen shots above that the impact (the amount of pace points it actually uses) has been as high as 1.1 (bear in mind my whole budget for the day is 11) the intensity of ghat (how much it would use if you did it for an hour) was 4 so that's pretty high intensity!

Today I managed to get the impact down to 0.4 and the intensity down to 1.6 which is phenomenal!!!! I'm so pleased visible is amazing at giving me these insights, I'm so pleased 😊

Might as well be a mountain

I never wrote up my experience with cancer in 2011, I don't actually think I was aware of blogging at the time if I was it wasn't for things like scary illnesses

I wish I had though, I have memories and feelings about it but I don't know how true they are?

I think it would help now to look back and see those feelings experiences again

I remember one vividly I think it was one of my lowest moments. My husband was out for a works night out, a very rare occurrence ao.it must have been Xmas time 

I was.feeling not very good and took my temperature and it was high

I tried and tried to phone him and he didn't answer so I dialled nhs 24 and got told I should go to out of hours care

I can't remember if Mark did come home in time and drive me or if I got a taxi, but I got across and they put me in a room where they all came in hazmat suits to prevent infection 

I think my main fear was an infection interrupting my chemo, chemo was my only way out of this and I was terrified of that being interrupted.

They couldnt figure out what was causing the infection they thought it might me one of the injection sites for the chemo drug getting infected 

The injection site was my buttock so I was  standing up in front of them all I think about 3 or 4 of them and had to drop.my track.suit bottoms and bare my bum. One of the junior doctors looked at it and said "is that it??" I definitely remember that bit and he might also have said "I got called out for that?" I'm not sure about that bit but I remember the fear the shame and embarrassment viscerally 

Turns out it wasn't that it was a urine infection they put me on an antibiotic drip, I was in a single room and fell asleep then woke up to find myself being wheeled through to a ward, there were 2 other women in there, an older lady and a young woman who had taken an overdose, she threw up all night. The next day she was insistent on getting onto Facebook so she could show "him" what he had done to her, I felt.veey sorry for her until she insisted on smoking out the window my bed was next to the window .... it was obvious from my complexion and bald head that I had cancer but hey I can't judge her she was a sad woman

I kind of think of that experience as my lowest point when I had cancer.

I'm thinking yesterday might have been my lowest with long covid? Dunno let's see! Mark is away and it's hard for me to cope to be honest. I ordered more shakti mats, bolsters and a shakti ring, also some slip on shoes to help me walk around the house.

That's the parcel, I managed to get to near the door and sit there on the floor when I knew the delivery was coming yesterday,  then today I wanted to try and get it, because I had coffee I couldn't get my heart rate down. But I need the shoes because my feet are getting sore going barefoot, this took me 20 minutes a good 10 of those were spent laying on the floor with my legs up the bannister

I eventually got there, and had to wait 30 mins 🤦‍♀️ but I got to try shakti ring!!! Didn't read the instructions though you are meant to keep it.moving up and down your finger 🤦‍♀️

New bolster is very spiky! But nice

New shoes!!! At last! Hopefully better for my feet!

I tagged this cats and roses because that's my phrase to describe my cancer I might write up.more let's see.

I do hope this is my lowest point because it was pretty pretty low

Visble insights

OK one day I will stop evangelising about visible, but today is not that day!

I've learned so so much, ok first thing is about anticipation anxiety and exertion and energy use

Here is the impact and then the intensity of injecting methotrexate my arthritis med

What a huge huge difference, exactly the same activity but the anxiety beforehand was the key factor in using more energy 😳 for info my energy budget was 11 points

Below are the readings from driving from and to the doctors intensity then impact, going to the docs both intensity and impact are huge, what a difference on the way back!

Below is my personal best from today, I finally got a shower! It's been 4 days .....

BUT!!! look! Look at how I have reduced it 🥳🥳🥳 down to 0.5 of a pace points  thats a massive, saving, done by opening a window lukewarm shower but mostly through making sure I got a good chunk of rest before hand I'm so so pleased

Seasons September

So here is September!  I missed August! Well I think August missed me 🙄 I don't know what made me pick our garden for this years seasons pictures but I'm ao glad i did! Otherwise I wouldn't be able to continue. Unfortunately my covid progresses to long covid and I've been  house bound since end of June. We shall see where it goes. Meanwhile I'm spending a lot of time and I mean a lot of time looking at this view. Things could be worse 😊

So what is September like! A lot more foliage but fewer roses, that's OK 😊

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

September 

View from Long Covid - reframe yourself

I'm spending a lot of my time resting in between activities with LC I need to stop before the heart rate goes over a certain limit

In the kitchen I did down with my feet up on the radiator and look out the window

This is the view

In the neuk our wee sitting room this is my view

I also spend a lot of time I mean a LOT of time sitting on the stairs🤣🤣🤣 like the Grand old Duke of York... half way up or half way down 🙄🙄🙄 my mother gave me.this picture years ago ... with strict instructions not to sell it on Ebay 🙄 I think I had sold some Crafting things on ebay and she was horrified! Probably thought it was common!

I see it a lot now, its OK I might like it a bit better now

I also see a lot of this

Marks great uncle Walter who died in the first World War, he tracked down his medals. So sad so young.

It could be worse,  I have a lot if time to reflect now and I'm realising that this is not just down to Covid, this is the cumulative effect of:

Narcissistic mother, Munchausens by proxy as a child, toxic and Coercive first marriage, toxic and Coercive flat mate after first marriage, stage 4 cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, a toxic last job during a global pandemic,  toxic work colleagues/staff members,  lipidema and finally a bad car accident 3 weeks before I caught covid ....

Just writing all of that down makes me realise how much damage has been done to my body and mind. I can look at this one of two ways, something to wail about or a signal that things need to change and that if I want any quality of life in my final years I need to do some deep deep healing

This was my monthly marker for September very appropriate