Wednesday, April 03, 2013

Recognising Danger

I suppose that every now and again I have to accept that perhaps I need to spot signs and do something about it.  For example over the past few days I've noticed how often I'm finding myself light headed, when out or when getting up.  It's nothing new, I've always had this issue, but it's been once every so often, so I've I'm used to it and just stop and wait till it goes away.  

The thing though that made me stop and think was yesterday's post and the comments about food.  I perhaps haven't been eating enough of late, in my attenpt to save money.  I should try and eat a bit more so I've gone out and bought biscuits to have with my drinks of tea and coffee through out the day.  I can but rule out the lack of food before I head to my doctors and be told that I'm not eating enough and need to eat more through the day.  I hadn't paid much attention to it till yesterday, but eating only twice a day, and at intervals of between 11 and 13 hours is perhaps pushing the limits some what.  

So I have recognised the danger, and hopefully I'll notice a difference, it's not that I have passed out with this, no I normally only go light headed, though in the past I have encountered dizzy spells as well with it, and indeed have fallen down stairs and also in a bath and really caused bad bruising on my legs and back, but it's never been too much of an issue, and even the doctor wasn't to concerned.  Still it's always good to try and prevent this from escalating isn't it and so here I am.

What's nice though is that I already feel good in myself for being able to give myself a quick answer as to why I'm feeling as I have been.  With my recent bout of ill health and the breathing issues, I've had very little idea as to why it's happened and what's caused it.  Being the type of person that has in the past been able to identify issues and helped solve health issues the best I could, unless, medical supervision was required, I've questioned myself a lot, and came up with a myriad of ideas as to why my health has been so bad.  None of them of course have given me the solution and I've pushed on, through the difficult times and had to restrict my desire to push myself further than I could.  Yet, and I say this touching every piece of wood in my flat, since my last bout of ill health a couple of weeks ago, I've actually seen a slight improvement in my health.  

One of the noticeable things has been the total lack of having to use my blue inhaler.  It started with the introduction of the steriod tablets, and since then has continued since I finished that treatment.  I'm still using the brown inhaler which is a lesser dosage of steriods, but I think since Friday 22nd March, I think I've had to use my blue inhaler about 3 times, and of those 2 where seperated by about a week.  I'm not sure what is going on, but I'm happy with it.  The next step after perhaps another week or so will be to try going out for a walk, the local 4 mile walk that I used to do, daily to see how I cope with that at a gentle pace, before slowly building up to see where I'm at full stop.  Hopefully I can get round without any issue and can increase my fitness levels once more, that would cheer me up, and put me in a good mood.  Of course that leads me back to the start of this entry and if I do get back into walking 4.7 miles a day in around 50 minutes or so, I will need to increase my calorie intake, as I dare say I'm consuming less calories than would be burned on a walk of that pace. 

Tuesday, April 02, 2013

What to say in post 600

Blog post number 600, I don't know if I ever thought I'd write that many posts or at times when I didn't write anything for months on end, if I'd ever reach such a point, however today it's arrived and it's 600 up.  

So where am I at?  I don't know if I'm being honest, yes the holiday is exciting, but trying to save money so that I've got some money to save is a strain.  It's interesting that whilst I'm living this sparse existance, a huge fuss is being made in the press over cuts to benefits and comments made by the cabinet minister responsible.  He claims he can live off £37 a week, and I'll say yes you can to a point.  One week wouldn't be an issue either, but it's when it's multiple weeks that it gets harder and harder, as you realise that the choice of food you have to eat is limited, that the amount of food you have is limited and being able to do the odd thing or two to break the monotity of it all, is taken away due to lack of money.  I know I'm living that sort of life right now.  I know that I could make things a little easier on myself by having a smaller amount of spending money target, but I need to have some money available when I'm away to do some things or buy stuff for myself and others.  

It is my choice to live like I am, basically living off £40 a week, but that has to pay for electric, food, gas and anything else I need during that time.  Oh and not to forget the bills I've have to pay as well, so that £40 shrinks again..  So basically I've been trying to live off around £25 to £30 a week which is nothing at all, but I'm sure that a millionaire MP, who claims more for his breakfast each morning than I am spending for a week on food and electric can do the same.  There is a petition going around at the moment which people are siging in the hope that he volunteers to show the world how he can live on the £37 pounds a week.  I hope he accepts, but to do so for a week isn't enough it has to be 1 or 2 months, to really make him understand how little and how unacceptable that amount of moeny is.

Enough of that, as it makes me mad, it really does and my struggles with moeny are well documented, I'd only just paid off all the debts I'd had and started to adjust to life with a little bit more to play with, when I got the holiday call.  It didn't help with one of the supermarkets I shop at stopping discounting produce, which meant my shopping bills rapidly increased and meant less food in the freezer as well.  So what else is going on?  Stillno contact with my imediate family, which really hurts even with so much time under the bridge.  I sort of kind of hoped that with news of my holiday filtering through from my niece, that someone would have called to moan or say something to me, but no not a word.  What makes it worse, is that after I last went round and offered an olive branch to my mother, and told her she had to contact me more, she's done nothing since.  She's even told my niece it's my doing, that i's me not talking to them.  Well it is to a point of course, but that's because of the attitude that they have shown to me and the total lack of acceptance for whom I am.  If my mother, who I'm sure will still claim it's difficult to accept things, tried and at least got beyond the stage she reached 10 years ago, I'd might make a bit of an attmept to reach out again, but no it's not progressed.  

This leaves me with few options, one of the options I've got is when to explain to my niece, she's currently going through her exams and wouldn't want to throw any spanners in the works in that respect, so I may wait till the end of summer to sit down and have a big chat with her, but I really don't know what that would do anyway.  I know, or I think I know the reaction I'd get from her, and I'm cool with that, but I'm guessing once she says something to her mum and dad, the shit would hit the fan and it would lead to no ends of problems.  Though of course she's now old enough to make her own mind up and if indeed as seems likely she'll be joining the Navy in a year or two's time, she won't be around long anyway to have to live between the battle field that would be my sister and myself.  What would I say to my niece is another thing though, as I'd want to tell her everything, including stuff about her home that she may not want to hear or should hear from myself, but I get the impression from the conversations we've had that she's told very little at home anyway and she'll be glad to moe out.  

Wow what a strange entry this is considering it's the 600th, I don't know why it ended up the way it has, but in a way that's good, my mind is working at it's normal odd ball way and I'm mixing and matching topic's loosely or quite strongly.  Whichever it is, I would say that I'm quite happy with things, as I said previously it's my choice to not be spending money, it's my choice to be saving as much as I can, and I'll continue to do so till I can no more.  So whilst I moan and grumble about the restrictions placed upon me, the fact I'm alive, the fact I've got things to look forward to, the fact I've got other things to do other than sitting around and being here online is good.  I'm occupied, which is important, as over the years I've not been and that tends to lead me to dark places, as I have to much time to think. 

Monday, April 01, 2013

Done Nothing Monday

I forced myself to write last week, and then decided to leave this place alone.  To see if I would come back to see if I could come back and add anything worth while.  Even with a shock on Thursday, that obviously was unexpected, I didn't post.  I either don't feel compelled to do so or I'm not feeling creative.  However, as I trawl through the night tonight, I thought I'd might as well put something down.

The thing is that I'm almost bored of all the websites I've got in my current bookmarks, I dare not add to many more to them, not that my pc can't take it, of course it can.  However, my pc's ability to display pages, to keep up to speed is still driving me crazy and thus I'm not keen on half the pages I would normally be looking at, or certainly had prior to losing the bookmarks last year.  So I've restricted myself and that sort of limits me on a night like tonight.  I'd be buzzing around looking on odd pages or playing strange flash based games rather than doing sweet FA.  

So what's happend over the past week or so?  Nothing to be honest, nothing at all.  Easter came and went, well is going as it's just before 10pm on Easter Monday.  I didn't eat any chocolate, I didn't have lamb either, just the normal fayre for me.  I did however pick up some potted meat on Saturday and have enjoyed that on sandwiches on Saturday and Sunday, and with some left I've been able to enjoy that at random intervals.  It will run out, but hey it's been nice to have a different taste.  

Over the past few days I've probably been looking more at sites for my up coming holiday, than I had previously.  Prior to this weekend I'd been looking at things to do, and also things to buy, this weekend has been hiking sites, videos of Invermere and also of the airline I'm flying with.  It's been about 5 or 6 years since I was last on a plane and I suspect that was to Belfast and back for a conference, so it was just a short hop across the water.  This time it won't be, and I'll be flying with an airline that has fitted mood lighting to it's cabin's.  It sounds crazy, it looks odd on the video I watched, but do you know it's just increased my desire for the holiday to come tomrrow rather than later.  I've got a residential to volunteer on, before then that I should be excited about, but the holiday is taking over that and I need to calm down, as there is plenty of time for something to go wrong yet.