Hi everyone, hope everything is going well. Been another quiet week here, energy levels are still dipping and have little to no motivation to do anything and dozing off quite a bit. Between waking up with cramps and coughing, the nights are pretty unpleasant. Unsurprisingly I didn’t do much this week, the only thing of note really is that I got some Warcraft gametime.
I need something to get a bit of an escape from reality, it’s a bit too hard to read and stay focused and watching tv is just sitting there staring into space so I need something that will work the mind a little bit at least. It’s been about 4 years or so since I last properly played it and so I have a couple of expansions to properly work through nevermind the one that’s coming out in a couple of days. I did get a realm first level 90 monk 8 years ago which may not seem like much but possibly one of my proudest achievements.
Even though that is just sitting at the computer there have been times when I haven’t had the energy to even go on that and end up just vegetating. I’ve been off dairy mostly for a couple of weeks now and the wind doesn’t seem quite as bad but getting a bit more blocked up and slow but all still working ok. There were two times I did take a little bit of dairy one was butter on pancakes and suffered a bit that evening and the other time was a bowl of ice cream, I don’t think it was a high milk content ice cream but I noticed it a bit later that evening and after a couple of days everything seemed to settle again. Main issue is just eating generally, my stomach seems to have shrunk and I struggle to eat any volume of food and so has to be little and more often. And much easier to take wet foods, not alcoholic but actual wet, damp foods like fruit or something with a good strong flavour that I’m in the mood for. Always really helps if it’s something I take a notion for.
On Monday morning I thought I would take the precaution of getting checked to see if I had covid, the main reason being that I really didn’t want to be that person that brought covid into the Bridgewater Suit and infect all the vulnerable people and staff. I’m pretty certain I don’t have it but just wanted to have it on paper that I didn’t. I booked it and an hour later I was sitting in the car with a stick up my nose, the worst part this time was the back of the throat, it really tickled and made me have a coughing fit. Didn’t hear anything back that day but the next morning got a text to say I was negative.
I’m starting to struggle to get out of bed in the mornings, I get so cozy and just lay there and then doze off again and then the next thing it’s near lunchtime, well not quite as bad as that, I think the latest has been 11, but that’s really not my normal thing, I like getting up and doing.
Thursday was hospital day and nice and early 8am aka as early as possible. Got bloods done and then out to the car to wait and about an hour later got a call to come up. I’ve given up using the stairs and started using the lift up, it’s only one floor but I struggled with it last week and I'm much worse now. Again not like me, I nearly always try to use the stairs. In to speak to the doctor, I say speak but on Saturday night I was coughing and lost my voice and since then I’ve been croaky at best, you can’t miss it, it’s pretty annoying as pretty much all my switches are voice controlled but one thing I have noticed with Alexa is that if you just emphasise the consonants it works ok which is good otherwise I’d struggle turning on the TV or any of the lights.
It was pretty noticeable when I was talking with her and the coughing too, told her the stomach wasn’t as bad but was more bunged up and about the cramps and about getting the covid test, she was very happy I’d done this and that I was so thoughtful, although I was more being thoughtful of me not wanting to get my name splashed all over the papers about being the person that infected all the vulnerable people lol, she was going to say about getting a test done, there doesn’t seem to be any sign of infection, mucus is either clear or creamy white, no temps or fevers, just a really bad cough. Thinking about it I’ve pretty much had a cough for maybe a year and a half, definitely for a year since the surgery and I think about June before then when everything started to go wrong. I just hope it doesn’t get to the stage where it starts bleeding again.
She sent me for an x ray to get my chest checked and my intestines too, the lungs are pretty much the same as how they were the last time they were scanned and x rayed but will stop the perindopril to see if that will help ease the cough over the next week, if not will be referred to ENT again to investigate. The intestines were, not surprisingly, bunged up so will take laxatives for a few days to help clear that. In regards to the cramps I pretty much just have to live with it as it’s to do with the lenalidomide and nothing can really be done about it, I do think a little of it has to do with the lack of exercise now too, I was just shy of 100 days in a row of doing the 10k steps then to doing nothing, certainly not going to help, but I’m really not going to take any chances, I’ve went on the exercise bike a few times but it's as much to just move the legs for a bit, and maybe only for 5 or 10 mins at a time if even that.
So after the scan and back to see the doc the retux was already there for me so went round to the treatment room took my seat and all the updates to paperwork and then the premeds, waited half an hour then got the subcut retux. It seems like sooo much that needs to be injected and considering it’s just under the skin too. They need to do it over about 5 minutes, starts off a bit stingy but then the brain gets used to it and ignores it and it’s ok after that. I needed to wait 15 minutes and then get the blood pressure, which has been generally lower lately as well which I’m sure doesn’t help with the cramps and tiredness too.
The subcut leaked a little bit, not loads but it went over my shirt, didn’t help with where the nurse injected it as there seemed to be a bit of pressure from the beltline, sort of pinching it out. It stopped and was grand by the time I got home. On the way home I treated myself to a Mcdonalds, well the saver chips and cheese burger, was in the mood for the salty chips and gherkin. That evening I was shattered which I normally am on Thursdays and went to bed about 7ish I think and that was me watching tv, dozing and sleeping properly by 3, woke up a few times with cramps and then coughing. I almost forgot I had to go back to hospital today to pick up some tablets. I was dreading it to be honest. I was still shattered and coughing badly, but it needed done. I went over and parked near the bus stop on Lisburn Road and walked up the path between the Cancer Center and hospital. I had to stop at the top for a bit to get my breath back and settle my breathing, I went on in and round to the treatment room again with just about enough croaks making enough sense that I was there to pick up the tablets, well injections it was the clexane I was getting. Have plenty of dots and bruises on my belly now after 3 weeks of injections, still another 5 months of that. I needed to leave a letter to the GP about it, the last time I didn’t do it straight away and was constantly on my mind until I got it done the week after so I thought best getting it done straight away.
I was so glad to finally get home, I got a message to say a parcel had arrived, that wasn’t supposed to until Saturday but thankfully the neighbour took it in, I called in straight away and they were going to hand it to me but I didn’t want them getting close with my cough and well I try to stay away from people so I got them to set it on their doorstep and went and picked it up, seemed a bit rude in a way but I’m sure they’ve heard me coughing and I don’t want the blame if they start coughing too. Sprayed it when I got in and changed into the lounge wear again. Typical that I leave the house for less than an hour and that’s the time something gets delivered, only mentioning this as it’s the first Christmas pressy bought and of course that can’t be done without treating yourself too. Pretty much everything I get people is something I would like if I was them, sometimes it’s hard to pass it on knowing I want it too.
Before getting properly settled I made lunch, I say made, I chopped up some fruit and put it in a bowl, banana, orange and strawberries, sprinkled some sugar and then poured some milk over. Always loved banana, milk and sugar when I was younger and very much still do. It was a bit of a test too for milk and my stomach, despite enjoying it so much it may cause some real issues later, which it did. The cough was pretty bad all day and just generally felt crap, it wasn’t until later that I realised that I didn’t cramp up the night before and only a couple of times today, my muscles might have wasted away enough that they’ve given up on even cramping.
Stomach ended up being really bad, I was dreading going to bed as I knew I’d get a couple of hours then wake up choking or having cramps and go into a coughing fit. I got about 3 hours sleep and of course half an hour of coughing then half an hour on the loo, by that stage I’d given up on the idea of going back to sleep and just went downstairs and stuck on some tv and looked around for some more Christmas stuff. Shopping local seems to be the new going to the gym, it never happened unless you tell everyone about it, which would be grand if they advertised the shop they bought it from, but they aren’t they just tell everyone about their “good deed”. Mention the shop, give them a good review, recommend them to others, comment and share their posts to increase the reach etc, that will help them more.
With starting to play on the computer a bit more I needed to reshuffle things a little so I could get comfy and still be able to watch tv with the footy on or a film or something. I always had the two monitors but only using the one now so have moved the desk and sofa a bit, more squeezed together but as it’s only me in the room it doesn’t really matter, as long as I can see the TV and lay on the sofa for a nap etc, so works better for me. Plenty of football on again on tv with the PPV being cancelled so the weekend is pretty much sport from start to finish again.
I had a nap in the late morning to make up for the lack of sleep the night before, again that night dreading going to bed as I really don’t like waking up choking so I didn’t I stayed up, not late or anything but instead of going to bed I just lay on the sofa and slept there got a few hours then coughing, lots of coughing, I done some breathing exercises to try and clear the chest a bit and thankfully dozed back off again for a few more hours. And that pretty much brings things to now.
Not really sure how the chest is doing, at times I think it’s better, then other times it's worse, pretty much certain now that I have an intolerance to dairy, hopefully no other foods but will keep an eye on things over the next few weeks and come off dairy again and hope that things settle quickly. Lunch time now but not sure what to have.