Tag Archives: tiredness

A bird in the hand…

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I have started the process to make my head space a bit better. This includes 2 sessions at the hospice where I melt down to the extent where I break down so far I cannot breathe and make a horrendous noise trying to force air into my lungs.I consume large quantities of paper handkerchiefs and then can’t find anywhere to put them other than in the hand of the nurse. She takes them without a word or grimace. We decide on a few groups I can attend, one of which is called Words & Pictures because she couldn’t think of anything else to call it. It sounds like a nursery class but I gamely go along, because it might be good and I generally get a good driver to chat to. The car service drivers are usually in their 70s and have a sense of humour and a long list of anecdotes which I like very much. There have been a spate of signs put up recently in red and white, saying ER and looking very official but no explanation. Apparently they are Escape Routes should we get flooded. Another driver took a different view and thought they were something to do with terrorist attacks. I query whether the escape routes are for the general population or the terrorists. The penny drops and we laugh.

Words & Pictures proves entertaining, too. There are two men who are wheeled in and who seem to have dementia and two ladies in their late sixties. I am made a cup of coffee by a lady who was once a client and I used to train for when I ran my own training business. She remembers me and it seems a surreal experience. We play games with words and pictures, as promised in the title, and it’s actually quite good fun. Then we are set homework, to write a poem about something that’s really important to us. I’m not sure how some of the group members will manage but they’re all lovely, smiley and twinkly. After the session I have my first hand massage which is so relaxing and finishes off the session beautifully.

We still have so many visitors to the house; some to do with Brenda, some to do with me, some are for Mr Mason and I and some are for Mr Mason alone. I can’t remember which visitor it is but I know Brenda, thankfully, wasn’t there. The woman sat in the sitting room and was loving Lark who was loving her back and obviously decided she deserved to see one of her jewels. Lark’s jewels are the things she buries in her crate, hides in the baskets of clean washing or buries in the garden. The woman merited one of her highest jewels. one from the garden. Mr Mason and I are in the kitchen making tea and so forth when we hear a cry “Your dog has just put a dead bird in my lap!” Amazingly, she does not have a fit or crawl behind the sofa but when Lark sees we approach with the intention of removing her jewel, Lark snatches it back and tries to bury it in her crate in the hope we won’t see it. Ha! Sometimes we are smarter than a dog and the small bird, presumably killed by Freya, is removed and given a swift burial in the garden recycling bin. Lark sulks for approximately 10 seconds and then is loving the visitor again.

Our second bird story involves Jan, our cleaning lady who has has a few shocks with the dogs in the house (remember the time Lark ate the conservatory blinds when Jan was in charge?). Mr Mason and I had gone to see Brenda and when we got back, Jan was quite twitchy. “We’ve got a bit of a problem” she said and then proceded to tell us that she had heard a noise in the big sitting roon and thought there was someone in there. The layout of the house means that the thick walls stop sound carrying. From upstairs, you can’t make someone downstairs hear you (or so Mr Mason tells me).  We cautiously opened the door to see chaos – china and pottery thrown about the  place and 2 enormous crows in the room. One was still trying to crash through the windows and the other was lying on the ground, dead. We closed the door wondering how on earth we were going to get the live bird out. I had visions of being attacked if I tried to move the dead bird – Hitchcock all over again. The bottom windows don’t close and repeated battering of the top windows, even when open, had resulted in one dead crow. Of course, at this point our trusty ex-SAS gardener arrives and immediately takes control of the situation.  He opens the front doors (which are double), stations Mr Mason at the bottom of the stairs so that the remaining bird won’t fly upstairs and shoos it out the front doors which is does as though trained for this moment. Mr Mason and the gardener set about cleaning up all traces of crow and another bird goes into the recycling bin. I bet the cats were kicking themselves for not ambushing birds trapped in their own house. The chimney breast gets stuffed with paper as far as it can and we hope we have no more visitors of that kind. Unless they get so far down, make a nest on the cardboard and then die of starvation…Hmm. I don’t think there’s an answer to this except to get some roofers to put cowls over the chimneypots.

You may have noticed that it’s been an age since I posted. Writing is one of the things I enjoy doing so it’s a shame I don’t get more of it done but one thing that prevents me is tiredness. You may relate to this. You’re sitting on tube after work or in bed after a long day and think you’ll just get a book out and have a look and before you know it, your eyes are closing and you’re breathing evenly and deeply, well on the way to sleep. It might sound strange but when I wake up, I’m well on my way to sleep. I spend quite a lot of the day trying to stay away. The oncologist says this is because I haven’t had a break from chemotherapy for nearly 2 years and it’s using up my reserves of energy. But I have noticed that I spend more days in bed these days – usually one or two – and the other days I have to go out, get some fresh air, walk around a bit, anything but lie in bed although it’s calling to be even now. Sometimes I’m writing and find my eyes are shut and my hands are still. but I can’t live my life asleep. So we go walking in the woods, trawl through antique shops and the 2 fabulous department stores nearby – Oldrids & D0wn Town and Eve and Ranshawe. The former sounds much more exciting than it is. The Down Town part is in an industrial estate on the fringes of the town and sells the lighting and obligatory furniture. I once went up to a desk to compliment them on a member of staff who had been exceptionally helpful and the two women behind the desk held up their handbags to ward off the evil spirits they thought I was bringing. The other department store, Eve and Ranshawe featured on a Mary Portas series on how to make your shop increase takings and how to find out which member of staff was really mucking the whole thing up by being a cow. Job done. Cow not seen since. My average waking day is around 6 to 8 hours although I do count resting hours in bed as sleeping, mostly because I can’t get comfortable downstairs and will definitely be asleep by 4, waking several hours later for a late supper. I’m hoping this is just a phase and that I’ll recover enough strength if I rest as much as possible, boring though it is.

So that’s the contorted and convoluted version of the last few weeks. I’ve left out loads, some deliberately and some by accident but I aim to write the next blog sooner. Night  night. Yawn……zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

Exhaustion is so tiring

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It’s true. Being tired is a most tiring and tiresome thing. Yesterday I watch a small part of a tv programme about being more responsible for monitoring your own health. Part of the documentary shows several older ladies who decide to make sure they walk 10,000 steps a day and who say they felt much better for it, more energetic etc etc. They even say it wasn’t that hard. This sounds good! I decide this will be me. I will banish my exhaustion by exercise, by walking 10,000 steps a day and be bright-eyed and glossy-haired with a spring in my step in no time. Did I ever tell you what an optimist I am?

This morning dawns bright and Mr Mason asks if I want to go out on a walk with him and Dog. Yes! I do! This is the start of the bright, energetic new me. I decide my aches, pains and exhaustion will disappear under the sun, be blown away on the breeze. It’s so simple. We set out and Dog walks nicely, not pulling and not stopping too often to sniff at something interesting. As he navigates pretty much by the smell of his own pee, it is quite an important part of his day. We get to a crossroads which is obviously of some signifigance to him and he just HAS to sniff and then pee. On a side note, I do wonder how much pee dogs actually contain. Dog has a bladder of amazing size and control. He has been known to pee continuously for up to 2 minutes and yet still find more to mark his route. Where does it all come from? But I digress. Pauses for sniffing and peeing make me more tired. Once momentum has been gained, it must be maintained or else I think I will stop and never move again. Eventually we get to the park and Dog is released from his lead and can run free with a look of bliss on his face. Periodically our offspring get obsessed with teaching Dog things. I taught him to bring his ball and to get off the sofa. Also, I believe, to sit. Ms Mason, who has since gone to live in Bangkok, so great is her embarrassment, once believed she had taught Dog to spell. This was on the basis that she would spell P-A-R-K rather than say the word. He responded to the tone of her voice and she was convinced he knew the spelling. When she started to call it ‘The Green Place’ instead, he responded to that in the same way. So, no spelling Dog, then. Before leaving for Thailand, she engaged in a campaign to teach Dog to roll over. As you will know from his photo, he is structurally unsuited to this task and we have not progressed beyond the ‘side’ command, whereupon he will lie in an awkward twisted shape in an effort to please us and be rewarded with a treat.

So, we get to the park, throw ball, tidy up after Dog and by the time we’ve gone through into the fields beyond, I am knackered. Beyond tired. We sit for a while before wandering slowly back with a stop on another bench before we leave. I am still very much focused on what might be and how good it would be to walk 10,000 steps and be all bright and bouncy. After getting home, we have lunch and then I say I am going to the shops to buy some fruit. Mr Mason doesn’t stop me. Damn. I head out and wonder if someone has stretched the road as it feels so much longer than usual. I don’t even have the heat to blame as it is quite cool so I am clearly Just Plain Exhausted. I walk to my favourite shop to find – horror of horrors! – that they have no cherries. This is just not on. I have eaten kilos of cherries this summer as they have been particularly good and to find my main supplier out of stock is just not good enough. I am a cherry addict and I need my fix. I have to go and sit down in a cafe and have a cold drink to recover from the shock and, to be honest, out and out tiredness. Once I have sat there for a while, sipping my drink and playing with my mobile, I heave myself up and go to Plan B shop. They have cherries of a lesser quality but better than nothing so I buy a bagful, throwing in some sultana grapes, limes and mint and coriander for good measure. I am thinking Mojito with the mint and limes with the golden rum I brought back from Oslo. I know, I am mixing my cocktails and my continents.

I make it home although each step feels heavier than the last and by the time I reach the front door, I could just weep. Mr Mason is on hand to bring me a cup of coffee and see me settled on the sofa. With normal tiredness, sitting or resting will improve how you feel. This doesn’t seem to work so well with Fibromyalgia and so by 5.30 I am asking if it is too early to put my pyjamas on. Luckily we are not the types who dress for dinner so pjs it is. The next question is – is it OK to drink a mojito when wearing pjs?

Hooters

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I am more tired than a tired thing. More exhausted, fatigued, worn-out, bone weary and any other term for tiredness you may wish to use. A short and lovely break in Oslo has left me feeling incapable of movement, working out to the millilitre how much longer I can wait before making the trek upstairs to go to the loo. Those of you who have experienced this kind of tiredness whether through chemotherapy, fibromyalgia or any other debilitating illness will recognise the calculations necessary before movement is made. For the last couple of nights, I have slept well. Apart from the nightmares, that is. The ones where you try and scream but you are rendered dumb and can’t alert someone to danger or tragedy.

Even the trip to the hospital today is a real trial. I have a follow-up appointment with my surgeon so she can survey her handiwork and possibly patronise me just a little. On the way, we start to notice how many people use their car horns at any and every opportunity. Has Mr Mason become a terrible driver? I hear you cry. No, he is his usual self, driving like a regular Londoner. People in front must know the way or they are in for a tongue-lashing with the kind of language you don’t want to repeat in front of an impressionable toddler. Which reminds me of a small child on the flight back from Oslo. Her father was very bad tempered and appeared to be travelling with his mother-in-law as well as small children and wife. And the mother-in-law had a very loud voice which grated on me in the 20 minutes I was subjected to her at the departure gate. He was faring less well having, I assume, been the recipient of her endless exclamations ‘Oh! Darling! I’ve lost my bag! Oh no, here it is’ and ‘You have been such a good girl!’ to a small child writhing and whingeing, all her words delivered at high volume. She was tall, too, and that’s never a good thing when you’re my height. Anyway, I digress. Digression is, I perhaps should mention, one of my best features. We land at lovely Stansted airport and, having retrieved my one bag, I am waiting to get off the plane. I hear a rather loud ‘Fuck!’ coming from behind a seat. ‘Don’t say that, darling. It’s not nice’. ‘Fuck! I only said ‘Fuck”. The father, he of the terrible temper through suffering his mother-in-law’s exclamations for a week or more, ignores the fact that his daughter of perhaps 3 years is swearing like a trooper and leaves it to his wife who looks a little alarmed and tries to stop her child swearing whilst giving those around her wan smiles. I leave the plane before them so do not know the outcome of this battle. I rather hope the child wins.

Back to the plot. The hooting. People are hooting in a very bizarre way today. We are hooted whilst waiting at a crossing with red lights. I cannot see the point of hooting unless someone is being a total imbecile and holding up the traffic whilst texting or being on their mobile phones. Hooting at a red light is simply the sign of a person not in control of their hands or brain. So we arrive at the hospital and wait to see the surgeon. She is on holiday from where she cannot make mildly patronising remarks and so we see her underling, probably a registrar or senior registrar. She is very nice and has clearly read my notes as she can tell me what was wrong with me and what was done about it. She surveys her boss’ handiwork and says ‘Oh, you poor thing’ which I suspect is not what she is going to report back. There is a very painful area on one of my ribs and I point it out to her. She obliging presses it and I obligingly yelp as it hurts a lot. There are 2 options. 1 is to have another bone scan to see if it is a return of the cancer but I somehow think it isn’t. 2 is that I am referred to another pain clinic who would help me manage it as neuropathic pain does not respond to usual pain relief. I ask in what way might that be done. She says ‘With perhaps Gabapentin’ and I interrupt asking if it also might include Pregabalin and Amitryptilline? She thinks I know my stuff and I explain I am on both drugs for the Fibromyalgia and that my other pain clinic is trying to get me to increase the Pregabalin to 300mg twice a day. ‘Oh, you’ll be a zombie!’ she says which I absolutely agree with. I tell her I am secretly experimenting with doses to ensure I have some quality of life. I can also have local injections to numb the pain, too, so she will discuss it with the surgeon and let me know which option they are going to follow.

I have decided I need a complete break and so Mr Mason and I are off to Greece next month for a couple of weeks. I anticipate a fortnight of sunshine, lounging around and catching up on books. As we missed our holiday last year, this is one I am particularly looking forward to. I wonder how noisy Greek drivers are?