Monday 9 September 2013

September 2013 - Man vs. Hedge

We have an 80 foot long/7 foot high conifer hedge that I'm supposed to cut twice a year in April and August...usually during the bank holiday weekends. But what has this got to do with my pituitary gland?

Well, yesterday was the day I decided to do a bit of conifer hedge trimming, as we didn't have time during the recent bank holiday weekend to do any gardening. In between the showers I managed to get just over half the side of the hedge trimmed in around 2 hours, big deal I hear you utter. What occurred to me yesterday, was how much easier it was cutting the hedge than it was this time last year....I didn't get around to cutting the hedge at all this April.

Of course this time last year, I was blissfully ignorant of what was going on inside my head. I had a pituitary tumour, I probably had one growing for ten years or more, but carried on about my business. But for how long did it affect my every day life without me knowing, how many times was I tired or lacking energy and how many times did I say "oh it's just because I'm getting old". Well I don't know the answer to that for sure, but one activity that was guaranteed to knacker me was cutting the damn hedge. Partly this is due to my insistence that the hedge looks far better trimmed manually with hedge clippers. It does though, using our electric hedge trimmer makes the hedge go all brown on the ends, and takes just as long ultimately.

I distinctly remember how much my arms ached last year whilst trying to cut the hedge, and how many rest breaks I had to take. Yesterday, I breezed through the couple of hours I managed to fit in between the rain showers, my recovery time was much improved. It wasn't dead easy, because I still took a couple of short breaks, but my arms didn't suffer like they did. Now presumably this is all because I now take Hydrocortisone tablets and my tumour has gone, so most of my hormones are now in order. It makes me ponder how many times over the last few years I could have been much more physically up for a task if only I had listened to what my body was telling me. 

So the moral of the 'man vs. hedge' story is simple. Do exactly that, listen to your body, if you think something isn't right then maybe it isn't right. No-one knows your body better than you, you live with it every day and I suppose I am aiming this message more at men than women....don't be afraid to go to the doctors or put it off any longer. I did put it off and I did ignore the signs up to a point....I did go to the opticians several years ago because I had some slightly odd vision which I couldn't put my finger on and I did go to the doctors quite a while back because I had a spell of feeling a bit faint when exercising. I had some basic tests on both occasions but nothing was found because of course they were looking in the wrong place for my ailment....but I could have been more pushy in my quest to find what was wrong.

No comments:

Post a Comment