Friday 30 July 2021

July 2021 - Man vs Hedge - the return!

 As many of you who have been following my pituitary blog for some years will know, “man vs hedge” has been a theme from time to time. The basic tenet of the title was twofold, partly because it was a genuine challenge I was facing at the time….the hedge that is, and partly the struggle it gave me physically as a person with Adrenal Insufficiency (AI).

Back in 2013 prior to my diagnosis I remember being much more physically fit and able to tackle strenuous jobs in the garden and then subsequent to my recovery in later 2013 and early 2014 how much harder gardening was. This manifested itself most obviously when I set about cutting our 70 foot long 9-foot-high conifer hedge in our old garden. It exhausted me.

Therefore, I blogged about my struggles at that time and how I sought to overcome them. I feel another ‘Man vs Hedge’ blog coming on, even though we are 7 years down the line – but apart from the elapsed time, we are also now the owners of a brand-new set of hedges. I call them ‘set’ of hedges because they are very mixed. We have a hedge out the front of the house about 6 to 7 foot high and 20-25 foot long, a mix of ivy, hawthorn and various other. Then that morphs into a mainly bay laurel hedge which goes on for another 100 feet or so. The rest of that side of the garden is mainly trees as is the bottom of the garden, about 40 feet across. Then all along the other side of the garden is a privet hedge. The back garden has 6 foot fences all around, so the hedges only exist from 6 feet upwards! The privet is probably 12 feet at its highest, the other side varies up to about 8 feet. And I thought a 70 foot long 9 foot high conifer was difficult!

How is my AI depleted body going to cope with all this hedge cutting I wonder? Why on earth did we buy such a large garden with so many hedges!! (answers on a postcard....)

Part of the answer as to how I will cope, is using the correct tools. I have learned that when I used to cut the old hedge by hand with shears, I used to get a great finish on the hedge but realistically I’m just not able to do that any more. I need power tools and a good ladder, that’s my excuse anyway. So I have a good cordless long reach hedge trimmer and longarm pruner (the latter extends to about 4 metres tall). This means less time spent up a ladder wobbling about and less chance of me falling off said ladder because of being an idiot. Broken bones and AI are good partners so I understand......

But the part that is more pertinent to this blog, interesting as gardening is, is how to cope physically. That is the interesting part, and now comes an annoying admission. For years I have mentally been in a place where I was ADAMANT that I do not need to pace myself. I can just throw myself at the task in hand and everything will be fine. Sadly that is not the case, and to be honest that isn’t probably just the fault of the AI. I am not getting any younger and moving house really hit me hard mentally and physically. I got through it but I learned a lot about myself, principally the admission that I DO have to pace myself.

I’ve said before many times about my energy crashes and how they often happen late morning. Well, they continue to happen from time to time. I also had an escalating bad mood tendency with this low energy. It was because I was ignoring the signs and trying to push through it, rather than accept it was happening, take a break, and deal with it.

Added to all this learning, I stopped working in March 2021, so amongst everything else going on (you know, global pandemic), I had another change to have to deal with….yes of course it was a nice change, but a change nonetheless. 

The end result of all this pondering is that rather than think “I’ll do some gardening for the next 4 hours, might nearly faint but it’ll be fine” I go out with a different mindset. This revelation manifests itself as “I’m going to do some gardening for 90 minutes or so, then pop in and have a cup of tea and a biscuit and an early Hydrocortisone tablet and a sit down for 20 minutes, then go back outside for another 90 minutes. In other words, I don’t set out to have such a long gardening session and I break that session up with a rest. It pains me to say it, but of course it is pacing myself. You’ll never guess what though, it works! (most of the time) It doesn't come entirely naturally, because I've never snacked between meals.

It is of course blindingly obviously that it would work, but a combination of bloody-mindedness on my part and a lack of wanting to see the obvious did not help. 

I think it serves as a very good life lesson that you cannot blame everything on your condition, whatever it is. There are always other factors at play, not least my age….which I would rather not dwell on (I’m getting close to one of those ‘decade’ birthdays….), but it is a fact that I’m not getting any younger.

The summary…it only took me moving house, a pandemic, leaving my job of 43.5 years, continual problems with physical exhaustion over 7 years…..to finally make me come to my senses. I need to pace myself in certain activities, mainly gardening. And we certainly have a lot of that to do in our new house, so it is a good thing I enjoy it!!

Other than that, things have not changed that much. My pituitary gland will never work correctly and means I still take Hydrocortisone and Testosterone. I have lost a stone in weight for some reason (even with additional snacks), I’m only just over 9.5 stone or 61kg, this seems to be fairly constant and my consultant has done some checks to make sure nothing sinister is afoot. It isn’t. 

A couple of photos:
Couldn't very well have a blog about a hedge, without a (Stihl) hedge trimmer pic! This was courtesy of my very lovely work colleagues who got me some garden vouchers as a leaving present. The trimmer is  battery operated and nearly 7ft long!!

Part of the hedge, this has gradually been reduced in height, but have to be careful as this is our neighbours hedge!

Hedge on the left is privet, fence is 6ft high, hedge varies but is 12ft high in places!


Sunday 18 April 2021

April 2021 - One foot in front of the other

When I sit down to type out a blog, I don't think very much about it - I start typing and words come out, unfiltered. Process normally takes 30 minutes from the time of sitting down to publishing. I don't go back and change my fundamental story, only typos and any factual errors. What you see is what you get and today, you're getting a bit of a grumpy blog post!

This weekend has been 2 days that were very different. One good and one not so good.

I've heard so many times about Adrenal Insufficiency, "oh you have to pace yourself" and "there are days when you have to surrender and just take it easy". I am not one to take it easy on the behest of my condition nor do I wish to pace myself because I am forced to. Perhaps that isn't the best way of looking at things, but it is how I feel.

Saturday was a good day. Got up early (Deb was at work doing admin for a Covid-19 vaccination clinic) so off out early for a 2 mile dog walk. Then steam mopped the downstairs and the bathrooms, and then cleaned my car all by lunchtime. In the afternoon, popped to a couple of local shops and did some weeding outside in the garden. Big relax from about 5pm along with a pizza and a film. All in all, a very good day.

Sunday, it seems like there was some payback. Slept well Saturday/Sunday, had about 9 hours and my sleep tracker suggested 2.5 hours of that was deep sleep. Had a bit of a lay in, but I knew as soon as I got up that this wasn't going to be a good day. Ready to go out with Deb and the dogs by about 10:45 so I pre-empted that 'dragging' feeling in my body with an early 5mg of Hydrocortisone plus a couple of bits of chocolate. Took the dogs out with Deb and walked about 2.5 miles.

Now here's the rub. Clearly if I was really not up to the walk then I wouldn't have been able to go at all, there are plenty of people a lot worse off than me at this point and wouldn't have gone at all. But that is kind of not the point, and I'm here to have a bit of a moan :-)  So off we went, and I dragged myself around the walk, it was a beautiful day nice and warm and blue skies. It was to all intents and purposes a brilliant place to be, in our local forest. But for me, it was 'project drag my butt around a dog walk' and it was not very enjoyable at all. Deb knew what was going on all too well, I shut down and hardly speak and I lag behind. But through sheer bloody-mindedness I make it around the dog walk, shattered.

Then having got home, I sit down and we have a bite to eat. Sometimes at this point I will recover, but not today. We had decided we wanted to go to a local garden centre, it doesn't open all winter and this is the first opportunity we've had to go since they reopened. So off we go, another drag myself around time and I didn't really take in all the lovely plants they had. But I made it. Back home about 4pm, time for another early Hydrocortisone dose and a sit down and more food. Finally this time, I can feel myself 'coming around'.

By 5pm I'm feeling a lot more human and I'm up for the dogs final walk of the day which is only a 25 minute quick around the block job. This was the best I've felt all day and by the time I've come home, I'm back on the ball. A quick vacuum of a couple of rooms and I'm ready for a roast chicken dinner that Deb has been lovingly preparing. I'm sitting here now wondering why I couldn't have felt like this all day. Normally my Hydrocortisone intake is:

7:30am 15mg - 13:00 5mg - 6pm 5mg

But today:

8:00 am 15mg - 10:45 5mg - 4pm 5mg

I haven't taken any extra Hydrocortisone today, I just didn't think it would be worth it. I have done on previous occasions and it doesn't always work.....sometimes it does, sometimes it does not. Quite how I can burn through 15mg in 2 hours 45 minutes I don't know. Having taken my 8am dose today, I was feeling vague by probably 09:30, so I don't really see how extra Hydro was going to help.

It is also worth noting this doesn't happen 'this bad' very often, probably a couple of times a month. Another couple of times in a month it happens, but is less pronounced. I suppose what I'm saying is about once a week I'll feel a bit sub-optimal.

Having just re-read what I've written so far, the story does sound a bit 'whingey', I still did quite a bit today because I forced myself to do so. The morning dog walk was a real slog and I could have easily just stayed behind and sat on the couch. But then Deb wouldn't have felt safe to do that walk on her own as it is through remote forest, so it would have ruined her morning as well as my own. I wanted to go to the garden centre, as did Deb, so I wanted to make that happen. I really-really DON'T want to give into the enforced rest - in hindsight that is probably totally flippin' ridiculous. But I can't see me changing my feelings about that any time soon. I should probably just feel lucky that I am able to force myself to walk 2.5 miles, a lot of people don't have that luxury.

Anyway, there it is, grumpy blog. A purpose of this blog has always been to get things off my chest, which this is a good way of doing. Whether this particular post actually helps anyone or resonates I don't know. But as the saying goes (and I quite dislike it....) "it is what it is"!!