has deteriorated significantly in the last four days. I am struggling to breathe. Even after nebulasition, I struggle as soon as I move. I don’t know what this means. It is not good at all . I will be spending tomorrow with my daughter.
I continue to feel better. Last night I had my first meal. My friend got me some pasta, so I made some carbonara. It felt good to eat.
I am resting a feeling better. I feel almost my usual self again. I can sleep as normal now. Mostly, I am back to normal.
I am so grateful.
On Friday, it came to light that there was a dead seagull on my back porch roof. Apparently, my neighbours’ son could not sleep because of the smell. This made me wonder how long they knew it was there.
Anyway, I called the man who cleans my windows as he had told me if I ever need anything, to call him. I got his answering service so looked up the local pest control. The amount they asked for was eye watering, but I gave my card details and it would be done today. However, my window cleaner called me back and was happy to remove it and the price he quoted was far lower. So I accepted that and cancelled the pest control.
In amongst this, I began to wheeze, so called for paramedics. They arrived exactly as Charlie arrived, so one of them paid him for me with a hefty tip as the poor man was gagging at the stench.
Then my daughter arrived. Just as the paramedics were leaving.
My weekend was rounded off by meeting a friend on the Quay and having refreshments in my garden. My garden is so beautiful right now.
Since I realised it was the heating that was aggravating my neurolgical disease, I turned the heating down by one degree. That has made a huge difference.
I woke this morning and felt well. I revelled in it. I am still feeling well. It’s hard to think I thought I was fighting a fever, and thought I might need hospital.
Finally, I am feeling well and have no worries. I wish I had realised about the heating andmy neurological disease sooner. I do keep the heating low…
The Freeze
The freeze is here, coating trees with white
kissing ponds with icy lips
nipping the tender plants
Yet buds are showing, nature confused
figs are ripe, out of season
the gases industries release
Our breath is clear to see, like smoke
air cracks with cold, snow thunder
buds attempt to bloom
I started this blog soon after I got a very serious diagnosis concerning my lungs. I had gone from breathing normally to having a wheeze after exertion. I had been exposed to damp spores. I was told the prognosis was not good.
Due to the drastic cut in my lung capacity, I wanted to journal my journey with now two life threatening diagnoses. I wanted to share the joy I feel in everyday things, the gratitude I have for simple things and for knowing God.
At times, I have included other things like my poetry and life’s happenings. The last 18 months have included much too much about the bizarre and distressing behaviour of my neighbours, and I wish it had not.
I have had someone identifiable try to leave smart comments, which is just nasty. I’ve had people rifle through looking for a certain poem, so I have removed that poem.
Last night someone pretended to be somebody I care about deeply. Don’t do that please. If it was not a pretence, you know who you are. Contact me appropriately. I will not be played with.
Thank you.
I am so grateful for the friends I have in my life. Some for all my life. They are all different. They all bring out the best in me, and all would say the same things of me.
Generous, kind, loyal, trusted, fun, funny, spontaneous, won’t gossip, discreet, patient, wise, knowledgeable.
The last thing my friends need to know about me is that I have a Ph.D. It does not define me.
Those I have had difficulty with, such as Key Living, my former neighbours, and Michael E. are because of unprofessional behaviour, gossip, and alcoholism. Those are nothing to do with me.
The editor that has harassed me for months became more vicious when I messaged his blog to ask to stop. I had to give an email address and I was not going to my own. I had already told him that. So I asked various of my friends and selected one from a professor friend who was interested seeing the replies.
That editor now thinks I have used different identities, even though the name is easily found on the web. But it fuels his persecution complex. Which sits alongside his narcissitic tendency. He’s rather like Trump.
So he has published a reply from Callum Brown. Reporting it to be from me. What a fool, because he has broken all the rules of medium.com and made a fool of himself.
He styles himself as Dr but he only has a BSc. And the institution where he claims to have gained L3 in architecture has no record of him.
A friend of mine in Malaysia has written extensively about Covid 19. Here are some facts you need to know about a corona virus:
SARS survivors are also more likely to develop neuropsychiatric disorders at 31–50 months post-infection, compared to the non-infected. The data shows that 54.5% of SARS survivors had PTSD, 39% had depression, 36.4% had pain disorder; 32.5% had panic disorder, and 15.6% had obsessive-compulsive disorder.Whereas the prevalence of these disorders was only 3% before the SARS epidemic.
To survive Covid19, you need to eat high protein, fats such as legumes and meat, and as few carbs as you can. Carbs feed foreign bacteria and free radicals, so they compromise the immune system.
To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
In the last few weeks I have found myself looking at property in the nearby towns. I found a wonderful apartment with a South facing balcony looking toward the beach. The trouble is one has to go up an external flight of stairs, and then some internal steps to access it. This would be difficult with shopping. And there would be nowhere to charge my trolley. I would be nearer to some friends, further away from others, but could get to more poetry events and other gigs more easily.
This desire is what we would term a ‘geographical’- moving in order to change ones life when in fact one’s life goes there too. Wherever you go, there you are.
I have been feeling like this because of the wind chimes that are so badly affecting my health. I have been in so much pain that I literally jump when there is a spike of pain. And I wince, which is hard to hide. My neighbours are very unpleasant people as they know I am caused pain. Their letting agent couldn’t care less as they have a low opinion of me because of the malicious lies told by the female previous tenant. If only I had not dropped my complaint to the police about Ebsworth’s sexual assaults. I would never have fallen for him.
He said to me recently ‘we have nothing in common’. We do. We had a relationship that was mainly each other’s company and very little intimacy. We talked, we laughed, we enjoyed each other. And then he and the person he shares an address with did a geographical.
I will not be moving. My home is filled with memories and I still need to keep sorting through my late sister’s possessions and my Dad’s possessions. It’s hard to let go, but in the end they are only things. I will continue to sell and take items to charity shops.
It’s hard being the last of my nuclear family which I grew up in. I would give so much to go back in time, but that kind of think achieves nothing. When ever I am writing and I have a brown bang of nuts and dried fruit in my line of vision, I think it is my dog. It’s a continual reminder of him.
Ebsworth threw his family away. His Dad won’t speak to him because he has told stories about himself that happened to his brother, and because he left a long term relationship to be with malice. He gave his dog, Sprock. He’s not sure if his brother has a child. He does. Her name is Ruby.
How does someone just give up one’s roots? I feel rootless, having lived in so many places, but I have loved my family and been there with them when they needed me. I have supported my cousin who lives at the other end of the country. We are in close touch.
I don’t know what will happen about my health. If the wind chimes don’t come down soon, I can’t imagine my future. The pain and the medicine I take alter who I am. I become irritable and short tempered, and sometimes appear rude. I hate this. I am not that person. It shows how much the environment can affect a person. And medicinal chemicals acting on the brain. Some of you may remember my rash on my face in the summer. That’s what caused me to look at the information sheet in the box, It was a side effect together with aggression. (I was never aggressive, just said very odd things that made my friends wonder if I was O.K.
So I continue on this journey with my diagnoses, and be as brave as I can. I know a lot of people care about me. I wish that many of them weren’t on other continents.
The press got me nowhere. They didn’t mention my petition and the lack of background information made me sound like a whinging woman. I have lodged a complaint.
After spending the morning waiting for a phone call, I went to get a watch repaired. I tried a jewellers first, as that was what I was told I needed, but ended up at the little watch repair shop in a department store.
On my way there, I ran into an old friend and we decided to go for a coffee. We had a double vodka each. We talked about the past, our now, our pain. I ended up sobbing as I told him about my neighbours’ refusal to change the windchimes to a lower tone, like bamboo. I told him about the physical torment it gives me and how my former neighbour lied to the letting agent. About her malicious behaviour. I told him how I fell in love with Mike , and how he’s been trying to contact me all year and how he moved in and out within 24 hours.
I can never live with Michael. He drinks too much. He would be lazy and slobby. He left quite a trail behind him for his short stay. I’ve had enough of bad relationships.
I am seriously worried about my health due to those windchimes. It’s all because of Woodhouse’s malicious lies. That’s the one thing she does well.
So I went to a solicitor and am going to sue them, the letting agency and my current neighbours.
I have to. This has to stop. I have to regain my health and peace of mind. It’s time to stop considering others and put myself first for once.
My laptop is not working properly because the end of bed couch got kicked over in the night when Mike was here. I’m having to give vegetables away so they don’t perish. Mike Ebsworth has deactivated his phone number – an act of real cowardice.
The friend I met in town prayed for me. I so appreciated it. I have deep faith in God, and pray, but it’s been a while since anyone prayed for me. Not any one with real faith.
Having needed to be nebulised yesterday, I did not get a lot of sleep as I was so wired. Strung out as those who use drugs for recreational purposes might say.
Sam came, she is helping me finish the reducing, recycling and repurposing that I started with such gusto in January. I really impressed myself. My bed is pulled away from the wall, so I’m having to reach back for my drinks, lamp etc, but I’m just so happy to see progress that it doesn’t bother me at all. I’m so grateful for Sam, she is a treasure found unexpectedly, serendipity, and I love her to bits. She accommodates my sudden request to put moisturising lotion on my legs and arms, she will quickly fill my water bottle for me, and move this to there and that to here.
This enabled me to fill the bird feeder before I went for some groceries. I came home to find the garden filled with birds. I’m thrilled.
I have realised I cannot make my neighbours who have caused so much nuisance by fixing their gates open, by means of criminal damage, go away, and in order to keep my breathing going well I must simply tune them out. My chest got tight in the garden yesterday but improved as I went toward the doctor’s and so I returned home to finish my planting only to get tight again because of the noise suddenly coming from the neighbours’ garden. I cannot let this affect my health. I need to make myself oblivious to them and remain calm if their gates impinge on my freedom to use my own.
Any ideas on how to do this? Input please… I’ve always been aware of my surroundings . I’m not someone who lives in their little own world…so ideas please.
Yesterday afternoon I went to post an important letter and my lungs felt like lead. They haven’t felt like that since I had pneumonia a long time ago. But I felt alert and interested in life, whereas with pneumonia one is listless and passive.
I got home and phoned my medical practice. They had the duty doctor phone me and he made a home visit. This meant that if I needed to be admitted to hospital, I could go straight to a ward rather than through the ED.
My doctor (I have known him since my daughter was four as our children attended the same schools) recorded my tachycardia, respiratory rate etc and then gave me a double nebulizer. It worked well, and I was no longer gasping in between words. To be on the safe side, he prescribed more antibiotics and more steroids. This concerns me but I need to trust and know I am in safe hands. This doctor has won my trust, which says a lot. The last doctor I trusted retired early about 18 months before my Dad died. I was angry at him, and it was a bereavement.
It took me until after 4am to sleep because of the trembling and stimulus to my nervous system. I’m told that salbutamol does not cross into the brain, but boy, it does make me high. I usually resort to drinking some alcohol to bring me ‘down’ so that sleep can come.
My friend fetched my prescription for steroids, the antibiotics had been delivered earlier by the pharmacy as I need some in the house at all times. I slept late and rested with my friend in the garden with a cup of tea, chatting. This afternoon, friends came and we did gardening, though I mostly supervised. I now have some solar lights for evenings, decorative ones, and a water feature that gives that relaxing sound of water running…
I am tired, but so grateful for a good day without wheezing or gasping. I am learning not to be so spontaneous about gardening, a little at a time and stop. Weeds can be beautiful too.
I am sunburnt, stingingly burnt. Medication has already changed my hair, and now it is changing my skin. I am learning a new me. A frailer, but still pushing on, grateful for the help and love of my friends. Being delighted with what I see everyday.
Mostly, I am learning to ask others to spare me exerting unnecessary energy. It’s a hard lesson.
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Photo Credit: Unknown
Last night I took my last antibiotic and in about an hour I will take the last of the steroids I have been prescribed.
I don’t feel as well as I feel I should. So I have apprehension about the weekend, knowing my only source of medical help will be paramedics and that it will probably mean going into hospital if I need to call them.
Hospital is not as friendly as it once was. They are understaffed and now underfunded due to the austerity measures over the last ten years, since we all bailed out the banks. What an injustice that has been. The National Health Service is changing beyond all recognition, and will soon be like the American system, which I find appalling.
I am an activist. I lobby and protest, not always in person, but I stand up to be counted. This makes me much loved by some and despised by others. I get comments like ‘no politics please’ on my neighbourhood website, while others thank me for informing them and trying to stop big corporation taking over and smiting the poorest of us and the most vulnerable.
Famine is always manmade. War kills only the innocent.
I have limited my activism in the last few months because the lack of change has affected my mental health. I get such dark thoughts and self destructive longings. I cannot afford that. I need to keep hold of the joy in living, the wonder in things I see every day.
I am so full of gratitude for my lady who cleans for me. Sam brings me joy. I am grateful for Matthew, Ruth, Jane, Sheila, Frances, Dodie, Roly, Maggie, Judy, Tanya, Nick, Lisa, Robbie and so many others who love me and add to my life is their unique ways.
No matter what happens to me I have so much to be grateful for. I thank God that even when people have despitefully used me, others come to fill a void.
But aren’t we all made of voids and plenty? We all have holes in our souls as well as abundance. It is a question of keeping our spirits sweet, not allowing bitterness to take root.
My sister Pamela is missing from my life, my Dad and my dog. Oh my dog. My daughter’s visits are never enough.
Loving hurts. It is a choice we make and renew daily.
So, I am less recovered than I thought. I went into town to return an item I had bought online, but the refund they’ve given me is only of use in store, so they made a mistake and I’ve spent ages online trying to make up my mind for nothing. (The receipt was lost.) I feel a bit angry, and it’s partly because I was served by a former friend who dumped me after a sexual assault which left me physically injured as well as emotionally. I was even more hurt after she dumped me.
Now I am doing a counselling session by text, and my chest is really hurting. I just want to sleep. No, I want to run along side the sea and leap, and dance but I’m wheezing and my chest hurts. I don’t want to be counselling by text and I don’t want to be wheezing and in pain. But here I am, and all I can change is my attitude.
A friend has whatsapped me from the States, asking if I have a nebuliser. I have missed two appointments with a respiratory consultant because of my health problems. The irony! It reminded me to phone his secretary to grovel and ask for another appointment. So that is done. I’ve accomplished something today.
Someone told me recently that I was lying about something. I know that I wasn’t lying which means that this person was gaslighting me. Making me doubt myself. My sanity. My ex husband used to do this, he would tell me that a thing that happened had never happened. He used to undermine me long before I realised he was undermining me. Friends had to point it out to me. And that was the deal breaker in the end. Not the occasional violence. But that he never ‘cleaved’ to me. He would do the opposite of what I had made routine with our daughter. He made chaos where I had tried so hard to make safety and security.
And now I am exhausted.
Writer and psychologist. My health, a journey with two life shortening diseases 
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