Journal – Week 11, 2022 – new style

Yes, I have changed my journal style before and I am going to do it again now. Why, you may wonder? Well, my routine is basically a lot of the same things. And I can keep writing about it, but it will get very boring, I assume, for you all. So I will keep sharing some of my exercises, my weight journey, the pictures I take during walks and all that. But, because I have finally been brave enough to make a mental health appointment, I want to work on bevoming an even better version of myself.

I have had a bad childhood. I have had two long lasting relationships, one with a man, then I lived with that man and a woman, I later left the man (he had someone else on the side) and ended up marrying the woman. It did not last. And while I was devastated (I OD’d on sleeping pills to try and end my life), while I thought my world would fall apart… I survived. I got a little therapy and thought I wads doing better. But the last few months, the dark monster is back again. I wanted to battle it on my own, too scared to admit I needed help, also because I felt such shame… But this week, I start my mental health sessions (on Friday) and I need to learn to live without the “it’s OK” mask. I need to chase away that darkness in me, and if possible, make it scared of me so it will never come back! And this is my new journey, to rid myself of the darkness, of the sadness, of my past.

Beating the darkness – A new start

As many of you know, I have a darkness within me. And I thought I had beaten it, after I crawled back up since the nasty divorce. And for a while, I think I was doing rather well. I lost part of my “depression/divorce/stess” kilo’s, joined the gym again, found a new routine that worked, made things work with what I had and I felt good. But I still had these mad periods. Chronic depression is a beast! As I mentioned before, I still believe my “not severe enough for bipolar” should have been labeled Mental health – Cyclothymia as those symptoms really fit me better than “chronic depression” does. But it is as it is…

And I have shared a bit about this in my journal post of “week 11”, where I started with a new style. I want to be more in touch with my mental health being, looking more closely to my feelings and reactions, instead of shrugging it off for some reason or another. I always claim to be honest and I now know I have been hiding behind my “it’s OK” mask, even to myself. While I have been struggling, I was to ashamed to reach out and get professional help. A little while ago, I took away the fear of a phone call and I walked to the GP to schedule an appointment. It still was scary, but fortunately for me, it was almost empty and one of my “favorite” assistants (she helped me when I was doing really bad after the divorce and I called in panic) helped me get the appointment.

Fitness – Slowy building it up…

…but it feels like I am going too slow… Am I really?

When you have an ADHD brain that does zoomies all through the day, and when you have a body dealing with fibromyalgia, hip replacements and more… It is hard to keep up. And I love being active, which unfortunately is limited by my bad body. I want to be active, I want to feel as fit as possible, which is something I have been struggling with since my old BHR hip went bad.

Health – Getting stronger

I’ve lost a great hunk of muscle mass since the surgery. It was to be expected, unfortunately, as 50% usage and way less activity because of the recovery and healing… Well, your muscles relax a whole lot then, compared to me hitting the gym, walking about 15km a day and als riding the bike…. Yeah…

The surgery really gave my muscles a beating. The tourniquet they used on my leg left me with a very painful bruised leg. The clamps that my muscles had been in for several hours also didn’t do too much good. So I had a lot to recover from. But slowly, I am able to do more and more.

Health – Trying to get back 💪

My life since the surgery has had several ups and downs. I am trying to stay in the up bits, as I enjoy those the most… But what goes up, after a while, must come down or so they say. 😊 I’ve been feeling very emotional the last few days, I cannot watch something sad or touching on TV without welling up. And sometimes I am just bawling like a mad woman, tissues in my hands, tears running down my face, snot everywhere. Well, I guess you get it now 😉.

I have been trying to push myself to get more active again. I want to get my muscle strength back and then, I want to make it even better. I have no idea if I will ever be able to actually reach my goal, as my fibro is really being a b*tch now, with the weather turning colder and wetter.

Slowly does it!

Said no one with a super active ADHD brain ever 😂! The last 7 weeks, almost 8, since my surgery have gone slow. Without my normal routine I felt like I was doing too little. I felt so lazy and tired, I missed my routine and I really needed to adjust to living with my mum. I had been on my own for over 3 years and for the last 2 of them, I had a rather well working routine that suited Arwen and myself. So needing to adjust was a big and hard part. And while I am grateful for all mum has done for me, being honest, I also am glad when things return to normal again. I know it will take time to get to my old levels, it will take hours of training to get close to where I was. And while I would love to push myself hard and get there sooner, I know it would not be wise.

Slowly does it, right?

Some news

Yesterday I went to the hospital for my Xray check up. It had been almost 7,5 weeks since my surgery and I was so ready to start rehabilitation. I already walked with one crutch at home, as I didn’t really need a second one anymore. But, without the Xray, I tried to be cautious as well, as I didn’t want to injure myself and add time to heal more…

The Xrays were taken rather quickly and then we needed to wait to see the Doc. We were called in and he opened the old and new Xrays so he could compare them.

Journal – Wednesday, October 13th 2021

A rather decent night, Polar gave me a sleep score of 91/100, the highest of this week. Unfortunately, I woke up feeling very tired still and all my brain wanted me to do was get back to bed… Ugh, I really do hate these infections and the damn antibiotics.

I mean, I already struggled with feeling tired before the surgery. The metals in my blood were giving me some nasty side effects, one of them was me feeling exhausted. And I know it will take a year or so for the Kobalt and Chromium to clear out of my body. So I know that those metals, combined with the infections and antibiotics, they’re really kicking my big behind!

Journal – Monday, October 11th 2021

I had a rather decent night but when I had to get up, all I wanted to do was get back to sleep. I still felt exhausted! My sleep score was 81, even though I only woke once to pee. I’m finally able to lay on my right side for a while and fall asleep, which is a huge improvement, also for my back!

We did not have any plans today, besides getting my meds and some groceries. This morning I walked a round with Y and Arwen. The route was a wee bit longer than what I had done before, and while it felt good and the weather was OK, I was glad when I was home again.

Journal – Friday, October 8th 2021

Another Friday, and it’s been two weeks, which meant I needed to go for another blood work. I still hate needles. When I gave the lady the form, she got annoyed as I had obviously brought the wrong form as this one did not work in their system. Uhm, this is the form the doc’s assistant gave me. The previous form I handed in so I did not have anymore. With some work, she managed to get everything scanned into the pc manually. But I needed different forms for my next blood work.

So when we got home, mum called the GP’s assitant to explain we needed different forms, as all forms had the same number and that number had been used already. Mum’s explanation was a bit hazy and the assistant didn’t really understand. So I jumped in and tried to explain. As the solution the assistant had, was not the easiest one nor the best one… But she would talk about it with the Doc and we need to call back this afternoon. Ugh, why can’t some thing just go right for once??? Why does everything go wrong, one way or another? If I wasn’t already exhausted, this would definitely do the trick…