Life With Exhaustion

 Friday began with a walk with our friends on a gorgeous morning. It’s truly one of the greatest things about living here, our morning forest walks. The fragrances, the birdsong, and not having to pick up dog poop make our walks fabulous. Dogs have a wonderful intrinsic habit: they don’t poop on the trail. They always venture into the brush to poop. (Tangent: I once came upon a couple on the trail. She was holding their umbrella over her husband who had is pants down and was pooping on the trail!)

When we got home, I was so tired I went back to bed and slept deeply for an hour. When I got up, it was lunchtime for everyone, and once we were all fed and content, I went outside to nap in the sunshine. It’s cool in my house without a fire, so solar heating was in order. And when that was done, I still felt tired and weak, so I put an ad on our two community Facebook pages for garden/yard help. I don’t feel I have the capacity to carry my outdoor furniture into the studio for the Winter.

It was 28° in the afternoon, so we went for a walk. We walked 45 minutes on a trail I like that has only one long very, very gentle slope. I used a cane to give me a greater sense of stability; I felt safer with it. But I see nothing in the forest at all except where I am stepping. If I want to look for Sheba, I stop and look. I watch the ground because I get so weak, my feet barely rise above the ground. My gait has changed dramatically. So, I watch the ground to ensure that I don’t trip. I am afraid to fall.

I am an old man trapped in a body that looks younger and fit. It’s as though I aged 10 years overnight on June 28^th. The walk I took today is the most strenuous thing I will do going forward.  Forever. I believe I can rake and use the blower and weed eater because I am standing and only moving very slowly when I do these tasks. And I can rest. However, the raked piles will be removed to the back of the lot by someone else. 

Fucking hell. What’s next? And when is the next health crisis coming?

Soon, I will be used to this state of being, just as I got used to living with bad speech and seizures. 

A Good Day

Thursday was another brilliant sunny day, and every day for the coming ten days is likely to be the same. I am back to watering, but I am also back to napping in the sunshine. I can’t abide sitting in the sunshine when it is hot, but in these cooler temperatures it is a spectacular way for this tired old man to chill.

We walked on a flat and short path in the morning, and then we went into the village for groceries and a ferry pass. I get a free ferry pass to go to the hospital on Sunday for the CT scan. And then we came home so that I could water the garden beds and then lunch with the brood. And after that, it was napping time in the sunshine. I only lasted 15 minutes. It was too hot.

The walk was great because I walked very slowly. I did the same in the afternoon when Her Highness and I went to Rollo Park for our fetch play. I got through the entire day without panting and feeling weak in my legs.

I got a letter about the echocardiogram. I get it in January! January 27^th, to be exact. But I don’t care because I don’t think it’s my heart anymore. I hope to hear from the asthma clinic this week. I shall wait to write because they will only have just posted the results of the blood work I had done on Tuesday, but I will follow up with them.

It's another stunning day. I plan to enjoy every second of it.

Feeling Old but Good

This breath thing has hit me hard. Our walk with our friends yesterday morning was okay, but now some of us turn at a point in the trail to circle back to the car on a short route, and the others take a longer route back. In the afternoon, I regularly take Her Highness to play fetch. She doesn’t return the ball, so I walk back and forth across a huge flat beautiful grass field. It fucking kills me unless I walk very slowly to her, and then I throw the ball again and resume walking again.

This has all come on so suddenly. I realized what was happening on June 29^th—exactly a month ago. Like FND, it is another new reality that requires emotional and physical adaptation. I keep thinking back at all the things that seemed so important, but that seem so trivial to me now. Pinecone Park is my world. Everywhere else feels like the world of the living and I feel foreign there. Both my mental ill health and my physical ill health are pushing in on me, shrinking my world. I’m thinking like a dying man. However, I believe and hope, that as time passes within these new limitations imposed by my breathing, that I will lose my fatalistic predilection.

That said, I am not sad at all. I’m neutral/happy. Perhaps my greatest gift in life has been my relentless optimism and capacity for happiness. I find good in every crisis. I feel this aspect of me is God’s compensatory gift for the shit life he gave me on earth in my early years. I can’t do stairs. I can, but I do so very, very slowly, and I take rests whenever I feel the need. However: Gabriola exists on one plane. Nowhere that I go here has stairs. Another wonderful reason to be happy here.

It's a mantra of my life: accept and carry on. I planted two plants today. I have three more to go, and I hope to move one plant. I may ask Dave to do it for me. Baby steps.

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For Beth, who wants to know about ‘good’ movies. I must watch ‘safe’ movies. I try to avoid fighting, loud noises, sharp cuts, etcetera. There are many things that bother me due to my condition. And when I find one that feels lovely, but real, I often enjoy it—especially if he’s Irish, and handsome.

The Pier is non-schmaltzy, and t’s set in a small Irish coastal town. There are kids, pubs, landscapes, a curmudgeon, death and an American single woman. But the route is grand, and it’s very, very gentle. I loved it. Link to info on the film.

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It’s brilliant and sunny this morning, but a chilly 9°. I shall enjoy napping in the sunshine this afternoon. I love getting warm and cosy on my reclining chair in the sunshine to warm my body. I’ll warm up again late in the afternoon, after the torture of walking Her Highness, in the spa.

Just Another Day

It was a chilly 11° yesterday morning, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and there’s likely not going to be one for the coming week. I shall soon be back to watering all the garden beds.

I was up early to feed the brood and putz around the house before going to the lab in our medical centre for yet more tests. I returned home as soon as I could to have breakfast after a long fast for the tests.  And then I took Her Highness for our morning walk—a short one. Sadly, it’s no fun walking her anymore, and neither is playing fetch any fun. I just become exhausted.

The sunshine was so, so welcome, however, after over a week of rain. When we got home, I took a nap in the sunshine on my fabulous recliner. The heat of the sun on my skin feels like cosmic love. For the past couple of weeks, it’s been fairly chilly in the house, so I warm up by sitting in the sun or climbing into the spa.

I’m glad the sunshine is back, and I’m even happier about my acceptance of this most frustrating breathing problem. I love this house and living with my beloveds, so even though I can’t walk far or do much, who cares?! I still love life here in Pinecone Park. I really love it here.

I have 4 plants to get into the beds, and I’ve to move one Hydrangea. I hope to do these simple tasks today. I’ll see how it goes, and if it’s too much, I’ll ask for help from someone. But first, I will meet our friends to walk our dogs together, and I still don’t need to water anywhere. The ground is still wet from all the recent rain. Woo hoo!