What I Wish I Could Have Told You

As I mentioned way back at the beginning of this year, I’ve been having some difficulties with my physical health for a while now. Over the summer I was put through physio which was actually really helpful and every day that passed made me feel stronger and less weak but underneath it all, I still felt overwhelmingly tired and there were days when my muscles literally felt dead and my joints just screamed at me. As far as I’m concerned, these things were not normal.

So I booked another doctors appointment because I would really like to get to the bottom of everything now. Unfortunately my regular doctor wasn’t available at a convenient time for me so I had to book with a different doctor. This was the first thing that went wrong.

Now I am not in the dark about my weight. I am 100% aware that I am in the “obese” category of BMI calculators. I am also very much aware that I have put on a lot of weight recently - which is often what happens when an active person is physically unable to exercise regularly but you know… whatever.

But I am also 100% sure that my weight is not my overall health problem at the moment. I am very certain that my weight is exasperating the situation. That if I lost the pounds, I may not be in as much pain but I am also certain that I would still be in pain as I am positive that there is an underlying problem going on.

Of course, my belief of this in my own body is hard to portray to a doctor in 10mins. So in a way I am not surprised that she blamed all of my issues on my weight but at the same time, I am devastated. It felt like all of my concerns about my own well being were being dismissed. That I was just wasting her time and my time when all I needed to do was lose some weight and stop complaining. I felt like I was taking up too much space - which I feel enough without the help of a doctor basically saying it to my face.

But the real problem was that the second she mentioned my weight. The minute she told me that I was in pain because there was extra strain on my muscles and that I was tired because when you become short of breath after exercise you generally are tired, the fight went out of me. I became submissive and passive, agreeing with her instead of arguing that I knew that and this wasn’t that.

At one point I tried to tell her how active I used to be and she just gave me this look that took my breath away and nearly made me cry right in front of her; she didn’t believe me.

So today, I want to say those things that I should have said in that room. Because I need to explain to someone that I am not okay and it is not just because of my weight.

• I have always been overweight. I have always been active and energetic and I actually kind of love doing exercise. The fact I wasn’t in pain before now makes me believe I’m not feeling this just because of my weight.
• I am napping in the middle of the day. Maybe not a huge thing for most but I have never been able to nap. I could never get so tired that I needed to nap.
• I am always tired. I have been tired from the age of 16 onwards but I still managed to do things. The tiredness I have now is different. It is exhaustion at it’s highest point. There are days when I simply cannot wake up and get out of bed.
• I went from running 10k to barely being able to walk 5 mins without being in excruciating pain.
• I am getting frequent migraines which never happened before. I have noticed that my trigger is over-doing it. If I’ve pushed myself too hard, my body repays me with a migraine.
• I miss being active so much. It is metaphorically killing me not to be able to go for a run or a gym session or a swim easily.
• Before this, I very rarely went to the doctors because I hate them and I just dealt with whatever was thrown at me. I don’t make a fuss of things. I am now because I know deep down that something is really wrong.

Maybe next time I will be able to make the doctor understand. But for now it is back to waiting and hurting and dealing. For now, it is just getting on with life, one day at a time.

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One Step At A Time

So you all read this post, right? Where I explained how my entire life has recently been turned upside down and I had to go from being really active to barely able to walk for five minutes without dying. It's been tough. Emotionally and physically for me. There have been times when I've wanted to just give up on trying to be better and just stay in bed all day. Times when I've felt guilty for not being able to walk up the stairs and having to take the lift, guilty for asking someone I'm with if we could slow down or stop because I felt unable to carry on. 

I have also spent a lot of time wondering if I'm making a big thing out of a small thing. That maybe I am just unfit and causing a fuss.

And I keep going back to that thought.

Over and over again.

And it is because I am starting to get better. I still am nowhere near where I was. I am still scared of even trying to work a full time job and there is no way I could walk to and from work or go out jogging again but I am not the same person I was in January wherein I had to spend days in bed to recover from small activities.

So because I'm getting better, and I'm starting to feel better. I wanted to just write a quick post on here to tell you about some of the things that I've achieved lately that I've been proud of. Things that seven-eight months ago, I never would have managed. Because then I can show to you and also to myself, that I am on the road to recovery. I may never get to where I was but if I keep working, I might get somewhere near to it.

1. I can climb the three flights of stairs at work without crying out in pain.
2. I can walk for a good half hour before I need to slow down.
3. I can carry heavy piles of books and/or bags again
4. I don't feel as achy when I wake up in the morning
5. I don't feel as achy after driving for 30minutes.
6. Yesterday I climbed the equivalent of 15 flights of stairs and while I was out of breath, my legs and hips did not hurt until 4 hours later. Which is unheard of.

Of course, with all those amazing achievements, I still have things that I do now or cannot do now that I used to be able to, such as:

1. If I've been driving for a long time, my left arm is more comfortable in my lap then on the steering wheel, giving my muscle a break.
2. I still cringe at the idea of running and how much my muscles will hurt me for the task.
3. If I don't do my physio exercises, I can struggle to get out of bed.
4. I am still incredibly exhausted most days.
5. When I have done too much, I can barely get up out of the chair as I hurt all over.
6. I'm still getting bizarre and annoying pains in my fingers and knuckles.

I am not 100% okay but I am better than I was and I am so happy about it. If I could get to a point where I could job for 10mins once a week, I think I will be happy with life again. That is my ultimate goal and I am going to make it. I'm sure of it.

It's all just about taking it one step at a time.

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Do I run or let it be? On Sport & Stagnation

This post has been inspired by some of my favourite female creators on Youtube (also Hamilton because I couldn't *not* wangle a lyric into the title). Although I have yet to read it the book Eat, Sweat, Play by Anna Kessel is the central focus of the videos I'm linking below and is what has sparked this whole discussion on Women and sport and the fractious relationship between them.

A couple of months ago Leena Norms posted this fantastically worded video about Eat, Sweat, Play and how it had made her evaluate when the impetus to play sports was superseded by the pressure to present the unruffled, pristine image of a young woman. In the last couple of days Rosianna Halse Rojas posted her own video with her usual brilliant eloquence that covers a far wider range of topics than I'm going to address below, and yesterday Hannah Witton posted her thoughts about the book and her experience with sports. I whole-heartedly recommend you go watch all three of these videos and if you aren't subscribed to their channels then I suggest you fix that.

When I watched these videos I started to think back to my own experience with sports and what has changed since I was at school. It takes no time at all to notice that currently I do absolutely *no* sports activities beyond the odd bit of walking I do going from my house to my usual coffee shop, a few months ago I even posted on here about how I'd put on weight over the last 18 months and what effect that was having on my self-confidence.

Oddly enough I mention in that post about how when I was younger that I didn't do much exercise to maintain my weight but the truth is I *was* far more active than I gave myself credit for. Over the course of my childhood and teens I did swimming, trampolining and cricket outside of school, and I have a folder full of certificates to attest to that. On top of that I used to play often on my estate with my then neighbour/friend after school and at weekends. We'd play tennis in our end of the cul-de-sac, I was constantly smashing the ball over nearby fences in my over-enthusiasm, we would ride our bikes, scooters or roller-blade around the estate and generally spend quite a lot of time outside.

That doesn't even begin to include my participation in PE over the course of primary and secondary education. My memory isn't that great about whether I was on any teams but I do know that during PE classes I was usually throwing myself into whatever sport we were doing with almost gleeful abandon. I wasn't *The* Sporty Girl (I can still tell you the names of the girls in my Primary & High school who were the "Sporty" ones) but I certainly took PE far more seriously than some of my classmates.

The enjoyment of PE, for me lasted all the way until the end of Year 11. I didn't get on with some of the girls in my class and this may have manifested in my competitiveness in team sports, but I was still weirdly cheerful about whatever sport we were doing in any given term. From what Leena & Rosianna talk about in their videos I know that my experience isn't necessarily the norm.

Yes this is me in 2011, ironically that is my old high school behind me. 

But the participation in sports dropped off sharply after I dropped out of Uni in 2010, I had been playing for Aberystwyth's ladies' cricket team and another ladies' team closer to home but after leaving my enthusiasm for playing slowly dwindled. When I moved in with my other half it became impossible to continue playing for my team when they were based on the Shropshire border and I essentially now lived two whole counties away. That was in 2012 and my cricket kit hasn't moved from my parent's garage since then.

Nowadays I am more likely to groan at heaving myself off the sofa to make another cup of tea, wince as my hips and knees make awful clicky-clunky noises when I crouch or stretch and get worryingly shaky after going up and down stairs several times in quick succession. The thought of going outside to deliberately exercise is laughable and all my sports clothes get used as lounge wear. I do often wonder if the fact that I'm not doing some kind of physical activity is actually making my knees *worse*.

How do I go about digging myself out of this stagnation then? For starters I'm going to get my grubby mitts on a copy of Eat, Sweat, Play and read the heck out of it. Then my next move should be to get my lazy arse up the road to the leisure centre that is almost literal spitting distance from my house and do SOMETHING whether that be swimming or some other sport they offer. I could start running in the park that is right behind my house, or do some damn yoga in my lounge if I didn't want to get that crazy.

I can't keep sitting still forever, so do I run or do I let it be? Get back on my feet and make the best of me? We'll have to see. #Move4Ham

(p.s. If you're not on the Hamilton fan-train I'm #sorrynotsorry for all the Ham references in this post, I'm literally listening to Non-Stop right now. Gotta write like I'm running out of time.)

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When Your World Turns Upside Down

So a fair few weeks ago I wrote this post about being large and loving fitness and this week, I have a rather opposite post to write. For the last two years, but most specifically within the last six months, I have been struggling with my health - and because of it my fitness has had to be pushed to the side and it has been incredibly difficult to deal with. So today I wanted to talk about what is happening to me, how I'm dealing with it, my hopes and my fears for the future.

I first noticed something wasn't quite right about a year and a half ago when I was training for a 10K run I was doing in June. Whereas once I would go out for a run and afterward I would feel refreshed and refuelled, I was suddenly feeling more deflated and exhausted after the run and for the next few days after it too. From there I started noticing other issues, all minor and nothing I really paid much attention to.

Until I did. Because I started getting hot flushes - and at twenty-five it was pretty alarming to wonder if you're suddenly going through early on-set menopause. So I hot-footed to the doctors and went for blood test after blood test, I was poked, prodded, had to do urine samples, ultra sounds, etc. But they couldn't find anything wrong with me. At first I left it at that. They'd done what they could and it was fine.

But then the pain started. Pain and incredible fatigue. Like my whole body was shutting down on me. I found it difficult some days to get out of bed. Other days I managed to get five minutes down the road before feeling like I needed to stop and give up. Other days were good. And I'd get to the end of the day and wonder whether I was just imagining all the pain from the days before. Those were the days I exercised and would ultimately regret it for the next three to four days afterwards.

So I went back to the doctors. And then I was put on the antidepressants - you can read about that here - because the doctor thought my physical symptoms might be linked to my mental health, which I had been suffering with for a while (though even I didn't realise how much until I started taking the antidepressants). As you know, the pills have been helping my anxiety and depression, but I still feel the same physically - if not worse, than I did when I started them. And now I'm in limbo land. The doctors have referred me to physio - which has finally come through - as I thought it could be Joint Hypermobility Syndrome. There has also been talk that it might potentially be Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Fibromyalgia. But at the end of the day, I still don't know what is wrong with me.

It could be nothing.

But I doubt that. 

Because I hurt every single day. I never feel awake and I know it's a different tiredness than it used to be. I ache after doing the simplest tasks and I still have days where I am physically incapable of getting out of bed. Even having to wait until my bladder is screaming at me before I can force my limbs to move. That, to me, is not the sign of someone who has nothing wrong with them.

So even if the physio comes back and says there is nothing wrong with me, I won't stop going to the doctor. I will go and get another referral. Another opinion. I will keep trying until I know what is wrong with me. Even if it turns out to be incurable. Because I need to know. Living in limbo is difficult.

Especially as I love being active. I feel lazy when I don't do things. I feel useless when I feel unable to do simple tasks like chores. I feel guilty when I have to spend all day in bed and don't even have the energy to read a book. Because I haven't been diagnosed with anything. So, to everyone else I'm not ill. And in my mind, it makes me feel like I'm making a fuss. I'm just overreacting. So when this happens, I try to remember the days when I've been at my worse - like when I was in so much pain my legs could barely keep me upright, and when I walked too much and my hip hurt for three days afterwards.

But I will re-train my mind. Because even if the doctors never do find anything diagnosable I know I don't feel right and may never feel right and I need to learn to live with that. As difficult as that may be.

I want to end this post to say that if you feel like you're ill but the doctor keeps sending you away, please go for another opinion. Keep going until you find a doctor who actually listens and understands. Because no one knows your own body better than you do, so no one knows better than you if something feels wrong. 

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