Evening All,
I've not done a blog for a couple of weeks as I've been struggling with a few odd health issues. Firstly I was randomly dry-heaving a lot! Never actually being sick, despite eating Etc. - Just random bouts of violent dry heaving! I had suffered it before, but i was very stressed at the time with work and undergoing my annual surgeries to check on the state of my heart.
On the 15th Jan I was about 1/4 mile into a run and it started, and it didn't stop, so I had to give up and go back to the car and home. This was the 4th day in a row that it had happened, twice more at home and once at work. I didn't have to be in work until late so I took myself to the Dr's for the 'Emergency Clinic'
The Dr ran blood tests and gave me a tablet to empty my stomach, but she doubted my stomach was the issue, as I wasn't actually being sick. She signed me off work for 7 days as stress was quickly identified as a possible cause.
The next few days the stomach tablets helped, but i still had the sickly feeling in my stomach & throat and i was utterly worn out. Sleeping 9/10pm right through to 8am and then napping during the day too. Tiredness is usually my biggest indicator that something is wrong, followed closely by cold sores on my lips - which appeared in force 2 days after seeing the Dr.
At this point alarm bells start ringing, super tired and 7 separate cold sores had me fearing the worst. The initial blood work returned with some high levels of Potassium and Creatinine, both of which affect the levels of medication in my bloodstream and aren't advisable! The second issue was the actual blood cells, they were enlarged.
The Dr ran more blood tests to check the Potassium and Creatinine, and more tests for anaemia, vitamin B-12 deficiency and a host of others. I also rang the hospital and spoke to the Cardiac Transplant team and they agreed that i should pop through and have them look at me too, just to be sure.
The hospital was happy with all the levels that they tested for, and the ECG and X-rays showed nothing wrong with the heart - a massive relief!
Whilst this was going on I noticed my sickness was mostly in the mornings, when i usually eat scones or toast...my sister and mam are both intolerant to gluten & wheat - could I be too?
So I cut out wheat completely, and 6 days later i feel massively better! My stomach hasn't felt this good for about 2 years, and with my stomach feeling better my general anxiety and panic has reduced too! Which is also nice! I'm back at the Dr's tomorrow for the anaemia and B-12 et al results as I'm still really tired, but feeling much much better!
The Dr's at the hospital however, were concerned with the fatigue, so have pretty much demanded i reduce my hours at work to 4 days a week, meaning that whilst money will be tight for a while, at least my health won't suffer.
Today i laced up the MT110's and put Inca in the car and went up to my favourite local trail. Up in Setmurthy Forest. The initial climb was, as always, a killer! But I kept slogging away to the rolling hills across the tops. Across the tops and down the far side was heavy underfoot with the snow melt and non stop for the past few days. #BastardHill was tough today, and admittedly I was reduced to walking 60 paces and then running again, however, a new PB was won in the process, granted I only shaved 3 seconds off it, but still a new PB! I've started climbing again too, and feel much more confident on the wall, again not having to worry about my stomach is helping massively!
Onwards and upwards now hopefully, my stomach is sorting itself out still, but the signs are good this far, i even managed a meal out for my sisters birthday without any anxiety or panics, first time in a long time!
Time to stop being afraid of things i can't control, and face them down anyway!
Tuesday 29 January 2013
Wednesday 9 January 2013
A Return To The Mountains
Evening all!
As regular readers will know, over the past month or so i have struggled to get much running in between workloads and an issue with my shin, but this week saw a return to some decent running!
The mileage wasn't huge on either of this weeks runs so far, but it brought a return to the sacred mountains of the Lake District in Northern England!
Before issues at work arose, we had a 'Sunday night run club (SNRC)' of colleagues who enjoyed getting into the hills for an hour or two after a generally shorter shift, not all runners by preference but each with a love of the mountains!
So on Sunday myself and 2 others had decided to resurrect the SNRC and hit the local mountain, Latrigg. Standing only 1207ft high, it is a deceptively tough little bugger! Starting on a dirt road called SpooneyGreen Lane and turning into a 3/4ft wide trail it climbs 1001ft to the summit in a mere 1.75 miles! From the summit however, there are some phenomenal views:
Keswick and Derwentwater
The SNRC also created two characters #CumbrianKrupicka and #AgentA myself being the former, and a colleague being the latter:
Myself on the left, and #AgentA atop Latrigg last autumn.
Despite the many fellrunning legends in and around where i live, the ultra-world hooked me in, though the Bob Graham Round still has my strongest desire!
Of the athletes within the ultra scene, one in particular stood out. For reasons unknown, or possibly because he ran a full marathon at age 12, Anton Krupicka became my first running idol, and still remains a great source of inspiration. The shirtless look was soon adopted (on warmer days) and ergo #CumbrianKrupicka was born, #AgentA lent my copy of Unbreakable and followed suit soon after! There is now a friendly rivalry to summit bare chested on our runs, whether there is snow on the ground or sun in the sky!
The run on Sunday followed the now tradition, and once again i found myself stood atop Latrigg shirtless for a quick photo! Generally we descend off the summit and into Brundholme woods for some tasty trails in the forest and along the river, but feeling unfit and overfed from xmas we decided to descend via Gale Rd car park, and then down SpooneyGreen Lane back to the cars.
On Monday i had a day off work, and the weather was awful! It was blowing a gale and the rain was steadily falling, so i opted to be a bit lazy for most of the day, catching up on mail and running errands.
At about 3:30pm i decided that i owed it to myself to get out into the weather and log a few miles, though the sofa had me a death grip!
I hate running in a waterproof jacket, i feel overheated almost immediately and can never find a way to be comfortable in one! so i just threw on a Montane Featherlite smock and headed out. I ran my local route on a hill out the back of town, 600ft of ascent in a little over 3.5 miles. I could feel the previous nights effort in my legs, and willed myself to run hard despite the fatigue, the first and steepest ascent actually felt pretty good and going into the rolling trail across the top of the forest i managed to open up the tanks a bit and ran an 8minute mile in the mud! The final hill (bastardhill) was pretty rough though, my quads were burning and i was very grateful to summit and hit the steep descent to the car!
I adopted a collie / labrador cross pup this week too. He is 9months old and was already named Blade, needless to say he will be a regular training partner! Shorter runs for now, working his way up to longer days in the mountains in the future!
As regular readers will know, over the past month or so i have struggled to get much running in between workloads and an issue with my shin, but this week saw a return to some decent running!
The mileage wasn't huge on either of this weeks runs so far, but it brought a return to the sacred mountains of the Lake District in Northern England!
Before issues at work arose, we had a 'Sunday night run club (SNRC)' of colleagues who enjoyed getting into the hills for an hour or two after a generally shorter shift, not all runners by preference but each with a love of the mountains!
So on Sunday myself and 2 others had decided to resurrect the SNRC and hit the local mountain, Latrigg. Standing only 1207ft high, it is a deceptively tough little bugger! Starting on a dirt road called SpooneyGreen Lane and turning into a 3/4ft wide trail it climbs 1001ft to the summit in a mere 1.75 miles! From the summit however, there are some phenomenal views:
The SNRC also created two characters #CumbrianKrupicka and #AgentA myself being the former, and a colleague being the latter:
Myself on the left, and #AgentA atop Latrigg last autumn.
Despite the many fellrunning legends in and around where i live, the ultra-world hooked me in, though the Bob Graham Round still has my strongest desire!
Of the athletes within the ultra scene, one in particular stood out. For reasons unknown, or possibly because he ran a full marathon at age 12, Anton Krupicka became my first running idol, and still remains a great source of inspiration. The shirtless look was soon adopted (on warmer days) and ergo #CumbrianKrupicka was born, #AgentA lent my copy of Unbreakable and followed suit soon after! There is now a friendly rivalry to summit bare chested on our runs, whether there is snow on the ground or sun in the sky!
The run on Sunday followed the now tradition, and once again i found myself stood atop Latrigg shirtless for a quick photo! Generally we descend off the summit and into Brundholme woods for some tasty trails in the forest and along the river, but feeling unfit and overfed from xmas we decided to descend via Gale Rd car park, and then down SpooneyGreen Lane back to the cars.
On Monday i had a day off work, and the weather was awful! It was blowing a gale and the rain was steadily falling, so i opted to be a bit lazy for most of the day, catching up on mail and running errands.
At about 3:30pm i decided that i owed it to myself to get out into the weather and log a few miles, though the sofa had me a death grip!
I hate running in a waterproof jacket, i feel overheated almost immediately and can never find a way to be comfortable in one! so i just threw on a Montane Featherlite smock and headed out. I ran my local route on a hill out the back of town, 600ft of ascent in a little over 3.5 miles. I could feel the previous nights effort in my legs, and willed myself to run hard despite the fatigue, the first and steepest ascent actually felt pretty good and going into the rolling trail across the top of the forest i managed to open up the tanks a bit and ran an 8minute mile in the mud! The final hill (bastardhill) was pretty rough though, my quads were burning and i was very grateful to summit and hit the steep descent to the car!
I adopted a collie / labrador cross pup this week too. He is 9months old and was already named Blade, needless to say he will be a regular training partner! Shorter runs for now, working his way up to longer days in the mountains in the future!
Wednesday 2 January 2013
Happy New Year
This post was intended to be published yesterday (New Years Day) but I knew I was at the hospital today, and wanted to open up about another condition that I suffer from.
Throughout my post-transplant life I have suffered infrequent panic attacks. Often only occurring maybe once in 4-5 years and not really an issue. In 2004 there was a new drug for immunosuppressant therapy introduced which had a less damaging effect on the other organs in the body, primarily the kidneys, which take an absolute beating trying to clean my blood!
A few weeks after swapping out my usual medication for the new one I was driving to a nearby city with a friend for a bit of lunch and some shopping. On the way I had a panic attack, nothing major, I knew what it was, and duly pulled the car off the road, got out for some fresh air and to calm down, and then carried on my way. Continuing the drive I went on to suffer 7 more, progressively worse panic attacks, resulting in leaving the car in the nearest car park and hi-tailing it to the hospital fearing that something worse was at play.
2 weeks in hospital getting poked, prodded and tested for even random ailments proved nothing was wrong, even having panic attacks whilst hooked up to various monitors and machines couldn't figure out why I was suddenly so besieged by them.
It was decided it was the new medication, so I was swapped back to the old faithful medication that had been fine for 12 years! The bad news however, was that I was now afraid of panic attacks, and able to bring them on myself simply by worrying about having one!
They got so bad in the following months that I couldn't return to work, and even struggled to leave the house alone sometimes for fear of having one. The stupid thing is, I knew they did no harm, I'd been on cardiac monitors whilst in the throes of them and seen with my own eyes that they were causing no reaction!
If you have never experienced a panic attack, it can be difficult to understand them, certainly trying to explain to my friends what they were and the effect that they had proved difficult. I will try to describe how awful they were though:
Initially there is a very brief, fleeting negative thought which kicks off the whole episode, for some its claustrophobia, for me it's generally being sick in public. I have a phobia of being sick due to a nasty experience with a ventilator in the hours after my transplant! This tiny, fleeting thought kicks off the 'fight or flight' response in steroid abuse mode, and your nerves start firing off around your body to prepare for war, adding physical distress to the growing mental anguish. Back in 2004, the mental anguish was horrendous, once the panic had set in, I was convinced I was going to die! Quite scary and very irrational, but the mind is a powerful weapon. Your mind is screaming at you to get the hell out of whatever situation you are in (restaurants are a weak point for me) and this reverts to fight or flight.
The physical manifestations can vary person to person, heart seemingly pounding in your chest, a tightness which makes you feel like you can't breathe, hot flushes, shaking uncontrollably, vomiting, the need to evacuate bowels immediately and in some cases passing out.
Not a nice situation to be in, and it happens within seconds/minutes of the initial, single, negative thought.
I struggled massively in 2004/5 like I said, eventually needing anxiety medications to get a handle on it. By the end 2005 however I had them pretty much beat, got a new job and life was peachy again for several years!
The last 18-24 months however I started to suffer again, not to the same degree of panic or fear, but enough to make going for meals and weekends away uncomfortable, and for me to question myself as to why I was different, why couldn't I cope?
I would be at work and watching people who were on holiday, asking myself 'Why aren't they anxious or panicky?' I didn't know it at the time, but I was beating myself up mentally. I wasn't questioning them, I was questioning my own abilities.
In the last 2 years I found running to be therapeutic not only as it was helping me stay healthy and working my heart, but I found that despite being off in the mountains, often with little more than some water and a few energy gels, I was calm.
Sure a lot of the time I'm blowing out my arse, my heart is pounding through my ribcage and my legs are screaming at me to find a hobby that involves a lot of sitting down! but I'm at peace in my own head, just one foot in front of the other, watching the ground and picking my footfalls. I see the majesty in where I live, and hopefully if you've seen any of my photo's you will agree!
Out on a run there is only me, there is no pressure to perform or conform to anyone else's ideals or standards. In an environment where most of my friends will admit to feeling vulnerable, I am free of the fears and anxieties that occur to me in daily life, which they do not have!
My runs aren't record setting, my distances don't beggar belief, but they're mine all the same. No one else can run for you, and I'm pretty certain most of you reading this will agree that the time spent out running is special to each of us. I have had fantastic runs in all types of weather, be it in shoes and shorts and nothing else in summer, to wrapped up like an Inuit freezing the jewels off atop a mountain in the dark with snow knee deep!
I don't run because the sun shines and it'll be nice and easy, I run to centre myself and to be free from daily life. I am currently seeing a transplant specific psychologist to help with my anxiety, and it is working, and she thinks that running is the my way forward.
My panic/anxieties are nothing like they were in 2004, not even close! I know they are irrational and I know for the most part that even if that little negative thought creeps into my psyche I can suppress it and carry on.
Restaurants and weekends away are still on my weak list, but I don't give in, I still go for meals with friends, and still have nights and weekends away with them, so what if I struggle a bit? so what if I don't finish my meal or go back to the hotel early? I'm alive, I've fought tooth and nail to make it this far against far worse adversaries, and at the end of the day, if they do become too much, I have about 20 pairs of running shoes to choose from, lace up and bugger off for a run!!
My run drought is also over! having ran the past 3 days, a 3.5 mile hilly mud fest! a quick flat mile around town and this afternoon I did 3.7 miles on what can only be described as mud with the odd puddle of water! No records broken, no strava segments set, just me, the ground and the world around me, and man it feels good!
Happy New Year Folks!
Throughout my post-transplant life I have suffered infrequent panic attacks. Often only occurring maybe once in 4-5 years and not really an issue. In 2004 there was a new drug for immunosuppressant therapy introduced which had a less damaging effect on the other organs in the body, primarily the kidneys, which take an absolute beating trying to clean my blood!
A few weeks after swapping out my usual medication for the new one I was driving to a nearby city with a friend for a bit of lunch and some shopping. On the way I had a panic attack, nothing major, I knew what it was, and duly pulled the car off the road, got out for some fresh air and to calm down, and then carried on my way. Continuing the drive I went on to suffer 7 more, progressively worse panic attacks, resulting in leaving the car in the nearest car park and hi-tailing it to the hospital fearing that something worse was at play.
2 weeks in hospital getting poked, prodded and tested for even random ailments proved nothing was wrong, even having panic attacks whilst hooked up to various monitors and machines couldn't figure out why I was suddenly so besieged by them.
It was decided it was the new medication, so I was swapped back to the old faithful medication that had been fine for 12 years! The bad news however, was that I was now afraid of panic attacks, and able to bring them on myself simply by worrying about having one!
They got so bad in the following months that I couldn't return to work, and even struggled to leave the house alone sometimes for fear of having one. The stupid thing is, I knew they did no harm, I'd been on cardiac monitors whilst in the throes of them and seen with my own eyes that they were causing no reaction!
If you have never experienced a panic attack, it can be difficult to understand them, certainly trying to explain to my friends what they were and the effect that they had proved difficult. I will try to describe how awful they were though:
Initially there is a very brief, fleeting negative thought which kicks off the whole episode, for some its claustrophobia, for me it's generally being sick in public. I have a phobia of being sick due to a nasty experience with a ventilator in the hours after my transplant! This tiny, fleeting thought kicks off the 'fight or flight' response in steroid abuse mode, and your nerves start firing off around your body to prepare for war, adding physical distress to the growing mental anguish. Back in 2004, the mental anguish was horrendous, once the panic had set in, I was convinced I was going to die! Quite scary and very irrational, but the mind is a powerful weapon. Your mind is screaming at you to get the hell out of whatever situation you are in (restaurants are a weak point for me) and this reverts to fight or flight.
The physical manifestations can vary person to person, heart seemingly pounding in your chest, a tightness which makes you feel like you can't breathe, hot flushes, shaking uncontrollably, vomiting, the need to evacuate bowels immediately and in some cases passing out.
Not a nice situation to be in, and it happens within seconds/minutes of the initial, single, negative thought.
I struggled massively in 2004/5 like I said, eventually needing anxiety medications to get a handle on it. By the end 2005 however I had them pretty much beat, got a new job and life was peachy again for several years!
The last 18-24 months however I started to suffer again, not to the same degree of panic or fear, but enough to make going for meals and weekends away uncomfortable, and for me to question myself as to why I was different, why couldn't I cope?
I would be at work and watching people who were on holiday, asking myself 'Why aren't they anxious or panicky?' I didn't know it at the time, but I was beating myself up mentally. I wasn't questioning them, I was questioning my own abilities.
In the last 2 years I found running to be therapeutic not only as it was helping me stay healthy and working my heart, but I found that despite being off in the mountains, often with little more than some water and a few energy gels, I was calm.
Sure a lot of the time I'm blowing out my arse, my heart is pounding through my ribcage and my legs are screaming at me to find a hobby that involves a lot of sitting down! but I'm at peace in my own head, just one foot in front of the other, watching the ground and picking my footfalls. I see the majesty in where I live, and hopefully if you've seen any of my photo's you will agree!
Out on a run there is only me, there is no pressure to perform or conform to anyone else's ideals or standards. In an environment where most of my friends will admit to feeling vulnerable, I am free of the fears and anxieties that occur to me in daily life, which they do not have!
My runs aren't record setting, my distances don't beggar belief, but they're mine all the same. No one else can run for you, and I'm pretty certain most of you reading this will agree that the time spent out running is special to each of us. I have had fantastic runs in all types of weather, be it in shoes and shorts and nothing else in summer, to wrapped up like an Inuit freezing the jewels off atop a mountain in the dark with snow knee deep!
I don't run because the sun shines and it'll be nice and easy, I run to centre myself and to be free from daily life. I am currently seeing a transplant specific psychologist to help with my anxiety, and it is working, and she thinks that running is the my way forward.
My panic/anxieties are nothing like they were in 2004, not even close! I know they are irrational and I know for the most part that even if that little negative thought creeps into my psyche I can suppress it and carry on.
Restaurants and weekends away are still on my weak list, but I don't give in, I still go for meals with friends, and still have nights and weekends away with them, so what if I struggle a bit? so what if I don't finish my meal or go back to the hotel early? I'm alive, I've fought tooth and nail to make it this far against far worse adversaries, and at the end of the day, if they do become too much, I have about 20 pairs of running shoes to choose from, lace up and bugger off for a run!!
My run drought is also over! having ran the past 3 days, a 3.5 mile hilly mud fest! a quick flat mile around town and this afternoon I did 3.7 miles on what can only be described as mud with the odd puddle of water! No records broken, no strava segments set, just me, the ground and the world around me, and man it feels good!
Happy New Year Folks!
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