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Still coughing but…
That’s about all that’s left of the crud going through our house for a while last month. Interesting is that Lego Lover had the shortest version of bug and is probably the most recovered even now. Most of the coughing is currently done by Game Fanatic and me…we seem to be the ones who get the long-lasting cough these days.
My cough comes and goes and is often triggered by cold foods and spicy foods and sometimes warm foods and sometimes cold air…fun. It won’t last forever but it’s aggravating.
Anyway, I am getting more regular exercise again. After my pool exercise last week I took another break and then restarted exercise again. This week when I was at the pool I was fine with the deep breaths so I figure my lungs or something was still healing the week before. I was in the pool twice this week and both times I felt pretty good afterwards. The other days I’ve been walking or using the spin bike. Tomorrow I’m kind of hoping it’s sunny enough to ride my bike. A bonus would be if it’s not too windy also. I didn’t do as much exercise today because my knees were bothering me a bit. Not painful but a bit sore after walking around in Fremantle for while today. So I didn’t end of burning off as many calories but I am going to try to not obsess about doing a minimum each day just yet.
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Sick and Tired-The Sequel
It’s been almost two weeks since I started with this nasty bronchitis/sore throat/cough/cough/cough…I turned a corner earlier this week when I stopped coughing up half a lung a few times a day. I thought I was suddenly much better…and while I was, I also wasn’t recovered. I kind of hoped to get more exercise but taking in deep breaths hurts a bit. Not painful, exactly, but definitely not comfortable at the moment. So I will just take it a bit more slowly and accept the lingering cough which may hang around for weeks.
Meanwhile I’ve managed to pass along this lovely beast to everyone in the family now. Lego Lover finally succumbed yesterday when he woke up early with a sore throat. If the course of his illness is anything like mine, it’s going to be awhile before he feels better. Sigh.
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Plans undone
The plan was the three boys in the Scientist’s family would join their mum with their families at some villas in Mandurah (about an hour south of Perth) on Saturday for an overnight stay. Not much was planned but what little there was on our part was on on track until Friday. I was woken rather early by the mad barking of the dogs when I knock came at the door (my replacement trackball). As I need to be up fairly shortly, I didn’t return to bed. The Scientist said I looked really bad…like I was quite ill. My face was puffy and swollen… I didn’t think much of that as it was morning and I often feel puffy and swollen when I get up. I got ready and took the dogs to the groomer and went off the Coventry Village markets to get some ingredients for the chickpea and veggie patties I planned to make for the Scientist’s mum (this was to celebrate her 70th birthday last week). I was tired when I got home and had a nap before picking up the dogs. Then I spent most of the afternoon in bed. Tiredness and aches and pains had set in with a bit of a scratchy throat. Sigh…
I had hoped I’d feel better later on but didn’t so I stayed home while the rest of the family went off. It did save us putting the dogs in a boarding kennel…which I’m sure was an improvement for the dogs in their weekend plans. I actually had the house to myself for a whole day, something that almost never happens. Too bad I felt terrible. I did feel a bit better when I finally got up on Saturday. I chatted to my mom on Skype for a while then did a bit of cleaning around the house. Not a lot but just to make a bit of headway into some of the mess here. As afternoon wore on, my energy levels dropped again and I was back in bed…but at least I accomplished something. I spent most of the evening on the sofa, watching Saturday night tv…British detective shows on ABC1.
I think the dogs were feeling out of sorts as they were quite hyper through the day, which required a fair bit of attention on my part. Their routine was totally undone by the lack of the remaining family members. But come bedtime they were happy enough to sleep away on the bed with me. Even though there was more space in the bed, I still seemed to have a dog squashed up against me in the night. Reminded me of when Lego Lover was small and often pushed me right to the edge of the bed, despite his small size.
I was having a decent sleep, I think, when it was completely broken by the sound of the phone ringing. Any time the phone rings in the night, I am worried it will be bad news. I picked up the phone and it turned out to be an old friend calling from the US. She had mistakenly thought it was about three hours later than the 4am I saw on the clock. Once it was clarified how early it was, she hung up and said she’d call later. Getting back to sleep was then the problem of the hour.
A few hours later I woke to noise from the dogs. I got up and opened the door so they could access the pet flap and go outside as required. It didn’t seem either ended up going out and they were soon sleeping again. Moving forward a couple more hours and the dogs were getting a bit antsy. I saw that it was past time for their food and got up to feed them. It is as this point I discovered the screen door was closed and the pet flap was useless. The poor dogs couldn’t get out and the cat couldn’t get in.
My face was again puffy and swollen on Sunday, much like it had been on Friday. But I did feel a bit better as I was up and about. My friend called again and we talked for a while. It was a rather awkward call as we had loaned some money to the friend recently and now it had been spent and she was asking for more. I assume that was the urgency which required her to call so early, even by her calculations. I told her we couldn’t help any further. We talked a bit longer and then she had to get going.
I pottered about the house a bit and washed some dishes before settling on the sofa and playing Animal Crossing on the Wii then playing some games on my tablet. Before long it was mid-afternoon and the Scientist and boys had returned. It was good to have them home and I got to hear all the stories of the weekend within short order. The dogs were quite happy to have life getting back to normal at home.
It’s a day later and I’m still feeling a bit tired and run down but I’m hoping some activity will change that. I am sure I didn’t have the flu and not even a cold. I’m guessing it might have been some allergy thing as most of my symptoms could be consistent with an allergy attack of sorts (although it usually manifests itself into a head cold or something similar). Most of the reason I stayed home was fear of spreading germs so I possibly could have gone there but might well have stayed in the villa and slept much of the time. Ah well, another time we will go again…The Scientist and boys liked it so well they want to go back again and show me Mandurah.
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Of bugs and fitness
Last week I somehow acquired some sort of bug that brought me fever, aches and pains, headache and some symptoms of gastroenteritis. This caused me to miss two days at the gym and getting back into it has been difficult even though I’m pretty much back on my usual schedule now. In fact I am doing more rigorous workouts now than I’ve done in many weeks. Between my shoulder and my knee, I feel like I have to be careful all the time. My shoulder is a lot better but it’s not quite right yet. Maybe that will never happen though. I have hurt that shoulder many times over the years and haven’t sought treatment on most of those occasions.  It may have permanent issues now. My knee is still improving but I am impatient for it to be normal again. I am tired of it continuing to give way all the time when I’ve built back so much of the muscle. I’m now able to go upstairs with a bit of speed. It’s still kind of jerky but I am able to do it. Going down still is a bit iffy so I just keep at it. But still my knee gives way quite regularly. My theory is it will carry on giving way even when I’ve built up the muscles to the full potential. But hopefully not. The good news about being sick is I managed to finally drop another two kilograms last week. Not ideal and probably will regain some of it…but it’s progress. That puts my total lost at 5.5 kgs so far which feels a bit better than just three over more than three months. Fortunately I do have better evidence of my effort when looking at my other measurements. I’ve lost quite a few centimeters on my waist and hips and the difference is quite obvious now.
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Return to tai chi
I’ve been sick with a bad cold since the middle of last week so haven’t had a lot to say lately. I think my first sign of this cold appeared the night before when I started feeling lightheaded and had a touch of vertigo. At the time I was more concerned with another attack of vertigo. I should be glad it’s not the flu as we’re in the middle of a pandemic where 10 people have already died this winter in our state. The peak of the season isn’t until next month so we are still at risk of it hitting out house.
I’m due to start a new term of tai chi tonight after taking time off to heal from surgery. I decided to redo level three this time since I never quite grasped it properly back in term one. I would be fine when working on each new move each week. But putting them altogether just didn’t happen and with the break I just felt hopelessly behind. This decision took away some stress and anxiety that I didn’t need and will take some burden off me while I’m still having to adjust for limitations caused by my knee.
Post tai chi
I managed to complete the entire class tonight and didn’t fall on my face. So I guess that could be considered a success. It was odd to be doing the class now instead of the observations from last term. And I was curious to find myself experiencing painful feet while doing the warm up exercises, which is much like I experienced almost every week during my first term of the class last year. I’m not sure if this is due to chance, my new shoes or if it’s related to the tai chi, but it is interesting and I’m curious if it will be the same next week. The biggest workout for me was the footwork we did before the lesson as it really worked many of my weaker knee muscles. I might start adding that into my home practice as a means to build up my knee. The actual lesson went pretty well although my knee buckled early on and I took a very short break before carrying on. One other lady was working on my level tonight and she was struggling so much she has opted to go back and repeat level two. Unless someone turns up next week for this level, I may well be on my own for this term. Which has it’s good and bad points. Will see what happens. I was also pleased my body didn’t decide to go into a coughing spasm during class too. Now I’m home and ready to collapse but hopefully it will mean a better sleep than the past few nights.
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Plugging away here
It’s now over a week and I still haven’t shaken this bug totally. I have now moved on to the blocked ears and coughing stage,. And I still have some tonsillitis although it seems to have improved a bit today. The problem with the blocked ears is the my hearing become quite poor and I can’t understand people. Last night I went off to the tai chi class and the assistant instructor was working with our group as he had none of the beginner to teach. I like him but he speaks very softly at the best of times and I was struggling to understand him.
Meanwhile my germs have infected the rest of the family, The Scientist hasn’t been hit too hard as yet but he may suffer as much if it drags on. Both boys are in the middle of nasty sore throat and Game Fanatic is coughing even worse than usual. You’d think it was still winter with all of us getting sick. And the weather has been close to winter-like too, with relatively low temperatures for November. Of course, before we know it we will be sweltering again.
I reinstalled Windows 7 on my computer the night before last after having issues for months since my last installation (when the motherboard or cpu died). The good news is everything looks all shiny and new and I have cleared out heaps from the computer. The down side is this hasn’t exactly fixed the problem. I suspect my fairly old hard drives may be part of the problem and it might be worth a change in the near future.
A couple weeks ago (or more) we bought some tomato plants at our local supermarket to plant in our large above ground planter thing. They have been sitting on our outdoor table for all this time and one of them was nearly dead due to the stem partially breaking and also lack of consistent moisture. I had the planter partially ready to use but needed some more compost and some chicken manure to finish it up. I went off to our local mega hardware shop down the road and got the items I needed plus another regular tomato plant and a grape tomato. I bought some basil seedling to plant with them, came home and got it all planted out within half an hour. And I didn’t really get too dirty either, which was surprising.
Obviously something was wrong if I wasn’t dirty after gardening for a while. We had a fair bit of rain earlier in the week but the past couple days have been dry and mostly sunny. And all that tall grass has been right in my face, waiting to be cut…so I pulled out the lawnmower and finally got most of that cut down. It only took a few hours with all the breaks I had to take. We seem to have far more space out there now than we did before. At the end of all that, I was quite dirty and had to wash my hair for the second day in a row as it couldn’t be avoided. Now I’m quite tired and sore but it feels good to have all that work accomplished. And now I actually want to be in the back yard. Except for the area just outside the door where we still have a mess and there is still a bit of wildness. I didn’t have the energy to clear that out today so might tackle it next week some time.
Now if I can just get certain sick young guys to just go to sleep, I can toddle off to bed and rest the weary body. And hope I haven’t set back my recovery.
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Mother of sorrows
That rather sums up the past weekend for me. I came down with some configuration of illness involving tonsillitis, sore throat, headache and other aches and pains. an intermittent low-grade fever, and a fair bit of sneezing. I think this was the first really full-blown illness I’ve had in over a year. I spent much of the weekend sleeping and trying to sleep and had a tissue box within arm’s length through the nights.The infection moved down my respiratory tract last night and some laryngitis, difficult breathing and coughing joined the mix. Fortunately the cough seemed to be less of a problem today once I got up and around.
In fact, I was feeling a bit better in some ways this morning until I walked outside to check the mail and the strong winds seemed to blow massive amounts of pollen into my face. At least that’s what it seemed like as I went into a sneezing attack soon afterwards that didn’t totally settle for hours. I’d been sneezing all weekend but that was a series of infrequent but powerful and painful sneezes. For a while it was one sneeze after another.
I think the rain washed away most of the pollen and I managed much better when I had to go out this evening to take our family friend G to his aqua aerobics class. I was still feeling unwell but not as bad as earlier. So tonight I’m still coughing a bit and sneezing a bit and my eyes still feel pretty bad. But my head has cleared a little so that I might be able breathe properly tonight. It seems I might on my way back to normal health at this point.
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Sick and tired
I am trying to write posts about our holiday but I’ve been exhausted and sick pretty much from the time I’ve been home. I am currently battling tonsillitis, which is always ironic since I had a tonsillectomy when I was five. They have obviously grown back bigger than ever…:) To be fair, the surgery was quite effective for most of my growing up years. I don’t think I got another case (post-surgery) until I was a young adult. I’ve probably had four or five cases as an adult that have sent me to the doctor. Which isn’t too bad when considering this covers over twenty years.
I also discovered when I saw my doctor on Friday that my thyroid levels were quite low when I had blood tests back in May. In fact, it was worse than they’ve ever been before. I slacked off and stopped taking my medication regularly earlier this year. I ran out and procrastinated about seeing my doctor until just before I travelled. I finally got new tablets, which I then managed to leave behind when I flew off to the US. So I was completely off medication for at least two months in the end. I’d never felt all that different from taking the medication so it hadn’t seemed so urgent that I get back to it…Obviously I was mistaken. Possibly the thyroid function has also worsened. I’ve been taking medication regularly since I’ve been home but it apparently may be a few more weeks until I’m feeling better, assuming I’m taking enough medication now.
Initially I hadn’t really thought I’d been all that tired while I was travelling. But on reflection, I do recall that I was often lethargic while away and prone to having more naps than I’ve had in years. So possibly the return travel just happened to be the last straw. Hopefully I’ll start seeing gradual improvement in the next few days as the tonsillitis clears up.
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Uncategorized
Wellness
I’ve been doing pretty well about checking in almost daily on the Wii Fit program so as to at least track my progress. I only missed two days in December. My exercise has settled into a sort of regular rhythm which I’ve been trying to find for the better part of a year or more. I’ve been alternating between my three Wii Fitness programs most of the time. The cardio boxing program is progressing better than I expected. I find it’s getting more difficult but is still quite manageable. The New U program continues to build upon previous routines too. My focus on abdominal muscles seems to be working. A few of the exercises have been quite difficult but I can already see an improvement over my first efforts. This is the first time I’ve ever tried to work on this area ven though it’s been rather poochy ever since my pregnacy with Game Fanatic. I’m mostly using the Wii Fit Plus program to do aerobic exercise such as jogging and a couple yoga exercises.
I spent several days recently with varying digestive disturbances. Much of the time it’s simply felt irritated, painful and/or uncomfortable but today that seemed to have improved so that it’s just a very noisy stomach. That’s assuming I don’t have a second relapse. I ended up missing four days of exercise during this period although I did get in a bit of work in garden one evening. The last exercise I’d done had been pretty full on and I was really sore in a couple areas so the first part of the break was beneficial to allow a bit of healing there.My return to exercise went far better than I expected.
I did come across a slight problem due to a bug in the New U program a couple days ago. The routine set up for me had nine exercises and I went through the first several with no problem. One of the exercises was to do twelve pressups and I did those extremely well. I got my best rating this time and was quite pleased with myself. Then I moved on to the next exercise, which turned out to be the same thing. I tried but there was no way I could manage another twelve so I skipped it. I was again presented with the same. In fact, the number of exercises at some point had changed to nineteen and all of them were the pressups. So I skipped right on through to the end and had a terrible rating due to missing out on all those hundreds of pressups. :) I made up for the missed exercises in the Wii Fit program. I’ve not had any further issues with the program, which is quite a relief since I like it so well.
Yesterday I also had great difficulty doing push ups in the cardio program. It required me to place both palms on the Wii Fit board and push up from there. Due to my general weakness and my excess weight, it was impossible to do even one. I eventually found out I could do it from a kneeling position and thus managed about four. My shoulders are still sore from that one so I probably will give it a miss should it come up in the next few days.
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Sick house
A cold virus has been making the rounds of our house the past week or so. It seems to have started with Game Fanatic, passed to Lego Lover, the Scientist and I have been trying to ward it off for a couple days now. I’ve been slightly successful since I have yet to reach the sneezy, blocked nose stage that the others went through already. So far it’s been mostly tiredness, achiness and a sore throat for me.
I had to go out this morning to get the cat in to the vet for a check up and vaccinations. She was well overdue and we need to leave her in a cattery when we go off on our holiday a couple weeks. So this was a good motivator. That outing went pretty well and the cat doesn’t seem to be nearly as traumatised as I expected.
I returned home with the cat and soon was back out to pick up a few groceries that I had promised to buy earlier. That outing left me really tired. Once I had returned home and eaten lunch, I settled in to bed for the afternoon and finished a book.