Tag: health

Work Through It

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

Life is a complete arse sometimes, isn’t it? My problem is my cough, which has been a problem for a few months now. The cough never gets worse, I don’t get a sore throat, it just doesn’t go away. And it is frustrating me. A lot. 

The only thing you can do is try and carry on with your life. That’s all I can do. The doctors aren’t helping, despite visiting numerous times. They just tell me to try cough syrup and drink lots of water. So rather than sitting home getting more frustrated, I am going to work. Thankfully they have been really understanding when I have had to go to the bathroom because I can’t catch my breath. But sometimes it is hard. 

People deal with more serious long term issues than a cough, and I have no idea how they are able to cope. 

Fighting For Breath

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I haven’t been quiet about my health recently. I find that all I am doing at the moment is complain of how I am sick. Now this cough has been here for 3 weeks. And just when I think it is getting better, it gets worse again. The main cause for the coughing has been my tickly throat. I try to drink plenty of fluids to try and soothe it, which does help sometimes. But other times, at least once a day, my breath catches and I start coughing. When it gets like that there is nothing that I can do to stop coughing. I take syrups, cough sweets, water, none of it works. I just have to try and calm my breathing down enough, usually achieved by breathing through my nose, which is hard as that seems to be blocked too.

This seems minor, but it has it’s bad moments. Sometimes, the cough is so constant, I cant drink any water to soothe it, and it just continues, to the point where I can’t catch my breathe. These are the times, with tears running down my face, that I end up in the bathroom vomiting down the toilet. And I HATE vomiting, it makes me revert to being like a little child. It takes all my energy not to cry my eyes out and call for my Mum. It’s all a bit sad and pathetic for a 31 year old to be unable to deal with being sick. And it is tiring to deal with, when this happens at least once a day.

I have refrained from visiting my GP, as with all coughs I have had before, the syrups and cough drops have worked fine. I don’t think that I have a choice anymore. I have missed more than one day at work already, and I hate missing work. I feel guilty of letting someone down. But it gets to the point, where my health has to take priority over attending work. I am sure that working in a dusty, heavily air-conditioned environment is helping me get rid of this cough. So, I am taking tomorrow off from work, and going to try my hardest to get an emergency appointment. If I can’t then I have to wait at least 2 weeks for an appointment. I am no doctor, and maybe it’s because it is effecting me, but surely being unable to keep food down and struggling to breathe is at least a little bit urgent. It’s not even just that, I am in constant discomfort because I have pulled muscles in my stomach, side and back because of the coughing. I am taking Ibuprofen constantly, or else I can’t even sleep. Which is a struggle as it is, with the coughing all the time.

I am sorry for having such a rant on here, but I don’t feel I have anyone to vent like this too. Plus, everyone is sick of my cough, because it has been going on for so long. But if the people around me are annoyed, it is nothing to how I feel. I just want it to go away

Blogging Helps

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I have always been vocal about how writing has helped me get through my life. It has been useful to write about my feelings rather than pile it on another person. Blogging has helped me make sense of a lot. I have always known that it isn’t just me who turned to writing a blog to get through things, it’s become a kind of therapy for so many people. 

Tonight I watched The C Word on BBC One. It’s about Lisa Lynch, who starts writing a blog to help her deal with what happens after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Lisa wrote a book based on her experiences. I won’t say what happens in case any readers wish to read the book or watch the TV show, but it’s clear that writing really helped Lisa. She found other cancer sufferers through her blog, and they helped each other through. 

I think it’s great that such a simple thing, like writing what’s in your head, can help so much. To me, writing is the best kind of therapy. It helps me so much, whether I write about what I am actually writing what I feel at that moment or not. Not enough respect is given to people who write what they feel online. Posting on a blog is releasing something to the world, so that anyone can read it. That is pretty crazy. I love reading through people’s blogs as well. Through reading someone’s writing you can learn so much about that person, just by seeing how they express themselves. And different people experience things differently, so it is always good to read how others deal with things. 

The C Word was shown on BBC One on Sunday 3rd May, and is now available on BBCiplayer. 

Buzz Buzz (BEDA)

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

This is a challenge for me to write today. Not for any other reason than, for a change, I am happy. Which I know sounds weird, but it’s true. And when I use blogging as a way to ‘let go’ of the negativity in my life, I always get a bit lost when I don’t feel so negative. I just don’t know what to write. 

I guess I’ll maybe start with why I am so happy. I have been ill the last few weeks, with a cough and some eye/allergy thing. The cough is still here, but it is on the way out, and my eye isn’t bothering me nearly so much. Which is such a relief, but I found that I barely did anything last week. Because I was getting no sleep, I had no energy. It was horrible. But now I’m feeling a bit better, i have so much energy. The last 2 days I have went for long walks (4-5 miles) to try and get into shape. Because I have been sick a lot recently, and I am thinking that it could be because I am in RUBBISH shape. 

So, in the last few days I jumped back on Weight Watchers and have been trying to walk as much as I can. Why walk? Well, it’s free, is really good for you and can save me money on bus fare. I think it has been so easy to jump into walking more, because it has been a really nice few days. And the sun being out always helps my mood. 

What has surprised me most, is that, despite that I haven’t done many long walks recently, I wasn’t tired at the end. It was the opposite. I was buzzing and was a big ball of energy. I came home, and couldn’t sit down, so had a busy afternoon. It makes me think, I am normally a slow riser in the morning, maybe if I had a walk first thing, I’d have more energy for the rest of the day. I am going to try it for the next few days before work, and see what happens. 

Fighting Sleep (BEDA)

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I never seem to sleep enough hours. It’s recommended that you need 7-9 hours sleep every night, but I get nowhere near that amount. It’s not that I am awake at all hours, it’s that i am restless. I don’t get a good sleep.

I recently recieved a Fitbit Charge for my birthday, and it records your sleep patterns. 

  I am finding that I can be a bit low on energy for the whole day. So I am trying to eat healthier and do more exercise. Hopefully I’ll sleep a bit better, and I can now monitor it. I don’t know if it will work, but it is worth a try. 

I do wonder, does getting fitness involved gadgetry actually help people get fit? Only one way to find out, I guess.

#LikeAGirl

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

It’s not very often I will ask someone to watch an advert, just because of the content, but today I am. Always have made a video below that I think you should check out.

The sentiment of doing things ‘like a girl’ has always been used as derogatory, to me anyway. This is something that makes young girls hate themselves well into their adult life. And it is unfair, that one word should be used so negatively. And that one word is there to describe so many people. I think it comes from the idea, where negativity was used to drive people. So certain words were used as insults, as a way to motivate or make some people feel better than others.

But why should doing something ‘like a girl’ be a bad thing. I was born a girl, why should I be shamed that who I am is a bad thing. When I was at school, particularly in sport, if you did something ‘like a girl’, it was done poorly, and not right. To tell young girls that they are poor, just because of who they are, is a terrible thing. But it extends past that. Negative connotations are put on to feminine words and attributes as if they are less important than more masculine ones. This isn’t true. This is what centuries of patriarchy have done, where women were nothing more than birthers and skivies, where the men ran things.

And even now, in 2014, there are major problems with how women are treated by society. And with being dismissed from youth, a lot of women do not have the self belief to stand up and try to make a change. Every woman I know has had some form of assault made towards them, for no reason other than walking down a street. Where if out in a club, a man doesn’t take ‘I am a lesbian’ as an answer, and forces himself onto a woman not interested. She is painted as a slut, as boys will be boys.

It’s time to change how the world thinks, and start with taking back ‘like a girl’. I do everything like a girl, because I am one. I am a fighter, and I will fight so that every woman can feel strong and no longer feel less because of what sex they are. This video is a start, a start to make it so no girls lose their confidence during puberty. To start saying that if you do something ‘like a girl’, it is doing something as much as possible, and pass message on to every person, young and old.

Time for change.