Tag: Medical Issues

We muddled through somehow!

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It’s been another challenging week in our house – between our heavy loads of work/studying/running, the saga of my laptop replacement, dealing with Zombie Eye IV, and a bit of a shock yesterday when we received a letter telling us the company scheduled to do our front garden this year had gone bankrupt (resulting in us needing to find some way of getting our rather large deposit back), it has been extremely eventful and it feels like last weekend was months ago!

Other than a bit of admin relating to some of the above – and finding a parkrun near us that will actually be going ahead tomorrow morning – I expect I will be spending a lot of the weekend staring into space on the sofa. If I do find some energy from somewhere, I may try and get some of my less-taxing course modules done so that I’m not panicking so much at the end of February.

Tonight, though, I most definitely need a couple of hours of Not Doing Anything At AllTM!

Crunch

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We’re getting into the later stages of the group project on my course now, and things are getting busy. Strangely, but not unexpectedly, I feel more excited about it as a result. I don’t know why I enjoy the truly mad period leading up to finishing a piece of software so much (see also: every game jam I’ve ever entered), especially when there are so many other time-consuming things going on with work and running and everything. But I do. Maybe I’m just a bit strange.

My zombie eye is feeling a lot better after a couple of days on the eye drops. Looking forward to next week when I’ll be off the dilating drops and able to see fully again!

Zombie Eye IV: The Reckoning

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For the fourth time since it first showed up in April 2019 (just days before my first marathon!), I’ve had an iritis/uveitis attack. Thankfully (?) it’s so chronic now that I already had an emergency supply of prescription eye drops in the house and so I didn’t have to spend the day in the eye emergency department again.

It’s been an extremely busy (and thus stressful) few months and so I’m not really surprised that it’s happened (it’s always triggered by stress), but it is especially bad timing work-wise and everything-else-wise. Hoping work will be a bit quieter by the end of the week so that I can start looking after myself properly.

Two weeks down…

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Week 2 of 20 completed on the marathon training plan and so far it is going well. Podcasts on my Aftershokz are really helping, it has to be said! I’m building up the miles nice and slowly and my legs seem to be coping at the moment, so fingers crossed for another good week.

I’m also making sure to get in a good yoga session at least weekly, in the hope that it will keep the usual issues at bay. This was recommended by the practitioner at my hospital appointment on Monday and I think it’s good practice for me anyway, so it’s a habit I will really try and stick with this year (and not just when I need to do it to get a Garmin badge or Strava trophy). My hips will thank me, hopefully.

Early but cautiously optimistic

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I have to say I’ve been a little surprised to have got through the first nine days of marathon training without much pain at all. All the runs so far have been four miles or less, but it’s still a fairly big step up in mileage from the mile-a-day most days I was doing over the early part of the winter, and I’d sort of assumed I would be going straight back to the state I was in towards the end of marathon training leading up to London in October – i.e. pretty much every part of me hurting on different days! But I feel fine so far. Let’s hope that continues.

I had a hospital appointment yesterday for the chronic hip/back pain I’ve had for a decade now (they think it might be spondylitis due to a predisposing gene) and it looks like investigations will be fairly quick, but of course it will be something that needs permanent managing rather than something that will ever go away for good. Which is fine – I know what works after so long (mainly keeping my weight down and keeping active). It’s just a case of maintaining things, really.

After-effects day 2

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I’m still feeling rough after my booster yesterday morning. I had hoped to be done with the after-effects by now. However, it does make me feel really lucky that I was able to book a slot early so that this won’t interfere with Christmas. Hopefully I’ll feel a lot better tomorrow!

Twisty Little Passages
This is the book I got as a prize for winning the most recent jam I entered. It’s signed with a personal message from the author and only took six days to arrive from the US, which is impressive at this time of year!

Dozing

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Feeling a bit rough after getting my booster vaccine this morning, so I’m trying to take it easy this evening. Fingers crossed the after-effects will be gone by tomorrow.

Booster leaflet
No card this time round so the info leaflet will have to do as a souvenir. Did the fifteen minute wait a few hours before it was discontinued!

An inbetween day

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Lots of appointments today. I had a sports massage at the physio this morning (great to work out some of the issues from the summer training block and get some professional opinions and advice on my various issues), then had an hour at home before I needed to take the car in for its MOT, and after I got back from that I was waiting to hear when I could pick it up… so I didn’t feel able to get into any big projects or anything. I did lots of small jobs instead. Then the garage called and said they needed to keep the car in overnight… oh well. Tomorrow is a lot quieter (other than picking up the car) so I’ll be able to get back into my work and studying!

I am thoroughly in the swing of Hallowe’en week now and am looking forward to curling up with some scary films at the weekend. Not wishing the week away, though – there are a lot of fun things to watch and Hallowe’en sweets to eat in the meantime.

Hallowe'en hearth
Quite possibly my favourite Hallowe’en hearth ever. Only the big pumpkin and the neep will be getting carved because the small gourds look absolutely fabulous as they are! Bonus shot of one of my many pairs of Hallowe’en leggings in the fireplace reflection.

Being careful

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I have finished work for the week and am all packed up for London this weekend! I am very excited and very nervous. I wonder if marathons will always feel like this. (Last time I did this, I was certain it would be my only marathon. I now feel very differently!)

I’m panicking about lots of things I don’t really need to panic about, but one of the main things is that I obviously don’t want to pick up a last-minute injury or illness! I’ve been doing my short runs on the treadmill for the last couple of weeks as it’s gentler on my legs; I’m doing lots of yoga stretches and foam rolling after every run to try and get rid of all the niggles from training; and I’m being very careful every time I go up and down the stairs and get in and out of the shower. So paranoid I’m going to injure myself! Only a few days left to worry about it, thankfully…

Foam roller and spiky ball
Implements of torture / miracle tools that will get me to the start line in one piece.

Light at the end of the tunnel

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No pesto post again this week, sorry, there’s too much going on.

I’m very nearly (I think) done with my months-long busy work period! Even if I get the usual amount of Masters dissertations over the next month, it still won’t be anywhere near as hectic as it has been for the entire summer so far. One more day of work and then I can have a bit of a breather.

I’ve been going through a bit of a saga over the last few weeks with my feet really hurting on long runs. This has always been a thing but it’s got a lot worse recently (to the point that I can barely walk, let alone run) and I’m getting fed up. My next long run is Thursday and I’ve got a lot of strategies that I’m going to be using to try and mitigate the pain. I really hope they work, because marathon training has been a bit miserable so far with this going on.

Running shoes
The latest pair of ‘extra wide’ running shoes bought in an attempt to solve the problem. Unfortunately it is apparent that I need ‘extra extra wide’ running shoes, and they don’t make running shoes that wide. I also cannot justify buying any more running shoes (they’re expensive and I’ve bought a lot recently to try and solve this problem), so I’m going to have to think about some other solutions.

The next day or so will involve a lot of Googling for the best ways of applying moleskin tape! And work. Gotta finish the work.