My Time in Hospital (Day 2)

Continuing on from my last blog post takes us to Saturday 8th July. I weirdly woke up at like 5.30am and was content with that (that's how you know things aren't right, I'd normally be sleeping until the afternoon!) I didn't feel too in pain (thanks to all the meds) but I felt really sick, but I wasn't sick - which was actually super annoying because I'd rather just BE sick than feel it all day. So I spent the day clutching a sick bowl, just for in case.

I had breakfast, and then one of the ward staff came to help me have a wash, and I finally changed into my own nightie rather than the hospital gown. I got visited by physio, and they took me to have a go at walking on my crutches, and to have a go going up/down stairs as I'd told them I would have to when I got home. It all went well, but got cut short a little bit by me feeling quite unwell, so I went back to bed as my head went all fuzzy. But they gave me a zimmer frame with elbow rests to use, as it was similar to my crutches and would make life a bit easier. They also got me a proper leg rest, as my foot had been resting quite low down since the surgery.

Then I got a visit from Occupational Therapy (my OT had e-mailed ahead about me, to make sure I got good care, bless her!) just to check I had everything I needed to have some life when I returned home, and everything was fine there too, as my OT had been super prepared in getting me all the bits I need. 

Asides from that, and spending the day feeling sick, the only other eventful thing that happened was when it came to dinner time, and I'd accidentally ordered a bizarre dinner, as I didn't know how the menus worked!! There was like, a list split up with bold lines, and I thought I had to tick one per section... So I was set to be having like 3 different meal choices in one... But thankfully the lady bringing the food round let me know that it seemed a bit odd, and she let me re-adjust my menu when she'd let me know how it works... Silly me! Guess that's what happens when you give someone whose had anaesthetic a task to do! 

Simon visited me, and we played games and chilled out for a bit. But in the evening I started to get a weird pain in my heel, that wouldn't go even if I took pain relief. No one seemed to know what it was, and one of the ward staff got a doctor to come and see me to see if he could help and he said they would see how it was in the morning to see what they would do with it.... It was pretty agonising by this point, but I tried to just grin an bare it and get some sleep. 

And that was my Saturday, I was just grateful to not be sick (despite hating the fact that I felt sick) and felt pretty good everything else wise for the day. I ate all my meals (they were yummy!) But unfortunately ended the day on a bit of a downer. 

Tune in next time to hear about Sunday! 
TTFN, ta ta for now!

Day 6 - DAY 4 OF THE CLIMB!! - 26th August

Baranco Wall!

Jambo! Today has been a pretty rough day if I'm honest. Woke up feeling ill again and with very little appetite (to the extent that Simon forced me to eat some orange slices just so I'd gotten some sugar), but that all went away when we started walking. (Trekking up a beautiful mountain is a pretty valid distraction!)

Selfie at the top of Baranco
Wall!

We began the day with a climb up Baranco Wall (the one bit of the 'climb' that is actually climbing!) and it was great fun!! It was hard though as there was also hundreds of porters trying to get past us, so it kind of makes you feel a bit pressured to get a move on, and sometimes they took different routes, which was pretty scary to see... But I suppose they're used to it... Rather them than me! But nonetheless it was great fun, and really satisfying to complete!! And when we were at the top, we had sooooo many photos! And the girls all had a 'sports bra' photo, which I couldn't really participate in because my layers were a little tight... My bad!

After we had our little break at the top we continued on our walk to the next camp site, which is where we were going to have lunch at. That's when it got hard - we were high up and could see the camp, but little did we know it was going to take 2-3 hours to get there!! We had to walk down into the valley and then back up again - going down was so painful, it really got me down, when we got to the bottom, we had a break and I had a little cry as the frustration of my pain got to me and I started doubting whether I could really climb Kili. But Daudi advised me "stop crying, it'll give you a headache!" and I stopped anyway and then we cracked on, up the hill to camp for lunch!

Once we got up there I felt a little better, just by sitting down for lunch, and we even got a little cheer from the team when we arrived (as we were about half an hour behind everyone else).

Carrying on to camp!

Then we cracked on to camp, which was about another 4 hours away, and it was still rough, with ups and downs along the trek, along with a headache I had coming and going, which was delightful. But we finally got here after a painful slog and got some dinner and our briefing before heading to bed. So I'm currently sat in my sleeping bag, knowing that at 1am I'm going to be woken up, ready to set off up to Uhuru Peak at 2am. I am praying I wake up feeling good, as headache/sickness is last thing I need!

Dinner was great tonight, as even though we were all tired - we were all having a good laugh... Asin we'd laugh at something simple and then couldn't stop laughing until it hurt - probably from the lack of oxygen we have!! But it was fun nonetheless =)

I'm going to try sleep now. Biggest day of my life so far tomorrow, requires energy!!

La la salama!!

Yesterday I Conquered A Mountain!

Hello!... And as the title says... Yesterday I conquered a mountain!!! To be precise, the mountain that was conquered was Mount Snowdon! Woohoo!! I also conquered an (almost) mountain called Y Garn the day before, which is pretty epic seeing as for me, both days were about 8 hours of trekking.

On the way back down Snowdon!

Yes, what was meant to be, an approx trek of about 6 hours, took a couple hours longer for me, as my ankle really doesn't like going downhill!... But I did it! So, naturally I feel really quite impressed with myself.

Everyone at the summit of Y Garn!

The weather was beautiful, and the views were absolutely stunning, and the feeling of accomplishment as I reached the summit on both days, was really something else!

Simon may look drunk, and I may look like an old lady, but being amongst the clouds at the summit of Snowdon was amazing!!!!

 Admittedly, it caused me a hell of a lot of pain, and after doing Y Garn on Saturday I worried that I wouldn't manage Snowdon on the Sunday, but I did!! Along with my pain endurance, I'm also pretty proud of my ability to keep high spirits, naturally, being with a group of people who have the ability to walk off while you straggle behind, is a pretty naff feeling, but with the company & support of Simon and the Dig Deep team, I managed to still feel pretty good about it, and kept pretty jolly in my opinion!

It's times like these where I really wish I'd thought higher of myself these past 7 years... I mean, yes I've got on with life, and gone to college and uni and such, but I've spent the past 7 years moping around thinking about what I can't do in life... When I should have spent the time thinking about what I can do. This weekend has really proved to me that I probably have the ability to do whatever I want if I put my mind to it (I mean, apart from wearing high heels, but who cares? I don't want to wear bloody high heels!) I aim to start thinking more positive from now on!! And I WILL conquer Kili!!!! (well, I really hope so anyway :P)

Trekking poles were a God send!!! They made everything so much easier!

Thanks for reading again folks! :)
By the way, if you read this, which... I assume you do if you've got this far down, thank you! It really does feel pretty awesome to know that people out there read this, and also to see that my views come from all over the world! If you feel at all inspired by what I'm doing (which, I hope I have inspired at least one person out there!) share it? As a bit of inspiration can never go amiss :)

Keep smiling! :) TTFN, ta ta for now!!
(See more photos!! at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/127985693@N04/sets/72157649475013486/)

Hey there!

Hey there! Sorry for the delay, I was internetless (that's not really a word, but heyho!) for a while, but now I'm back, in my new house for my second year of uni, and with internet again!

So, today has been a day of progress, because today I finally got to see a rheumatologist here in Lincoln, and, it was eventful to say the least... I just expected to discuss the options for the future of making my arthritis a bit better, but with that, I also got a steroid joint injection in my knee, followed by 10 minutes of being lightheaded and feeling very poorly (I do not deal well with injections!) especially seeing as this was the first time I'd had a joint injection with out pain relief such as laughing gas or general anaesthetic, but unfortunately, this is what 'adulthood' entails! And then to add to my sorrow of a joint injection, a nice trip to phlebotomy for a blood test! woohoo! But on the upper hand, the pain from my knee probably made me deal with this blood test the best I ever have!

So now I'm sitting on my bed feeling pretty sorry for myself as I can't bend my knee, and hobbling is no fun! Sad times, but on the happy side, this should hopefully generally bring the swelling and pain down in my knee, BUT on the unhappy side, I have to go back in a few weeks for another one in my ankle! :(

But apart from being a bit sore and achy at the moment, I've been having a good summer holiday, which is always good news and I'm hoping for the best from this hurty joint injection!!! Fingers crossed for a near future of not limping!

I'll keep you posted on the joint injection and my knee (I'm not leaving you this time!)

TTFN, ta ta for now!! :)

Oh it's a Jolly Holiday...

Hey there! Me again (obviously!)

I've finally had over 1,000 views! So thank you to everyone whose read the blog, it makes me real happy to know that after 12 blog posts of me blabbering on about stuff, people are still coming back and reading more :) so thanks! :D

So, at the moment, it's the Summer holidays for me because I've finished uni for the year, and, naturally, I'm trying to actually enjoy myself and do nice things. Which I have! Don't get me wrong, yesterday I went to Flamingo Land, a couple days ago, the beach, and just generally been spending time with friends and family.

Although I've been having a smashing time, it's hard to keep cheery when at the end of the day my joints are in SO MUCH PAIN! I hate that a normal days activity can cause me so much pain, I want to be able to hop, skip, jump around to my hearts content and I can barely walk around for a day without it giving me grief.

Nonetheless I just keep smiling (and maybe complain a little), because I can't let pain stop me from having fun (to an extent) and can't just give up because it hurts. I just want to have a jolly Summer without all the pain...  :(

Hopefully soon a doctor can help me, or my medication can start working again, fingers crossed!

Keep smiling!! (I do try to!) :)

TTFN, ta ta for now!

SLEEEEEP!!

So recently, I've had the worst sleeping "pattern" EVER.

Basically, initially, due to my joints being bad (especially at night time/ morning time) it made me manage to get to sleep later and later gradually as I found it difficult to sleep because of the amount of pain it was causing me. Now all of that aside, I can't sleep until silly times no matter what. For instance, today I finally managed to get some kip at about 12pm until about 3pm. But normally recently it's about 7am that I sleep and 2pm that I'll finally arise.

In my opinion, this is ridiculous, but this is just another side effect of having arthritis unfortunately. I like to sleep on my sides, but because of the pain it causes I have to choose whether I'd rather my ankle, hip and jaw hurt or my knee, hip and shoulder. It's a difficult decision that generally leaves me tossing and turning constantly to make myself comfy.

I hope this gradually gets better, as I really don't like being so tired all the time, and also spending most of my day time asleep, it just leaves me with no motivation to do anything. So I just end up sitting there, not doing much for the day (and also not eating properly as I'm not awake for breakfast/lunch so I just skip to dinner... which is also pretty bad.)

So, please please, start feeling better joints! I really don't like being a lazy person (believe it or not) and would like to be remotely active this summer, no just bed-bound. So if anyone has any suggestions to help my sleeping pattern get back to normal, that would be great! Because I'm clueless...

TTFN! Ta ta for now from a tired Molly!