The past week has been pretty up and down. I’m
still struggling a lot with my mental health, and I’ve felt incredibly wiped
out and run down, which isn’t much fun. But there have been a couple of nice
things too, which have helped to break things up. I’m sitting here feeling
extra tired and achey (and with a rather sunburnt face) after spending the
weekend in the New Forest, but more of that in a bit.
Last Sunday I decided to go to church with my
Mum and Dad in the morning. I don’t go that often any more if I’m honest. I
just find it very hard to connect to it at the moment, and feel a bit out of
place. Plus I’ve been feeling super tired, which always makes it difficult.
When we got home I sorted out my medications for the next week, which takes a
fair while! I spent a lot of the afternoon editing some photos and getting a
blog post up. I also opened an amazing box from Bear Hugs Gifts and took lots of
photos for a future blog post, which I’m excited to share with you. And I
opened a gorgeous little parcel from my friend Lissa, who was very kind and
sent me a few bits, including this adorable cat tape! In the evening David and
Emma came over. We watched the video I made of Emma’s Hen party (which you can
find over on my YouTube) and then had a BBQ.
These pretty colouring pencils were one of the
items that game in my Bear Hugs box. Don’t you just love all the colours.
On Monday, Rosiie decided to do a little photo
shoot with Freddie – he’s such a poser!
I woke up fairly late on Monday morning and
still felt very tired. Thankfully I had no plans, so was just able to have a
quiet day. I spent the morning editing photos and writing a blog post, which
I’ve been meaning to put up for a couple of weeks. We’ve been having our lounge
completely redecorated, so in the afternoon I had to try and make myself comfy
in our kitchen (it’s kind of a family room, so we have an area with a sofa and
chairs, but they’re not as comfy as the lounge!) I watched a load of YouTube
videos from Chloe Murray,
Becca Rose,
The Michalaks and Fayes Fix and caught up on some of my blog e-mails. Freddie was being his usual cute self
and got his fleece liner out of his crate and snuggled under it on the sofa! I
was expecting the mental health lady to ring me back but she didn’t, so my
anxiety was even higher than it was over the weekend.
Tuesday morning I got up fairly late feeling so
exhausted. I struggled to motivate myself to do anything, so ended up
procrastinating for quite a while. I finally managed to force myself to do some
video editing, and actually edited two and a half videos and uploaded one to my
YouTube channel. I had planned to write some letters in the afternoon, but got
distracted for quite a while so it didn’t happen. I did go and sit out on the
decking in our garden for a while, which was nice and really quiet. Just what I
needed. I spent the rest of the afternoon replying to Facebook messages, as I
had a lot of admin ones from the groups I manage.
On Wednesday I got up pretty late again and had
a very quiet morning. I didn’t really feel up to doing much, but I did manage
to sort through one small draw of clothes, which I guess is something. My Dad
took me over to Farnham Hospital and I saw my Urologist. He said that I have
three options for moving forwards: continue self-catheterising as I currently
am, have Botox to see if it will relax things enough that I don’t have to
self-catheterise or to see a London specialist about having an electrical
stimulation device implanted near my spine. We decided that I will try the
Botox first, and then if that doesn’t work I’ll be referred to the specialist.
He also said that scarring on the kidney is causing the pain around my right
kidney. Unfortunately, the only way to solve it is to remove my kidney, which
is obviously pretty serious stuff, so we’re going to watch and wait for now and
see if it gets worse. When I got home I wrote a few letters. I also received
some exciting things in the post.
Thursday morning I had a phone call first
thing, so didn’t get up too late. I then managed to do a bit of video editing,
so I have a couple of videos ready to upload to my YouTube. The person I spoke
to on the phone wanted to have a Skype chat, so she rang around lunchtime and
we discussed a possible project I might be involved with in the coming months.
After resting for a while, my Dad took me over to the Pain Clinic for my
appointment with the consultant. He told me my two options for moving forward
are either Gabapentin or pain patches, so I’m going to give Gabapentin a try.
I’m not looking forward to it after having a bad experience with Pregabalin,
which is in the same family of drugs, but I need to say I’ve at least tried it
before we consider patches. Hopefully an appointment for my injections will
come through soon, and he also said he would do the injections in my abdomen
that my Professor requested. He commented that I seemed very down compared to
our last appointment. It was kind of a relief for him to actually notice if I’m
honest, even if he couldn’t offer any help. I managed to start a new book from
Zoe Sugg (Zoella) while we were waiting for my appointment.
I felt pretty rough when I woke up on Friday
morning, but I knew I had a commitment so forced myself to get up and dressed.
My Dad drove me over to Uni and we met a couple of people from my course. I
then went to a meeting to chat to a team of people who are helping to
revalidate the course. It was quite interesting and they gave us some good
advice. We also got given our finished newspaper that we were putting together
last term. I rested for a while when I got home, as I was pretty worn out from
it all. My Mum and I did some baking in the afternoon, and Emma popped over
after work, which was nice. I felt more and more unwell as the day went on, so
was feeling pretty anxious about whether I would get through the busy weekend.
Yesterday morning we were all up bright and
early for the start of Lisa’s Hen weekend. My Mum, two sisters, Emma and I took
two cars down to the New Forest, meeting the rest of the hens and Lisa at a
waterpark. Thankfully the sun was shining and there was a bit of a breeze. Most
of the girls spent an hour out on the lake doing paddle boarding and kayaking,
but my Mum, Lisa’s Mum, one of her friends and I sat out on the terrace with a
drink and watched. Once everyone was back on dry land and out of their
wetsuits, we set off for a picnic area deep in the New Forest. We were
surrounded by gorgeous New Forest ponies, and had the most lovely afternoon
tea, all set up at tables with white tablecloths, flowers and real china. I don’t
think I’ve ever seen so much cake! It got quite windy, but that didn’t spoil it
thankfully. After we’d eaten, we spent some time playing games like Mr and Mrs,
charades and telling embarrassing stories. At around 4pm, we packed everything
up and got back in our cars to head to our final destination, Burley. It wasn’t
far, and we arrived to find a little field with big bell tents, where we would
spend the night glamping. Our first task was to decorate our tents with
bunting, pretty bedding and fairy lights – they looked awesome if I do say so
myself! We then relaxed with cups of tea and a few more games, before lighting
the BBQ and cracking open the Prosecco. The evening finished with us toasting marshmallows
on the fire and some of the girls having a wheelbarrow race (as you do!)
If you haven’t read my blog before, I just
wanted to let you know that I have a second blog, which mainly focuses on my
health in more depth than I talk about it here. It’s largely for friends and
family to follow and keep up with what’s going on, but if it’s something you
would be interested in reading as well, you are more than welcome to follow me
over there. It’s called ‘Zebra Crossing’ and you can find it by clicking here. I’m trying to keep it updated fairly regularly, so hopefully
there will be something there for you to read!
You can also check out my YouTube channel here,
where I have recently uploaded a few new videos (and hope to continue doing!)
I’m also trying to post on Snapchat a bit more,
so if you fancy following me, my username is Jennycole44.
What have you been up to this week? I always
enjoy hearing about your news and adventures!
