THE ODDS OF DAILY ROUTINES AND RANDOM ACTIVITIES

When even the littlest efforts backfire on you

Two days ago I had my 2-year-“anniversary“ of being diagnosed with Pulmonary Hypertension. During these two years I had in total an amount of 3 incidents who almost sealed the end of everything for me. Luckily I only realized about this months later.

But when you do „stupid“ things and don't listen to your body or ignore warning signs it usually backfires on you, even more with PH.

So during these two years I managed to learn a lot about activities and when it's too much or what too much actually is. I developed strategies how to schedule the duties and things I had to do.

That means, usually only two appointments a week (doctor or others) and most of the time I make sure that there's at least one day inbetween to „recover“.

Same with duties around the house. I do very little each day as even the tiniest things really tire me out and I'm exhausted afterwards.

For someone healthy, doing the dishes is nothing to worry about. For me, it is.

I don't have a dishwasher, as my kitchen is pretty tiny. Maybe I should really consider of getting one installed somewhere.

Anyway, when I've done the dishes, I'm also „done myself“ and need to rest for at least half a day.

Even showering, washing and blow-drying the hair, lotioning my body and getting dressed is at some days a milestone achievement. Usually, I sit down afterwards and stick a pulse oximeter at one of my fingers, watching my pulse decreasing and my oxygen level increasing. There I sit, breathing deeply in and out and try to catch my breath again.

I can continue this list forever …

And then there are the days when you actually KNOW that certain things shouldn't be done by yourself as they are way too exhausting for you and you KNOW doing these things will strain your heart for a long time if not forever and they will generally backfire on you the following day.

So I ways enjoying the warmth and sunshine of spring on my balcony, sitting there in my deck chair and starring at the balcony panelling which was GREEN of dirt.

A friend of mine tried to see it from the funny angle, calling it „Wildlife Balcony Patina“ but honestly, it HAD TO GO!

Wildlife Balcony Patina

So what happened was, that I started cleaning part of it on Tuesday this week. The dirt was so sticky to the panelling, it took so much of my energy trying to remove it.

No surprise I was completely shattered after doing around ¼ of the whole panelling.
It looked good, no doubt about that but still it was very hard work for me.

So I rested on Wednesday, just went shopping with my mum and then later sat down on the balcony again.

So yesterday (Thursday) I decided to clean the rest. I have this mop with a telescopic handle and even though it helped me loads, it was still VERY exhausting removing all this sticky dirt. I was sitting on a stool, while doing it but I needed a lot of energy to handle the mop.

Patina Free Balcony

When the mission was accomplished, I sat on the balcony enjoying the clean panelling and the sunshine.

I FELT okay after a while and was certain that I dosed things correctly by splitting it in two parts.

Enjoying a little treat: Coffee in my favourite Coldplay mug

A Magnolia Tree I can see from my balcony

Then came last night. I woke up because my shoulders, neck and arms were hurting.

DAMN!!! I really should have known better and not being so careless.

Luckily I got back to sleep and even though waking up for my first meds at 7 am, I fell asleep again and overslept my second meds at 8 am by only waking up at 9 am. I honestly felt like being run over by a train. Luckily this didn't last too long and right now I'm okay again.

But what I wanted to say is, even sometimes if we feel okay and think we can handle things we are always proven wrong and getting the bill afterwards.

Although I am grateful for all the different medication I'm on which help making me feel better, they are a "curse“ also …

A "curse" because we sometimes tend to forget how poorly our health is, as the meds are covering the sympthoms and most of us feel so much better.

Even the best educated and long-term PH patients sometimes make the most stupid mistakes …

I just hope I won't make too many of them. This „cleaning-session“ taught me a lesson!

At least for now.