Certainly not there anymore

Few weeks back I wrote about the back-to-work-hopelessness, sitting in my office while my head and body were stuck somewhere in France. I’m not there any longer. I usually bring my breakfast to work, and I am usually so busy that by lunchtime I haven’t finished it. I rarely break for lunch…

I haven’t had inspiration or time to blog, which feels bad. I like to write, it makes me feel better, sorting my thoughts make me more focused and happy. It is work, work, work, spending time with my girls who are all grown up, and work, and PAIN. It doesn’t seem to go away. I have never cried anywhere as much as I cry when my (former gorgeous, now only evil) physiotherapist stretches my neck, head and throat muscles. I have dropped all heavy painkillers, however, missing the opportunity to go to bed a bit too drowsy and sleep for ten hours. Painkillers are no good. Not the ones that really work!

I wish I was in France. I wish my mindset was vacation mode. My boss put me on a management program, I reluctantly accepted. We had the house full of people last weekend, leaving no space to relax, and no space to talk to my husband, who is away all week. I think I continue to do things I don’t like.

Moments in between are good. When I get out exploring nature. Eating fresh cooked prawns on a 250 year old ship at sea. Meeting friends, especially my best one 😉

Being here, now, will go into my to-do-list. 😉

Nice! 🙂

Like music

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I used to play the flute. Then I advanced to a few different saxophones. I used to sing too, choir practice weekly. I could press play on something beautiful on my cassette deck, long time ago, and read the music score. Now my brain sometimes get entertained by just reading. Follow the complex systems of dots supposed to make a symphonic orchestra sound good. Sometimes I need to check, if I get it right.

I love all music! It makes me feel…

Good :)

The one we saw was all black, and very beautiful! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I had a real good day yesterday 🙂 My daughter and I went out paddling, for two and a half hours. She loves it too! We went around this island, I didn’t think it was going to be so hard… When we got back, we checked the GPS, to find we paddled 10 kilometers… Last bit was by will, and only that. We had quite a few laughs though, and wildlife was nice to us as well. We saw seals, large birds, mink and some fish jumping. Mind resting experiences. Helps insomnia!

As we got back, we could hardly move, soar muscles all over. But today it’s ok again. Pain is not too bad either, just a slight headache, not devastating. Got the results from the MR and X-ray today, there are some slight damage to one of the joints in the neck, but nothing that should cause my severe pain. So I guess I will let the (former gorgeous, but now only evil) physiotherapist to beat me up once a week.

Today is just lazy. We’ve been evacuated from work because of a huge fire in a building close to ours, so I have been working at home. I find that so much more efficient. I can do stuff without being interrupted, answer e-mails, cross out some to-do’s. Hardly any phone calls, or corridor talks. Good!

Pulling hair

From the boat trip. I am so lucky having this outside my doorstep!

I twirl a few hairs round my finger. Pull. No, nothing happened. I grab some more hair, pull. Still nothing. Realize that even if I had bigger biceps, this thing of pulling myself up by my hair is not going to work.  And my hair would look even more chaotic! But don’t blame me for not trying!

The pain is not constant; usually it gets worse in the afternoon. Right now, (early in the morning) I feel that there is “something” in my ear. A tiny bit of aching. Later today, that tiny pain in my ear, will find its way to communicate with a nerve point in my forehead, and one almost as far back as my neck. Then all three will party for some hours, and try got get closer together, squeezing the left side of my head so that it feels like a half-deflated beach ball left behind after a sunny day. The worst, is that the pain drains me from energy, I kind of feel like that beach ball. And however much I try, I haven’t found enough self control or calm to sit it through. It’s more like: Painkillers, NOW!

Weekend has been ok, I guess. We went out in the boat, fishing, and caught mackerels, about 40. As some were just babies, and we don’t really like eating mackerels that much, we put them out again.  The tasty fishes stayed away, we didn’t get enough for dinner. But it was a sunny day, maybe one of summer’s last ones. I enjoyed being there with my husband. Saturday we went shopping. He made a stupid remark, which put me off the whole shopping thing. I really need some new stuff, but husbands and shopping are not compatible. Shopping and I is not good either, so I need to take advantage of those rare moments of shopping inspiration!

I’ll try to go to the gym today, I have an appointment with my darling daughter. If the weather is good, we are going paddling instead. There will be quite enough time spent in the gym as the darkness and weather gets worse. So I’d like to be outside as much as I can till then.

Thanks to every one of you, commenting to make me feel better! I appreciate it so much, and it feels good to have somewhere to be out there, even when I am not feeling well. Thanks!

Pain

It has just taken over everything once more! My spare time, my energy, my sleep. I am in pain almost constantly, and pain is almost all and everything I am.

No, not good, not at all…

sternocleidomastoideus muscle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The nerves of the scalp, face, and side of neck. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

An MR machine is not like on “House”, where the patient has lots of space, light, and seems to have a good time. It’s NOT! I think today, that my nose was two centimetres from the ceiling of that very noisy machine. I did have the alarm thing in my hand, but the thought of not doing this now, and use months thinking about doing it again, kept me from pushing the button. My neck was locked in a bracelet, and I had bell shaped hearing protection over my ears.
I cried a bit.
Then I had to do x-ray.
I cried driving home as well.

Earlier today, I went to physiotherapy. He (the gorgeous looking one) is not as optimistic as he was after the first sessions. Most of last week went by trying to ignore pain and headache. Think I succeeded, in a way, but it makes me so tired.
Instead of beating up all those sore points where the muscles and the nerves are attached at the back of my scull, he worked on all muscles around the clavicle and the sternocleidomastoid muscle. This is one of the most important muscles in the neck, sort of goes from the clavicle to the ear. Apparently mine is extremely tense and strung up, he had problems trying to get hold of it at all. I was in so much pain I had to get his hands off me a couple of times.
I don’t really like to be touched, I think. He worked so close to my throat, that I found myself trying to avoid it, and him, by clutching my legs to the bench, and sliding my upper body to the side. Hanging on by my feet and some stomach muscles I didn’t know I had. Tears streaming, and my top was wet all through from cold sweat.
Right now I wonder if there is something wrong in the upper part of my vertebrae too. I, and the doctors and therapists have considered all of this to be consequences of a whiplash after the unfortunate crash between my head and a brick wall while cycling. (USE BIKE HELMETS, I did!!) My current diagnosis is cervical headache, and it is only on the left side. Now I am not sure. There is something wrong with my C1 nerve, for sure, but all these f***ed up muscles too? My physiotherapist says that time has made it all this painful. Right now, it feels like my left side has been hit by a bus, it aches in my arm, shoulder, all muscles around my clavicle, my neck feels swollen. To top it up, my headache is out of this world.
I think I’ll allow myself one tiny little depression tonight, grab some painkillers and go to bed.

Lost weekend

That’s how it feels at least. Today I haven’t done anything. NOTHING! Watched Olympics, read a bit in a book, made a very simple dinner (both of us are trying to loose a bit), and that is it.

My husband went out for a drive, alone, probably bored with me.

I did have more than my hands full both Friday night, and most of yesterday, so maybe I just needed nothing today. Guess it feels like a wasted day. I should have done some house cleaning, washed my clothes (seem to buy new stuff every week to avoid it), I should have done some blog updates, should have prepared some easy food for a busy week, should have gone cycling, or out to sea paddling.

And now I sit here regretting all the things I haven’t done. The next five days are filled up, “important” meetings, appointments, and no time set aside for good things, almost no time.

I don’t like this.

As always, inspiring! 🙂

Mindfulbalance

Craving can be future-oriented – trying to become successful, powerful, thin, or beautiful; dreaming about being with the perfect partner; worrying about losing your job and so on. It can be fixed on the past, replaying a painful incident over and over again, stirring up old hurts with resentment and revenge, or dwelling on nostalgic replays of the good old days.  It takes many shapes and forms but its hallmark is a lack of peace. If our attention is taken up with this energy of dissatisfaction we are not available for spiritual inquiry. As long as we are preoccupied we are distracted by experiences that come and go, preoccupied with changing experiences, preoccupied with being born and dying. This precludes any possibility of noticing deeper realities.

Ajahn Viradhammo

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Dreams

Dreaming (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

I have had so many strange dreams lately, which is quite unusual for me. I hope it means that my sleeping pattern is changing, after cutting back on sleeping meds. I don’t really believe that dreams are all that important, or that there is a meaning to all of these strange things that gets into my head while I am sleeping. That would make life VERY complicated. 🙂
My dreams tend to be quite chaotic, and sometimes I wake up, just knowing that I dreamt something upsetting, without remembering what it was. I haven’t had any flashbacks or flashback-“dreams” for weeks and the last ones hasn’t been all that disturbing.

I think my sub-conscience is trying to figure out something. It’s been about a car accident that happened when I was a child. I don’t know exactly where it was. I just remember the car going off the road, and downhill very fast. There is a wood, many trees, and it is quite bumpy. This was long before there were seat belts, and I am on the floor between the front and back seat. My mother is driving. My brother is also in the car. I’m afraid, of course. That’s all that I remember. I tried once to ask my brother what had happened, but he won’t talk about it. Even if I asked him quite late, after he had a few beers… He said that we spent the night in a house next to where it happened. I don’t remember any of that. I don’t know if anyone got hurt, maybe I remember some pain in my head. But I’m not sure. Other than this, my flashbacks seem to have taken a break, it seems. I hope they are gone for good 🙂

But just this other night, I dreamt, we were running a petrol station, some of my friends, my youngest daughter, one work colleague and me. It was really very busy, and everything that could go wrong did. We ran out of diesel, people stole chocolate from the store, many were mad because they couldn’t fill up their cars, the queue of angry customers went all the way through the front door. We didn’t handle the situation very well. It was like when you have four people in the kitchen trying to do the same thing at the same time. When it finally calmed down, we went to sleep on the floor. It was like NOW I am going to sleep for SO long! I was just so tired, after working for days. And as I came to that conclusion and kind of felt the sleep coming, the alarm on my iPhone set off. I woke up angry…
Didn’t last for long though.

Improving?

More of this please?? (Photo credit: semuthutan)

Today I have answered e-mails like if I was something extra-terrestrial… Though, I did get to work an hour and a half late.

I can’t seem to get into the habit of getting up at six, like I used to.  However, that means that I am sleeping well!

How long will it take to get into the habit of work again? I read, last year I think, that if you’ve been away for four weeks, it will take just as long (four weeks) to get into the routines again. That’s quite long… But maybe true!

This is my second week back, and I must admit, last week I had so many things to check online before I could get any of my items in my to-do done. I thought like this: If I answer this e-mail, than she will answer me back and maybe have another question for me, so I will have to write yet another e-mail…

Seriously, I really like my job. I just miss 32 degrees, sunshine and lazy days.

Yesterday I saw my therapist again. This time of year is usually very difficult for me, and I am happy she will see me every week for a while, at least. I think things have changed since last year though. But maybe as some things improve, others appear. To sum up, it goes like this:

I sleep better, and haven’t had any flashbacks since I came home.
Although struggling, I have done some workout; the kayak is my best friend for the time being.
I have a feeling of coping, instead of chaos. (Crossing fingers that it lasts).
I managed to talk about my husband yesterday; he’s been acting like he’s having PMS or something lately, a real bitch… and I am not sure what it is, or what to do, so it worries me.
I find it difficult to think “mindful” and meditate, both work and family are a bit overwhelming just now.
I need time for myself. Not sure why that is such a big thing right now, but I really do.
The pain in my neck is really really BAD. I saw my physiotherapist yesterday, it is his fault. He worked at all the muscles in my neck, head and face, which surely has made the back of my head black and blue, my neck feels twice the ordinary size and I have a terrible headache. I hope what he’s at will help, the reason for this is of course my bicycle crash last year.

Today, I am spending some time with the girls, again. Tired.

Seldom moments

picture of deer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Just been at the airport to pick up my daughter and her boyfriend, the arrived home from sun and high temperatures for three weeks, on a flight landing in the middle of the night.

On the way home, half an hour out in the countryside again, we saw two deers, in the middle of the road. Mama-deer and baby-deer. They were so beautiful, and the sight of them fills me with awe… Been out on the kayak today as well, saw loads of seals, beautiful rare and shy birds, and at a moment, the sea was boiling with fish…

Nature is inspiring and so wonderful!

Gone fishing…

Guess I’m still suffering from kind of post-vacation-depression… Don’t really understand why this is always so hard! I mean, usually, I love my job, (or like very much at least). I have busy days after work as well, some of the stuff I have to do is good, some is tiring. I try to work out, so I need time to do that too, but right now, it seems like plunging into everyday life is something that requires a life west. I guess that after a couple of more weeks, everything will be back to normal. But right now, the thought of that is kind of awful.
Is life meant to be work, obligations, and stuff you don’t have the conscience to NOT do? I need to work to earn money, and I like solving problems like I do at work. Like my colleagues too. I have a family that I love, but now they were just waiting for me to come home to grab hold of me and my time… I love my husband, but can’t wait for him to get back to work, so that I have evenings on my own (he works in another city, one hour flight away).
Guess basically it is the ME-time I miss, all ordinary things overwhelms me.

Before we went away, I said I’d focus on these things, here’s how it went:

1. Sleep routines. Not lack of it. Follow my attack plan on sleep meds. /Yes, did that. 
2. Live here and now. Enjoy what happens. Take ALL the good photos. /Hmm… been a bit busy, and don’t know about the photos yet…
3. Plan what and where we eat, I feel so much better without bread and fast carbs. /Lost cause…
4. Get on the bike for at least 30 k a day, that’s just one hour (well, when it is flat)! /No, didn’t happen, but my bike has travelled most of Europe… 
5. Don’t hurry (except downhill on the bike)/To little downhill on bike, a bit hurried in between
6. Stretch my neck four times a day. Breathe… /Well… I guess no…

I made the sleep thing anyway, which is very good.

This week I bought a small kayak, and went fishing (the plastic bag is for the fish!). Didn’t get any, sea is full of stingy jellyfish that always get into the line and tip off the real fish down there. Good recreation, and good training for any muscle above the knee, it seems…  Weather sucks though. But this is going to be my new excuse, gone fishing! Me-time…

I am really happy to life a place where this is possible 🙂
Wishing you a lovely weekend!