I am starting to find the house cold again, it seems so early in the year for me to have the desire to just close the place up and shift it comfortably into the winter routine. I can’t help wonder if it is down to the fact we had those few unbearably hot weeks that it just feels colder sooner or if it is just cold. It is one of the really hard things about not having mobility, the seems to be a very tight range of temperatures that actually suit you, fractions of degrees in change, that you wouldn’t have even noticed when you were well, suddenly makes it feel as thought you have changed countries over night. It actually doesn’t just make your life difficult but it is also difficult for those who live with you. Adam is one of those men who seems to think he is living in a tropical climate, spend nearly all his time, summer or winter with large areas of bare skin exposed, constantly complaining that it is hot even when the truth is it’s well below zero. I start to feel cold when it drops to just 19 degrees as it has in the last couple of day. Personally I wish we could afford to have a central heating system installed and for it to be constantly on, triggering the radiators to produce heat the second it drops below 21, then I would never be cold again. Oh how wonderful it is to have a dream.

Yesterdays post set me off on some more research on COPD, when I was first diagnosed I actually only did a brief scan through, confirming they symptoms and not much more, yesterday I went out of my way to find out the conscientious of opinion with regards to my prognosis. I read through a range of different site from around the world and found not too surprisingly that they all have differing opinions. What I did find is that the majority disagree with the 10yr clock, the majority actually put it closer to 5 or even less, mind you they can’t see my results, but the drug treatment I am on, do place me at around 5yrs. What did surprise me was not one of the sites did something I would have expected, they all said to stop smoking, that was universal, but not one of them took the opportunity to spell it out as to how much longer you would live if you did stop. In fact not one said anything else other than your symptoms and prognosis would improve, which to me is a rather bland sort of statement, if I had been writing them I would have gone for it big style. I thought the government and health board wants us all to stop, this is either an opportunity missed or the truth is stopping really won’t actually change the outcome to any significant degree. I know I am one of those people who is always looking for something behind the numbers, but all I am finding here is yet again not what the so called experts like to say loudly at every given opertunity.

My drifts off into who knows where have been prevalent in the last couple of days, once more I seem to be doing something and then suddenly I’m doing nothing, thinking nothing and not moving in anyway at all. I have been doing this on and off for a long time now but it is still rather strange for a person who has never even suffered from day dreaming. Even going back as far as school my attention on what is happening has always been good, probably why I have been equally good at doing more than one thing at a time. My being distracted easily began a few months ago, I would be sitting here typing, then suddenly I was off playing a game, fiddling with my spreadsheet, what ever caught my eye, before realizing I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be, but this is very different to that. I am finding that more and more I can’t actually do one thing at a time is more than a little odd, it feels as thought there is someone out there with a remote control who just puts me on pause for as long as they want, then suddenly letting me go again. I guess this is probably why I seem to be loosing time, not being able to get things done in the time that I expect to be able to, as if I am doing nothing for several minutes out of every hour, well there is my missing time.

It is increasingly hard to actually admit to myself just how much I have changed in just a couple of years, I haven’t been writing long enough to actually be able to go back that far, but even in the 18 mths that I can check, there is a change. It is like fast forwarding into what I imaged old age held for me. 18 months ago I walk not to badly in the house, where as now I shuffle everywhere, stopping all the time just as I thought I might have been 20 – 30 years from now. In many ways that is how chronic illness effect you, you age faster than you ever thought possible. Not in your looks, although they to have changed suddenly too, but yes aging is a good analogy. Strength, speed, memory, dexterity, flexibility, eyesight and I know I could keep going listing more and more things I expected to be many years away still, but here I am aged just 52 having to live a life I thought was many years away. The only huge difference is pain, the elderly don’t usually have to live with extreme pain. I can’t help wondering why I have never made that comparison in my mind or even here before, it really is a good comparison and one that most people would be able to understand and imagine the impact it would have on their lives. A few months ago I was watching some comedy show and the comedian was poking fun at his grandmother who like many elderly shuffled around unable to control their passing of wind, so each shuffle was accompanied with the passing of wind. What he seemed to find the funniest was that she totally ignored it, as though it wasn’t happening at all, I remember it clearly as well I was having the same problem at that very time and yes I was trying to ignore it, in the hope that Adam hadn’t noticed. What I also remember was Adam laughing, he didn’t mean anything from it I am sure, but I remember at that time suddenly feeling that I was a million years old, as my body had already gone there without my permission. If I had been going to make this analogy I would have thought I would have made it then, not months later, maybe this is just my mind catching up again as it does eventually when talking.

Once ill or old, your body does seem to go out of it’s way embarrass you and to show you up, as you are so embarrassed that all you can do, is ignore it. The more my body works on shutting down, the more it feels as thought I have time jumped, where ever I am on that scale of life, which to be honest is hard to truly gauge, I just wish I had that bit more control over all of it, not just the embarrassing trail that often travels with me.