Over the last few days, there has been a huge change in my chest. It was just on Sunday that Adam and I were really both sure that it was getting worse again. But throughout Monday things weren’t too bad and when I had my shower, I found I could breath with ease. I am not saying that my chest is totally clear, it isn’t, but at least I am not coughing every few minutes. I am though using my inhaler just as much and still feel as though my chest is partially closed down, not totally silently but at least at a level where the whole world can’t hear it without being inches from me. Strangely over the past week, I have found that if I want to clear my chest with a good cough, the best thing to irritate it is my e-cig, real cigs don’t seem to upset it at all. I could sit and chain smoke and nothing happened one draw on the e-cig and I was off. I know one person didn’t find it funny, in fact, it is fair to say he appeared quite angry about it. I think Adam had this hope that what I had been through would be the catalyst of my ditching the cigs totally, sorry dear, it’s not going to happen. For some reason, I actually think that I am now stuck with a cough. Even when my smoking was at it’s heaviest, I have never had what could be called a smoker cough. I kept hearing people talking about people who did, but I never coughed, not even first thing in the morning. There is something about the way my cough is now that feels as though it is now part of me, rather than something that is going to go away. I can’t explain it, it’s just a feeling. On top of that, I am also finding that I get breathless with ease. I don’t exactly get much exercise, but just going back and forward to the loo is enough.

I have this week also started to put smaller amounts of Psyllium back into my diet. Not eating for a week but with Psyllium in my system, showed me that it actually takes 12 to 14 days for food to pass through me. Part of the slow transit I know is down to the fact that I don’t really eat that much, so I am again working on changing my diet to see what happens. Last week I steered clear of the Psyllium, but I was each day eating a handful of nuts and dried fruit, something I really enjoy. I tried them first as I can’t be sure what exactly triggered my exacerbation, but they were something that I used to eat a lot of without trouble and I don’t seem to have reacted at all. On Monday, I decided to have a couple of Psyllium pancakes and again yesterday, I am hoping that by taking it every second day, rather than daily, that I will avoid that over bloated and painful stretching of my intestines that I had with it before. I decided to start it now as I know that there is very little inside me, so it is starting with an almost clean state and hopefully this will give it a better chance, plus a freer start point. Personally, I would just love to stay as I am at this second, with a stomach that isn’t as tight as a drum, pushing on every other organ in my body. I have settled into have breakfast again, not porridge but granola and I am treating it as a meal, by taking a break to eat it.

The one thing I am struggling with is that the consultant said that if anything my diet was too good. My problem with that is I would rather sit down to a handful of nuts than a pizza, I always choose the healthy option, not because it’s healthy, but because that is what I like. The closest I am getting to bad food is the fact that I enjoy a range of noodle pots that are now on the market. I wouldn’t really call them bad food, just empty food, other than the taste and that’s why I eat them. Whatever I do as far as food goes, I know that I will never find the future easy. The nerves aren’t working as they should and I can’t get around that one. Clearly it is going to take a while for me to find the right combination and the right quantities, but I can’t just leave it to luck any longer, my luck in that area ran out a while ago.

I sat the other day and I read the first 20 or so of my posts that I ever wrote. I am pleased to see that my writing has improved, but I can hardly believe just how much my health has changed in just over three years. In some ways, it is rather scary as if you had sat me down to discuss it, I would have said that things weren’t really any different, but they are and by a long way. As I often find spending time in the past has a habit of making me think to the future and I have to admit that if I am still writing three years from now, I find it hard to imagine just how my health will have changed by then. Just like aging it appears that I am as blind to that as I am to the progress of my health, this blog has become a mirror, the only place that I can see it with ease. None of us likes to think of ourselves fading, but in many ways that is just what I am doing, I am no longer just housebound, I am invisible to the outside world in a way that I didn’t feel three years ago. Despite the fact, this is my 8th year indoors, somewhere in the past three years my attitude to it has changed. It is almost as thought back then I still felt connected to my past and it was just at my fingertips, now it feels so far away that it is almost as though it was never real. I realised the other day that I hadn’t even bothered to look out the window for the past couple of years. There is nothing out there that I want or need to see. What would be the point of wasting energy standing at the window watching the cars pass below, I know what they look like and their sound is enough for me to know they exist. There is nothing out there of any use or interest, people I don’t know doing things I can’t, what is the point in watching them. I am no longer just physically separated from it, I am now emotionally separated as well.

I guess there comes a point when our minds just take over and create a new world for themselves, almost as though they are protecting us from the pain we might feel if they didn’t. I feared becoming housebound, the whole idea of never being outside this flat again felt like the end of the world. Yet as the years have passed I have changed, I have closed myself off and created all that I need right here. I would be lying if I said that I never thought about what it would be like to be able to get out of here and to do the things I used to. I think about it, but I don’t long for it or pine for it in any way any longer. Every year that is added to my tally of life here in our flat seems to be making it easier and easier to accept and to be content about where I am and even in a way why. I didn’t notice, so I can’t tell you at what point that happened, but I don’t think it was complete until the day came that I stopped looking out those windows. Even that act somehow still doesn’t feel like the end of the process and it wasn’t something I was really aware of stopping, I just did, I guess it just slowly keeps growing.

Read my blog from 2 years ago today – 2/07/13 – Ready for the truth

I’ll be keeping this short today as I have a plan of trying to get some sleep before Teressa arrives, she is going to be here between 2 and 3 pm, so my plan is to finish on here early and then sleep until…..