Hospital appointments and sleep
My hospital appointment happened last week and conveniently fitted into just over an hour - including walking - so I didn't have to take a sick day. I got a letter the day before saying our consultant, who had built the service up virtually from scratch, was leaving us to do the same for a different respiratory illness (COPD I think). It's good for him, since it means he has a reputation, but leaves us back down to one consultant (I also like the man, since he's the first consultant I truly felt I had an equal relationship with). I am not feeling as sad as I feel I ought to though, since the second consultant is good, well liked by patients and does, in fact, listen to me without much patronising (I don't think he means to, but I occasionally catch a look of 'whatever you say, mate' in his eyes; it could just be me). Moreover, they have a top new registrar.
Yes, I was very surprised when the doctor came in and said she was the new registrar and was going to do my checkup. I asked if she had been warned about me, if she was sane and did she know that I hadn't been let loose on a registrar for several years - she said yes, and she was quite happy. I gather she had in fact been told to listen to me and accept what I said. It was a pretty quick checkup in the end, but I did manage to pry out of her that she thought it was people skills, and that you either have them or your don't. I actually disagree two-fold. Firstly, most doctors can learn to improve their ability to read patients, but most consultants/registrars choose not to or fear to listen too carefully to their patients. Secondly, I also think that she had a fast brain which kept pace with mine (actually, I was short on sleep so she was faster than me). Anyway, she didn't try to sell me anything at all and let me go on my merry way. Good stuff.
To the actual results, my lung function was about the same as last time - not good compared to where I would want it, but good enough for my current level of health and fitness. They are actually starting to really clamp down on my blowing technique* which has got me such good results for years *sigh*. My weight was down slightly, but I'm still 4-5 kg over my ideal weight so I'm not worrying. In fact this leads me onto the other half of this post.
Sleep. While I had heat on my lungs, I was waking up early, coughing. When that went I finally got some decent sleep again, but I'm still failing to get enough sleep, whether I go to bed early or late. There was a good patch, and then last week I did two nights of research for my Masters and my sleep pattern was shot (too tired to get to bed, not sleeping in enough). At least I was up enough to do various tasks which needed to be done during the day. I had another glitch after vampire (too much plotting, not enough sleep, damnit!), but in reality the problem were there before.
It may be related to blood sugar problems - after I saw the osteopath last week and he fixed my diaphragm, my diabetes improved noticeably. It didn't take too long for it to slip though, and now I'm taking huge amounts of insulin again. It's not at its worst (fruit cake may send my sugars up, but they do come down again), but it's not great. I'm going to try cooling my lungs again with no.14 (and,er, not eating cake) for a bit, see if it makes any difference. Maybe see if I can stretch my own diaphragm a bit, but it's not the easiest thing to manipulate.
Anyway, it's the end of a hectic week (mainly work and sleep problems) so I'm just glad to get myself to post something. I still have 4-5 books to review but they'll have to wait.
* For anyone with a dirty mind, no comment.
Yes, I was very surprised when the doctor came in and said she was the new registrar and was going to do my checkup. I asked if she had been warned about me, if she was sane and did she know that I hadn't been let loose on a registrar for several years - she said yes, and she was quite happy. I gather she had in fact been told to listen to me and accept what I said. It was a pretty quick checkup in the end, but I did manage to pry out of her that she thought it was people skills, and that you either have them or your don't. I actually disagree two-fold. Firstly, most doctors can learn to improve their ability to read patients, but most consultants/registrars choose not to or fear to listen too carefully to their patients. Secondly, I also think that she had a fast brain which kept pace with mine (actually, I was short on sleep so she was faster than me). Anyway, she didn't try to sell me anything at all and let me go on my merry way. Good stuff.
To the actual results, my lung function was about the same as last time - not good compared to where I would want it, but good enough for my current level of health and fitness. They are actually starting to really clamp down on my blowing technique* which has got me such good results for years *sigh*. My weight was down slightly, but I'm still 4-5 kg over my ideal weight so I'm not worrying. In fact this leads me onto the other half of this post.
Sleep. While I had heat on my lungs, I was waking up early, coughing. When that went I finally got some decent sleep again, but I'm still failing to get enough sleep, whether I go to bed early or late. There was a good patch, and then last week I did two nights of research for my Masters and my sleep pattern was shot (too tired to get to bed, not sleeping in enough). At least I was up enough to do various tasks which needed to be done during the day. I had another glitch after vampire (too much plotting, not enough sleep, damnit!), but in reality the problem were there before.
It may be related to blood sugar problems - after I saw the osteopath last week and he fixed my diaphragm, my diabetes improved noticeably. It didn't take too long for it to slip though, and now I'm taking huge amounts of insulin again. It's not at its worst (fruit cake may send my sugars up, but they do come down again), but it's not great. I'm going to try cooling my lungs again with no.14 (and,er, not eating cake) for a bit, see if it makes any difference. Maybe see if I can stretch my own diaphragm a bit, but it's not the easiest thing to manipulate.
Anyway, it's the end of a hectic week (mainly work and sleep problems) so I'm just glad to get myself to post something. I still have 4-5 books to review but they'll have to wait.
* For anyone with a dirty mind, no comment.