Weather

I'm british so I think a blog about the weather is quite normal.

This week all we have had is rain and after a very very wet summer the water has no where to go!

My garden is waterloged but we are lucky that we live on higher ground. I feel for all the poor people that I have seen on the news, who have had their houses flooded.

I feel very lucky to live were I do but I just want this horried weather to stop. It is so gray out most of the time. We are getting up when it's dark and it is getting darker so early now. (I do know it's winter & this is normal for it to get dark early)

My poor cats want to go out but as soon as I open the door they look out and do a backwards walk away from the door.

With the weather the way it is I can't even let the children out in the garden. So the poor things are in their room making lots of mess which they don't tidy up after they have finished playing. So it's down to me or most of the time my husband to get them to help him tidy up before bedtime stories.

Even the children are asking when it is going to stop raining. They don't mind the rain as it makes nice puddles which are great for a game of 'splish slash splosh' which consits of jumping in puddles to see who makes the biggest slash.

Lets hope this wet spell does end soon.

Migraine from Hell

I have just had the migraine from hell.

It started on Friday and I took my migraine meds, Rizatriptan, and I thought it was gone by late evening.

On Saturday I had a slight headache but it was nothing much so didn't take any painkillers. On Sunday I still had the headache so took some painkillers in the morning and thought nothing more of it until we got home from my in-laws. When my head felt like it was going to expolde and boom headache turned into migraine from hell.

I took some co-dydramol but it did nothing. Then at about 10pm I was very sick and my head felt like someone was smashing me with a sledge hammer. My pacemaker was going off quite alot while my head was thumping.

I ended up taking more co-dydramol at 12.30am and still couldn't sleep. These painkillers didn't work either. At about 1.30am I almost woke my husband up to take me to the hospital, it was so bad. But there was one last thing I could try a very hot bath and I just lay there for over an hour until the bath water went cold. Only then did the pain subside enough for me to finally get some sleep.

This morning my husband had to take our daughter to school as I was in no fit state to do anything for most of the day. The poor thing, my husband that is, has had to take the whole day off work unpaid. It is only now that the pain is finally going away.

This is the worst migraine I have had for about 4 years!

School applications

I have filled in my daughter's school application. She already goes to the nursery at the same school but this does not guarantee her a place in the main school.

As I'm trying to get her into a church school we have to wait for the school to send us another form to fill in, and that's additional to the online form that we have already filled in.

I want her in this particular school as we go to church most Sundays (I can't say every Sunday as we visit our family over some weekends) and my daughter goes to sunday school, which she really enjoys.
She got a lovely bible from the school last week and will sit flicking through the pages, even though she can't read yet. I have read her the story of Noah and the ark, Genesis 6-9. She likes that story as it has animals in it.

But back to the application process.
You can put down that you need to go to a particular school because of a health problem. I did need to use this option when I got her into the nursery as, at that point, I was collapsing every 3-10 days with no warning signs, so could have collapsed on the way to or from school. Even though the school is only 745 meters from our door it is not classed as our local school. The 'local' school is 1245 meters away from my door.

This time though, as I have had my pacemaker fitted and am not collapsing ('touch wood' as they say), I don't think it's approperate for me to use medical grounds for a school place for my daughter.

I have only put down the church school on my application, even though you can have up to four choices. My daugher loves the nursery school and she wants to go to the 'big part' of the school. She has grown so much since starting there and I want that to continue.

In January I will have to fill in another application for my son to start at the same nursery. 

My daughter, my carer.

As you will know from my other posts, having Vasovagal Syncope is the bane of my life.

My daughter has been looking after me ever since she could crawl! Every time I collapsed she would sit down by my side and stroke my hair, and she would not let me get up for at least twenty minutes after. If I tried to get up she would say 'mummy lay down' and push on my chest to stop me getting up. After that she would only let me sit up on the floor. It could be over half an hour before I even got on the sofa for my sleep.

She is only just four years old and has been very worried about me for most of her short life. I do think that it scared her as she would not know if I would wake up and when I did I would most likely have some kind of injury.

Meny times she has had to get me an ice pack out of the frezer for a spained arm or broken wrist. I did once brake a coffee table and now have a very nice dent in my arm, which will be there forever.

My little girl has been my rock and she even now asks if I'm going to 'boom head', one of the little names she has given my condition.

When I had the Reveal device implanted she would go get the remote when I collapsed and press the button to make it record. She loved doing this as it made her feel important. Not that she was not important before she has been that since the moment she was born :)

When I told her that she was going to start school she got very worried about what would happen while she was not with me and said she didn't want to go to school. But she did start teaching her little brother want to do if I collapsed. But when we made the dission to have the PM it was partly for her and my son so they could have a normal childhood and be able to go out and not have that worry in the back of their minds that something could happen to mummy if we go out.

I am glad now that I have my PM she dosen't have to worry anymore, and she can have a proper childhood.

Ticking Clock

I can feel my pacemaker when it activates. It feels like the tick of a clock, it does not hurt but I am aware of it. It usually goes off for a minute then stops, but sometimes it will go off again a few minutes later and at that point my heart feels like its has moved to my throat and I sometimes feel nauseus.

I have been told that this is because my pacemaker is set to a very sensitive level so it will activate as soon as my heart drops below 60bpm. This could have been changed at my first checkup, to make it less sensitive, but I was worried that if my settings were changed I might collapse again and, having not collapsed for six weeks, I didn't want to tempt fate. I asked the pacing doctor (that's his job title, not an indication of anxiety) to leave it alone as it lets me know when it's working and puts my mind at rest. My pacing doctor was happy to leave the settings as they were.

I was also told that the battery would last ten years. The pacing doctors will always tell me how long the battery will last every time I go for a check up, so the count down is on. On average a battery lasts ten years. I'm 32 now so I could need five or six battery changes in my lifetime and possibly one or two lead changes. Lets hope the technology gets better and the batteries last longer so I might need less replacements in the future.

This ticking clock is my new reasuring friend. As time goes on my body is getting used to this sensation and I'm not feeling it as much as I did when the pacemaker was first implanted.

Exercise with a Pacemaker

So I feel fat!!!

Not getting much exercise before and since having the PM. I'm currently a size 14. I used to be a nice size 10 top half and a size 12 bottom half. Now though, I have a nice belly which looks like I have a shelf, this is down to the two C sections I have had. I so wish that the hospital could sort this problem out, a nice tummy tuck at the same time, that would be nice.

I have been told that now I have had my 6 week check up for the PM I can get back to normal exercise. But what is normal these days. As we all know the country has and obesity epidemic. Going by my current BMI, body mass index, I am in the over weight category. Only just but I am over weight.

Now back to the exercise problem!

The only exercise that I have been doing is the school run. Most of the time the school run consists of fast power walking, pushing my sons buggy, to my daughters school in the morning and a slow walk back home. Then another fast ish walk, dragging my son who insists on walking, to pick her up at lunch time and another slow walk back home for lunch. Other than that the odd walk into town is all the exercise I do.

Must try to do more but what?

Swimming is out as the open air pool is only open from May till the first week of September. The nearest indoor pool is a fun pool so lane swimming is out.

Running is another option but with the nights getting darker and with my husband getting back from work when it's dark outside, I have no one to look after the children, while it is still light. Which would only leave the weekend and that's family time.

Joining a Gym is also out as I have no extra money for the extortionate fees you have to pay them. I did join one once when I had no children and a full time job. But even then it was costing £60+ per month and they didn't even have a pool.

So for the moment it's the school run and the Wii Fit for me.