Snaps ‘n’ Crackles #2 – Health & Wellbeing

It’s been a while since I did one of my snaps ‘n’ crackles catch up posts. Actually this is the first time LOL!  The first one I did was in February and was originally called Miscellaneous Crackles #1 but I’ve gone back and changed its name to Snaps ‘n’ Crackles #1.  I’ve decided I wanted to rename these posts to something a little more original to WOTM!  So ‘Snaps ‘n’ Crackles’ they will be!  They are posts where along with some ‘snaps’ I spill random thoughts and/or catch you up on what I’ve been up to (the ‘crackles’).

So let’s get started …

Health & Wellbeing

I’ve mentioned in a couple of posts that I’ve had some health issues. I haven’t wanted to give any more detail to this point both because 1) I’m a private person and though I share a lot of myself and my thoughts here on the blog, I do like to exercise caution and mull over what I do share here, and 2) because I wasn’t entirely sure what I was dealing with. Now that I know more, I thought I’d fill you in a little!  Rather than bore you with all the detail, I’ll just throw around some words and that will hopefully be enough to give you an idea of what is going on.

Main Symptoms: racing heartbeat, fluid retention, ongoing & worsening female cyclic pain & discomfort, minor to moderate temperature, rapid weight gain (over last 6+ months), high blood pressure,  lethargy. I have an existing condition of Hypothyroidism (under-active thyroid gland) that, given my symptoms, also needed to be checked.

Tests done: Blood test, pelvic ultrasound, ECG, Echocardiogram

Diagnosis/Results: minor heart murmur (nothing to worry about – heart is fine), enlarged uterus – most likely Adenomyosis, deficient in: Vitamin D, Vitamin B12, Iron and Progesterone, insulin levels too high (puts me at risk of developing type 2 diabetes), thyroid results a little wonky, temperature was likely from a virus.

Treatment: Taking Iron and Vitamin D supplements, getting fortnightly injections of Vitamin B12, tweaking my hypothyroidism medication, on a very strict diet to lose some weight ASAP and will follow up with a revised eating plan and more structured regular exercise, am going to try a bio-identical progesterone cream (not started this yet), have a referral to a Gynaecologist if need be as the only real cure to Adenomyosis is a hysterectomy. Phew!

So there you go! I’m a tad perplexed as to how my insulin levels got too high but can only assume it all ties in with the weight gain which relates back to both the thyroid and Adenomyosis conditions. I eat very healthy foods and put a lot of thought and time into planning my meals. I’m not huge on exercise but do like regular long walks. Anyway, I’m feeling much better now. The virus has gone and I was lucky enough to escape getting a bad bug that my daughter and husband had recently – by sleeping 5 nights in a row on the lounge and spraying copious amounts of Glen 20 around the house! I’ve lost nearly 3kg so far! My energy levels have picked up! I’m due for my second B12 injection this Thursday. I’m going to wait and see how I feel after using the Progesterone cream for at least a few months before I decide whether I take the step of visiting the Gynaecologist.

As a kid and young lady I was always SO grateful I was born a girl because we get to have long hair and wear pretty clothes and make up and put nice things in our hair.  I have to admit that these days there are days that I envy the males of our species!!

Chelsea, Food Obsession and Dementia in Dogs

Our old girl ‘Chelsea’ (see her HERE), a 15.3 year old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, is driving us all crazy with her food obsession. It’s so true that the aged can go back to childhood behaviours and needs. When Chelsea was a little puppy she was on three feeds a day which were gradually eased back to two feeds per day and then just one. As she has reached her ‘dementia years’ she has increased from needing one feed per day to two and now three.  It’s been difficult to try to ration her food across the day without her gaining weight. She is very determined when she is hungry!! She has taken to scratching on my son’s bedroom door demanding to be fed, to the point where she has taken the paint off.  In an effort to try and control her obsession for food, we engineered all sorts of elaborate set ups to stop her scratching paint off his door – all of them turning our house into an obstacle course!  One we tried was lying a dining chair in front of the door but she just scratched at that and eventually worked out how to move it aside.  We don’t bother with any of our obstacle courses anymore.  It was no use because she just wouldn’t give up and the continual scratching and eventual barking was driving us mad.  Now we divide what was her one feed for the day into three and feed that at breakfast, lunch and dinner times.  No need to worry about forgetting to feed her.  She lets us know when it is time and we feed her pretty fast if we don’t want any more paint taken off the door.  She is one clever dog!  Once she is fed and satisfied then she sleeps and snores (don’t start me on the snoring!) … until she is next hungry!

It’s hard but yet a privilege to watch our Chelsea age.  We never expected that she would live to this age.  She was once a very active (hyper even!) and energetic girl.  Nowadays, she displays lots of the typical signs of aging, like:

• There’s a white film over both her eyes so we don’t think she sees too well!
• She walks around and around and around in circles before lowering herself to lie down. Her legs are stiff and sore. Mostly we pick her up and lie her down ourselves because it is frustrating to watch her walking in circles for such long periods of time.
• Sometimes she gets up and starts walking off and then just stops. She forgets what she was doing. I shout out suggestions to her “were you going to go outside for a wee?”, “perhaps you were on your way to get a drink of water?”.  It seems to work because eventually you see her brain engage again and off she shuffles to wherever she was going.
• Often when she’s lying down on the tiles, she can’t get her back legs to work to help her get up. It doesn’t help that the tiles are slippery! One day I had been in the shower. I came out to find her lying in her own urine. She was trying to get up to go outside to the toilet but her legs wouldn’t work and ultimately her bladder couldn’t hold any longer.  There was an unscheduled bathing of a dog on that day!

Sometimes when she is sleeping she looks so still and I am scared that she has passed away. I look for movement of her chest and it always comes. One day I won’t be so lucky. She is a lot of work these days … but gee we love her.

My Birthday

On May 31 it was my birthday … again! It seems like only days ago I turned 50 but it’s now been over a year. Why is it that time seems to speed up the older you get? I really wish time would slow down!  Just goes to show that we need to make the most of each and every day because time will stop for no-one!

On my birthday, I had breakfast at home with my family and then I picked up my sister and we headed over to my parents house where my youngest sister met us. Then Mum, myself and 2 sisters (just missing the 1 sister who lives in Sydney) went out for a girls lunch and came back later for coffee and cake with Dad. Then it was home to my lot for dinner!

I got some lovely gifts! One of my gifts was this book ‘My Delicious Life’ by Michelle Crawford which I’m thoroughly enjoying reading. It’s particularly enjoyable to read now that I’ve been to Tasmania and can visualize a lot of the places that she mentions. Oh I’m so envious of her country life.  I hope to one day live a little more rurally.  Here’s the synopsis for her book (you will see why I am so enjoying it!):

I dreamed of a rambling old farmhouse where I could grow my own food, learn how to bake cakes and make jam. I wanted to wear gumboots. Every day. Organising cocktail parties at the Sydney Opera House sounds perfectly glamorous, and for a while it was for Michelle Crawford. But once she became a mother, the yearning to find her own little slice of heaven in the country could no longer be ignored. For years she had daydreamed of a little farmhouse, with smoke curling out of the chimney, where she could slow down and grow her own food. Last but not least, she was hungry for a new adventure. An old farmhouse nestled in Tasmania’s lush Huon Valley offered the chance to make that dream come true – and adventure in spades, from her first disastrous attempt at planting a veggie garden to raising a bunch of chickens with attitude, learning to love her wood stove and foraging for treasure to make sloe gin, jam and bake cakes. Lots of cakes. Warm, down to earth and inspiring, and lushly illustrated with lip-smacking images and recipes, A Table in the Orchard is breathtaking proof of how seductive a taste of slow living in one of the most beautiful valleys in Tasmania might be.  Like Michelle, you might be tempted to make your own crumpets – or run away to the Apple Isle.

Michelle also blogs over at Hugo and Elsa, which is fabulous! She has one new follower in me!

Winter

I don’t know about you but I am loving the cold change we’re having here in Brisbane. It feels like winter – at last!  Well – a Brisbane winter anyway! 🙂

Here’s some things I love about winter:

• Hot showers in the morning
• Nana rugs on the lounge watching TV
• Sleeping comfortably snuggled under a doona at night
• Wearing clothes without sweating in them
• Having my hair down (mostly too hot to in summer)
• Reading a book in the sunshine
• Gardening is so much more pleasant when not being cooked while you’re at it!
• Soups!

Hospitals, General Anaesthetic and Wisdom Teeth

At 11am this morning my daughter checks in to hospital to go under a GA to have all four (4) of her wisdom teeth extracted.  As a mum, I can’t help but worry when any of my kids go under a GA for anything.  The wisdom teeth problem comes from my husband and his side of the family.  I never got wisdom teeth so never needed any extracted (neither did my parents or siblings!).  First Twin 2 had to have all four (4) extracted under a GA like his sister will be, then more recently Twin 1 needed two (2) extracted but that was able to be done in the local dental rooms and no GA required.  I’ll be glad when it is all over.  She’ll be sore for a while!  Meanwhile, we’ve stocked up on custard, jelly and I’ll be cooking up plenty of soups!

What about you – ever had an old dog with dementia?  Do you love winter like I do?  Maybe not if you live in a really cold place!  Any other Brisbanites out there enjoying our lovely winter?  Have you had wisdom teeth extracted?

Phew!  That was a long post.  If you made it to this point then well done and thank you! 🙂

Ciao for now,

Linking up with Essentially Jess for #IBOT