Diabetes, life and all that - personal diary

[pavlosn]

Guys

Apologies for not posting earlier.

I now realize that the last time I posted was when I spent the night in the ER, fearing the worst for my dad.

My dad was eventually admitted into the respiratory disease word suffering with pneumonia. He spent about ten days there before being well enough to be released back to the nursing home. So all is well at the moment.

I have been suffering with a bad dose of the flue myself and trying to manage that as well as a very busy period at work. Fortunately I am better now just the last remnants of a cough left. I was even able to go on one of my walks today for the first time in a couple of weeks.

Thank you all for your concern and wishes. They are very much appreciated.

Once again, I apologize for not coming back to update you earlier. It was wrong of me to leave matters hanging as they were.

P

 

[Kezzer4321]

Hi Pavlos, glad to hear your father is doing better. Sorry to hear you have been unwell also, but it's good to know that everything is okay.
Take care

 

[Moniker]

I think we are all just glad to see you back. Glad your dad recovered and that you are okay though busy and stressed. Take care.

 

[Pasha]

Hi Pavlos, glad to hear that things have worked out well. Be well soon.

 

[cold ethyl]

Sometimes life has a nasty way of getting in the way. Lovely to hear from you and glad that your father is improved and that you are on the mend too.x

 

[Bluetit1802]

So glad everything worked out for your dad, and pleased to see you back posting.

 

[NotSoSweet2]

Guys

Apologies for not posting earlier.

I now realize that the last time I posted was when I spent the night in the ER, fearing the worst for my dad.

My dad was eventually admitted into the respiratory disease word suffering with pneumonia. He spent about ten days there before being well enough to be released back to the nursing home. So all is well at the moment.

I have been suffering with a bad dose of the flue myself and trying to manage that as well as a very busy period at work. Fortunately I am better now just the last remnants of a cough left. I was even able to go on one of my walks today for the first time in a couple of weeks.

Thank you all for your concern and wishes. They are very much appreciated.

Once again, I apologize for not coming back to update you earlier. It was wrong of me to leave matters hanging as they were.

P

Good to see you back Pavlosn,

Glad you are on the mend and that your dad is ok. Sorry for the rotten time that you seem to have had lately. Take good care of yourself!

 

[Janiept]

Good to see you back Pavlosn,

Glad you are on the mend and that your dad is ok. Sorry for the rotten time that you seem to have had lately. Take good care of yourself!

Thanks for the update @pavlosn and it's good to hear that your Dad is recovered. Sorry to hear that you have been unwell too though, but it's that time of year isn't it.

 

[sanguine]

Welcome back Pavlos, good to hear about your Dad.

 

[killerkaz]

Hi there, loving your thread it has reminded me that I must increase my exercise as at the moment the only form of exercise I get is running around an operating theatre all day. ( mind you that can clock some miles up!) As you say it's finding something you enjoy doing and someone to do it with. Hubby is a committed couch potato. The gym bores the pants off me. I do enjoy walking, maybe I will join a local rambling club.

 

[lizdeluz]

Welcome back, Pavlos. I'm glad all is ok. Take care, don't overdo things.

 

[pavlosn]

Finally been able to get out get out for a morning walk again today.

Five and a half kilometers through glorious morning sunshine.

We seem to be running ahead of the season, the temperature feels unusually warm and flowers seem to be in bloom earlier this year.

I really must exploit this to get back into the habit of regular walking.

Have a great day everyone!

Pavlos

 

[sanguine]

Looks great Pavlos, I bet it felt good too

 

[pavlosn]

Another 5,5km walk today. Two days in a row now. Not quite a trend yet but getting there.

Took a couple of minutes at the end of my walk to look round the garden and admire these beautiful calla lilies.

Normally they bloom around Easter time but they seem to be early this year.

Catching the pearl of dew glistening in the morning sunshine served to remind me that beauty and pleasure can be found in the smallest and most trivial of things.

To be honest this came as a very welcome relief to thoughts that have been straying to some pretty dark places this morning.

I am not having the happiest of times the moment for reasons that I can not quite pinpoint.

I find myself asking questions about my life that I am not sure I want to know the answers to.

I am trying to struggle my way through it hoping that, if I do,things will work out or I will start looking at things in a brighter light again.

Just one of those phases I guess.

Pavlos

 

[Mike d]

Hi Pavlos,

You have a path .... all of us do. There's forks in the road, distractions and times when it's really hard to divorce the condition from the day to day life we face.

I choose to do the latter, hoping the focus on what we did before diagnosis overrules what we do now. Does it work? Not always.

Take joy in what you do and your achievements... when all is said and done, that is what defines you irrespective of anything else.

Mike

 

[cold ethyl]

Beautiful lilies. I think we all have those sort of times, more so when we have a serious chronic condition that makes us very focused on ourselves and our lives. Hopefully it will pass soon for you xx

 

[JohnD54]

Pavlos, delighted to hear that your father is recovering, not so much for your dark feelings.

We all have our personal demons, there to haunt us when we least expect them.

But I am sure that with the love of your family and indeed your extended family on here you will soon be in the light again.

You brighten up so many on here with your pictures and insights.

Keep well.

 

[pavlosn]

Thank you all for your words of support.

Of course we all are have our demons .

In many ways it is through fighting these demons, through visiting our dark places, that we grow and gain insight into our human nature.

There is a price to pay for understanding and empathy and for me it seems to be periods of introspection and melancholia.

The irony is that I am very much aware that I will be alright in the end. That if I keep smiling and going through the motions of my everyday life, the dark feelings will all go away and I will be ok.

In fact no one will have caught on that anything was ever wrong with me. Least of all my family. I make sure that they are shielded from that side of me.

Which, in a very unfair way, makes me feel even more "invisible" and insignificant. Part of me is even annoyed with them for not seeing through my deception.

To be honest it is not even about diabetes; or at least not mainly about diabetes.

It's about all of it.

My life.

My role on this earth.

What difference I do or do not make to anyone.

What I have or have not achieved.

I will be fifty this April and that is a large part of it.

I also have my dad, or what has been left of my dad after the strokes have taken their toll, to serve as a foretelling of a possible future to come.

I feel silly even writing these things down. It all sounds such stereotypical mid life crisis angst.

Part of me is laughing about it. But part of me knows that stereotypical or not these issues are real to me at the moment, and since I do not allow them to surface in my real life I am at least acknowledging them in this virtual one.

I do not expect any responses to this from anyone.

These are questions we each have to answer for ourselves.

I hope I do not give the impression that I am wallowing in self pity, because that is not really the case.

I feel like I am at a point where I have some issues to work through with myself but I feel capable of doing so.

I have always said that I consider myself to have been blessed in my life, for a great many reasons. Whether I have made the best of my blessings is another question.

The road not taken will always be a source of fascination.

P.

 

[cold ethyl]

I think that we all feel like that at our age which doesn't make it any less important or painful.. ( I'll be 49 this time) What have we achieved, what will our future be like, more so with an illness that we are told is progressive with the risk of serious complications? I find I spend a lot of the time feeling nostalgic for the past, for my youth and the early years of my life. If I could go back, I'm sure I'd find they weren't anywhere as great as my tinted spectacles are making it. And I think it's only natural to try and hide it from those we love but feel simultaneously resentful that they can't see our suffering or second guess our anguish. I don't have any answers other than that we are always here to listen.

 

[Mike d]

respect that Pavlos