It's been over a week since I last posted.  After feeling weak on Sunday it took me Monday to recover and I felt much better by Tuesday.  On Wednesday I had a follow up with my Mickel therapist which was probably quite timely to try and keep me back on track after my wobble at the weekend, the rest of the week was good. 

Yesterday we went to the forest for a walk.  I walked a mile and a half, but my legs felt tired and weak. I don't know now whether what I'm feeling is fatigue or whether it is deconditioning because my body hasn't done anything physical for the last two years (my thighs are so much smaller than they used to be).  This situation is creating a bit of a crisis of faith in the Mickel therapy.  It goes against all the traditional pacing advice that I have been given and have followed for the last 6 months and I am very nervous of that.  Ant says I should combine the two and continue with the Mickel stuff but pace myself too.  I can see how this might sound sensible, but actually I feel it would probably mean not doing either properly.  I am going to persevere with the therapy I need to give it a good shot.

One good thing is that I have manged some weeding in the vegetable patch this week which felt really good.  I have missed gardening, it is something I struggled with because of the continual bending, but this week it has been fine.  We have a fine harvest of onions, potatoes and courgettes which have been adorning our plates for a few weeks now.

I'm on the verge of getting my bike out of the shed.

High over

Well I was on a high from my great week in the New Forest, but this morning I have sufferred a setback and it has brought me right down.

I was play fighting with one of the children and got accidentally punched in the chest just a little too hard.  My body reacted straight away.  My thighs have felt like jelly all day and my heart rate has been up.  It's like I can feel my whole body pulsating inside.  My body just feels so delicate again after I had felt so relatively strong for me.

Ant keeps telling me this is just a temporary blip and that I still need to be careful, but i feel its such a set back and I feel really sad.  The worst thing is that last week I had a taste of what it feels like to be normal again and now its gone.

Fab Week

Whilst the children have been usefully and purposefully occupied elsewhere (music school), Ant and I have  spent the past week in the New Forest.  The idea was to relax and unwind and this we did.

The good news is that for the duration of the holiday my energy levels were great.  On Wednesday we hired a tandem and cycled 11 miles.  Ant said he couldn't feel me pedalling behind, but I was, all the way.  It's a bit strange being on the back of a tandem as you can't see where you are going nor do you have any brakes.  This means you have to put all your faith in the person in front of you and trust that they are going to do it right and not get you into any scrapes.  We manged the whole 11 miles without falling off and found a nice pub on the way.

On Friday morning we went into the forest and walked non stop for an hour and a half.  This is an unprecedented distance for me at the moment and I couldn't believe it.  There is still more... on Saturday after we had picked up the children, we went for a short walk and came to a huge sand dune at first I sat at the base whilst the others climbed to the top but then I thought I'm going to have a go and up I went slowly but surely to the top.  They all gave me a big cheer at the top and I felt quite emotional.  I was reminded of how hard it was for me to climb up to my seat at the Take That concert in July.  The difference between the two was incredible.  I don't know what has created this great difference, whether it is the Mickel Therapy or all the supplements I'm taking having some noticeable effect, I'm guessing probably a combination of the two.

The week was a great success and has felt like a great achievement.

It's a week and a day now since I returned from my Mickel Therapy weekend.  It's been a really good week and I haven't had to take myself off to bed for an afternoon nap all week.  My family probably think I have been abducted by aliens.  What Mickel therapy has shown me is that actually I am not very good at analysing or even recognising my own emotional state.  I find trying to pinpoint what emotion it is that I'm actually feeling at any time really hard, but it is necessary so I must work at it.

I haven't been going silly pushing my body to extremes this week, but neither have I stopped myself from doing anything that I've wanted.  It has given me great pleasure to play swingball in the garden with the kids.   It's an active pastime that I can do with them and the closest I've been, along with our garden cricket for which I employ a "runner", to something that feels like sport for two years!

My house has benefited from my new found energy this week.  The kitchen has stayed in a reasonable state all week and on Thursday I decided to completly spring clean our bedroom.  It took two days but now the job is done and it looks lovely, it's one of those jobs that I've been wanting to do but not had the energy to tackle.  Yesterday we harvested the greengages and with the help of Ant and the girls who were busy washing and chopping, I spent a couple of hours jamming them and stewing them for the freezer.  This morning I was up at 6.30am to finish off the last batch.  These things, that might seem like very small things to your average bod, are all very positive signs to me that both mind and body are moving in the right direction.

It's three days since my last post and I haven't had any fatigue in those three days which is pretty remarkable when I think about what I've done.

On Sunday we drove to the local forest and I walked a mile, this is further than I have walked probably since about April so quite an achievement.  I was fearful on the way there, fearful of two things

1) pushing the boundries and making myself ill.

2) that the Mickel Therapy wouldn't work

So, I observed my fear using a technique I have been reading about in Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now" He says and I quote:

"So when you listen to a thought, you are aware not only of the thought but also of yourself as the witness of the thought.  A new dimension of consciousness has come in.  As you listen to the thought, you feel a conscious presence - your deeper self - behind or underneath the thought, as it were.  The thought then loses it's power over you and quickly subsides, because you are no longer energizing the mind through identification with it."

I have found this useful.  It's a great book.

After the walk in the forest I walked around a few shops in the local town and then drove my daughter to the swimming pool and back.  No symptoms.

I'm trying to restrain myself from the temptation to go mad and do too much too quickly, but I have decided that next week whilst we are on holiday I am going to hire a tandem bicycle for a day for Ant and I.

Yesterday my GP phoned and said that he had spoken to the Gastro doctor about the high amounts of fat in my stool sample.  The Gastro doctor had said that if I wanted I could take pancreatic enzymes as recommended by Dr Myhill but that I would also have to take a type of Anti acid with it, this would go agiainst what Dr Myhill suggests as she thinks I need more acid in my stomach.  I decided not to take the pancreatic enzymes at this stage.  I'm going to stick with my current supplements for the next 4 months and then see where I am.  At least I know I have something else to try in the future if needed.

Today is my 4th day taking slightly reduced amounts of my betablocker.  Yesterday I was very conscious of my heartbeat and thought that it was a little fast in the evening, but today it has been fine.  I'm just going to have to wait and see on this one.

Mickel Therapy Weekend

Yesterday I travelled by train to meet my Mickel Therapist.  I spent the afternoon with him and then stayed over at a local hotel and saw him for another two hours this morning so pretty intense really.  Following these sessions I now have all I need to come away and put Mickel therapy into practice.   So how do I feel about it now?  I think it is going to take some hard work to put into practice.  I also have to put faith in the method as parts of it challenge some of my previous thinking, but if it's going to have it's best chance of working I need to be fully committed, so I have to go for it.
Initial signs are good.  On Friday after travelling down and having a nearly 3 hour long session I walked back through town to my hotel - further than I've walked for some time.  Today we had another 2 hour session, then a two hour train journey home.  Ant was expecting me to spend the afternoon on the sofa completley exhausted when I got home (this would have been normal) but instead I took two of the children down to the bowls club to see their grandma, then I stopped off at a friends house for a long chat before coming home and then popping down to see a neighbour.  I'm not fatigued.  I am however going to bed now!

I've booked it

Well, I'd had a really busy weekend and coped with it very well.  Yesterday (Monday) I was fatigued, but it wasn't a relapse or a crash.  I had a lie down in the afternoon and my tolerance levels were low, I felt stressed and had a short fuse, but my spirits were high.  I slept really well on Monday night and today I feel back to where I was before the weekend i.e. what is now "normal" for me.  This is all very encouraging.

So today I have taken the plunge and booked myself some appointments with a Mickel Therapist.  I had been hesitant and I know why, it's because I've read recovery stories where people say that Mickel Therapy completly cured them.  My hesitance comes from the thought, at the moment, that this might really help me, but if I start it and it doesn't work then it has failed.  At the moment in my mind this treatment could cure me and it's nice to have that hope.

I'm going to make the two hour train journey on Friday and have my first treatment that afternoon then I will stay over night and have a second session on Saturday morning, returning home in the afternoon.  I am both excited and nervous.  The practitioner I am going to see sounds lovely on the phone and very understanding.

I had a phone call from the hospital today about the blood tests they did last week.  My ferritin levels are down again.  When I was first ill my ferritin was down to 5.  January this year it was 7 but after three months of iron supplements by April it was up to 40.  Now, just over three months later it is back down to 15, so I await a letter but I suspect that I might be back on the iron supplements.