Yes - So My Stress Levels Are Elevated

I know I'm keeping very enigmatic these days and it is a case of having and wanting to do that.  I can talk in general terms about things though and one of those is my high blood pressure.  It isn't off the scale it is elevated to be something like 140 over 90 which is a little higher than I like at about 120 over 80 ideally or 130 over 90.  I attribute it to some quite high stress levels at the moment and also an impact to my system.  I've talked about letting go of the older me and that is so much easier said than done. 

I'm trying to chill out but the old me isn't having any of it so it is a constant struggle to work on my breathing, my blood pressure and my concentrations levels which are total pants this week.  I have sat in front of this PC for hours at a time and not got a stroke of work done, that's how bad this week has been.  Hopefully tomorrow I can relax, meet some very good friends and just chill out - I really need it - I've been hyper all week.

I'm perhaps about to make one of the most significant changes in my life very shortly and this is all building up to and surrounding that.  Gosh it sounds important doesn't it?  It is, very important and hence the worry the concern the inability to concentrate and the lack of sleep, getting anything done and the complete lack of arriving at a suitable way forward. :-)  

Sure tomorrow will help me settle things down to an acceptable level.  

Blood Glucose Levels

well I've done about 4 weeks worth of measurements now.  There's only one reading that is high and that was the morning after cheat day which may explain it.  Generally figures of around 4 or 5 mmol/L which isn't too bad as far as I can ascertain.

I have slightly plateaued in my weight loss at the moment and I've made a few more adjustments to my diet to see if I can change that and as of early next week I am going back to do regular exercise after making myself bleed - silly sod I am - so slowly return to that but it appears that may not be that necessary whereas bringing myself down to a lower blood glucose level and into a better state of ketosis may well kick start things again. 

I can't complain it is now 5 months in to the regime.  I'm 3 stone lighter, am about 3 or 4 inches lighter around my waist, a few inches off my chest and my thighs and around my arse my shirt collar is also a couple of inches less but needs a bit more work.  So can't complain, although I'm going to :-) No not really!

Taken from the Diet Doctor Web Site, and here is the section on weight loss.  I am going to try and get to the area in point 14 of this page.  

Now I'm still also following the 4HB Tim Ferriss regime and having the one day off a week as a cheat day.  For example I'm out tomorrow with some friends and I will drink beer which will spike my insulin levels but also there will be bread and stuff, rice and the like for the curry to follow so I'll make tomorrow my cheat day.  I'm beginning to wonder whether I keep cheat day quite as heavily shocking to my system as I do at the moment - for example I will eat bread, sweets, have quite a bit of cake and all that bad stuff.  I wonder whether the real thing would be just to keep on the High Fat, Low Carbohydrate diet and just indulge once in a rare while.  It's not as if after all this time I crave for anything and yet I do really miss having beer which I do enjoy and I think that the once a week rule may be OK for that.  I've adapted to drinking Red Wine during the rest of the week and I'm also practising drinking water in a pub - I know - what am I like???

I have to say though that I have begun to feel extremely well and I don't think I have a pair of trousers that fit - I need to go and pull out all the ones I put away a few years ago.  My nice shirts now fit me like a glove which is also great news - I do like wearing them, they are really nice quality ones and make you feel good.  Of course, up until now I couldn't get into them or the collars wouldn't do up!  Now that is resolved as whilst I've still got traces of a belly it has started to tighten and there is plenty of room for the shirt to hang normally without pulling at the buttons!

I am keeping a monitor on my blood sugars and will have a series of charts to "discuss" with the Doctor.  I've yet to restart my urine testing which again I might do next week to coincide with starting the exercise regime.  Hopefully there won't be any traces of blood left which is the main thing.  All other readings are well within normal. 

Worryingly my blood pressure is up which is surprising given how much weight I've lost and all but it is presently a bit of a stress filled time at the moment and once I control myself with some EFT and a bit of deep breathing it does appear to come down to around normal.  So I'm making sure that I continue to monitor and adapt on that.  I'm still taking some Baking Soda in the mornings and although I haven't done so recently have been taking the Flax Seed Oil and Cottage Cheese (FOCC) mixture.  I did see that I might be able to use the Flax Seed Oil with Balsamic Vinegar so I might give that a go.

 Slowly - I should be able to build back to some more activity starting next week and I hope to pull myself up out of where I am at the moment.  

Come On Shake Yourself Out Of This

I'm just not doing anything at the moment apart from listening to music and reminiscing and getting chewed up by regrets of the past - well I think that is what it is.  I am completely preoccupied at the moment but just wrapped up in myself and whilst I said I didn't want to over analyse things what is actually happening is my mind is playing out lots and lots of scenarios and ifs and buts.  Now it is exactly what I didn't want to happen but I can't help it.  I'm overloaded with ideas, scenarios, huge doubts, huge highs and swooping lows :-)

I'm reading things into stuff like the lyrics of music - why did I play that particular track and so on.  It's a great and a horrible place to be.  Up ahead is a bright light and a glowing horizon something to reach out for and grasp to go and achieve to find myself to attain one with myself and the world around me to (oops Star Wars cliche alert!!) fulfil my destiny.  :-)

I feel like Johnny Mneumonic with a head that's overloaded with data - I kind of think I'm a little more articulate than Keanu Reeves :-) Sorry mate loved you in the Matrix and Constantine.  Don't hold yer breath for an Oscar - nuff said.

So right back to Johnny Mneumonic for a moment - the thing to do is really not to have so much data logged in my head, to not be analytical and explore every possibility but to just let it all go and let myself be swept up and go where it takes me.  All the thought all the schemes aren't going to be what will actually happens anyway.  It will be what it will be it will be fate, karma or whatever.  What's happening is that I'm not letting go even though I know that (intuitively) is the right thing to do and just let myself go with the flow.  

At the moment it's like a epic struggle in my body and my head like good over evil only I think good (letting go) isn't winning.  Maybe this is the twist in the plot you always see?  Clint Eastwood always gets beaten to within an inch of his life before he recovers and comes and seeks his revenge :-)  

Out with the boys tomorrow afternoon will be with a couple of my very best friends who will help me out here.  Need all the help I can get at the moment I have never ever been so out of control. By that I mean I think I should be out of control but I'm fighting not to give up my control.  It all goes so against all my natural instincts even though I think it is the right way to go.

It's all a little oblique and it's all very confusing and way, way, way outside of my comfort zone.   Cheat day arrives early tomorrow and so beer will be available and as Homer SImpson and appear to agree, Beer is the source and solution to ALL of life's problems.

I believe this is an ancient Chinese (maybe Japanese) phrase.  We used to use it a lot when I was working in the Engineering Game and was about to have to go and rescue another job and meet a very p*ssed off customer:

"How fortunate we are to live in such interesting times."

Exactly

Car Alarm Problems

I don't know what it is but every now and then the Jag alarm goes off.  It never does this during the day or early evening, oh no, It went off at around 2 am and then again at 3 and then about 4.  

No rhyme of reason I could see.  It's a bit of a sprint to get out of bed, get dressing gown on, get around the bed and my two exercise machines, down the stairs into the Kitchen where the key is, back to the door and blip the remote then to pull the front door key out and go reset the damn thing (the engine needs to be started) do a full check of the outside etc.

My guess is there is some small critter inside that's fluttering about or perhaps something outside (maybe a bit bigger) and that's triggered it off.  Whatever it is, it's a bloody nuisance but I should be able to sprint against Usain Bolt as long as they use a Jag Alarm to start the race and not a gun :-)

In other matters I'm having a pretty wobbly week all around - so much happening and so much to happen still to come.  

Lord, Please Give Me Patience

And give it to me NOW!!!!

I'm old enough to know better - I want things to happen right now I want to be back in control and that isn't going to happen and I have to get used to it.  A lifetime of being in control of all things and suddenly it is all out of my hands - nothing I can do but to tag along and go for the ride and hope that it goes where I want it to.

Damn I hate  not being in control. 

Right Off We Go

Can't get started this morning and trying to throw the fudge out of my brain.  Had a 24 hour epiphany and stupid old head it's trying to over analyse the unanalysable (oh right that is a real word!).  Part of this change is about trying to stop doing that - I always go to town and analyse stuff and do loads of research and sometimes I knew the answer when I set off on the journey.

Trying to let my heart (although that is a muscle and not really capable of decision making) rule the day for once.  So whether that's the hemispheres of my brain fighting it out I don't know - my second Americano following an earlier Espresso do not seem to have done anymore that set of palpitations going in my chest :-)

So this new me it's just there under the surface and it's fighting with its older more boring brother for dominance :-)  Rome wasn't built in a day so I'd better be patient and take this one day at a time.  Am in two places at once.  Perhaps the happiest I've been for years and also perhaps the saddest, yet alright with myself about both situations.  The biggest rut to get out of is the rut you're in and when bladder cancer came and took all my self confidence and self esteem away it also made me far more insular than I thought.  Time now to start building belief in myself and start to think well of myself.  I realised just how much I loathed myself and my existence - hardly the way I should be celebrating having survived cancer.  It should be a celebration and enjoyment of life, I've always known that I should do this but to date never got the chance to practice what I knew to be a way forward.

I thought of this just as I was writing which sort of sums it up nicely "I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good, either!" I'm going to stop trying to please everyone else and concentrate on pleasing myself a bit more and if that means going against a few deep seated principles then maybe that's what I've got to do.  I've always thought about my actions and making sure they were right for everyone and ensuring that compromise was the way.  After all it was my job to make the unpleasant more palatable as a Project Manager and agent of change.

So I'm having to leave common sense, logic and emotion to have a three way death match in my head - may the best one win that's all I hope... :-)

Recurring Emotional State

I'm never certain about what the hell the experience actually did in terms of screwing up my internal systems and shooting my hormones to pieces.  The years of what could only be looked at as Post Traumatic Stress and the huge fatigues are gone but there's still this urge to just break down and cry.  

I've wondered if it is because I've never let it out apart from on this blog and then only edited. The internal scream has never surfaced and never been heard and whilst I know I did feel sorry for myself I never did grieve or just let it all out.

I learnt something today and that was just how powerful emotions can be.  I've never felt quite so terrified and excited at the same time so in charge and out of control :-) I'm alive, I can bring it all together now and move on.  It is something that has been missing in my life for many years and I can't even begin to tell you how hopeful I am that this will finally sort me out.

Life just changed lanes, directions and road types today - finally, finally something to build on and move away from these horrible 7 or so years.  Yes it will be 7 years on July 2nd, where does the time go?  I feel I've been building on sand these past 6 or more years and now maybe, just maybe and please please please let it be so that things will turn around and I can move on.  Let me build on rock and get the hell out of the place I've been and can still see in my rear view mirrors.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry but I've had tears in my eyes all day just there in the corner.  I might say it is hay fever or a bit of dust but really they are tears of hope and joy and perhaps having found that missing piece I have been looking for for so long.

A Milestone Day

This is a holding page because today is very likely to be an important day in my life.  I don't know that it is.  I very much hope that it maybe and by putting this placeholder in on this day I can perhaps come back to it and see if it was the major turning point in my life after Cancer.

Since just after I knew I was likely to survive I've been searching and trying to find that missing component, the thing that somehow would bring the journey to an end and yet a beginning all at the same time.  I have no doubt that this journey is going to be as difficult to follow as my cancer one but the outcome I hope will be worthwhile.

There you go - an enigmatic post on the 18th June 2013.  

What Being A Control Freak Looks Like

I am (without doubt) a control freak and here is a remote control made especially for me!

Enjoy :-) Click the image to enlarge it (it's OK it's not an order!)

In Pursuit Of Happiness

The American Dream and nothing wrong in that is there?  For years I've been trying to work out what my brush with cancer meant - what was its purpose :-) if that isn't too way out an idea.  

It dawns on me that I've been trying to make surviving worth it but inevitably, being the only "victim" maybe I am the only one who has this knowledge (if that's what it is).  I tried to make the difference in both the charity and my last venture.  There was achievement and pride in what I had done but no deep down satisfaction, nothing that worked at the core that satisfied mind and body.  

The idea of the American Dream is rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence which proclaims that "all men are created equal" and that they are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" including "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."

I wonder if I have been trying too hard to change not just me but all those around me.  They have no reason to change, no reason at all.  Hard as it seems I may just have to go and please myself and pursue my own dreams.  I think too much maybe it is a case of letting go and letting life happen to me as it arrives, abandon myself to my feelings and not to my over analytical, planning and scheme making mind?  I have my health and so that's great and there's the world out there just waiting :-)  

Time for decisive decision making - or is it :-) I need to change approach maybe let go a bit drop the head and follow the heart?  Bit difficult for me being a control freak, project manager and analyst I know.

Brand New Day

This has been banging on through my head all evening so thought I'd post it here maybe I can refer to it later.

So much going on. So much happening, brain is awash with ideas and plans and fears and doubts.  This song doesn't help :-)  or does it?

It Is Your Destiny

Was amused at my post on Facebook this morning (Father's Day)

I AM your Father Luke

How come no Father's Day Card?  :-)

Well these things amuse me - and I was on good form tonight with some old friends we went to a lovely country pub and had a good old chinwag.  In the old days we'd talk about gigs and houses and cars now we talk about our aged and infirm parents!  I managed to take it down a few notches as it was cheat day and the beer and sugar had done their worst :-)  I like to think I'm quite amusing when I have had a few drinks!

Something was missing from the evening though and there's always this dilemma about getting home, I've got to go to work, I'm Tired and all that stuff to contend with.  I'm the one who should get tired and wants to go home!  Actually I could go on all night I'm so pumped at the moment.

I feel really charged and so full of hope for the future - I really want to get my arse in gear and move things forward for good or bad as soon as possible.  As Winston Churchill was apt to say "Action This Day!"  So shall it be....

Father's Day - Without My Father

We'd talk and swap jokes and pass the time of day.  Not sure what I'd say to him today other than to thank him and that's not doing it justice is it?  Not for your dad.  It's not been quite a year yet since he died and I'm OK about it, I am.

I had very little sleep last night - stuff was going round and round in my head.  Good stuff mainly but some bad stuff too.  Thinking too much and mulling over the future and the past, what I'd do the same and what I'd do different.  

Then some words flew into my brain (I don't know how this happens - it just does!) and the words from the film 2010 came into my mind.  The Hal 9000 computer that had been at the centre of the 2001 film is brought back to life and just before the climax of the film the computer speaks - I'm not sure if it is exactly what it said but it played out this in my head:

"Dave, Dave.  Something wonderful is about to happen"  That made me smile and I'd have shared that with my dad on Father's Day I think.  Is something wonderful about to happen?  It would be nice to think that that is so.

Diet / Lifestyle

I'm almost thinking that this should be required viewing.....  Also see the web site http://www.dietdoctor.com/lchf 

Results

Yippee!

Letter through from the Hospital and there's an interesting line in there but more so because this line "His random biopsies and urine cytology as well as a CT Scan show no evidence of any malignancy.  He should continue with regular flexible Cystoscopies and urine cytology repeat.   will see him in 6 months time.

Interesting is that it says that in 2010 I had a recurrence pTa G2 which is interesting as I don't recall that in 2010 but I think it was more likely to be 2007/8 when I did have a recurrence - I need to go and re-read my documents.  

Goodbye faithful old printer :-)

I've had an A3 HP inkjet printer for many years - over 10 I'd guess perhaps even 14 years as I also used to have a A3 Laser which was massive and that got pressed into working alongside the colour one when I did the Family History weekend way back in 2001.

After all that good service it appears that it has finally given up the ghost and now only prints in black.  I will see if someone wants to recycle it and if not will drop it off to the recycling depot.

It's interesting as it has left a gaping hole on my office workbench - I will probably replace it in time but for the moment I'm just getting rid of stuff in the office as I think I can safely remove all my old books and mechanical and electrical stuff (I only left that industry 25 years ago)!  Gradually I'm getting around to sorting this mess out and will be able to move around the office and also archive off loads of other stuff.  I am wondering about how long I actually need to keep records for in terms of my Lodge accounts - I have them going back tens of years and they really aren't that interesting unless you are a frustrated accountant historian I suppose with a propensity for the minutiae of subscription and the price of food in the 1970s.  I shall ask the question and see if I can't get rid of it - I have no idea why anyone would want it, even for historical interest?

There's stuff here that I can't believe I've kept and so that has been shown the recycling bin :-)  It is horrific how quickly stuff goes out of use - all my original network equipment, old fashioned connecting cables and stuff that just aren't used anymore and yet my office couldn't function without way back in the day!

I'm feeling good at the moment and suddenly the room is beginning to get sorted, the wood on my desk is appearing from under the accumulated paperwork and files.  Amazing.

Long Day

It wasn't planned to be a long day but I eventually got home close to 11:30 at night after we had to reschedule the meetings.  It was interesting enough and two very different propositions to be sure.

I then found myself catching up online with a friend and then realised that it had gone 2 in the morning and I went to bed.  I'm pretty exhausted today - having not done meetings - and one was over 5 hours long - for a while, I am suffering a bit this morning.  My new super dooper coffee machine has arrived but there wasn't any coffee tabs to go in it!  I've now ordered those so I have a super machine that isn't making any coffee at all at the moment :-) Hopefully I might get some by Saturday.

Distractions just kept coming

Absolutely nothing got done today except I'm meeting a couple of guys who have some business going on they'd like my assistance with.  Well I'll go along as I know them but I'm not certain that I can actually do much with them at the moment.  I really need to be looking at my own ventures and getting some cash in through the door one way or the other.

Well it means that Wednesday will be a bit of a wash out for me but let's see how it goes.

Other than that - things were fine - just a day gone in a flash.

Monday wrecked

I had high hopes of a useful and productive day today and within an hour it was totally wrecked - nothing worrying just a series of phone calls that interrupted my morning and so stuff I was about to do is now moved to the afternoon and once again - another call and some more emails.

I need to get back to my project management principles and time management focus to get past all of this.  

I've no real distractions as my year in office ended on Saturday and I'm a bit of a free agent now but just need to guard this loss of time and erosion of my working day.  

More later no doubt.

Another Victim

Sometimes you forget just how fortunate you are.  Today Iain Banks died having been diagnosed with Bladder Cancer.  It was interesting too to listen to how many people in my Lodge have Bladder Cancer - I know of 6 now and one was having an operation over the weekend.  It is extremely worrying to know how frequently it is diagnosed and so many people have it.

The crazy thing is that it kills people and I've had this thing inside me that can do that.  Somehow it seems distant from me or maybe I've just never owned up to the threat that was posed to me.  Maybe I did but then focussed on the positives and put the other stuff behind me. 

Saturday was very successful and a huge blowout cheat day but I managed to do pretty well in the ceremonial stuff I did and most people said they enjoyed it which is good.  Today was a lazy day as I really did push out the boat and had far too much of everything.

Tomorrow is the key day to now get on and move on plans and start to build new life No. 4 or 5 - I'm not sure but a new page can be turned over and a new chapter written.