Thursday 8 January 2015

A Pin A Day-365

A bit of an answer to this post. Remember, the one where I spoke about my lack of direction?
My friend Amy messaged me a few weeks ago and asked if I had heard about the 365 challenge and did I want to join her in completing it. It's a call to action if you will, you know how we all sit around whiling away the hours on Pinterest? I've done a lot of things that have blossomed from ideas on Pinterest, sometimes I've had in mind to do something, researched how on the internet, pinned the most relevant post somewhere on a board for future reference and gone away and done it.

I just checked, I have 129 boards on Pinterest and 2478 pins! I dont know how many I've actually incorporated in my life, but I'm going to try to record 365 of them. Amy started on the 1st of January, I started with an excuse (Of course I did!).

This blog post is to record my second PAD. Of course I've created a board on Pinterest too-you can follow it here, and catch up on my first.

This PAD is yesterdays. Our new year started of really busy as we still had elves visiting, I had an MRI that required two days of sedatives and we had The Princess' third birthday. Then the day after her birthday (the day before yesterday) I lost my footing and slipped a ligament on my left hip. In short-I got stuck, literally. The kids think its hilarious and normally we can all sort it out together but we couldnt this time. I called an ambulance and spent the day in A&E.

It was interesting, I have never seen pictures of my hip joint. Not only were x-rays requested for the fist time since I moved to the UK, but the radiographer brought his tablet over to me to have a look. The socket has this pretty feathering around the bottom. I know, it is a problem-but it LOOKS pretty. Everyone at the hospital was lovely for a change, but I am still so very sore.

"How does this relate to your PAD then?" you ask? Well, I couldn't sleep. I've never been a good sleeper. It's mostly getting to sleep that's problematic. I have loads of theory's about why but that's a whole new post. The night I got home from hospital I had no trouble, I was dosed up on morphine and codien and diazapam, and who would struggle with that?

Last night I really struggled, but I knew I would have to get up this morning as Lordbob would have to go back to work today. A few days ago, a friend of mine posted this link on Facebook.It's about a breathing technique simply called 4-7-8. "In print", it made sense to me and reminded me of how you are taught to take Entenox. That's "laughing gas" to some, it's usually what I'm given en route to hospital and whilst waiting for triage. For it to be effective, you are told to inhale it through your mouth slowly and as deep as you can, hold it for a few seconds and exhale through your nose. This is how the author of the blog post explains this breathing technique that should help you get to sleep-except just the other way around which is fair enough.

I did a quick google and found some videos about it recorded by Dr Andrew Weil. I don't know yet if he is responsible for the technique or simply teaches it, but I really liked his manner-so here is his video.

Keeping it real:This is no longer my 
bedroom. I wish it was, I hated it then
but it was heaven compared to my current
bedroom;)


I tried it before bed last night and fell asleep without my sleepmask or ear plugs and Lordbob beside me...he snores so loud that I can be watching telly downstairs after he's gone to bed and he might as well be lying on the sofa beside me! I was also on my back (the position I was in when I started counting) when I woke up at about 3am this morning...in a lot of pain. So I did it again, and the next I knew I was still on my back and Lordbob was kissing me on the forehead saying it was 7am!

So it does work, and I'm claiming it as yesterdays PAD. Give it a go, really...it's a minute and you are so relaxed after that it really does wind you down. Im going to be following Dr Weil's advice and I'm going to do it morning and evening going forward.

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