Eat Well, Sleep Well, Move With Purpose

In my experience, looking forward and behind me from where I now find myself, trying to understand the different paths my various journeys have taken me on, I've come to believe that the road to recovery, and the maintenance of whatever balance you need to find with your body and your mind is predicated on a simple mantra that can be applied to how you live your life at every stage;
Eat Well, Sleep Well, Move with Purpose.

Yes, I know its been said before in many different ways, the one that comes closest is the Eat well, Sleep Well, Exercise phrasing we hear occasionally.

Of course diet is always important, and always has been.  Not only do we need to be aware of what our body's nutritional needs are at every stage in our lives, but we need to eat the 'right' stuff.  We need to maintain a balanced caloric intake that takes into account our activity levels, and not to avoid the temptation to over eat.  This also applies to what we drink; hydrate!!  We need to make sure that we are taking in the right amount of fluids.  The consumption of booze is another of the points for serious discussion that often become arguments, but to that I will just say, apply the rules of  'moderation'.

We under estimate the need for good sleep patterns.  Research shows it, and its popping up in the news/media again.

Move with  Purpose means, on balance just what it sounds like; get moving, get exercising, but do it for a reason, with an end state in mind.

#Eat well, Sleep well, Move With Purpose

The shift in space and reality because of a shift in Geography

I am sitting just outside a café in Merseyside, in the United Kingdom, reflecting on the differences between the culture I live in, and the cultures here.  It is odd that there are so many differences, on one level, because my family is a Canadian reflection of the culture here, being offshoots of families that still live in England, Wales and Ireland.  Yet the way we approach life in my corner of Canada is different, and largely driven by climate, populating density and a cost-of-living discordance.  What I pay a loonies/dollar for in Canada, I am paying a pound for in the UK.  That sounds okay on the surface, but when you note that the exchange rate is approximately 1.9 to  1, almost a 2 to 1 ratio, it makes little sense.  So a one dollar chocolate bar becomes 2 dollars, so quickly. You can quickly get confused if you try to compare the currencies using anything like an apples to oranges measure.  But the other harmonic in this is that the monies being earned here are equivalent and there is the balance point.  Huh?  Basically what I mean is that the Brits earn in pounds and spend in pounds.  If I worked here I would earn in pounds and spend in pounds.  The dissonance goes away....  it is only when you are working to match apples to apples does the apparent inequity show up.  Don't do it; its a tough one to try to balance when you're on vacation.

Did I mention that I am somewhat surprised by the number of middle agers (50 something's to mid sixties) who are just wandering about, doing errands, looking after toddlers, and generally going about their business of living outside of 'business'.  For instance, a fifty-something man just strolled by with a loaf of bread under his arm, an older woman just wheeled a toddler by on her way to visit friends over a coffee.  This little village with a road running through it that feels like a fairly major artery is idyllic on the surface, but teeming with activity underneath the surface.

Sorry; this post is a bit of a ramble.  I needed to write something, but couldn't focus on my book or on the technical blog posts...

Have fun!

Another turn around the sun, and a milestone birthday come and gone

I suppose that I should acknowledge, based on years of observation, that some people have significant challenges with the ‘milestone’ birthdays.  Some folk revel in them, basking in the glow of achievement and celebration, some are seriously afraid of them and what they perceive them to mean about the progression of their lives.  Each milestone means we are older.  Each milestone can also be used as a marker of where we should be in our lives in terms of career, family, relationships and so many more silly little things that are defined by the society we choose to live in, bumping up against the framework for success that the society creates.  And of course the moment you subscribe to or endorse any such framework, it becomes the yardstick by which we measure our lives.  The measuring is what I'm pretty sure is the disturbing part for many.  What have you achieved?  How do you deserve to celebrate, or be celebrated at this particular milestone?

Okay, so I have hit a serious milestone but to me it really is just another birthday.  The difference for me though is that each birthday is a celebration; I’ve lived another year defying the odds.  And that’s what is important to me.  I got slammed with a life threatening cancer some years ago, and then the hemorrhagic stroke two years ago.  Each birthday says “I’m not done!” which is either due to my own stubborn naiveté or the universe acknowledging that my contribution to the world is inadequate and I need to top things up a bit.   

Paraphrasing the lyrics to a song here; another turn around the sun, another year gone, but the work still not done.

Broke a tooth!

Oh for crying out loud!  Last night while we were out to an event at a local 'hall' I broke a piece off a molar.

there is no pain or anything that traumatic.

My concern is that the radiation and chemo therapy is finally catching up with me, five years later.
Not only have I had to undergo a root canal recently, but now this tooth has started to come apart.  The way the piece came away reminds me of glaciers calving ice bergs.

Send me a note to call me on my behaviours!

If you find that this blog has not been updated within a two week period, please send a note or comment to that effect.  the blog was intended to connect with others who have had the same challenges, or just generally to stay 'in the world' rather than retreating into some sort of intellectual hibernation.  Not to remain as current as possible in this day of social media is just plain silly.  Help me to stay current... give me a virtual poke, a pinch, a kick in the pants, to remind me.

Thanks!!

Be patient with your recovery; take the time!

Be patient, it takes time to come back from any sort of brain injury, or even to find the point of balance that becomes your ‘new normal’.

I fought like hell to get back to work after my haemorrhagic stroke.  I couldn't sit at home, essentially feeling like I was under house arrest, prevented from contributing to the world and the environment I had been helping to to shape.  I wanted to go back to work.  I was bound and determined to demonstrate that there was nothing significantly different about me, my memory or my cognitive abilities.  I fought to get permission to walk back in the door after only seven months.  I started back on a phased, part time schedule, which included being given the opportunity to travel to Florida for a conference.  After much confusion about how to 'track' my time and negotiation with the insurance company, I was then put back on ‘active’ status nine months after the incident.  I think it may have been better if I had waited out the full year.  That is what many of the doctors and therapists use as a rough guideline.  Take the year!  Don’t rush it.

I found that at the one year mark I could feel a profound difference in my vision, my balance and most of my cognition and attention span.  It was almost like a switch was thrown somewhere in the circuitry of my brain.

It isn't perfect yet.  How much of it is simply my age, which some doctors seem to take great delight in teasing me with, and how much are the residual effects of the brain bleed?  I don't know.  And it is the not knowing that truly disturbs me.

I’ve discovered that emotionally I haven’t always been ready to take my place at the table for the meetings that are an integral part of my job.  I've also discovered that cognitively I may not be up to the tasks I really want to take on.  It’s not that I can’t do them, I just can’t do them as fast.

So what does the ‘emotional’ part mean?  Well, to be fair, I've become very grumpy in some circumstances.  I react with ‘glib’ responses if I'm not functioning as quickly as I’d like.  In fact, I've been downright rude, and combative at times.

Sure, I'd like to find something to blame this on, and in truth there were extenuating circumstances with my return to work that are handy for hanging responsibility on.  While I was away, my peers had parcelled out parts of my job that they felt comfortable doing, and then were extremely hesitant to give the pieces back when I asked for them.  I felt like I’d lost ownership of the job, especially the parts that I felt most passionate about.  And even as this was happening, or not happening as the case may be, we got a new boss whose first introductory statements included ‘reorganization’, ‘reclassification’ and he actually presented a laundry of staff to the management group that he intended to have removed from the organization.  To his credit, he showed concern for my health, encouraging me not to rush things.  His concern for my well-being was genuine, I believe.   In my already defensive posture I interpreted much of what was presented as evidence of his kid-glove approach, especially the parts where he left me alone while working closely with my peers to hammer out a new strategy, were platitudes of condescension.

On balance, when I look back at how I feel, I spend way too much of my time being angry.  It is totally possible that this is a side effect from the stroke and part of my recovery, but it is also possible that my brain chemistry has changed.  It’s gotten to the point that I'm not sure that I like the person I’m becoming.  I'm an unpleasant, combative old man too much of the time.  If I'm engaged with what I’m doing, and success comes easy, or the conversation fits with a part of my world view, then everything is fine.  Any sort of deviation and my mind starts locking in on certain thoughts and phrases that ricochet around the vacant the corners of my mind, spilling out into the real world at inconvenient and inappropriate times.  Calm acceptance of circumstances beyond my control has become a struggle that I'm not used to.  I have to consciously throttle thoughts and reactions.

I have been experiencing deep sadness, skirted the edges of anxiety, and generally become quite concerned about my mental health.  It reached a point where I went to my doctor to get some medication to help even out the roller coaster ride.  He prescribed something, but after reading about the drug, I became fearful of starting them.  In my lopsided view, I need quick fixes, not a protracted course of treatment that starts with a full two weeks of taking a drug before any effect would be seen or felt, and then would require a month or more to come off the drug safely.

I made a decision; I'm going to do this on my own.

We’re kick starting an exercise regimen, we’re watching our blood sugar closely, ensuring that we’re eating proteins on a fairly regular basis, and we’re cutting out the drinking as much as is practical.  No more scotch for a while, just to see if we can identify a difference.