You Don't Live Like I Do

( Talk of health and exercise, mention of death )

This afternoon, me, E & V went to the garden centre in Cheadle for lunch and shopping. I'm not great at gardening and I made a few suggestions which turned out to be unhelpful, which was a bit of a downer. Still, I found a nice white clematis to climb up the plastic skeleton in the garden, and ham, egg and chips for lunch helped perk me up a bit. We ended up getting a buttload of plants to populate the garden - a mixture of flowers, herbs and ferns. And V & E swung by B&M on the way home to get some dirt and decorations to go with it, while I waited in the car.

After getting home, me and E took Teddy for a nice long walk, then I ordered fancy burgers for dinner - if I'm going nil-by-mouth I might as well have a big meal beforehand. Now it's time to pack, and get ready for a very early start - I'm due in hospital at 7:15am!

Last night I was having a relatively pleasant dream after a nasty anxiety dream. I was playing some kind of 5-a-side football match as a LGBT+ charity fundraiser. The referee was a drag queen, and the players were activists. I'm not very good at football even in my dreams, and my side were losing heavily. At one point I saw the ball coming towards me, an open goal in front of me, and I took the opportunity to level the score a little by kicking the ball hard...

...and woke up in agony, having just kicked the bedside cabinets really hard in my sleep.

( Slightly icky health details )

It took me ages to get back to sleep due to the shock, and I didn't sleep well because of the pain. Today I've just been feeling slightly sick from the lack of sleep. The toenail is still sore, still bruised. I've trimmed it back to stop it catching on socks etc. I'm glad gym circuits class is cancelled due to the Bank Holiday, as I'd probably need to skip it anyway.

And I never got to find out if I scored a goal!

I've had an umbilical hernia (a hole in the muscle wall around the belly button) for a while. I first noticed my belly button being an "outie" which I could push back in, about 18 months ago. I suspect it's caused by IBS, as I spend more time straining my abdominal wall than most. Anyway, I finally got round to seeing my GP about it earlier this year, and he referred me for an ultrasound which confirmed that it's a big one and needs urgent treatment. Due to my hernia I've not been doing as much exercise as I'd like - while swimming and cycling are OK for me, a lot of core muscle work is advised against in case it makes the hernia worse. So this has gone onto my list of excuses for not exercising along with, y'know, the ongoing global pandemic.

Not long after my GP appointment, I got a referral to a private hospital which does NHS consults. Apparently hernia surgery (sewing a mesh into the muscle wall; done under anaesthetic with no overnight stay) is a quick way to get a big impact on surgery backlog statistics so they're processing them quickly. Wednesday 11th October was my pre-surgery consultation.

( CW: Medical Fatphobia )