Hello my dear Spring Blossoms,
I hope you are all keeping well and enjoying the weather where you are (whether it be Autumn or in our case, Spring).
Spring seemed to be upon us in no time and to be honest, I thought I was prepared, but clearly I was not!!
Three weeks into spring and I still hadn't prepared the beds for planting, I had sowed the seeds of many flowers and food, kept them alive in the greenhouse, but just had nowhere to put them. Which is OK I guess as the weather has been fluctuating quite a bit - we have had cold days/nights and we have had temperatures into the 30's (Celsius) - like yesterday (today it's back down to 16 degrees!!
BUT - All of a sudden - life took a horrible turn...
My beautiful husband Paul became very ill and ended up in hospital in the Cardiac Care Unit - he didn't have a heart attack, but he had an onset of Edema, which blew him up like a balloon with fluid. His liver couldn't cope with the toxins in his body and was pushing the fluids out to anywhere it could (legs, stomach, chest, back) his body became toxic, so because of all that happening (in just a few days), his blood pressure skyrocketed and heart was weakened.
He spent 9 days in hospital and lost just over 22 kg in weight - in fluid!! (I just thought it was all the homely cooking I was doing that was putting the weight on him) So you could imagine the strain it put on his heart.
Now he is home and is very exhausted from both the experience and the drugs they have him one to get rid of the fluid, reduce his blood pressure and strengthen his heart.
He still feels awful (not in pain though) and is sleeping a lot of the time - the doctors were quick to put him on the drugs - and I guess they saved his life, (they told me that if he hadn't gone to hospital he would have been dead two days later) so I am thankful for that - but nobody prepares you for the mental anguish that comes with it. He feels useless, old, (he is only 58) like his life has no meaning anymore. He can't get interested in anything - even music, his number one love, is on the back-burner. He has picked up his guitar a couple of times, only to lose interest again. We feel that it is the drugs and the restrictions that are making him this way and we know that once he has got to a certain place in his health matrix, that a lot of those drugs will be eventually gone - but he still feels like he was put on the "medical merry go round" that he was not prepared for.
You see, we are a family that never goes to the doctor, we pride ourselves that we are not on any of the medications people our age (mid forties to early sixties - yes, I am the oldest!!) are on.
You might think that is silly - but we have always relied on Mother Nature, using food and herbs as our medicine when we needed it - that is why I garden mostly - to stay healthy.
Now we have to watch how much sodium we ingest as that creates a fluid build up AND you would be surprised at how much sodium is in the products that we buy daily - and we just don't think about it. It has truly been an eye opener - even home grow fruits and vegetables have a certain amount of natural sodium in them - like celery!!
One thing that did make him feel less useless was fixing our back fence - we have wooden fence extensions and in the storm on Monday night - they broke! So Paul fixed the fence up and it gave him some purpose - an achievement, and maybe he can discover he can do other things too - which will make his self worth better.
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| Forever the clown!!! |
Mental health is such a fine balance - and as I said, it was OK for them to stick him on all these drugs and give him restrictions, but there was NO mental health support whatsoever... it's just something you have to deal with....
People are not machines, you can't program them to do things if it is not in their nature and them having to go against their nature is very hard on them and those around them. This maybe something that the medical field need to look into - whilst we are grateful for them saving lives, correct (non-biased) mental support is needed for the patients as well.
Low Sodium Food For Thought maybe??? hahaha!
Anyway, this is his second week out of hospital and we are making progress here and there. I am lucky that when all this happened that my work supported me and gave me a month off to cope with it all.
So onwards and upwards we go on this merry-go-round called life - just to see where it takes us!!
I hope you are all doing well my lovelies,
Until next time - blessings to you all and take care of yourselves and your loved ones xxxx
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