78. Back home and hurting.

Hello from Mandi Valentine HQ

Well I can't believe its 5 days since I got home from holidaying in Greece.

But I am still suffering the after effects of such a long week doing far too much and being far too hot most of the time. But I managed it and that's the main thing! There were no late nights, no bars, no clubs, a gentle swim and lots of laying around the pool, a couple of trips with as little walking as possible. But even so, from the moment I got home I knew I was going to need some serious down time to recover from the physical and mental bombardment of the trip. The first 2 days I was convinced I had caught covid on the plane coming home as I had a terrible tight chest and it kept feeling like my heart was stalling before bouncing back into beating again, but as I manged to sleep and eat enough, after 36 hours it wore off, and a negative covid test set my mind at rest. 🤕🤒 My knee ( sadly on my good leg ) that I whacked on a marble coffee table on day 4 of the holiday was turning a lovely yellow colour under the fading tan, and my neck, back and head just hurt, and when I say hurt, I mean in a way pain killers aren't going to solve. 😢 I'm glad I went. But seriously, would I do it again? definitely NO! There were times I felt like I'd managed the ultimate challenge, but most of the time I just felt like I'd just managed to survive something else thrown at me for me to endure and get through until it was over. The last couple of days were the best, and I found some peace and the level of solitude I required to get through to the end of the week and leave me with enough energy to actually believe I could make the journey home without totally falling apart. I didn't take any shakes with me, and I think the lack of serious calories ( I'd lost 5.5lbs in the week when I got home) didn't help with my pain and energy levels really. I'm still obviously not eating enough to even sustain normal levels let alone cope with the heat and added activity of a holiday. But home and safe I am, resting more than I'm pottering about, and waiting for the bruises and pulled muscles to stop screaming at me for being far too stupid and having the cheek to actually move about, let alone doing stuff like swimming and constantly going up and down stairs at the villa . On a medical note my PET scan results were up loaded to my app, and finally I have a number in regard to my aortic aneurysm..... 40mm..... For those who have never and hopefully will never have to know about the seriousness of 'the number', 32mm is the upper normal level for someone of my height and age, over 52mm is considered to be a danger. So I'm happily somewhere in the middle. I have been informed they grow, if not provoked by stimulus or predisposing diseases by 0.5mm per year, so on that basis mine would start being dangerous in approx 24 yrs time, so I think its being ignored as the NHS are pretty much betting with my medical history I'll be long dead by the time that it needs addressing. 😡 Its a bitter sweet conclusion to the mystery, but at least I'm not having to think any moment I could just 'pop' and be gone within 2 mins I will ask about it more at my next check up in August. The last couple of months has seen some people leave my life, which is good. If there's one thing I've realised from living and coping pretty much by myself over the last 10 months, and that is I need all my energy for me now, and I definitely don't need to be weighing myself down with the frustration of biting my tongue just to keep people in my life that basically get far more out of knowing me than I get out of knowing them. Its better to sit at an empty table and enjoy the food than have to choke it down listening to other peoples bullshit while you try and eat.

The trouble is when you surround yourself with people who think they are chilled champagne in a cut crystal glass when actually they're warm piss in a plastic cup in the end my sense of can't give a fuck tends to over rule my polite indifference.

But hey if I needed friends, I'd not have born to be a very happy loner. Time to repair, rest and recuperate. I will miss 'rock' though .... ( if you know, you know)