1 Month of Freedom!

So after realising that today marks one month out of hospital, I decided to do a quick shift around and a brief update on what’s going on, one month on from coming home from hospital. 

It has also occurred to me that I haven’t actually posted about coming home…that’s all to come, my blog is just a little bit like my mind, bits and pieces here and there and published in a completely random order! Apologies but welcome to my life!

So I came home a month ago and I have spent the month recuperating, recovering and resting and planning and learning.

I have been simply amazed by how much Ulcerative Colitis took out of me, how much 16/17 days in hospital affected me as well. I lost a lot of strength and fitness and things that were easy beforehand were suddenly not so easy. I live in a tall and thin house, so three flights of stairs. Suddenly just having to do these stairs a couple of times a day were tiring me out. I’m used to being the one that does the things like the washing and stuff, but getting the wash basket up and down the stairs was a bit of a mission. Tidying away round the house which is something I do daily (and really quite enjoy) was exhausting me. This really surprised me. You would have thought that having spent so many days ‘resting’ I would have been ready and raring to go! I’ve had to take it a lot slower than I thought, but I am slowly getting back to normal which is positive. The stairs no longer feel like Mount Everest, and slowly but surely I’m pottering round the house more and more each day. 

I’m careful to try and not push it too hard as I don’t want a flare up, if I’m not feeling great, I take my foot off the pedal and spend the day on the sofa or in bed, watching documentaries and napping. It is simply delightful. 

Recovering, recuperating and resting are all so important after any sort of hospital stay and I’ve definitely worked out that they are important when you have Ulcerative Colitis. It’s important to push yourself a bit, to make sure you are always ‘improving’. By improving I mean getting better, improving your mental health, improving your physical health, looking forward to more things. I don’t mean that we always have to be pushing to be the best person, we just have to be improving on the day before every day. 

The next bit of what I have been doing are very ‘Ellie’ things to do. Planning and learning. 

Generally my brain doesn’t really like to switch off and while this is something I am learning to manage in terms of stress and anxiety, I still felt like I had things that needed to be managed. 

So far I have managed to look for a job (update on employment to come…), plan all my medical appointments and get those things organised as much as possible, look for opportunities such as part time work that might help me get back to work without having to jump in full time straight away and I’ve managed to keep up with my blog! 

I am so proud of my blog and as I look at the numbers of people looking at it, it warms me to know that people might be reading it and possibly it might be helping them! As someone who is not a writer, I am proud that I have kept this going and it’s such an exciting achievement for me. Over a month into the blog and it’s still going strong so thank you for the support!

 In all of this I’ve also been trying to learn more and more about Ulcerative Colitis, and how different things can affect it. This has meant I have also learnt a lot about my own lifestyle! I have got a nutritionist on board and learnt about my food choices and how these could affect me and my chances of having a flare up, I’ve started exercising again and trying to regain the strength that I lost as well. I’m learning how exercise can help me manage the symptoms and learning about the positive effects of exercise not only on physical health but also mental health. With physical health some of the exercise has been about managing my weight as well. With being on steroids, it’s difficult to manage weight as they change the way your metabolism works and so exercise is key to be able to manage the weight gain caused by steroids. I’ve been learning as much as I can about using mindfulness and stress/anxiety relief. I’m learning that managing my stress and anxiety can also help to manage my Ulcerative Colitis and I’m still on the learning curve with that one. I’m using the Headspace app to get some mindfulness into my daily routine and doing some colouring as well. I’m thinking about starting some yoga as well, if anyone has any suggestions then let me know! 

There we go, a short one month update on what’s been going on. I’m still here, resting, recuperating, recovering and planning and learning. 

Let me know what you’d like to hear more about! I’d love to hear from you!