May 15

 Struggled today. I've had a couple of days of "weird stuff" at night. And then today, I went for a walk, and struggled hardcore to get around a route that in the past I have breezed through.

It's odd. Sometimes it's like that. And of late. It's more and more common that it's like that.

Within 50 yards I was struggling. Difficult to breathe. Not gasping for air, or clogged up asthma lungs. But. Just not enough oxygen. My head span. For the entire walk. I am, by this time in my travails with bullshit, somewhat used to it that I just ignore it. I felt heavy. Somewhat ill. My upper torso ached and screamed. And slowly it spread lower. The left side of my face tingled in the way that it sometimes does. And I had to grit my teeth to get round. I grasped onto Athenas lead with a death grip ( she's never on a lead these days, I just carry it unattached ). I placed one foot, in front of another. Unable to enjoy the walk. Just counting the steps until we got back. I slumped into the car feeling awful desperate to get home and go to bed. My eyes felt like they had been punched. Everything ached. A minor migraine had grumbled up into my forehead. And the left side of my face had ants marching around it. Tingling and tickling.

My mentals had deteriorated with my physicals. An all too pointed lesson in how fucked I am, and how short my time maybe.

But my mental approach fluctuates. I find increasingly these days I am ok with the growing flashing alarms going off. It makes me think the end surely can't be too far off now. And that's going to be ok. Just. Can we get on with it. And. Just. Can I not suffer too much.

Last few nights, I have the fluttering chest and heart palpitations. It starts lying on one side. It used to be only the left hand side brought it on before. Now it's both sides - left is worse. It starts slowly. I can't breathe. I can breathe. But I can't get enough oxygen. I have to breathe harder. Noticeably harder and faster. Almost panting. It is accompanied by a dull pain in the left hand side of the chest. Like a stone sits there. A lump. 

Some minutes after that. A weird fluttering. It starts to feel like you're drowning. Little blips of. Yikes. Do something !

Some minutes after that worse still, major blips of a drowning feeling, not getting enough oxygen, and brain zaps and brain fog.

A lot of which could sound very much like anxiety. Until...

If I turn over or sit up, it disappears. Gone. Very quickly.

... so not anxiety then.

If I do turn over, for a few brief seconds there is a strange feeling of liquid shifting in my chest, from one side to the other. It's exactly like the feeling I used to get when I was younger, when lying face down on a hard floor for any length of time, with my chest compressed, on moving or getting up I would get a wicked rush of blood back into my chest and an ache. It's just like that. But less severe.

If I could summarise it all more briefly than all of that. I would say. It feels like something very slowly gets pinched off. Squeezed. Flattened. Clogged. Like getting a kink in a hose pipe and watching the water trickle out. Except it's oxygen. And the body starts to panic when it can't breathe.

Hum ho.

This evening I find my thoughts occupied with the usual topics of sad and loss and isolation. I walk a lonely path with the shit I go through. I can't share it with people. I've given up trying. 

My friend, my ex, related she had had a peak in ills too. Hospital. Blockage. ER. From what I can gather a blood clot basically in her lungs ish. Always the bugger spot. Around the heart and lungs. Her heart is healthy apparently. Her blood, less so. She seems to have got through it without any major lasting effect other than a nasty event and a scare, body parts shutting off, system crashing. I think. She is lucky to have got through it so unscathed. Blood clots, blockages. These are the things of instant death if they pop up in the wrong place. Strokes. Heart attacks. A not uncommon stalker of people.

She seemed a little put out about having to control her panic about it. About not freaking out. I think in the circumstances, a life threatening event is a perfectly rational place to be freaking out and having a panic attack. It's the body's last line of oh shit defence. She's too hard on herself. Scary.

It's also a recurring theme. The older people I know, myself included. We all now have limps and scars. Some greater, some lesser. But none of us are free of it. And it gets worse. Obviously. Just old age catching up with all of us. When I have watched old people out and about or in their homes in the past, I have seen almost a different kind of person. One that doesn't function well. With limps and walkers and lost marbles. And as ridiculous as it is, I never really made the connection that those people were once not like that. That over time that happened to them. They transformed into that. Somewhere along the line, they deteriorated to what I could see. And now. It's happening to me and a bunch of people I know. Some escape this fate. But I think most do not. It seems stupid. So obvious. But at some point. All the hip and young and active people you know will eventually become those old and crippled and crazy old people. We can talk of lifespans and how long you will live. But. I think. The you that is you. Ends a lot sooner than those years would otherwise indicate. 10 or 20 years earlier. I only have to think of my mom or my dad. They were probably last like themselves - even then a poor shadow - 15 or 20 years prior. When they were 65 to 70. After that point. They were not the people they had been. And year by year, even the smaller bits faded away until a completely different person stood in their place.

My concern is, if I don't actually properly cark it. And, to be honest, I think I am sooner than later, that I will lose what functionality I have left. I won't be able to go for walks at all. I won't be able to do shit at all. I think my health stuff , including mentals, has put me on a super fast aging track where I am living the equivalent of dog years. Somewhere in that equation, speaking of dogs, Athena gets even older and eventually passes away. I think on balance. I probably have enough in the tank to see her out. After that. Probably not. Hence the whole. I don't think I can get another dog malarkey.

Aging sucks.

Like a lot of life in my humble opinion.

Life. 0 out of 5 stars. Would not recommend. I'd stick with being a gaseous space cloud instead. All this condensing down of hydrogen into stars and then dying stars exploding into heavier atoms and condensing down again around a different star leading to life forms is just one epically long excercise in suffering and bullshit. Unfunny. Still. Not like you get a choice, is it.

Been working off and on all over my days off. Nothing super strenous. But just pushing along bit by bit. On the one hand I resent Andys fucked up scheduling and personal failings putting me in a position where I feel I need to do this. On the other hand nibbling bits and pieces off over the course of a few days is a lot better for my stress levels, and I have time to enjoy things. But yes. Once this is all over. A work reset is due. Again. Andy asked an inane question recently. One that demonstrated is lack of idea about what a tech meant. A different one this time. Sigh. We have an issue there. He continues to try and fake it. Without realising what the words mean anymore. Once upon a long ago in simpler times, 20 years ago, he knew some of it. Now. He knows none of it. 20 years in computers is like an epoch. 250 million years. When T Rex roamed the plains and humans were just small voles. It would be better if he just held up his hands and said, I have no fucking clue mate. Tricky. It would have consequences for him in the office.

Ho well.

You never know. I might be dead in a week anyway and not worrying about anything. Yay.

I was mulling over doing some art. A small tiny urge to do something. But. My ill feelings today have squashed it all flat again. No point. No energy. Takes all my effort to just not be suffering. Art is a ridiculously high luxury.

Sigh.