Heave ho my hearties

A bit of a roller coaster ride today.
The first part of the day was lovely, a leisurely morning getting ready for my first Christmas lunch of the season at the Silver End bowls club.
I don't play bowls, but Greta and Ken do, so we get to go as their guests when these fund raising events are being held.
It was a really rather jolly lunch until it was time to go home and that's when my breathing started to get a bit laboured.

This wasn't caused by an attack or anything, but it's more about my diaphragm pushing up my lungs and making life a bit painful until in my case, I can empty the content of my lungs and settle things again.
This is why I have weekly physio sessions to give them a really good drain, it used to be twice a week , but the girls are terribly overworked now and I have now learnt how to control and release the phlegm myself.
But I didn't think that the bowls club were ready for me to do that little procedure in the ladies toilets quite yet. Plus I would hate for the members to think that I had lost my weight by being bulimic on top of everything else, so it was a quick exit home for me.

It wasn't that I had over loaded my plate, as a) it's weigh in time again tomorrow at tubby club and I still have one last lb to lose before I reach Papworth's desired weight for me. This weight is the doctor's recommended weight to help me recover faster after the transplant.
And b) more importantly, my rehab classes talks have taught me the do's and don'ts of handling this disease and why certain problems arise.
They reckon small plates of food, or as they would say little and often.
Some foods also can cause phlegm to increase in your lungs or to blow your diaphragm up like in IBS or in my case both. Too much milk, cheese, bread or too richer food are all baddies and of course Christmas lunches do tend to be a tad on the rich side.
Plus in some breathing related cases, people with rapid breathing tend to swallow a lot of air causing tummy problems too.
So add together a bloated diaphragm that's crushing your lungs upwards, which in turn stops the lungs from taking in and out as much oxygen as they should...not forgetting these lungs aren't working properly in the first place anyway...then fill those lungs up with thick sticky liquid and you don't feel that wonderful. No afternoon Salsa classes for me.
So I got home as quickly as I could and then had to empty my lungs in the comfort of my bathroom and without bringing up my dinner too.

After a little nap, it was business as usual, but just a lot slower than normal as completing a few rounds of postural drainage does tend to take it out of you in more ways than one!
I used to think it was the cocktail of drugs that I take that made my stomach blow up like it did, but since being on this diet to where I have changed my eating habits, I am amazed just how much my tummy has gone down and how the IBS symptoms have eased off.
Meals out were always a nightmare, as I always ended up with a mad dash to the toilet, but my meals hardly ever end up like that now thankfully.
I do get comments that I should be wearing a halo when not filling my plate to overflowing, but being greedy has never has appealed to me anyway and why should I want to voluntarily put myself through that pain?
I may be daft, but I'm not stupid!

Lots of love Debbie x