Stretching borrowed time

 Oh my goodness, I am so tired. Even after the long weekend I am not yet recovered from my fieldtrip.

I didn't make it to uni yesterday, I was super tired and had a headache. managed to get here today, but I have noticed the increasingly common behaviour that as soon as I park the car I need to sit in it for about half an hour just to get over the drive. I just don't have the spoons to deal with work and socialising.

I mentioned earlier this year, that I was on borrowed time, I am definitely stretching that borrowed time to the very max now. Just two more months, that's all I need to push through. Today I submitted my request for a leave of absence starting in April. The way the system works it will go until almost the end of June. Three months is more than I initially planned and wanted to take off, but considering how broken I feel most of the time, it is probably very much needed.

During that time I plan on trying to rest and recover, see a new migraine specialist, trial at least one new medication, and have a couple of short holidays away. My GP prescribed a new medication to help with my sleep and possibly my migraine, but I am yet to start it as they said it will make me extra sleepy the first few days of taking it. I certainly don't need extra sleepiness right now. I am hoping to somewhat recover a bit more from my field trip and then start taking it at the end of a working week. 

I also still need to go get my blood tests and a CT scan. I was going to get my blood tests this week but then my uterus decided to punish me for not making a baby, so I should probably wait before I get more blood removed from my body, especially considering my current exhaustion. 

On a completely different note, I am already getting excited for Eurovision! I rarely get excited for things, but Eurovision is a constant good thing in my life. I'm semi-following Norway's 'Melodi Grand Prix', Ukraine's 'Vidbir', and Lithuania's 'Eurovizja'. I have never really followed the Eurovision selection process in other countries before, but several artists I follow are competing in the aforementioned contests; Keiino, Melovin, and The Roop, respectively. 

Aw, my partner just sent me the best message regarding my taking leave: "it sucks that it has come to that", the exact acknowledgement that I need 💓

Fieldtrip pros and cons

I just had my first fieldtrip of the year, and it was fairly eventful.

After two days of travel we got to this pretty cool place we were staying. It had a self composting toilet, that had absolutely no odour! There were other cool things too, but the toilet was definitely a highlight, lol. 

Photo: The toilet and some of the rest of the bathroom.

Now the actual field days maybe not so much of a highlight at times.

Day 1.

• We got the branches I needed to take back to the lab - good
• A dead branch fell on my head - bad

Day 2

• The river was above the causeways, we could still cross safely in the Landcrusier - good
• The rain continued to get heavier so we decided to head back incase the river got higher so in the end we drove out there and did no work this day - bad but we were safe so good
• Sorting through equipment back at the accommodation we found we did not have enough dendrometer bands - bad
• Not being able to do field work gave us the time we needed to the shops to try and repair some of our equipment - good

Photo: One of the causeways.

Day 3

• We were able to get two of out plots done, and finished by 3 pm - good
• We could not drive back as a big tree has fallen on the road while we were in the field - bad
• We had no reception and had to walk for an hour as the rain got heavier - bad
• one car didn't even slow down to see if we were okay as we walked in the rain - bad
• Thankfully some locals stopped and were able to drive us for about 5 minutes, they didn't have a 4WD so couldn't take us too far - good
• We have a good contact who could come and cut up the tree with two chainsaws, and an axe and log splitter that same afternoon - good
• Found a leech friend on my arm - bad

Photos: The tree blocking our road, and the two chainsaws needed to get through the tree.

Day 4

• Collected some more branches to take back to the lab, and picked up the rest of our team - good
• Found a bunch of dried blood in my hairline behind my ear, I obviously has=d another leech the day before - bad

Day 5

• We were able to get 3 plots completed with the whole team together - good
• Heaps more leeches - bad
• Extremely high humidity leading to lots of sweating and me not being able to drink enough to keep up, which lead to painful migraine symptoms - bad
• Had a very knowledgeable local person with us who knew where a clean creek was that we could drink from - good
• A jack-jumper type ant decided to sting me through my trousers - bad

Day 6

• The team headed up to our furthest sites which requited us to cross the state border, thankfully the migraine meds I took the night before reduced the severity of my symptoms and allowed me to drive up for the two hours - good
• Once we got to the sites there was A LOT of mud to drive through, on slopes too, it took us over an hour to get to the sites they would normally be only about 10 min away by car - bad
• Thankfully, the team was able to squeeze into one vehicle and our one experienced 4WDriver could get us and all of our gear up the hill - good
• We still had to get out and push at times though - bad
• Got stung for the first time ever by Dendrocnide excelsa . A small one got me in the knee through my trousers, which meant the invisible hairs were stinging me repeatably as I walked around. There was no way I was going to work with bare legs though. - bad
• Thankfully, this site also has plenty of Alocasia spp.  growing around which can be used to remove the tiny invisible stinging hairs and soothe the pain. - good
• Had an awesome dinner at a coworkers place that night - good

Photo: Muddy beginning of our journey into the National Park, also the border fence between states.

Day 7

• The river was finally low enough that we could cross safely by foot to get to our remaining plots  and finish them - good
• Still plenty of leeches around, mozzies too - bad
• Managed to cut myself deeper than usual with a razor blade whilst working with my plant samples - bad
• Burnt myself on the kettle making tea - bad
• Completed doing my vessel lengths today - good

Day 8

• Since we had completed all of our plot work, we had a little time to do a short walk to some waterfalls today - good
• Accidentally left my seedlings in the sun, and they got pretty toasted - bad
• Went to the lab and downloaded all my data, unfortunately it looks like there was some faulty equipment so I will need to collect more replicates next time - bad

Photo: Protester Falls.

So that was the fieldtrip, the next day was a full day of driving. We did it all in one day since there were three of us to drive back. Very exhausting still.

Overall we got a lot of things done, not as much as we wanted, the high priority things were achieved :) 

Still alive, barely

Well, it's certainly been, what's the current saying "a hot minute"? since I last wrote here.

Things mentally and physically have been going downhill since June last year. 

I took a week or two off from uni in October, which was nice and kept me going for the rest of the year. However, it lasted only a short time and by the beginning of December, I was pretty burnt out again. 

Christmas was pretty awful. It was nice to have time off uni, but I've been looking forward to Christmas less and less every year for a while now. This year just reinforced that. I was very much exhausted, had no social battery left, and got pretty bad migraine symptoms on Christmas day itself. 

Migraine for me has been getting more frequent and more intense this past 7-12 months. I rarely ever got nausea, but now it's a regular symptom. I have found if I allow myself to vomit it does relieve some of the pain for a while though. 

I'm still seeing my physiotherapist or remedial masseuse almost weekly, however, that no longer seems to be enough to manage my pain anymore. I have read online that migraines do get more severe in your thirties, so I'm guessing my age might have something to do with it, and of course the increasing physical and mental exertion of doing a PhD.

A bit more on the emotional/mental health side of things, I've been going through a lot of 'self-discovery' for lack of a better term since June last year. I've been seeing a psychologist on top of the counselor at uni. The counselor at uni is great for the surface problems, but the psychologist makes me think and feel deeper about things, that I have ignored and disregarded about myself. 

There's certainly been some unexpected insights from seeing this particular psychologist, it's been a weird and at times challenging ride so far - as I'm sure I've touched upon in previous posts. I think we're getting to a place where I'm willing to address some things that I wasn't before. I know I'm running the risk of getting hurt by doing this (for several reasons), however, I'm almost ready to take that step of 'faith' so to speak. There are still a few things I am unsure about, that I feel I should address with the psychologist during our next meeting, but whether I do or do not at the time is another challenge in itself. 

I am looking into taking 4-8 weeks off from my PhD around this April. I just can't keep doing this. My sleep is ineffective, I have pains in my body almost constantly, and on top of my usual mental health battles and these new challenges arising, I'm constantly running on empty. I'm hoping to book in to see a neurologist, let's hope the waiting lists are not too long!

Work-wise I think my PhD is going okay, I spoke with my main supervisor yesterday and mentioned I might need a break and they were fine with that. I do have a field trip starting this Saturday. This field trip is to the same place I went to last June when everything started to unravel for me, so I am a bit fearful of how I will cope, especially given my decreasing overall health. 

I did have almost 48 hours of reprieve recently. A combination of finally doing Body Combat again (one of the best therapies out there for me), taking myself on a short solo walk, and having some deep conversations with my pairbond, resulted in me feeling good, capable, and less broken. So this time 3 days of work on myself led to almost 2 days of good health. I knew I was on borrowed time though, and I could sense when it was coming to an end. 

This field trip is very important though, and as usual, I will power through to benefit my research, even if it comes at a cost to myself. Like I did after doing Body Combat last week where I knew that my migraine symptoms would be triggered, I could even feel it starting during the class but kept going. I wasn't completely idiotic about it, after the class, I took a long bath with magnesium salts, I did not drink any alcohol, and I took my rizatriptan before I went to sleep. I didn't expect these actions to work so well, I still experienced excessive tiredness and pain, but nowhere to the extent I have in the past. I could actually get out of bed and go for a walk later that day. I am hoping I can manage this field trip's physical pains similarly, but I'm still uncertain about how I will go emotionally.