New neck please

I have been in a lot of pain this week. I'm not sure what is going on with my neck, but I couldn't stand it anymore so I went to the GP yesterday. I now have prescription anti-inflammatory painkillers and I have had a CT scan. 

I had my remedial massage today and I felt significantly better afterwards, however that lasted about 30 minutes. It's now been almost 2 hours and the pain just keeps increasing. I can only take the prescription medication with or soon after food, so I am going to wait it out a little while cause I only just had lunch an hour ago, and the pain is only around a 5 or 6 right now. For a score out of 10 okay that's not good, but it was like 9 yesterday. 

The Spain paperwork seems to be moving ahead a bit. I have tentative flights now. I am just awaiting the final approval now. This whole process has only take 2 months. Think of how much more actual science and research I could have done if I didn't have to spend so much time on administration.

I have been making some nice graphs in R to show some of my data. I haven;'t really done any statistics yet but it's nice to look at the general trends in my data.

I also sent in my expression of interest to present at Pint of Science this year. I've been attending this event since 2016, so it would be pretty cool to speak at one. I've always enjoyed aspects of science communication, it still scares and stresses me out but science communication is something I strongly believe is very important. 

Resubmitting new forms about old forms and not being able to fly

So... no more panic attacks, yes crying at admin emails because they are so stressful, but no more panic attacks.

Last Friday my Spain trip finally got approved to go on to the next stage of approvals. I really don't get it, it's the same information being approved by the same people, this time it's just on their web-froms rather than their word-doc forms. Why do I need to waste my time doing the exact same paperwork twice? Shouldn't it be the job of the admin people to put it into the computer system? Or just get us to put it directly into the system to begin with? Obviously not, because PhD students don't have anything else to do with their less than a minimum wage and more than a full time job work hours expectations.

Anyway, I also have neck pain and a headache, oh and I am feeling very tired today. But hey, what's new? This is everyday life for me so I should just get over it and push through?

Someone one told me that I have been in a constant "Fight or flight" mode for many years now, I think I finally understand them now, sure I accepted it to a degree, but now I really get what they mean. In a way I believe they were referring to a particular thing in my life, but my life in general is fight or flight. I have to fight constantly against my physical body, my mind, and then I'm not even going to mention all of the external factors impacting my life. 

I don't really have the option of "flight" because if I do so many things will disintegrate. The closes I come to flight is standing in one spot, exerting all of my energy flapping my wings, whilst still being in the middle of a battle.

Anyway, that's enough for now, I need to try and do some work, its 14:41 on a Monday..

Oh, and one last thing.. a couple of weeks ago I had a suspected herniated disc, I had different constant pain than normal and my remedial massues thought that might be the case. Of course by the time I got to my physio and GP after the weekend, there were no obvious signs of it, so once again I have no definitive answer about why I was in so much pain...

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.

Another intense week...

So, I made it back to uni Mon- Weds this week! This is a bit of an achievement for me. After being away for so long it feels weird in many ways. The weirdest feeling is the social aspect of it. Seeing people after so long, and some of them wondering where you have been and having to explain a certain amount to them is always a bit scary. I am thankful I actually have a physical problem (migraines) and not just autistic problems and carers responsibilities, since people seem to understand physical problems so much better. As progressive as society is in some ways, I would not be able to explain my autism properly in a way that others would even begin to comprehend, especially since I present so well. I am a master at masking not just my autism, but also all my other stresses, responsibilities, depression and even my physical pains. Something else the majority of people my age and younger don't understand is carers responsibilities. Almost everyone here that I have spoken only has themselves to worry about. They have no dependents, and as such the only financial and time related responsibilities have been self-related. I mention that I help care for my family and they can't even comprehend what I mean by that. They are fortunate enough to either not have disabled family members or have other family members that can care for them. I have been asked why I don't just leave my family to look after themselves with the public health systems to help them out? Anyone who has delt with the public health system knows it does not properly support low-income people with non-physical disabilities. 

In other news, one of my 3-year-old boys got a urinary blockage and had to spend a couple of days at the vet. He is home now seeming happy, and his brother is definitely much happier to have him home! He had to spend time at a 24/7 emergency vet clinic, they wanted to keep him a couple more nights, but thankfully they let me take him to my normal vet after the first night. This made the vet bill more than 10 times cheaper! My Youngest girl (who acts like the boys) also had a dental procedure last week. She is less than a year old and has already had to have teeth removed. They said she probably would not want to eat that night. but as soon as I brought her home, she went straight to the food bowl and was eating! Both of these cats really love their food! 

Saturday was Mum's 60th afternoon tea that I organised. It seemed to go well with people enjoying themselves. Only after the last guest left did I realise how much physical pain I was in though. While I was busy making food, and entertaining people I totally blocked out any headaches I had. I also realised once they left that I had only sat down maybe 2 minutes over the past 4 hours or so and my feet and lower back were quite sore.

Lastly, I had a short work shift on Sunday. I was thinking, great its a short day and I can have half a day at home to recover after the week. Of course that didn't happen. I was using the work car and got a flat tyre. Being a Sunday, there were no tyre shops open anywhere where I was, and NRMA could only tow me to the tyre shop and leave me there, with all the animals in the car. Thankfully my wonderful partner gave up his day off to come and get me and the critters to take us back to where they live and to where my car was. 

So I'm back at Uni today and have a whole week of PhD work to do again, with no time to actually rest. I do have a couple of science talks in a pub I will be going to which I will enjoy. However, while I may be doing enjoyable activities, I am still not getting to actually sit down and do nothing but rest. I still have on and off headaches of varying degrees of pain, but thankfully no debilitating migraine symptoms for a maybe a week. I can also be thankful for having perfect eyes. I had an optometrist appointment last week and they did several different tests, and I was perfect for them all! I even got to see behind/inside my eyes :D That was really cool!

Here is a picture of what it kind of looked like (not my eye):

What a week

Last week was all over the place. I did not take sick leave as I only get 10 days per year. I stayed home all week though, and barely did any work. Here's how the following days played out.

Monday

I woke up at 4.30 am and decided to feed my cat. She ate her food like a good girl, then around 5 am she had a heart attack and passed in my arms. Following that event, my migraine came back. There was no way I was going to uni. Around 8.30 am I finally was able to get back to sleep. I woke up around 1 pm and don't know what I did for the rest of the day. I did take some of my new migraine meds and the pain went away :). No work was achieved this day. 

Tuesday

I was not going into uni today either as we scheduled to bury my cat when Mum, me, and our partners were all available that afternoon. I had my counseling appointment via Zoom. I  started to organise some of my calendars, but no other work was achieved this day. I also was not up to going to the gym even.

Wednesday

I woke up to my 5 am alarm to watch Eurovision Semi-final 1. This is good, I will talk about Eurovision more later though. Once it finished around 7 am, I went back to bed. I probably woke around 12 or 1 pm and by now I was thinking "There is no point in going to uni this week is there?" I was still working through my grief, the exhaustion, and pain from having a migraine the past 10 days added to the exhaustion of worrying and caring for my cat. I had no ability to focus and no motivation. I did manage to get to the gym in the evening though :)

Thursday

My body and head were in pain, but nowhere near as much as the previous week or Monday. No uni work was done today but I met up with my Supervisor for my casual job for a couple of hours and worked through what we needed to. I did also send a couple of emails to my uni supervisors. In the evening I took my to a comedy event. The event was good, I just wish I didn't have to drive as I noticed a did a few things I would not normally have done if I were functioning properly. 

Friday

I had my alarms set for 5 am to watch Eurovision semi-final 2. Unfortunately, I didn't get up until 5.15 am so I missed the first 2 and a half performances :(. Thankfully, Australia was the final performance so I didn't miss them. Once this finished at 7 am I went back to bed, but only for a couple of hours, as I had scheduled things for the day. I met with my main supervisor over Zoom to catch up. Then I finally had my remedial massage, I had been waiting all week for this appointment with all my aches and pains. Despite the pain, my body isn't as bad as it used to be when I first started treatment a couple of years ago. My superficial muscles are still moveable! The reason I am feeling pain in new places is because my nerves now have access to blood flow. When I first went she could not get into my deep muscles as my superficial muscles were so bad, and also my muscles were cold with a lack of blood flow.  I also managed to do about an hour of uni work, reading, and a little bit of writing :).

Eurovision

The Grand final was 5 am - 9.15 am Sunday morning, and luckily I woke up in time to watch the entire thing live and vote :D.

Now Eurovision is very important for my mental health. You may be thinking "Why would you wake up at 5 am if you don't need to? Especially when you are exhausted and in physical pain!", but I need to for my own happiness. Eurovision is one of the few things I actually look forward to, I generally don't look forward to much in life as I end up getting let down a lot, but Eurovision has never failed me. 

I also much prefer to watch things live, or when they are first released if they are important to me. With the internet these days it is almost impossible to avoid spoilers! Also, I get to vote if I want to. It feels better when I watch it live than as a repeat, I just don't get the same serotonin from repeats. I did the same for Doctor Who's 50th anniversary special, that is wake up at 4 or 5 am to watch it. 

What made this year even better was the fact a band I knew and liked was Australia's representative this year! I only discovered them a bit over a year ago, but I've already seen them live once and will be again next month :D. 

Now - Monday again 

I dropped my youngest cat off at the vet this morning as she has gum and bone disease at only about 11 months old. She has had her teeth cleaned, some removed, xrays, and blood tests. Luckily she does not have FIV! I then drove all the way out to uni, which was quite exhausting being an hour-long trip (with tolls). I have done some work today, not a lot, but I'm trying. I have a bit of a headache and will probably head home in less than an hour, picking my cat up on the way of course!