Sending the Heart Racing

You'll have noticed that I haven't blogged as much as usual this month and it cannot all be blamed on fatigue. We have had extra stresses to deal with; firstly to stick to a theme, since my chemo starting my hormones have become increasingly erratic and after various appointments with the GP I had been referred to the local Norwich Hospital. It is an understatement to say that keeping a GP and one hospital where I am treated by three different departments is a headache and a half, but adding in another hospital who start from a fresh file and know next to nothing about you is enough to make you scream and tear your hair out... well if I had any! This is not to mention that I hate hospitals with a deep fiery loathing so spending more and more time in them is throughly depressing. In addition to these health problems (who'd have thought the only time I'd been to a doctor before the age of seventeen was for standard vaccination!) I am on a special kind of antidepressant because I refused the standard SSRI's because they cause weight gain and I'm already a stone heavier than I would like. This SNRI has the possible side effect of increasing your heartbeats per minutes and since I already am at risk of increased blood pressure from excess cortisol I had to have an electrocardiogram.

An ECG is used to measure the electrical activity of the heart and involves stripping to the waist and having numerous sticky pads attached to electrodes so the machine can take a reading over the course of a few minutes.

Not me obviously!

I had been worried before hand as a blood pressure reading the previous week had given a high 163/122, and heart failure is not on my list of 'to do's!' Obviously I enjoyed flashing my chest at the nurses but other than that it was painless and worth it for the relief of hearing that the reading was normal. An additional  blood pressure reading put my diastolic (the baseline pressure) at 90, which lifted a huge amount of weight from my mind. The other reading must have been abnormal or the result of stress on the day!

Next on my list of complaints is the council. I'll try and keep it short because otherwise this rant will turn into a novel, you would have thought that it would be a simple procedure to inform them we had changed address. Nothing else has changed; I still have a terminal prognosis (they don't tend to go away) I am still undergoing vicious chemotherapy treatment and therefore can't work. When I do feel well enough I choose to spend my time on Imagine It (www.imagineit.org.uk) with my husband. However the lovely (please note used with sarcasm) council can't get their act together and suspended our benefits and if we hadn't had the sense to have some money in reserve we would be well and truly broke. They still haven't paid us and we are down by two deposits, three sets of rent, all the diesel too and from the hospitals so the live for the moment life style has had to slow up to match.

Whilst these two extra annoyances are no excuse it has made me feel particularly reclusive and irritable and thus has tended to shun company and become particularly bad at answering messages. Something I am now trying to reconcile. I always try and say I won't stress over the small stuff but it is much easier said then done; for now however my racing heart has eased on these matters.


But now for some happier news, the beginning of my rescue from increasing reclusiveness was an invitation from a friend of the lady I ride for to join them to watch their racehorse Trojan Rocket at Newmarket. I've been racing a few times but at much more grassroots venues like Fakenham, however Newmarket and especially Newmarket Owners and Trainers is a little more grandiose! So now I had the task of looking the part, something that didn't sit well when I had become comfortable pottering round the garden or the yard in scruffies. I suppose I had more or less come to think along the lines or the old adage "You can't turn a pig's ear into a silk purse!" However either you can in fact turn a pig's ear into a silk purse with the right dress, wig and make up or I was wrong in my thinking... whichever is true you decide as here is the result!

Once I got going I really enjoyed myself and even got used to wearing heels again, something I haven't really done in recent years. As an owners guest I had my badge and could go into the paddocks to get a close up look at horses before they set of on the track. Glynn's horse Trojan Rocket was bought cheap but now has sheiks offerring over £50 000 for him and was a favourite for his race at 3:1. He is a beautiful bay, compact for a thoroughbred and has a sprited but calm look to him.

The ground was softer than his liking but he had an excellent jockey who on the trainers advice paced him along the three furlongs, staying to the rear of the field until making a huge sprint to win by nose! There was a deep hush as we waited for the photo finish announcement and then I was surrounded by the screaming and cheering of the winning party. Its hard not to get swept up in that. We were ushered into the winners area and after the presentation of the trophies to the owners, trainer, jockey and groom it was off to hospitality for champagne and to watch the re-run!! This type of racing is good for the heart I think and an excellent boost to my social esteem that day too!

xx