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Two weeks to go and I have two fascinating new illnesses to report. The first, fat fingers, is apparently normal for some hikers who go walking in the summer months. It's something to do with blood rushing to the extremities and your hands swaying beneath your heart. Or something. It's harmless, I think, if a little disconcerting.
My second illness was completely self-inflicted. Sunburn. Yes, on Sunday, like many others around the country I'd wager, I went a little bit crazy at the first sign of sunshine. I was only out for an hour and I ended up with third degree burns for my trouble. My right arm still glows in the dark, while my knees gave off so much heat you could have fried eggs on them.
Worse still is what happened to my face (see right). Not good. Not good at all. And I'm not just talking about the beard.
Thankfully, a crate of Aloe Vera gel has managed to reduce the excruciating agony into a mild irritation and I was even well enough to go for a 3 and a half hour hike today. On Saturday I managed six straight hours without even a twinge. No aches or pains the next morning either. Six months ago I would have been hospitalised.
In other news, we're almost £200 over our target now, and there's no sign of it stopping, which is fantastic. Sadly, my Doctor Who Charity Auction is going down like a lead balloon. Or perhaps people just don't understand the rules, in which case it's doing really well! Or maybe everyone is waiting for the last possible second to make a bid on a novel signed by Nicola Bryant. Go on, google her.
Or maybe I've simply exhausted the generous seam of Doctor Who fandom, which surprises me as I would have thought an extra fiver in exchange for Bernard Horsfall's signature and a small child's welfare would have been a shoo-in. Oh well, there's still time!
And finally, Palma and I are off to the Lakes this Saturday and my new HD palmcorder is currently in the postal system, so with any luck there might be a video blog available this Sunday.
Neil
K-Minus 28 days Ever since I agreed to this challenge I've been in a state of constant paranoia about my health. That slight twinge in my knee? Almost certainly rheumatoid arthritis. Runny nose? Probably swine flu. Sore throat? Lung cancer. Got to be. Every niggle, every weird sensation, every sniffle inevitably leads to panic: what if it stops me climbing the mountain?
Factor in a global fear about a flu pandemic and it's got to the point where I'm afraid to leave the house anymore. I mean, what if I slip on those stairs at work? It's becoming debilitating.
Now, I'm not a hypochondriac by any stretch of the imagination; I've been to the Doctors four times in the last 20 years and two of those visits were to receive vaccinations for this trip. In short, while I've had my fair shares of scrapes, bruises and infections, I've never had to bother the NHS about it. Until now.
In the last two weeks my health has gone completely pearshaped. It all started with a persistently bad taste in the back of my throat, which was then joined by a bad cough and a gurgling sound coming from what I thought were my lungs. In short, I felt bloody awful. Worse still, my training ground to a complete halt. And with that comes guilt, paranoia and self-doubt.
On Monday I went to the Doctors, and after recovering from the shock of being instructed to urinate on command, he decided that my tonsils were inflamed and that my kidneys were infected. He gave me some antibiotics and sent me on my way. 24 hours later and the taste was gone and the gurgling had stopped, and, for a afternoon at least, my confidence soared.
Yesterday I felt worse than ever; tired, nauseous and generally unwell. Could it be the antibiotics playing havoc with my so-called friendly-bacteria?
Today I feel like my throat is blocked. It's as if I've got a lump of food stuck in there and I can't shift it, even though I haven't. It doesn't hurt but it's difficult to swallow and it's irritating as hell. The Internet isn't much help - according to various online medical forums my condition is either a) stress related b) a virus c) tonsillitis or d) terminal cancer. If I look in the mirror my tonsils look really inflamed on one side so I'm guessing (praying) that it's all connected somehow. My course of antibiotics run out on Monday and I'll be back to the Doctors if things don't improve.
But it's terrifying. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't be overly concerned by this condition, but as I enter the last month of my preparations I'm gripped by this horrible feeling that someone - or something - will stop me going up that mountain. Not only that, my training routine has slipped and it's got to the point where I know I'll have to force myself to train tomorrow, despite feeling unwell. And then that leads me to worry that I'll only make myself worse.
Brilliant.
Anyway, assuming that I survive the weekend I aim to publish more frequent updates on this blog as the date looms ever closer. It's starting to feel very, very real...
Neil
Well it’s been almost two weeks since my grand trip to Australia and I expected to return to feral children and a house I wouldn’t recognise. Now that’s no reflection on my wonderful husband but let’s face it nobody can really do a mother’s job. But to genuine my surprise, my lovely girls were in great shape and my house was spotless, showcase material. Joe assures me he didn’t pay anyone. I don’t know whether to smile about it or cry about it. That said, my body and mind are almost in sync and life goes back to normal.
While I was down under doing the family thing, there really wasn’t a lot of training going on to be honest, lots of going out, drinking, socialising, catching up with people I haven’t seen for years, introducing Joshua to family was grand and spending quality time with Dad was the best. Several things got in the way of training like really bad storms, cyclones, floods all sorts of forces against you. I even tried going swimming, but you could say that didn’t go according to plan.
Here we were Joshua and I splashing in the pool just getting started and Joshua said “look Mommy, a frog” as I got closer I discovered that the frog was indeed a huge water scorpion not to be messed with. They aren’t poisonous but their claws can nip your toe clean off! I didn’t need any more convincing that swimming was not a good idea. To top off our experience of outdoor swimming there also were poisonous toads jumping about, and I don’t even want to tell you about the snake story because you really won’t believe me. Joshua fell in love with the kangaroos however ….
Back in England and training has started up again in the form of walking on week-ends much to my children’s horror. It’s rather comical, as all three chant “We’re not going walking again!” and me saying “Oh it will be fun, lots of rocks to climb”, while Joe’s rolling his eyes thinking to himself “Here we go again”. Bless, they have been brilliant but five months of walking is starting to get to them and we still have several weeks to go. Joe was of the opinion that going to the gym would be of greater value to me rather then just walking out and about. His way of saying, “I too don’t want to walk anymore”. So off he went and bought me a membership at my local gym. How thoughtful, I get the training and he and the children get some peace. So now I also go to the gym but my experience of my induction was rather different from Neil’s. My instructor was very gentle with me and very helpful and after my induction was finished (15 minutes) I did an hour of the treadmill and steps combined while several well fit men pumped weights. If that’s not incentive enough to go back I don’t know what is.
With less than six weeks to go until the big day, my preparations continue to go well. I'm going to the gym at least a couple of times a week, and as far as I can tell I still haven't made a complete arse of myself yet. I've also been taking long walks as often as I can, although the lack of company can be vaguely depressing now that the novelty of walking for four hours straight has well and truly worn off. In addition, my Tanzania visa has arrived, my kit list is almost complete and the fund raising continues at a steady pace. In fact, the only thing that might stop me now is if something really improbable were to happen. You know, something like a flu pandemic that will either knock me off my feet or cancel my flight. Take your pick. Suddenly, the Greg Preston post I made back in January seems eerily prophetic...
But never mind the swine flu, let's have some rabies!
Yes, I had my second rabies jab today. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that I'd find myself in a situation where I'd have to be vaccinated against one of the scariest diseases I'd ever heard of. Well, until last week, that is.
When I was growing up in the 70s I was utterly terrified of rabies. I vividly remember the posters and the TV adverts, the novel about that mad Saint Bernard, Cujo, and the 1983 film The Mad Death (right), which had a profound and lasting effect on me; in short, it did for cats and dogs what Jaws did for sharks and mayors.
Incidentally, there was an episode of Survivors that featured rabid dogs but Greg Preston was nowhere to be seen so I have absolutely no idea what he would have done. Which is a bit worrying.
Anyway, it turns out that the rabies vaccination it isn't even remotely mandatory for my trip! This wouldn't bother me so much if the side effects weren't so awful. I feel bloody terrible and my right arm is killing me. And I've got to go back for a third installment in three weeks time. That's if I the health centre hasn't been overwhelmed by Captain Trips.
In other news, a couple of weeks ago I made a guest appearance on the Doctor Who podcast Radio Free Skaro, and if you can bear to listen to me banging on about Michelle Ryan and Red Dwarf then you'll also hear me outlining some of the details of the trip whilst simultaneously begging for money, a tactic that appears to have been quite successful given some of our recent donations. Thanks for that, lads.
And finally, I received some instructions concerning our itinerary from Charity Challenge today and I was immediately drawn to the final paragraph:
May I take this opportunity to remind you that this is a challenge and that you may experience extreme conditions, unpredictable weather, and last minute changes to the itinerary, so please bear this in mind and be prepared for “anything”.
What the hell does that mean? Is John Barrowman going to magically appear on the summit? Will the snows of Kilimanjaro turn out to be polystyrene? Or perhaps we'll end up being the only survivors of a global plague that wipes out humanity while we are huffing and puffing our way up Kili. Yeah, and pigs might fly...
Neil
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