Wednesday 2 September 2015

Never forget.....hmmm easier said than done.

Most of you will now know that i am now on the active transplant list waiting for double lungs. On the 6th August i started doing to pulmonary rehab classes. This is where we do a series of exercises to build my strength up for when I have my transplant. The exercises are fairly easy to do and consist of lunges, sit to stand, wall presses, biceps curls using weights, step up's, bike and something else which I can't quite remember what it is. After the hours exercise there is usually an education lesson, sometimes I stay for these but the majority of people have COPD. I'm enjoying going to the classes even though it's more aimed at COPD patients, but i've met some lovely people. There is a lady in my class that has IPAH, she uses oxygen which I don't at the moment. 

Anyway back to my tale and the reason why I have put the title as it is. I went on holiday to Cornwall lwith my mum in August. We stayed in a static caravan on the lovely Mother Ivey's campsite. My brother has bought a plot on there to put an adapted static on for his use as he is a wheelchair user, I won't go into to much detail about it though. Anyway me and mum set of on the Sunday 23/8, I had packed all my clothes and just before we set of my mum said to me have you got everything?? My reply was yes. We got down to Strensham services on the M5 and I suddenly realised I had forgotten to pack all my tablets except my sildenafil!!!! How very silly of me!!! I was so annoyed with myself!!! My mum was not best pleased and said "I'm not turning around now for them, you will have to ring your dad and be very nice to him to see if he can post them out to you!!!" So I rang my dad and asked him to post my tablets to me on Monday morning using special delivery so that they would be there on Tuesday morning. We got to Cornwall on Sunday evening and it was lovely, we watched the sun go down from the headland of the campsite and then went back to the caravan. On Monday we decided to have an easy day as I didn't know how I would feel from not having all my tablets. I managed fine but felt a bit more breathless than usual. Tuesday arrived and I went upto the caravan site shop and there was my name on the board "Makin" hahaha!!!! I went into reception and said I have a delivery today my name is Catherine Makin. The receptionist said oh yes I think it's here, and pointed to a pile of brown paper bags/parcels on the floor. Finally my tablets had arrived!!! I quickly took them and we went out for the day. The campsite has its own private beach so on Wednesday we decided to go down and have a little walk along the sand. Now to get down to the beach is a very big slope, I can get down but can't get back up again as I don't do well with inclines as they make me breathless really easily. 

This is Mother Ivey's beach.

Anyway I decided I would go down and have a wander along the beach with my mum in tow. It was a lovely sunny day, the wind was a bit cool but I had my shorts on!!! We walked along the beach and sat down on the rocks for about an hour watching the waves crashing onto the rocks. It was pure bliss!!! Eventually we set off back up the beach to make our way up the big slope. I'm thinking yeah I can do this, I will just take my time. We approached the slope and I was a little out of breath, I then spied a little golf buggy just at the end of the slope but there was nobody in it. Then my mum spotted one of the staff from the campsite and asked if I could jump in the golf buggy to take me back to the top of the path. The gentleman was lovely and said I could jump on the buggy and he would take me back to the caravan. I said I would be fine walking back upto the caravan so he dropped me off on the campsite road very near to the caravan. We also had a wander up to the lighthouse at Trevose Head on the headland but it was very windy and I couldn't walk far as the wind really takes my breath away. That night we went to watch the sunset at Trebarwith Strand, such a beautiful place and it's good for watching the sunset. We found a pub to have our tea in and then dove down to the car park. Bearing in mind the car park is on a bit of an incline, and as I mentioned earlier on I don't do very well walking up inclines. So we sat and waited for the sunset but it kept going cloudy so we didn't get that good of a sunset. Never mind there is always next year to watch it. 

This is a picture of the sunset at Trebarwith Strand.

On Thursday we went to a vineyard- can't actually remember the name. But the wine was gorgeous!!! Unfortunately they didn't have any red wine in as it all depends on the produce if the grapes. The grapes that where being grown this year won't be used for another year to produce wine. That's how they make wine apparently!!! We then decided to go to Polzeath beach. One of my mums favourite places. We found a parking space and decided to go and get a Cornish pasty for our dinner. We wandered along the beach and sat down on the sand. It was so busy as it was the school holidays. We sat on the beach for about 2 hours then mum said come on we have to get going now, need to pack our stuff and go home 😞. The journey home was horrendous!!! They had shut part of the M5 at Birmingham so it took longer to get home than it did to get to Cornwall. 
Anyway that's my tale of my holiday, I managed fine without my tablets for 2 days and had fab tIme in Cornwall.