Toogood.org.uk

Real Ale Train

Last weekend we spent the day on the Real Ale Train (RAT). The four of us, Niki, Callum, Chloe and I met with Andy (a colleague from work) and his son Austin.

We caught two trains to Alton where Andy had already called ahead with our cooked breakfast order – yum!! We boarded the RAT steam train at Alton with Andy’s dad and father-in-law. Hugh and his son Mark also caught up with us a few stations up the line.

Other than sampling the ale, the kids all loved being on a steam train and also jumping off at every available point so that they could see the steam engine.

Callum, being a typical boy, was a dirt magnet, as you can see from the photo!

We hope to take Callum next week when Thomas the Tank Engine come to the Watercress Line for a holiday – I am sure more photos will follow that day too!

Was it really a year ago?

Life has calmed down a little, although things have recently got busy again…. but thats another story.

I have realised that I haven’t posted on the Toogood blog for nearly a year!! (all but a few days).

The last post was about my battle against EDS so I guess I had better start by finishing that one off…..

Between my last post (July 2009) and Christmas I saw a consultant a number of times, had blood tests, CSF tests (don’t have a lumbar puncture – I had concussion and vertigo symptoms for 8 days following mine and couldn’t stand for nearly the whole time!) had multiple sleep studies, and a CT Scan and the final result was……

….Nothing!  I have been advised that the quality of my sleep was below average and that I had lots of symptoms, none of which were strong enough to form a diagnosis.  I have been told that working shifts is not ideal and that I need to keep an eye on my work patterns to ensure that the symptoms do not return.

So after all this time and all those tests there was a bit of an anticlimax I’m afraid.

It wont be too long before the next update comes out as I have loads to write about!!

The next chapter of my battle against EDS….

For those of you that don’t know, I have been suffering from Excessive Daytime Sleepiness. This doesn’t just mean that I get a little sleepy in the afternoon like we all do, but means that I fall asleep often without notice for a few seconds to minutes. I have been known to fall asleep in a number of situations at work and at home including during a conversation amongst many worse times….

It appears that this has been going on longer than I thought and just put it down at first to having a busy lifestyle, then due to having an under active thyroid. But when my thyroid medication levels were correct or even high and the sleepiness hadn’t reduced I decided that it was time to take some action and seek some.

I have been assessed mostly in Oxford for diabetes, Thyroid medication levels, Obstructive Sleep Apnea and now Narcolepsy, all of which have proved to be negative which is good in some ways but bad in others as I don’t know what is wrong with me.

The plan from today;

So tomorrow I start taking the tablets and see how that goes and now wait for the appointments to come through. Any new developments and I will keep you updated.

Its going!

As you probably know, I have been battling with trying to loose weight for quite a few years. I have tried loads of different diet and exercise programs with little to no success and had all but given up.

I went to see my Dr about trying to increase my Thyroxine in order to combat my Excessive Daytime Sleepiness and all that he could say was that I needed to loose weight.

I get frustrated with Drs at the best of times and came away even more upset than normal. Having said that, I did make me go and talk to one of my neighbours. We live in an estate built in the 60s (I think) where all of the houses are on top of each other and you can see what everybody is doing, and yet you never seem to talk to your neighbours unless its about the amount of noise that each other is making. One of our neighbours is always in her garage at the end of our garden, and she is always putting stuff in her car and gets big deliveries every Monday morning. All a little bit odd, but then one day I saw that she put a weight watchers sign in her boot….

…Its quite a big deal, a bloke asking a woman who he doesn’t know if she runs weight watchers and what it involves. I had tried it once before online, as I’m not really into this group hugging and meeting malarky. But she convinced me that its not like Little Britain’s Fat Fighters, and they
don’t talk about dust…..

Fast Tube by Casper

She convinced me that I should go along and see what happens – so I did!

At my heaviest I was 17.5 stone, but when I started going to Weight Watchers I was 16 stone 5.5 pounds, and 7 weeks later I have managed to loose 1 stone 6.5 pounds!!!!

The thing that I like about weight watchers is that I don’t actually feel like I’m on a diet – OK, I need to say no sometimes when others are eating food that I don’t really need, but I still eat my full fat cheddar cheese, still drink beer and occasionally have a Kebab…. is this really a diet – who cares – it works!!!!