wobbly moments

I had a moment yesterday. A touch of the OhFuckingHellItsAllGettingABitTooMuchNow's.

I was taking the dog for her longer walk of the day at a local woods. The forecast was saying the day would be punctuated with very heavy showers, so we were prepared for a wet walk.

Recently my walking has not been good. Coupled with a weak and wobbly MS phase in the legs, I am suffering with short breath because of the recently diagnosed pulmonary hypertension thing.

It's still my job of the day, every day, to walk our dog though. At present, it's the only exercise I still do every day, and I've always loved doing it. But the truth is it's become a chore to do just right now because of the current health situation, rather than the high-spot of pleasure it has always been before.

I guess it's going to be when every step is a conscious effort, balance is not guaranteed, and it's harder work physically, rather than all of those things being an almost unconsciously easy-peasy. But I do love to observe the seasons changing and the wildlife when we're out, so when the walking is easier the balance is very much on the pleasure side.

When we arrived at the forest car park, the skies were looking threatening, so I opened the car boot up and I sat on the tailgate lip to pull my waterproof over-trousers on.

Having bent down to get them over my feet, I stood up and could feel the rain starting... it was going to be one of those days. I carried on getting ready and did my coat up and realised I was already breathing heavy. Just from bending over and putting some trousers on. Then I felt a trickle in my nostril and I sniffed, but the trickling feeling kept coming.

I know what this is. Nosebleed. A common side-effect of being on anti-coagulant medicines is easily set off nosebleeds, although bending over to put some trousers on is at the lower end of what I'd expect to get me both breathing heavy and set a nosebleed off.

As I reached into pockets, hunting for a handkerchief and drips of blood were splatting on the car boot lip, the rain started sweeping down in curtains. The wind got up, and I felt the temperature drop.

I was feeling weak, clumsy, and overwhelmingly tired all of a sudden. And I was holding my head back and pinching the bridge of my nose to try to bring the nosebleed to a stop. And I was cold and getting very wet, although sheltered a little by the raised tailgate, and breathing like I'd just done a world record 100 meters.

Normally, feeling stronger, I would have probably smiled at the fates bringing me all of these circumstances together and throwing them at me at once – wind, rain, fatigue, nosebleeds, wobbliness. But, with the tiredness, and the effort that any exertion feels like at the moment just being so exasperating, and having my own little energy crisis, it all swelled up, and I found myself in tears.

It didn't last long. Seconds, maybe ten or fifteen. Just enough to release a load of built-up frustration with... just everything.

And then the smile returned. The usual laughing at the pointlessness of getting miserable about things I couldn't control. The heavy shower blew over, the sun started to appear weakly, it warmed up a bit. The nosebleed had clotted and stopped, and Gwynnik was looking at me from her crate, wondering why we were still waiting when she could clearly smell squirrel and needed to try and catch one asap please.

We set off for our walk. It was still a chore, but like most things, I don't think it'll last forever.

Just like the rain, which held off, and the water drops from the earlier showers were glistening nicely in the now warm sun.

Mood lifted.