Garmin Fitness Age of 65.5

Accept the Project

I’ll start this article with clarification. This article will not apply to every person (remember we are all different) or every chronic illness or disease. But it does apply to many of us in the chronic illness population demographic. Remember, at least 47% of the population have at least one of just ten nominated chronic illnesses, so there are a few of us.

Please note as you read, I am using the word “accept” as per this Thesaurus definition: to accept or continue in a situation that is difficult or unpleasant: accept can be used when you want to say that you know a difficult situation will not change and you have decided to stop trying to change it.

But you CAN manage it in many cases. With, of course, the expertise of your doctors and allied health practitioners (physiotherapy, osteopathy, myotherapy, exercise physiologists particularly). Manage it to the point it is far less unpleasant.

The very first thing we have to do is truly accept the new us. Like you accept a new project in the work environment. Now, you may not like that project, you may not want to undertake that project: but you need to feed and clothe yourself, so you accept the project. You take it on board. You embrace it and do it to the best of your ability.

Discovering you have a chronic illness is a shock, no doubt about it. Many of us initially do some or all of the following:

  • Hope it will go away
  • Hope the medicine will do all the hard work
  • Deny the reality of the illness
  • Try to keep living “normally”, ignoring the illness
  • Think if they change aspects of their life to accommodate the illness they are “giving up”

The last one is the big one here. Let’s go back to the project at work analogy. To take on that project you may have to delegate some of your current role to other staff. You may need to relocate your office. You may have to hire new staff. Any number of aspects of your current work may have to change. You will have to set project milestones and goals.

With a chronic illness, same deal. YOU are the Project Manager of your life. To all intents and purposes, your doctors are your new employees (sorry, doctors, don’t read that the wrong way!).

It takes time to accept this new role. I estimate it took me four years. Oh, I started the Movement As Medicine immediately: it was the other things that took longer. Like cutting my work hours to part-time. Eventually I retired earlier than I would have liked. I’ve spoken to other patients who cite times from one and a half years to eight years. The risk of not accepting this new Project is that your illness may progress faster (or quite simply drain you) than it otherwise would have.

As I have written in the past, the energy depletion with many chronic illnesses can be astounding. If, for example, we continue to work full-time, at the end of the day we are exhausted. No Movement As Medicine happens. Weekends are spent recovering some energy for the next week. Or if we see getting My Aged Care as “giving in”, we are using our energy reserves to do housework rather than care for our bodies.

I have a damaged lumbar spine (result of a car accident about 44 years ago). In 2016 surgery was considered, as the pain was consistent and rather debilitating. That surgery would not have been permanent. Instead, I elected to try strengthening my posterior chain. It is now 2025 and that has been successful – no radiofrequency denervation of the lumbar spine for me! While not directly part of my illness, my illness (as do many illnesses) does love to exacerbate weak spots – a 44 year-old injury is a weak spot.

Clearly, to work on my posterior chain strength I need both time AND energy. Project Management priorities! Should I have continued working full-time and hoped my back would right itself? We all know that would have been unlikely. Or dropped my working hours and used that energy and time to work on my body?

If you are diagnosed with a chronic illness, you cannot ignore it in the hope it will go away. This IS the new you. The faster you take on that Project Manager role, the better your chances of maintaining your independence, mobility and freedom for as long as possible will be.

Stavros is another patient who took on the Project Manager role. You can read his Type 2 Diabetes story here: https://dodona777.com/2025/05/16/why-dont-people-choose-to-heal/ Stavros took charge of his project: control his Type 2 Diabetes.

Yes, I know I’ve been quiet for months! You see, I’ve been so wrapped up in enjoying my much improved body since the new diagnosis, and getting my own Movement As Medicine back on track, that’s been my primary focus (evidenced by the feature photo). I’ve increased my weight lifting/training from every third day to three times a week. For any readers raising their eyebrows about strength training, in closing I refer you to recent research findings:

The residents’ average age was 88, and three-quarters of them were women. Every resident had multiple medical conditions. Almost half required help to engage in the essential activities of daily life: getting out of bed, going to the bathroom, bathing, walking, eating.

One simple exercise proved older adults can build and retain muscle – and caused a paradigm shift in science

Source: The Guardian The ninetysomethings who revolutionized how we think about strength training

Robyn Dunphy2 Comments

We Are Not All The Same

This article is for family, friends and colleagues of chronic illness patients. Maybe even for some of the newer patients among us as well – it takes a while to learn the ropes.

Many diseases/conditions are very different from one person to another. If you have a family member with rheumatoid arthritis, for example, and you meet a new co-worker with rheumatoid arthritis, they may have very different symptoms and daily life challenges. Just because one patient can walk and weight lift does not mean another can. Another patient may be using a walker. Same disease, different outcomes.

This can be for any number of reasons, depending on the disease, but here are few possibilities:

  • How long have each of the patients had the disease?
  • How far had the disease progressed before the patient was diagnosed?
  • How effective are their medications for THEM?
  • Have they been able to persist with physical therapy, if appropriate for the disease?
  • Does one patient have multiple conditions and the other only one condition?
  • If one works and the other doesn’t, the working patient may struggle to find energy to care for themselves.

The number of times I’ve heard people say to patients something along the lines of, “My aunt has xyz disease just like you and she can do way more than you can. Have you tried abc (insert any popular supplement here) supplement?”

Although I still do a few casual hours, I retired (see article linked above) in 2022 because working, even reduced hours, just left me absolutely wrecked at the end of the day. I had no energy left to look after ME!

Many of these diseases are progressive – that is, they do more damage the longer we have the disease. Many medications can slow or even stop the progression, but not necessarily for all people. We don’t all have the same outcomes from the same medications. For most of the diseases I am considering in this article, the medications don’t undo existing damage, so if we are diagnosed later than optimal, we may be stuck with the damage already done up to that point.

If patients have more than one condition (and SO many of us do) those conditions can interact. For example, back in 2014 when I first began treatment, my rheumatologist would not treat me for his specialty until the endocrinologist got my thyroid under control.

Some patients may have more than one condition that results in fatigue, so they may be “doubly” fatigued.

I’ve written before about Invisible Illness. Just because one patient doesn’t look sick (in your view) doesn’t mean they aren’t. I don’t look sick, most of the time, but another patient with exactly the same clinical diagnosis could be using a walker. I have a friend with MS – he still works and drives. I knew another MS patient many years ago who could no longer speak and was in a wheelchair.

Many of us have researched our condition/(s) to the nth degree. We probably have a team of specialists and allied health practitioners looking after us. For example, I have:

  • GP (general practitioner for overseas readers)
  • Rheumatologist
  • Gastroenterologist
  • Ophthalmologist (every two years only)
  • Neurosurgeon (new)
  • Sleep Specialist
  • Cardiologist (although haven’t seen him for years, no need)
  • Dermatologist (also haven’t seen him for years as the meds have the skin covered as well)
  • 2 x Orthopaedic Surgeons (they each do different bits)
  • Physiotherapist
  • Myotherapist
  • Exercise Physiologist

I feel like I’ve forgotten one, but you get the idea.

Yes, we may recommend practitioners to each other if another patient asks.

All I ask is that people not expect us to be the same as anyone else they know with the same condition/disease. We pretty much won’t be. Of course, given the global population and the number of people with chronic illnesses, there will be some that are very similar in presentation. Read Will Society Adapt? When? How? for some numbers. It is quite shocking, really.

Each of us will be different. Please don’t make assumptions.

Robyn Dunphy1 Comment
Walking Graph

Why Is There A Dip In My Stats?

Above is a snapshot of my walks for the last four weeks. In my last article I wrote I was improving. Yet we see there was dip yesterday. Why is this so? You’ll be pleased to know it is a deliberate dip. A very deliberate dip, in fact. Recently I wrote Let’s Revisit Pacing. If you are new to my work I strongly suggest you click that link and read that first as this is, essentially, a sequel. A real life example.

Improvement has allowed me to get to the point I am walking 4 kilometres each day: but that was all I was doing! At least that was my primary use of energy over and above actually fueling the bodily functions that keep us alive: pumping blood, breathing, digesting food etc.

Yesterday I did two activities that require energy, that chew through our internal battery charge. I had a shower and I did grocery shopping. This wasn’t a “nip down to the shops and grab a pint of milk” trip, this was a monthly stock up. When I got back to my apartment it was four trips between my apartment and the car to bring everything inside. Then the effort of putting it all away.

When I initially wrote about what I call our internal battery, I stated I didn’t have a charge meter on my arm! I do now: my Garmin watch. Here it is for yesterday (Saturday) compared with Thursday. For whatever reason, I hadn’t charged my battery as well overnight Friday night, so I was already a little low on fuel Saturday morning. I will state I am not sure how accurate this is for chronically ill people – I’m working on watching it carefully – but it is certainly an indicator. Blue is charging your internal battery, orange is using it up.

Another point to note is that most of the step counters will not register steps, or register steps accurately, if you are pushing a shopping trolley (or similar activity). Very annoying, as I think I walked about 1,000 steps just around the supermarket. Consequently there is also a dip in my steps for yesterday, even though I was moving. For those wondering the blue bars below are where I did not achieve my daily goal of 7,500 steps. Green bars are goal achieved!

Why not 10,000 steps you ask? Ahhh, well, yes, I have that covered too! Read We Need Personalised Numbers to understand the 10,000 figure is a myth.

Healthy people reading this will most likely understand shopping uses energy. They might raise an eyebrow over the shower taking energy. Trust me, for most of us chronically ill patients, a shower consumes energy. Many of us need a rest afterwards. I don’t usually, but I do at the moment.

What I did yesterday was adjusted my activities so that I did not Boom/Bust. I don’t need to burn through my internal battery one day then be wiped out for the following two or three days. Having a goal of 4 kilomtres a day is great, but at this stage of my “comeback” I am not risking any post exertional malaise (PEM). If I have to do something, like the grocery shopping, I will adjust my walking goal. Hopefully. in a few months I won’t need to: I’ll be back to my “normal”. Right at the moment, I’m not taking that risk. When I do head back to the gym for strength training, initially I will drop my walking goal for that day.

Using Movement As Medicine is not a simple “just get out there and walk”. It requires careful planning and monitoring. I hate “bust” days and monitor myself very carefully to avoid those days. Over time, following the pacing principles, I can do more. Pacing is the golden rule here! Today I walked 5 kilometres. I’ve been working up to it and I did nothing else that used energy today (other than writing this, of course).

Robyn Dunphy1 Comment
Gardiners Creek

Crossing My Fingers – Again

My apologies for my silence over the last six weeks or so. I counted my chickens before they hatched.

On March 12 I published Changing Medications – What Can You Expect?. At that point it was roughly ten weeks since I had changed my medication for psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and I was finally feeling as if the new medication was starting to kick in. I was a little overly optimistic, as it turns out.

Also, although not mentioned in that article, the whole situation became more complicated when I slipped/tripped and fell in the shopping centre car park on March 8. What I initially thought was a simple trip ended up with me back in my orthopaedic surgeon’s office. To cut a long story short, it was decided the time had come to replace my right knee. If you are new to my story, I had the left knee replaced in 2020.

The problem was the slight improvement I’d got overly hopeful about in March did not continue. I was quite quickly back to waking in considerable pain and struggling with malaise and energy levels.

At the time I saw my perioperative physician I was still on 400 mg of Celebrex and 15 mg of Prednisolone a day. In order to undergo surgery on May 10 (the scheduled date) I needed to reduce the Celebrex to zero by May 1 and the Prednisolone to 2.5 mg per day by a week before the surgery. Was this going to be a challenge, I wondered to myself. I certainly didn’t want to just stop the Celebrex cold turkey on May 1 as clearly I was still in need of it to function on a daily basis. I’d needed friends to drive me to a myotherapy appointment and my pre-op Visionaire scans. Essentially, I wasn’t too chipper.

I discovered I had another infected tooth – maybe THAT was the problem? Had that tooth removed. It was a rather complicated event as the tooth was part of a double crown. I spent over an hour in the dentist’s chair, most of that time was spent removing the crown and temporarily recrowning the uninfected tooth. The actual extraction was a minor part of the visit. However, removing the tooth did nothing to improve my overall inflammation.

On April 17 I could see May 1 looming and decided I’d see if reducing the Celebrex was at all possible. Celebrex comes in capsule form – you either take a capsule or you don’t, there’s no pill splitting here! So I dropped from 400 mg to 200 mg on that Monday. Deliberate timing, as I had a GP appointment on the Tuesday. If anything went wrong, I already had an appointment! I also had accepted another kind offer from a friend to drive me to that appointment.

I woke up on the Tuesday in a very unwell state. While I managed to sit up in bed and get my feet to the floor, I could not actually stand up. This was a bit of a worry, to say the least. As gross as this sounds, I’m sharing for transparency: I was very worried about actually getting to the toilet in time. I tried using my walking stick to give myself some leverage, but doing so hurt both my hands and my shoulders due to the angle. Eventually I managed to stand upright and shuffle to the bathroom. While I was on my feet, I shuffled to the front door and unlocked it from the inside – if I had to call an ambulance, at least they could get in. Obviously I was in no position to start reducing my anti-inflammatories!

After various communications between my GP, rheumatologist and knee surgeon, the knee surgery was cancelled for the time being. My CRP and ESR inflammatory markers were rather high and THAT was while I was on all this medication. What would those markers have been reading if I was on no anti-inflammatories?

I did a damn good job on my rehab of my first knee and it is FANTASTIC! I want to be able to achieve the same result with the second knee replacement. At that point in April I was able to walk a mere 800 metres at a time because my ankles were so painful, the left one in particular. I knew that the extra loading of that ankle while recovering from surgery for the right knee could be very problematic. All things considered, cancelling the May 10 date was sensible, but very disappointing. I want the knee done, but there is no point in being a less that optimal patient if that can be avoided.

My next new medication injection was May 4 and I was getting closer to the 24 week mark – SURELY it would start working!

On May 4 (a Thursday) I gave myself the scheduled injection. Nothing much changed until Monday May 8. I did feel an improvement. I managed to walk 1.5 km in one walk. In total I walked 3 km for the day. I have slowly built up during the week and on Friday I walked a total of 4 km over three walks – I’d hit my old goal of 4 km for the day. Saturday I walked 2 km twice. The possibility of post-op rehab is now looking more achievable! I’ve even walked at my favourite walking spot, shown in the picture above.

For those into graphic representation, here are the last 8 weeks. PLEASE NOTE Garmin changes the scale between the two periods, which makes the March/April bars look WAY higher than most of the April/May bars. And of course I haven’t finished today! Look at the total kilometres: 11.2 km versus 58.9 km

HOWEVER – I’m still on those same dosages of anti-inflammatories. I asked the GP about a possible test reduction and she was rather adamant that I give myself two weeks before we try to change anything. I haven’t even mentioned the pain medication I’m also taking or the Voltaren gel I am using on my hands and ankles.

While all this was happening, my rheumatologist scanned me for gout. The CT scan came back negative, which as the rheumatologist said is both a good and a bad thing. While it is good I don’t have gout, we are back to square one. Why is my inflammation so high? Is it merely that the new medication is taking its own sweet time to be effective? Or is my body being difficult?

Speaking of difficult bodies, I also did something rather adventurous. Click the image to go to the website.

While I am not going to go into detail about this test, it has been useful to me. My report was 29 pages long. To give you an indication, this is a summary of my genotype for the genes the test currently looks at.

We have changed two of my medications as a result. We also know to watch out for certain other medications in the future. This test does not yet cover every medication known to science, but it covers a lot. If you are interested, I suggest you speak to your GP about whether it may be useful in your situation. Yes, it is rather costly on a limited income but I see it as an investment in my health, given my situation.

Right now I am nervous that I am again counting my chickens before they hatch. Today is day eight of incremental improvement. I’ve managed to walk 4 km three days in a row, hopefully today as well. I have more energy. I’m writing. I haven’t ventured back to the gym yet, although I desperately want to.

In summary, as I said in my first article on the subject of changing medications, it is often not as simple as opening a different pill bottle. Even as I write, I do not yet know if this medication is going to be effective for me, but at least I have had eight straight days of improvement. I can exercise reasonably well again. This morning I woke with far less pain in my hands! So I’m crossing my fingers. The last blood test results showed a slight improvement in my inflammatory markers.

If you or someone in your life is changing medications, please be gentle. Be understanding. Be aware it may NOT be smooth sailing. 

Robyn Dunphy4 Comments
In hospital again

Changing Medications – What Can You Expect?

This article is to illustrate the challenges any patient MAY experience when changing medications. I am describing my personal situation: please take into account while reading ALL situations are unique to the individual. My aim is to help patients be aware that changing medications MAY not be smooth sailing. I also ask friends, family and colleagues, especially those managing staff, to be aware changing medications is not as smooth as simply opening a new bottle of tablets. Be supportive and understanding of the patient.

2022 seemed to be a year of gradual deterioration. I ended up in the emergency department (ED) a few times and was hospitalised late January 2023, I had an infected tooth extracted, I just wasn’t feeling good at all. In late December I suddenly realised it was almost the holidays and I was likely to have doctors taking holidays. I felt bad enough that I decided I needed to talk to my rheumatologist before Christmas. My rheumatologist squeezed me in on his last consulting day prior to the holiday season, December 22, 2022. His assessment was that my old medication (let’s call this Med O) had ceased working for me. I stress the “for me” – this is one of the individual aspects – it may keep working very well for millions of other patients!

He started me on a new medication that day. We’ll call this Med N (“N” for New). I was advised it is not good to take Med O and Med N together, I was to stop Med O. I was to start (more like continue, as I had already started) Prednisolone and Celebrex to manage the pain. With hindsight, I think Med O may have still been partially working, guesstimate here, at 40% or 50% efficacy. Because once I stopped it, I got worse!

Med O was a daily tablet medication. The mean terminal elimination half-life ranges from 9 to 14 hours, so the web tells me. So once I stopped taking it, there was no longer any lingering protection from Med O.

Most fellow patients reading this will be aware many medications do NOT start working straight away. I talk about this in Movement As Medicine, written five days after I changed medications. By that stage I had read the documentation and worst case scenario was I could expect improvement in six months! Best case scenario was maybe “some” improvement in about four weeks. That’s a big difference in timeframes. Both “some” and “improvement” are very open to interpretation, too.

Between Christmas and New Year I had a case of De Quervain’s tenosynovitis in my left hand, requiring an ultrasound-guided steroid shot as soon as my rheumatologist was back in the consulting rooms! Not strictly PsA related, but I’m sure there is always a connection with these things, like the hole drilled in my big toe bone!

By that stage I had only had the initial Med N injection. This medication’s schedule is first injection at Week 0, second injection at Week 4, third injection at Week 12 and every eight weeks after that. I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be doing anything much at the three week mark.

On January 20th I yet again presented myself to ED because just about everything was hurting, I’d loss strength in my hands (could not even wring out the dishcloth). I was not a happy adventurer. I ended up having three infusions of methylprednisolone over three days to try to knock on its head the inflammation raging through my body. For a few days afterwards I did feel better, but then started to slide downhill again. Called rheumatologist. His advice was to increase the Prednisolone to 50 mg per day, then taper off at a 10 mg reduction per week down to 10 mg, then stay at 10 mg per day. I’d never been on such a dose! Especially after three infusions! I had noticed breathlessness was an issue after I’d been discharged from hospital and once I increased the Prednisolone dose I noticed sweating and (the worst bit) palpitations at night. Every night. It was like my heart was beating in my ears. Very unsettling experience.

I have a nocturnal AV block. This means my heart skips beats every now and then. Let me tell you, when you have palpitations the missed beats are accentuated. My heart was pounding then dead silence. While it is only a few seconds, I still found myself anxiously awaiting the next beat.

I woke up on March 1st feeling decidedly unwell. Doctor time! GP Clinic squeezed me in with a different than my usual doctor. She listened to my symptoms explanation then looked at my rather elevated blood pressure and heart rate.

Blood Pressure

She wrote a letter to ED and told me to go home, pack a bag and head to ED. “Here we go again”, I thought. This was to be my sixth (I think, I may be missing one, I’ve lost track) trip to ED since October! While we both felt I was reacting to the Prednisolone, the obs were enough to need checking out. Bloods and a CT scan later I was sent home. I was not about to have a heart attack, so there was not much they could do. Yes, the picture above is me in ED on that day.

On February 28th I had reduced my Prednisolone to 20 mg a few days early because I was over the palpitations. While that had no effect (a bit early for the reduction to be reflected in my body’s behaviour) on the Tuesday night, Wednesday night I had no palpitations. I haven’t had any since that night either. Very happy about that!

Consider where I was at that point: Med N was still not being effective, and I was reducing the Prednisolone so the inflammation was increasing. Increased inflammation means higher pain levels. I was in a no-win situation at that point.

It isn’t all about the pain either. With my routines I can generally be pain-free by around 10:30 am, depending on when I get up, medication or no medication. It is the nature of the disease. The lack of energy and general feeling of unwellness was overpowering and that I can’t fix by 10:30 am. The effort required to do ANYTHING seemed too much. Having a shower? Tomorrow will do. Cooking? Toast was easier. Writing? The brain would not co-operate. I had to talk myself into walking, something I never have to do. Hydro pool? The effort required to get into bathers, drive there, get home and then shower just seemed all too much.

On March 9th I had my third Med N injection. Yes, technically a week early, but that is because somehow (do not ask) I stuffed up Week 4 timing. That’s OK, by the way, there is a window either side – I’d just confused myself. Cognitive impairment is worse at this time, naturally. I was still annoyed with myself.

FINALLY, March 11th (yesterday) I woke up and the malaise had lifted. All the sore bits weren’t sore. I could actually wring out the dishcloth – strength in my hands is returning. I am writing. I had been noticing gradual improvement over the preceding few days, but not wanting to count my chickens before they hatched, I’d been cautious. That cited six month timeframe was still floating before my eyes!

I still have swelling in various spots I can see and no doubt in spots I can’t see. I can’t see inside my shoulders, for example. I can see swelling in my hands still and there is fluid pooled under the skin on the top of my feet (like a bubble on both feet). The ankles are still swollen, but better than they were. I hope I’m safe to say we now have improvement: long may it continue!

So there you have it: just ONE example of how changing medications may not be as simple as just opening a new bottle of pills. If you or someone in your life is changing medications, please be gentle. Be understanding. Be aware it may NOT be smooth sailing. This has been an eleven week journey to just get SOME improvement from Med N. How fast improvement will continue, I cannot say.

Please note I have NOT addressed the question of adverse reactions to a new medication in this article, which is something to be aware of, of course. I’ve stuck to the topic of the process of change without adverse reactions. I have had an adverse event in the past, “When Medication Messes With Your Mind“.

* Med N was showing it was working on skin and nails though – so something was happening.

Robyn Dunphy10 Comments

Covid-19: Worst Case Scenario Ignored

My random Tuesday thoughts: we are ignoring the Worst Case Scenarios. We are not planning ahead.

My previous writing on Covid-19: Covid Is Not Over

A related article re how society deals with the existing chronic illness population, which readers may find useful: Will Society Adapt? When? How?

Robyn DunphyLeave a comment
Watch

I LOVE a Mystery!

I do! I love a mystery. Be forewarned: this article is outside my qualifications or skill set – I just want to share the mystery. My interest in this mystery is, IF (and this is a big “if” at this point) wearables can detect increases in inflammation from monitoring various physiological metrics, how useful could that be to so many of us with inflammatory conditions?

As regular readers know, this has not been the best health year for me – not actually major bad things, but not exactly climbing Mount Everest either. To catch up a little for context, check out The Tangled Web of Chronic Illness.

Earlier this year, I bought a Garmin Forerunner 55 sports watch. I got it on special, just for the record. Now, I was rather upset to discover they’d stolen MY idea of an internal battery, just renamed it Body Battery. (No, I don’t really think they stole my idea).

It was interesting indeed. Here was I not feeling too crash hot and my watch was telling me my body was very physically stressed even when I lying in bed asleep. Here is December 14 as an example of the type of day I was seeing.

Body Battery

The orange bars are physical stress (draining), the blue are rest (recharging). Out of a max of 100, my battery reached a high of 33 that day and dropped to a low of 13.

What, I wondered, was this trying to tell me? My doctors weren’t very interested. It’s not a medical device, after all. Well, they may not be interested, but I am.

The watch is very accurate with other measurements: kilometres walked, GPS, step count. But was it perhaps faulty in this respect?

The first question I had was how is Garmin calculating this? Click the pic to read the full article

Calculation

I read several of the related publications, just chose the above to share here.

I was convinced my watch was telling me something. I even logged a support ticket with Garmin (still in progress as I write) but I have now decided the watch is onto something. That something MAY be inflammation.

Let’s move forward to the end of December, when I was having quite a bit of pain. After two rheumatologist visits and two GP visits between December 22 and January 3 and a steroid shot in one wrist AND (this is the kicker I think) starting on anti-inflammatory medication on Wednesday January 3, all of a sudden my body battery looks much more like I would expect it to look. Here is yesterday’s report! Compare the pair!

Yesterday I did stuff aside from walking. I did a big grocery shop, put all the groceries away, I worked in the afternoon and before lunch. I can match those orange periods on the graph with what I was doing during the day. I could not do that in December. Not only that, I reached a high of 85! 85! The low of 8 was at midnight.

Stunned I was! The only explanation I can come up with at this point is the anti-inflammatories. Started on Wednesday, took a couple of days to kick in. Plus, of course, I have started my new PsA medication and it will be hopefully starting to work behind the scenes as well.

This morning is looking very similar. By the time I woke up my battery was charged to 93!

Body Battery This Morning

Now, as I type this, I have used up some energy. I was out walking at 7:30 am this morning. I haven’t felt like doing THAT at 7:30 am for months. 2.5 kilometres, for anyone keeping tabs. As we know, over Christmas it was taking me until about 10 am to desolidify enough to walk.

Now, two days does not solve a mystery. I might be 100% incorrect in my deliberations. However, I’m sure you’ll agree it is very interesting. Is it not? I will be monitoring progress to see what happens from here on in.

Yes, I have updated my Garmin support ticket with this new information. I’m finding this quite intriguing!

One more graph. Garmin also provide a graph of your average physical stress over the days. Look what has happened.

Stress Graph

Robyn Dunphy1 Comment

I Have Retired. Should You?

I’ve been very quiet on Limberation because I’ve been extremely busy. I’ve retired and moved. BIG life change it is too!

My plan was to keep working until I was 70. My body has been saying, “Maybe not”. Not that I am in constant pain, I’m not. And I want to stay that way. Regular readers will have noticed my articles about energy use and pacing. Two very important aspects to managing my condition and retaining my mobility, function and independence.

By April of this year I had reached the point where I was seriously considering how long I could keep working. It seemed I didn’t have enough energy to work AND exercise enough: #MovementIsMedicine. Of course, simply getting older plays a part in this as well and there is not a lot I can do about the passage of time.

When my name came up on the right list for retirement housing (yes, I had been planning ahead, I was on waiting lists) I made the decision. Retirement was the way to go. The decision involved a lot of work though – energy I really was struggling to find. Writing was definitely put on the backburner. Working through phasing me out of my position in a job I love. Organising the actual move – and the move date got moved twice, just to complicate matters. The move also meant downsizing and that was work. I am typing this on my dining table, not my very large corner desk with a return on each side that I used to have! Packing took more energy. To top it off I got a temperature that hung around for six weeks and towards the end of that six weeks, a tooth infection. The temperature involved a lot of blood tests, some CT scans and several doctors visits. More energy needed. We now think the temperature and the tooth were connected, but initially I didn’t have any tooth pain, therefore we didn’t realise.

It wasn’t just me either. My brother-in-law was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer, my nephew needed stents and my daughter and her husband got Covid-19. There was an attempted identity theft/fraud on an account of mine which had to be sorted as well – I caught it as it was happening, so no losses. Everything was happening at once.

Back to why I retired. I used to be able to walk before work, walk at lunch time and walk after work. I was struggling to find the energy to get dressed before work, let alone walk before work. This wasn’t good for the management of my psoriatic arthritis. I wasn’t being consistent in my exercise either. My weight training had dropped to once a week – I was not happy about that. As a result I was experiencing an increasing number of minor flares and I didn’t want any major flares! I had already cut my working hours from 30 hours per week to 24 hours per week, but the days I worked I was still struggling to do the movement I need, therefore I was losing the consistency.

It seemed if I did the exercise and physical therapy I need to do, I was too tired to work, and if I worked, I was too tired to maintain my exercise regime. Maintaining my health as best as I possibly can is critical to quality of life. I love working, but it reached the point where I could no longer have my cake and eat it too.

Should those of us with chronic conditions make this decision earlier if we can? It is a huge decision. There are the financial implications of course. There may be housing implications as well. The age pension age keeps getting further and further away……. The disability pension (for younger patients) is almost unattainable these days. Women around my age may not have a lot of super (if any) due to the particular decades we worked through, there was no paid maternity leave for many of us and so on.

Yet more and more of the population live with chronic conditions of some sort. We have to make hard decisions about how we manage our lives. I became eligible for the age pension the year before I finally bit the bullet and retired. I am still working as a casual for my employer but minimal hours.

I believe I have made the right decision for my health. Without health, other aspects of our life may suffer: relationships, work, mental health to name just three. Do we try to “keep going” too long, or longer than we should? I’m thinking not just of now, but in ten years time. I want to give myself the best chance of minimising deterioration NOW so I can maintain quality of life in my seventies and eighties. We need to look ahead, not just at tomorrow or next week. Our modern medications, as fantastic as they are, don’t solve everything.

What am I going to do with all this “spare” time? Naturally, I’ve set myself some physical goals: swimming, weight training, walking goals. I will pace up to those goals. Find more unusual flowers!

I will write more. I will get back to my parking permit project. I will finish unpacking, cull my shoe collection.

Paint my nails! Of course!

This first week of full retirement has been psychologically challenging. I hadn’t had time to really prepare myself for the change of lifestyle and then there it was, happening. My advice would be if you can plan ahead, do so.

So that is it. I am retired. A different phase of life.

Bring it on!

Robyn Dunphy14 Comments

Accessible Parking Permits – Part II

This is an update to my Open Letter to VicRoads article. I will say the VicRoads staff member I spoke to was professional and very helpful – as helpful as is possible under the prevailing circumstances. In a nutshell, both my doctor and I may have taken the wording of one of the questions too literally and I can (and will) apply for a review – whether that will be successful remains to be seen and involves seeing a different doctor than the first one I saw, so another medical bill. HOWEVER, while that may solve my specific, immediate problem, it does NOT solve the broader issue of many of us needing parking proximity. I reiterate, the DT (Double Time) permits are not accepted in other states, unlike the Australian Disability Parking (ADP) Permit which is recognised nationally as it is a federal scheme.

I’ve mentioned the wonderful Dylan Alcott before, in Society and Chronic Health Conditions. I am going to compare Dylan and myself. Dylan VISIBLY needs an ADP Permit, no question. He needs the extra space for his wheelchair, this is obvious to anyone. However, anyone looking at me is going to assume I am “healthy” – the problem of invisible illnesses is we keep having to justify why we look so healthy.

The issue here is energy. Again, compare Dylan and myself. Dylan has enough energy to play professional tennis at the elite level. I’m not saying that is easy, but he has that energy! As I described in Personal Energy Use, many of us have to manage our energy use down to the last joule on a daily basis. This can be particularly challenging when we MUST also do certain levels of physical activity (movement is medicine) to retain function and mobility. If Dylan had to park 500 metres from his destination, I can imagine him covering that 500 metres with the acceleration he uses on the tennis court. I could also cover 500 metres very well – IF it was one of the ONLY activities I had to expend energy on that day, or I knew about it before hand and was able to plan accordingly. But it isn’t, is it? Life’s not like that. I talk about energy because that is my issue, but many other people would risk pain being triggered by unplanned extra activity. Pain that may take 48 hours or more to settle.

We are not only an aging population, we also have increasing numbers of chronically ill people in the community, many trying to live independent lives. We work. We go to the gym. We swim. We do hydrotherapy. We go to shopping centres. We study at universities. BUT WE HAVE LIMITATIONS.

While VicRoads manage the applications for accessible parking permits and determine the application questions and categorisations, they are NOT responsible for the number of available parking spaces OR the TYPES of parking spaces. Councils are responsible for the actual parking spaces themselves. It seems councils are reluctant to provide more wide style accessible parking spaces. My suggestion is we need a second type: standard width parking spaces close to entrances (as the wide spaces are) to provide a proximity benefit to permit holders. These would require no structural modifications, just appropriate signage.

The Double Time (DT) parking permit that I now have is useless to me. I don’t need double time, I need proximity. I’m not going to spend double time in the gym, for example. What I do need is to not have to walk an unplanned extra 600 metres (300 metres being the distance I had to park from the gym the other day) as part of my excursion. And that’s the problem, we can’t plan our day if there is this great unknown of how much extra walking will be required. Do I cancel my morning walk, just in case? But then I can’t “catch up” that walk later in the day either if I find I don’t need that extra energy supply by finding a park close to the gym. That is not taking into account carrying anything either (gym equipment, shopping, text books, whatever). Activity has to be spaced out across the day for many of us. We may need rest between sessions.

On Monday last week I had a big day, for my body. It went like this: walk to tram, tram to train, walk from train to dentist, repeat in reverse, slight rest, drive to myotherapist, then home afterwards. Monday is usually a gym day as I don’t work Mondays, but after all that activity I was energy depleted: gym was not happening. So I planned to go to gym after work on Tuesday if I felt up to it. Tuesday, drove to the gym, not a park within any reasonable distance. I had to turn around and drive home again. The double time permit was of no use to me at all.

Then comes the question of who fights for change? Change usually has to be driven by those needing the change, but our energy levels won’t allow for taking on that extra load. Another illustration. Yesterday (Friday) was a reasonably heavy day of work for me, I was flying solo as colleagues had the day off. By about 5 pm I was 700 steps short for my daily step count target. I bribed myself to do those 700 steps by walking to the local shop and buying a treat.

Bad me! But they are nice.

By 7:30 pm my internal battery was completely flat. Lying in bed, I realised I hadn’t done my critical shoulder exercises but there was no way I could lift myself off the mattress to stand up and do them. I didn’t make my breakfast last night in preparation for today. This morning I realised I hadn’t even removed my “paint on” (doesn’t smudge under masks) lipstick last night. This morning it was noon before I could “do stuff”. Saturday morning is always “recover from the working week” time, and at least I did manage to paint my nails, so the time wasn’t completely wasted.

My FAVOURITE colour!

Where on earth would I find the energy to launch and drive innovation across the many councils? The truth is, I don’t have that energy available. It would be very hard work. The very people who need the innovation may not have the energy to fight for the innovation. Therein lies our problem. This whole situation, of course links back into my article Will Society Adapt? When? How?

Expansion and innovation of accessible parking availability is part of the social adaptation required for the increasing numbers of people.

The need to recognise different types of disability is paramount. Dylan and I have completely different disabilities requiring different solutions. We need to innovate.

I am told there are problems with people who perhaps really do not need accessible parking getting access and therefore there has had to be a tightening of eligibility criteria. Yet this flies in the face of the knowledge we have about the increasing numbers of people in society who may need accessible parking to retain their independence and quality of life. The solution to increased numbers of people is surely not to restrict access, but to innovate and increase availability, perhaps provide a new type of parking space as I’ve suggested. Other suggestions I am sure would be made if we thought about it.

It seems to me society is saying we can’t possibly make more or different spaces available for the increased number of people, we’ll just have to restrict access more rigorously. That’s like saying we can’t build more schools, we’ll just not educate some kids. Or we can’t have more hospitals, some sick people will just have to miss out on treatment.

Of course, if I were rich, I could have a chauffeur drive me to the door of my destination, find a park and wait for me. Like a great many of the population, I’m not rich.

Robyn Dunphy2 Comments

Open Letter to VicRoads

I sent the email below to VicRoads on Monday March 7, 2022. As of today, I have not received a response. Some patient experience in the meantime. On Saturday I went to the gym. The closest park I could get was 300 metres from the gym. This was a suburban gym, not a large shopping centre as cited in the email below. That meant I had to cut my rehab work time short to allow for the extra energy required to walk an unplanned extra 600 metres (total). On the Sunday I went to the same location for hydrotherapy. Hydrotherapy means I am lugging an equipment bag and a swim bag. I knew if I was going to have to park as far away again, I would have to skip my hydrotherapy. Thankfully, I was able to get a park across the road. Even so, once I had finished my workout I had to sit and rest for ten minutes before walking back to my car. Energy.

I believe a week is sufficient time to allow for a response. When I do receive a response, I will do a follow-up article. This issue is going to be very important for many chronically ill people.

Dear VicRoads,

I recently renewed my accessible parking permit. This is the first time I have been through the VicRoads application/renewal process as in 2021 I renewed via City of Stonnington.

I had a total knee replacement in 2020 and bi-lateral foot surgery in 2021. Those are not the reasons for my concern. My concern relates to my chronic condition, psoriatic arthritis. As with many chronic conditions lethargy and fatigue are symptoms. A DT Permit is of very little benefit to me and the many patients like me. I hope that the decision makers and policy makers within VicRoads are aware of the prevalence of lethargy and fatigue. If not, there are many peer reviewed clinical reports I can refer to your organisation for their edification.

You may have heard of the spoon theory analogy. Personally I prefer the internal battery analogy. Most chronic illness patients have limited battery charge per day. I refer you to my own writing, “Personal Energy Use” for a deeper explanation.

The DT Permit provides no proximity benefit to the permit holder. For example, in a large shopping centre or university carpark I might have to walk a kilometre just to access the shops or lecture theatres and return to my car. That doesn’t take into account any walking required within the shopping centre or on the campus. Large hospitals could require similar. I know, because I’ve measured the distances.

For a person with a chronic condition, this extra energy use may prevent us being able to shop, receive health care or undertake education. Alternatively, it may leave us so depleted of energy we are unable to undertake the activities that are required to manage our condition on a daily basis or to perform our jobs effectively. I currently work from home, however when required to go into the office, in a very large organisation, getting a car park near a lift can be extremely challenging unless I have an ADP Permit.

Surely it would not be difficult to mark some standard width carparks within a reasonable proximity to appropriate entrances to the facilities in question.

The DT Permits do not allow for changing circumstances either. For example, psoriatic arthritis is notoriously unpredictable. While I’m not using any mobility aids at the moment due to a recent change in medication, two months ago I couldn’t get out of bed without using crutches. I am facing a second total knee replacement and two ankle replacement surgeries in the future. The ankle replacements require twelve weeks each of non-weight bearing on the operated leg (a knee scooter allows mobility). Obviously while on a knee scooter I will require one of the wider car spaces (no, I will not be driving myself). I understand temporary ADP Permits can be obtained for surgical reasons, yet this does not change the underlying issues of the DT Permits nor allow for unpredictable conditions.

The VicRoads website restricts the ADP Permit to issues with walking less than 100 metres: “you have an acute or chronic medical condition such that minimal walking (up to 100 metres) causes you to stop several times because of pain, extreme fatigue or imbalance which may endanger your health acutely in the long term“.

This is unrealistic for the reasons I have stated above. It isn’t the 100 metres that will be the issue for many of us, it is the energy expended walking the considerable distances given there is no proximity benefit with an DT Permit that may cause extreme fatigue which may endanger our health in the long term and impact our current quality of life in other ways as stated above.

I hope that VicRoads will give serious consideration to the requirements. My permits (expired and current) are attached for your reference.

I will be publishing this letter on my website in order to support the disability community but will await your response.

Kind regards

Addendum: For those wondering, yes, there are differences between states. There is an Australian Disability Parking Scheme, details of which can be found on that link. Note that the DT permit is NOT part of the federal scheme and therefore is not accepted in other states.

Update March 26, 2022 Please refer to Accessible Parking Permits – Part II for an update.

Robyn Dunphy2 Comments