Wednesday's diary on a Thursday 8.2

Wednesday 4th November:
3.45am Change bag
7am Change bag
11.50am Empty bag
4.30pm Empty bag
7pm Empty bag
9.55pm Empty bag

Medication:
Breakfast 6 x mesalazine 400mg
Dinner 4 x azathioprine 50mg
Bedtime 6 x mesalazine 400mg

Therapies:
McKenna

Noticeable improvements:
Blood.

Mood:
Still good.

Bedtime reading

Foyles sits on the edge of Soho like a bookend. Established in 1903 it is the Harrods of bookshops. In its heyday Christina Foyle held literary lunches on the premises, attended by famous writers of the time. If ever the Oxford English Dictionary were stuck for a definition of ‘intimidating’ then ‘Foyles literary lunch’ would sum it up well for me.

Recently I did something in Foyles I’ve never done before. I went downstairs to the basement floor in search of the self-help section. It’s ironic that you have to go down to find the books that will make you feel up. What immediately struck me about the self-help section is its size. The shelves are floor to ceiling with books written by gurus of every description; businessmen, entrepreneurs, doctors, hypnotists, healers, religious leaders, celebrities, sportspeople, professors, scientists, philosophers, weathergirls (probably); the selection is mind-boggling. In fact someone should write a self-help guide to self-help guides. It would probably sell.

There clearly is money to be made in the self-help business. I’ve read a few articles recently suggesting the current popularity of the genre is largely down to the credit crunch and modern life being a bit stressy and shit. There’s probably some truth in that. A couple of journalists even go as far as to actually blame the banking collapse on self-help books themselves, which they claim are responsible for psyching up city traders and making them feel invincible. At this point it all gets a bit chicken and egg and I need to lie down.

Whilst flicking idly through various books, with bombastic titles such as Want it, See it, Get it! I surreptitiously took a peek at my fellow browsers. They didn’t look desperate, unstable, depressed or haunted, like they were about to throw themselves under a tube train. Nor did they particularly look like pumped up little Gordon Gekkos. They actually appeared an incredibly normal bunch. Although I did note we were all men. Perhaps women solve their problems by talking about them, whereas men prefer to furtively underline key phrases and scribble notes in the margins of self-help books?

There’s a lot of scepticism about the self-help industry. And when you read some of the titles, like Happier Than God and Awaken The Giant Within it’s easy to see why. The style of some of the writing doesn’t help either. A couple of books I picked up read like nothing more than extended penis enlargement ads. But I decided to hold back on my cynicism. After all you don’t dismiss John Steinbeck because he happens to be on the same shelf as Danielle Steel, do you? Like any genre, there must be good self-help books and bad ones. It may be a case of not judging a book by its cover. Or even its chest-beating, testosterone-enhanced title.

On the recommendation of Guy Cohen I bought Paul McKenna’s Control Stress book. I like it, a lot of it makes sense to me and it dovetails nicely with Guy’s therapies. If you feel stress may be an issue for you I think it would be £10.99 well spent. Since my trip to Foyles I’ve started to amass a small library of self-help books and related newspaper articles. (I’ve found quite a few books in charity shops, which perhaps isn’t a good sign.) Some of the stuff I’ve read seems a little fanciful, but on the whole I find them really useful to dip into for a nugget of wisdom or a piece of fresh thinking. A few pages a day seems to help keep me focused and heading in the right direction. For me, self-help books can be a great resource if you open them with an open mind.

Monthly blood diary

A month ago I started to keep a record of blood in my daily back passage movement. This is not the same as the output from my stoma into my colostomy bag. There’s never any blood in that. This is purely the stuff that comes out my rectum, and quite often has some blood in it.

The idea of keeping the blood diary is to see if the relaxation therapies I’m doing are having a noticeable effect on my UC. As you'll see below it all started very promisingly, but lately it’s become more hit and miss. The ‘no blood’ days are winning, but only just.

It’s worth clarifying, that when I say there is blood, it’s often extremely light. Just enough to turn the toilet paper pinkish. But I’m being very strict, there is either blood or there isn’t. Simple as that.

Unfortunately I don’t have any record of how often I had blood before I started the therapies. I think it was heavier and more frequent than now. The only way to see if things are improving is to keep up the blood diary and see how it looks in a month. Hopefully by 7th November there will be fewer blood days.

As I’ve mentioned in my weekly WDOATs, I definitely believe the relaxation therapies are having a positive effect on how I feel. And considering I worked 29 days out of the last 31 and a couple of weeks ago my girlfriend moved to Germany to start a new job, I think I’m remarkably chipper. I’m not sure that would be the case without the help of the therapies.

Speaking of which, you’ll also note that about half way through the month I thought it might be worthwhile keeping track of which ones I’ve been doing. There are four: Guy Cohen’s relaxation session, Guy’s Rewind Technique, Geoffrey Glassborow’s relaxation session and Paul McKenna’s Control Stress session.

Until we have something to compare this month’s blood diary to it doesn’t really tell us much. But if we were to look on the positive side of things – and that’s kind of how I like to think these days – there have been more ‘no blood’ days than ‘blood’ days. Which is a very good thing.

7.9.09 No blood
8.9.09 No blood
9.9.09 No blood
10.9.09 Blood
11.9.09 No blood
12.9.09 No blood
13.9.09 No blood
14.9.09 No blood
15.9.09 Blood
16.9.09 Blood
17.9.09 Blood
18.9.09 Blood
19.9.09 No blood
20.9.09 No blood
21.9.09 No blood
22.9.09 Blood McKenna/Geoffrey/Rewind
23.9.09 Blood McKenna
24.9.09 Blood McKenna
25.9.09 No blood Geoffrey/McKenna/Rewind
26.9.09 No blood Guy
27.9.09 Blood McKenna/Rewind/Geoffrey
28.9.09 No blood McKenna/Rewind/Guy
29.9.09 Blood McKenna/Rewind/Geoffrey
30.9.09 Blood McKenna/McKenna/Rewind/Guy
1.10.09 No blood McKenna
2.10.09 No blood McKenna
3.10.09 Blood McKenna/Geoffrey/Rewind
4.10.09 Blood McKenna/Guy
5.10.09 Blood McKenna
6.10.09 No blood McKenna/Rewind
7.10.09 Blood McKenna/Rewind/Geoffrey/Guy

Wednesday's diary on a Thursday 7.7

These WDOAT's sure are coming round fast. Did you know there are only 13 left until Christmas? You’ll see below I really upped the ante with therapies this week, so I’m feeling pretty damn confident. I'm so pumped up I may just invade a small country or at the very least enter The Krypton Factor.

Wednesday 30th September:
7am Change bag
7.45am Empty bag
9.20am Empty bag
11am Change bag
1.45pm Empty bag
6.30pm Empty bag
10.30pm Empty bag

Medication:
Breakfast 6 x mesalazine 400mg
Dinner 4 x azathioprine 50mg
Bedtime 6 x mesalazine 400mg

Therapies:
Paul McKenna Control Stress relaxation therapy x 2, Rewind, Guy Cohen relaxation therapy

Noticeable improvements:
Small amount of blood again. Still feeling good though.

Mood:
All-conquering. Watch out Andorra.

Why me?

A little while ago Rich left a comment saying how he often found himself asking, “Why me?” It gave me an idea for a post, because in all the years I’ve had ulcerative colitis I’ve never thought like that. And I think one of the reasons why I’ve never cried up at the heavens in despair, “Why me?” is because I’ve always kind of thought of myself as one of those sort of people that weird or strange or unfortunate things happen to. Of course I was never expecting to get ill, but let’s just say it didn’t come as a complete surprise. And the fact UC is a ridiculous bottom related disease, involving much embarrassment, well that’s just par for the course. Anyway, shortly after reading Rich’s comment I started jotting down a few thoughts on the subject of ‘Why me?’ I never finished writing the post, but on the right hand page below you can read as far as I got. (Click on the pictures to enlarge if you need to.)

Now this week I bought Paul McKenna’s book Control Stress. Which is very interesting and includes some great practical tips on how to reduce stress. One chapter in particular caught my interest. It’s called ‘What’s your story?’ and talks about the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. I think he means that self-narration or self-mythologising thing we all probably do a bit. This part really struck a nerve with me:

Remember, not all stories are negative. If you’ve spent your life telling yourself that you’re a gifted learner, a loyal friend and a ‘get it done’ kind of person, chances are that story has served you well.

But in our culture, the more common stories are imposed upon us from the outside. If you’ve ever been told you’re ‘just not good at maths’, or that you’re ‘shy’, or ‘you’ll never amount to anything’, chances are you’ve struggled in those areas. At some point, you probably took on the story as your own and began repeating it in your head and out loud to others, using the label as part of your identity and building further stories around it.

Now go back and reread those two pages from my notebook. Embarrassingly I’ve got myself down as some sort of freaky big eared, light bulb attracting hospitalaholic. Somehow in my head I’ve turned myself into a real life Gaylord Focker from Meet the Parents for whom life is just one long series of humiliating hurdles. And it’s true, if something not so great happens to me, I just shrug and think ‘typical, of all people it would have to happen to me.’ So all this has made me think I should probably start writing a different story for myself. In this one I won’t be so accident-prone and have strange illnesses. I’ll be lucky and healthy and confident instead. And light bulbs definitely won’t fall on me.

Wednesday's diary on a Thursday 7.6

On time and with two and half hours to spare, it's...WDOAT!

Wednesday 23rd September:
4.40am Change bag
7am Change bag
9am Empty bag
2.30pm Change bag
10.45pm Empty bag

Medication:
Breakfast 6 x mesalazine 400mg
Dinner 4 x azathioprine 50mg
Bedtime 6 x mesalazine 400mg

Therapies:
Paul McKenna Control Stress relaxation therapy*

Noticeable improvements:
A very small amount of blood again. But on the whole I feel great, ticking along quite happily. Don't seem as tired perhaps as I used to.

Mood:
Positive, more relaxed, more confident.

*Paul McKenna has a book and CD called Control Stress, which seems to dovetail quite nicely with Guy Cohen's stuff.