Okay, so I have realised I'm probably not cut out for blogging. I don't get sat down to write anything often enough and then when I try, so much has happened that all my thoughts are jumbled!
Since my last post ALS and I have been really busy so I'll try to categorise to make things simpler:
Powerlifting
ALS became the British and European Junior Powerlifting for his weight category last year and broke world records in the squat and deadlift in the process. I won't go into too much detail here for those who don't know what it is but if it creates any interest I'll put more of a focus on it in the blog.
I tried my first competition on 1st March this year and amazingly managed to beat my own personal bests, qualify for the British Championships and break a British deadlift record in the process.
On 11th April both ALS and I competed in the British Championships. I won my class and broke a world deadlift record and ALS came third in his category (a far more competitive category as he has not graduated from junior to adult). Most importantly this meant we both qualified for the European Championships in Coventry, UK in June this year so lots of training will be going into this.
A lot of people, my parents especially, are very concerned about me doing this with my "condition" but I've suffered with far less pain and fatigue since training, I always warm up well, never push myself TOO hard and always lift under the advice of ALS who is well trained. So yes, as I get older I probably won't do very well compared to others of my age and weight because I have to respect the limits of my body, but for now it's good fun and I'm only doing as much as I can handle.
Leisure Time
I have been trying to find ways of helping myself relax and unwind lately and have two new favourite past times. I have taken up yoga, for now it's just once a week and due to the hypermobility I have to be very careful with my joints but I thoroughly enjoy it and feel a lot more relaxed during and afterwards.
My other new love (an old love rekindled) is reading. As a child I read constantly, I always had at least a couple of books on the go and never really watched much TV or played video games if the option of reading was there. Since I started with my medical problems I've struggled somewhat with concentration and I found it hard to read and take anything in. Towards the end of last year I started reading Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" series. They are young adult novels really so quite basic language and easy to understand and I managed to use them to get myself back into reading and really enjoyed them as well. I'm currently reading Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series which an absolutely phenomenal read. I only started about a month or two ago and I've already read the first 3 books (which are not particularly short). I can't put them down and I use my bath time to read to make it extra relaxing.
Future Plans
We have booked our wedding for 7th February 2016 - we have a church and reception venue but as of yet nothing else booked. Definitely feels very real now and we'll have to start ironing out the details asap. ALS' best man is in the Navy and being posted to the other side of the world in May for 2 years so there's a high chance he won't make it which will throw a spanner in the works but we'll figure something out... maybe a Skype speech?
Our house is now sold subject to contract and things are going well. We are in the process of looking for somewhere to rent until our new house will be finished (should have been October but now more likely to be December). The buyers are coming to visit again tomorrow and hopefully by then we should have a better idea of a timescale for moving out.
Most excitingly we finally got our geneticist appointment through today (after a lot of faffing around, letters and phonecalls to and from the hospital). The service is run from a larger hospital in the city but the person we are seeing is coming to our local hospital which is great, except it's the hospital I work in and the room we are booked into is in the clinic where all the doctors I work for see their patients... this could get a bit awkward. Hopefully I won't bump into anyone, it's not a process we're discussing with anyone at the moment as it's so far away that anything will actually happen!
Well, I think that's a reasonable update of how things have been for the last few months - I seem to be getting quite a lot of page views which surprised me to be honest but I'd love to hear from anyone who's reading this so feel free to leave a comment :)
