When the Red Red Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbin' Along

For the last couple of months or so, I have had a little robin that comes to visit. That is actually an understatement. He virtually has moved into my garden and lies in wait for me every morning. As soon as I come downstairs into my kitchen, he can see me through the patio window and swoops down to sit right outside. At first he had the very fluffy feathers of a youngster, but over the months has been growing into his sleek adult feathers.  I started feeding him a few breadcrumbs, as I had stopped feeding the birds seeds and suet after the invasion of mice I had last year (see here). The little robin seemed addicted to the breadcrumbs and started hanging outside my patio door up to four or five times a day right up until sundown. My window cleaner told me that robins like cheese and, when I googled it, it was indeed true. I suppose the cheese is not unlike suet, good for their bones and it helps fatten them up to cope with the long hard winters. So now my little robin is even more addicted to visiting me several times a day, as he effectively gets a cheese sandwich handed to him (well, not on a plate). 

Here he is saying hello to me.......

.... and then having a bath after his cheese sandwich

Sadly, over the last two weeks, I have noticed another robin swoop into the garden, dive-bomb him and chase him away. Because of this, he is coming less often and always looking over his shoulder, when he does. I am rather inclined to think it is not an amorous encounter, rather it looks more like territorial warfare - like a Battle of Britain fight between a Spitfire and a Messerschmitt. I feel quite protective, as my little robin was there first.  I think I ought to start calling my robin Zelensky and the swooper Putin.

Food for thought

For any professionals out there, please excuse the rather poor drawing of my stomach above. It is the best I can do in the circumstances but it helps to explain to people a problem I have had for some time.

Back in 2016, it was discovered that I had a tumour growing on my stomach wall. I wrote about it at the time here. Known as a GIST (Gastro-Intestinal Stromal Tumour), the Stromal in this case refers to it growing in the stomach wall or muscle. In the drawing above, you can see the oesophagus or food pipe coming down into the stomach and the tumour (shown in red) was just below that near the top of the stomach. Fortunately the tumour was benign but it was removed as they can become aggressive, if left. The whole procedure was supposed to be done by laparoscopes, but it was awkward to remove that way and the four-hour operation resulted in me being opened up completely, so I have a vertical zip-fastener scar down my middle.

So far so good. Unfortunately, the stomach wall that was removed with the tumour contained nerves which tell the pyloric sphincter (the little black line shown at the base of the stomach) to open and spill its contents into the duodenum and onwards to the intestines. Consequently without that nerve constantly nagging the sphincter to open, my stomach only empties when it feels like it and can be bothered. It results in food and acid building up which then refluxes into my throat, often in the middle of the night when I am in a deep sleep, and I wake choking. I have to take meds to neutralise the acid and also occasionally have the pyloric sphincter stretched via a gastroscopy to encourage it to open better. My consultant prefers to do the procedure once a year or even once every six months as the valve gets very lazy indeed. It is pushing two years since I last had it done, so had been experiencing more problems with the acid reflux including one awful episode where I was in a deep sleep and the acid came up and went into my lungs instead, resulting in my "drowning" and fighting for my breath for over half an hour. As you can imagine, living on my own, this was a frightening experience, so I immediately arranged for another gastroscopy and stretch which was done two days ago.

Because of the acidity problem, I cannot eat too late into the day and need at least 4 hours between eating and going to bed. I also have a nightmare choosing what to eat when dining out. These days most menus seem to be full of spicy this and spicy that with chilli or curry or other fiery combinations - all of which can cause my stomach to flare up. It is so difficult to find something on the menu that is not going to cause me problems. I wish chefs would realise that not everyone has a cast-iron stomach. Obviously things could be far worse in old age and I must be grateful this is the only real medical problem I have.

Addendum

Just to update my previous post, I thought I'd record my waking last night.

Having gone to bed at 11.30pm I woke at

00:01

01:17

02:31

03:33

04:42

06:53

07:07

at which point I dragged myself out of bed. Needless to say, I have cancelled both the back-to-back gym classes today which I nickname my survival classes as I usually come out drenched in sweat afterwards. I didn't think I would survive if I went to them today after such poor sleep.

Sleepless in London (not Seattle)

 

The  picture above is typical of what I often see in the night. Sometimes it says 12:31 or 2.54 or 3:17 or all of those. The fact is I wake at least four times in the night these days, often half an hour after I have fallen asleep in the first place.  Often every 90 minutes. I used to be such a sound sleeper and could manage eight hours solid perfectly well. But the last three years has seen a serious decline in my sleep pattern to the extent that I wake frequently and don't feel slept-out when I rise at my usual 7 or 8am. When I wake during the night, I rehearse having difficult conversations with people, or draft in my head an email I need to send or practise learning off by heart a choir song I need to learn or make a mental list of things I need to do the next day or what to wear for a special event. My mind just doesn't seem to switch off. (By the way, I never ever wake because I need the toilet!)

I tend to avoid looking at blue light before bedtime, retire regularly around 11pm, read for half an hour or so in bed and even take medication to help me sleep (amitriptyline prescribed when my daughter was not sleeping through the night until she was 8 years old and my sleep patterns were disturbed at the time.) I have even sprayed lavender on my pillows to aid sleep (supposedly meant to help except it doesn't!) I have undergone sleep apnoea tests and they have proved I don't have that, so I am in a quandary what to do to get a decent sleep. Rather than fight it, I often get up, say at 3am and make a hot chocolate, then read for an hour and that often helps. By 7 or 8 am I am in such a deep coma, I could sleep forever, but usually have things I need to address so drag myself out of bed. 

 

Global warming?

In my front garden, I have a climbing rose that I have had for about 3 decades. This is a picture of it when it was blooming its heart out a few summers ago....

Today it looks like this....

It has obviously been distressed in the heatwaves we have experienced this summer. I did water it with the hose regularly. Maybe I overwatered it or underwatered it or it just didn't like the heat, but, whatever the reason, sadly it has died after all these years with me. I shall give it until spring to see whether it recovers, but all the branches are brown,  so I very much doubt it.