My earphone miracle. 

One of the biggest difficulties of my life s been dealing with loud noises that you hear in.the street. Whether it's that police siren, whether it's that baby crying on the bus, or whether it's that dodgy car engine, loud noises has been literally on of the most debilitating thing s in my life... until now.

For my 36th birthday in 2022, I was given the very thing that may well prove to be the cure to my audio-sensitivities; noise cancelling earphones.

Noise cancelling earphones removes the excess noise of everything you hear, therefore, you can enjoy walking down the city without being incensed by Auditory Sensory Overload which has denied my enjoyment of various places and social events. Any body that knows anything about the autistic experience knows how debilitating Sensory Overload can be. Thankfully, years of sensory pain is finally over thanks to this wonderful piece of technology. This gift has been nothing short of life-changing as I have been simply unable to do enjoy certain events due to extreme noise and loud music.

I want to thank my mother and my sister who collectively purchased and  programmed the earphones so that I can enjoy them in conjunction with my Android phone. 

 

What's wrong with my lungs?

Normal lung vs Asthmatic lung

Hello everybody.

As some of you may already know. I have been constantly battling ongoing uncontrolled asthma symptoms since November 2020 when I suffered heavy influenza which lead to a chest infection. Although I didn't need to go to the hospital, the effects of the influenza that I had at the time still partly remains present in my body and especially my lungs.

 As I write this blog, I am still suffering form a tight chest, nasal congestion and a lot of fatigue.                 There are many places that I used to go to that I simply do no go now because of  my limited breathing.  My physical and mental co-ordination has been reduced. My day-to-day energy has dropped to an all time low. Although I am still able to live independently, what I can do on a daily basis has been reduced. 

The symptoms that I have suffered in the last two and a half years have been tight chest, coughing, sneezing, wheezing, shortness of breath, sweating and fatigue. So what has been going on with me all this time? 

On Thursday 4th May 2023, I had an appointment at my local hospital to learn about the results of the lung function test that I did on Wednesday 22nd March 2023. Did they find anything? Sort of. What they found was that there is a 'fixed swelling' in my airways which is limiting what comes in and out of the lungs. Therefore, I now know where in the lungs that I am having the problem, the very top of them. I have made a return to the gym recently and I realised when doing one of my workouts how sensitive the top of my chest, just below my neck was starting to become. Therefore, I can confirm that these findings are true. 

My medication has seen many changes within the last year, however, so far, none of them have significantly improved my condition. However, I am expecting to receive a new inhaler that is especially designed to open my airways so that more air can get in my lungs. I have guarded hope that this inhaler will be the begining of the end of this long and difficult time in my life and allow me to do more in life.

I have been told many remedies for cold and flu symptoms over the years. For me, only two have really had an immediate effect on my cold and flu symptoms; Vapor-rub and Olbus oil. I've realised that the only other thing that I can do when I am struck by cold or flu is to be patient with it. Unfortunately I seem to catch colds more than the average person and they also last longer. Many have lasted at least a month. Why is all this important? Quite simply, it's the biggest single cause of my asthma.

I cannot wait to go out to the places that I normally visited before this asthma crisis started and go out to eat, socialize and explore. However, at the moment, I cannot go to far outside my home without losing my breath.

Finally, I want to thank my family, especially for their support and understanding during this difficult time, the doctors and nurses who have been understanding and professional with me at all times and the language partners via social media that I have had who have kept me going not just in my language learning journey but also given me some people to talk too during this difficult time. I am hoping that it is not too long before I can be well enough to go outside and enjoy the places that I used to go (and many more too!) 

Richard Davis

 MY PLANS FOR 2023

1). Start an EFL course

Ever since I started teaching English to Brazilians living in England, thanks to my bosses' initiative to make an advert in a magazine, I have been thinking about how I can get an EFL teaching qualification. In late 2020, I found an online course which, if all is successful, will give me a qualification to teach online and even abroad. 

However, due to the pandemic and an influenza infection that has lead to over 2 years of uncontrolled asthma and restricted lung capacity, I have had to delay the start of this my course until I have felt well and strong enough to start something new. 

Once I have passed the course, I can look forward to teaching people from around the world through my laptop. 

2). Return to over-the-board chess

Another thing that has been delayed because of my health issues is my return to over-the-board chess after announcing that I am coming out of retirement on 5 August 2021. My reason for leaving real-life tournament chess was the fact that I thought that I would start a new career as an EFL teacher for certain. However, there were times last year where I thought about quitting my EFL career due to the stress of working with other people in a foreign language of which I had some unsuccessful relationships with. Since that time though, I have received compliments form some of my students who thanked me for my efforts in helping them with their English ,which have inspired me to take on the profession.

3). Keep going to the gym

One of my biggest struggles of my life is finding a gym that is suitable for my auditory sensory needs and is easily locatable. During the spring and summer of 2022, I had put on a lot of weight due to inactivity because of my uncontrolled asthma and having too many sweet foods. The doctors advised me to got the gym in order to try to lose some other the excess weight as this will help ease some of the symptoms.

Thankfully, I was in luck! In October 2202, I found a new gym located around the corner from my food shop; but what was even better was that it was very affordable and the music inside the gym was of a reasonable volume that did not offend my sensory processing.

My new gym has been a real blessing for me and I intend to go there as frequently as possible.  

4). Get back into meditation and yoga.

One thing that I was doing regularly prior to my volunteer work in 2019 was meditation and yoga. I first discovered meditation in December 2009 when I discovered a book on Amazon called 'The quiet' by Paul Wilson which spoke about the benefits of meditation and gave some basic but really life transforming practices for the readers to try for themselves. 

Since then, I have visited Buddhist centres to have meditation classes where I can talk to other people about their meditation experiences after the class. 

I first started to do regular yoga in the late summer of 2017 when I saw a flyer about Friday night yoga classes in a Hindu temple. The classes would normally last 2 hours and were free for everyone, although donations were encouraged. 

I've recently gone back into doing yoga at home. However, because of my uncontrolled asthma at the moment, I am only doing standing asanas in order to reduce the stress on my lungs.

5). Keep learning languages

One of the joys that I have had in my life over the years is learning foreign languages. From the days of learning French at school form the age of 10, to now being a daily language learner from the comfort of my own home. Learning languages means leaning about new groups of people and new cultures. It has also given me a higher level of confidence speaking to other people.

I have been learning Portuguese since encountering my Brazilian managers in my old volunteering job in 2019 and I have not looked back since. I am still using various materials to improve my Portuguese and I have now helped many Brazilians with their English as part of language exchange. I now have online Portuguese classes to make sure that I am making progress in the language.

I started 2022 by launching a life blog in Portuguese where I share various life and cultural experiences in the Portuguese language.  https://vidaricharddavis.blogspot.com/

I hope to take online classes in other languages too like Spanish and French so that I can improve my comprehension of those languages too.

My asthma: 2 years on.

It has now been about 2 years since I had that severe influenza infection that has given me so many difficulties in the last 2 years. Throughout this time, my life has been dictated by a tight chest and heavy coughing, sneezing, wheezing, and sweating. There has been times where I have feared for my own survival. 

Thankfully, there is light at the end of the tunnel and my asthma is starting to be better controlled which is allowing me to move around better and even be able to workout at a gym.

However, I still have periods of coughing and sneezing occasionally which triggers my already tight chest which still slows my body down making me unable to move around sufficiently.

I'm slowly getting closer to getting my normal life back. However, with my tight chest, and a peak flow that has dropped to an average of only about 350, I still have to be careful with my own body and take medication as prescribed.

I am still hoping that one day I will get over this difficult period and go back to doing all of the things that I love doing without the physical restrictions of my asthma.

MY NEW BED

My old bed

 My new bed

Out with the old, in with the new! On the 5th of July, I received a new base for my bed after 13 years of sleeping on my old one. 

Thanks Mum! 😊❤️

Thank you Mum.

THANK YOU MUM 

Since November 2020 I have been going through personal health problems which have affected my breathing and therefore has limited what I have been able to do during this time but one person who has been of great service to me in this difficult period, especially during the pandemic is my mother. 

She has provided me with so many useful things during this time of which without, my life would have been more difficult.

Thank you Mum and I will forever grateful for all of the good things that you have done for me throughout my life.

 INDEPENDENT! ... not single.

One of the most burning questions in my life is How to be happy single. Conventional wisdom over the generations have always said that the key to a happy life is to get married and start a family. Societies throughout the generations have followed this philosophy almost without question. That is... until now. So we now have to ask ourselves the question are married people really happier? I have read articles on the internet giving conflicting conclusions about whether or not happiness really has anything to do with someone's marital status.

Ultimately, I have decided that it really depends on your outlook of life and what your life goals are. There are some who want to be married and start a family while others just want a successful career out of their biggest passion in life. It can also depend somewhat on your character. Some work better in groups while others prefer to work alone. Some gain energy with other people around them while others lose it. Some are happy having lots of friends in life while others prefer just to have that one really good companion.

One thing about life on this day in 2016 is that it is not the relationship itself that makes you happy, but rather the thoughts behind of the relationship. That is the thought (and not necessarily the reality) that there is somebody out there that can make you happy for the rest of your life. However, for most of us, this will prove to be only a pipe dream and with marriage rates going down and divorce rates going up virtually across the board, maybe we need to re-think what it actually means to be happy in life. 

Can we be happy on our own? Of course we can. There are many ways of making ourselves happy in our own solitude from doing our favourite hobbies, to eating our favourite food to having a walk in the park to listening to our favourite music. Ultimately, we can create our own happiness be being free of the thoughts that make us unhappy. Basically, happiness is simply the lack of unhappiness.

Perhaps the most prominent reason that people feel the need to find a romantic partner (or even just a friend in some cases) is loneliness. Loneliness is a topic that I have covered in detail in the past on this blog site. However, it has to be said that I think loneliness to this day is still a relatively misunderstood thing. Many people believe that loneliness is simply being on their onw when in fact, loneliness is the feeling that we have when we are on our own. It is the shame and guilt that we feel when we our on our own because we often put ourselves under pressure to to have friends and be friends with other people. Loneliness is also the feeling of dependency of other people making them happy in some way; and that takes me nicely to the crux of this post.

When we think of ourselves as 'single' in the context of intimate relationships, we often think of our lives in terms of  lack; who or even what we are lacking in our lives. There is always an aura of negativity when we have to refere to us as single, which is basically saying that we are lacking someone in our lives. This leaves a metaphoric hole in our hearts where we don't even feel like a complete person. Notice that when we say that we are looking for our other half, we are essentially calling ourselves a half! Do we really want to live the rest our our lives as 'a half'? What a terrible thought! Do we really want to be 'half' people living 'half' lives? This is the whole point of this post. We want to be whole!..not half.  Who on earth wants to be a half person living a half life. Life is meant to be lived to the full, not half. We want to a WHOLE...not a hole! (Yes, the English language does strange things like this. Two words that sounds the same but are spelt slightly differently with different meanings. It's amazing between feeling complete and incomplete can be just one letter. (or two))

So, how do we we become happy single? Well... the answer is kind of the title of this blog post.

STOP THINKING ABOUT YOURSELF AS SINGLE AND START THINKING OF YOURSELF AS ... ... INDEPENDENT!

Doesn't that feel better? Notice how the word independent makes you feel less ... well ... dependent. However, this is not to say that you will never depend on anyone or anything doing certain things to get a desired result (we all need help from other people sometimes) but it will make you feel a lot stronger emotionally and help you focus on the bigger picture in life that is the picture of your own happiness. Yes that's right! You own happiness that you gained ... on your own. As Thich Naht Hanh once said, "Happiness is available, please help yourselves." 

Ultimately, we create our own happiness. which doesn't require other people to give it to us. We can still look for our partners and friends but now we can do it with without the perception that we need them in order to make us happy. Once we realise that we can get our own happiness in life, We are free!

NOW GO OUT THERE AND ENJOY YOUR INDEPENDENCE!