Cancelling on Friends

I made plans last night to surprise one of my best friends with a trip to the movies, because it was her birthday and she's been going through a rough time recently. But as the day wore on I felt sicker and sicker, until it got to the point where I had to tell her I wasn't going to make it because I wasn't well enough. She seemed okay about it; I can't even count the number of times I've had to cancel on her because my symptoms were flaring, so I guess she's pretty used to it now. It just made me feel like crap, that I couldn't do something for her even on her birthday. That's one of the things I really hate about POTS - the fact that I generally can't put a lot of effort in to the people around me, because I'm using it all on making myself feel and look healthy.
I have to cancel things a lot because I'm not feeling well. Between schoolwork, medical appointments, exercise, household chores, and seeing friends and family, it's really tough to not overextend myself. I'm trying to get in to the habit of doing two things a day; vacuum and lunch with a friend, or see my endocrinologist and sit an internal. One of the hardest things is the fact that I have to exercise six days a week, even though I know that when I exercise it's going to make me feel terrible afterwards. But if I don't go on the bike enough now then it'll take me even longer to feel normal again. It's all about the long run with POTS, but that doesn't make the present day any easier for me.
Anyway, the next couple of days are going to be spent resting and recuperating so that I can hang out with her sometime this weekend, maybe even for a half hour today if my symptoms relent a little.
Hope you have a great day, and keep your chin up.
Bridge

Playlists

Recently I've been listening to a lot of music. I've always been one of those girls who belt out to the radio when driving along in the car, but when I get home in my room I generally listen to the same CD over and over again. However my boyfriend recently made a playlist full of songs that were a blast from the past, and it made me realise that I really love just sitting and chilling and listening to a great track. There's something about listening to a song that you love that can completely change your mood; it's great because it's something I can do just chilling from my bed when I'm not feeling well, and it doesn't require much concentration.
I've now made two playlists of my own on Spotify. (Which I love by the way, even though the ads can kind of ruin the vibe.) One of them is Good Tracks, just a random collection of songs that I love to sing along to and put me in a good mood. Some newly discovered, others that are oldies but goodies. The other is slow, and it's songs that I like to listen to when I'm trying to relax, or just in a chill mood. Hope you listen to them and enjoy!
Have a great day!
Bridge

What's POTS?

Today I thought I'd write a post explaining a little bit about POTS. It's a pretty unheard of condition, which means that most doctors have never even heard of it before, let alone know how to treat it.
POTS stands for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardic Syndrome. For me, when I change from a sitting to standing position my blood pressure plummets and my heart rate increases by about 30. The longer I stay standing up, the worse I feel. My main symptoms are: dizziness, nausea, headaches; and these lead to other symptoms like word recall problems, tremors in my hands, sleeplessness, and lots more.
The severity of POTS symptoms across sufferers varies a lot. Some people can carry on with their normal lives, and just increase salt and fluid intake to help with blood pressure. Others can't stand up without fainting within a minute. Me, I'm in between. Going to school is too much for me, so I do most of it from home, and a lot less than what my peers are doing. I've had to quit rowing and netball because both made me faint, and I now try to do recumbent biking and strength training, though it makes my symptoms flare up like crazy. My mornings start with a glass of tomato juice with an extra 3 grams of salt added, and putting on my thigh high compression stockings. I can do day to day activities for an hour maybe two, before desperately needing a rest. It's been tough, and I've had to do a lot of grieving for the life I wanted to live, but I'm one of the lucky ones. I can still look after myself, see my friends once a week, and travel extremely slowly and steadily on the road to recovery. I hope to reach my destination in 2-3 years.
So yeah. There's my explanation of how POTS directly affects my life. Here's a link to a bit more information on the actual condition, as I haven't done a very good job explaining exactly what it does. Do any of you have POTS, or have had to deal with a debilitating condition like this one? I'd love to know how you deal with it, and stay positive when it all looks so bleak.
That's it for today, hope you have a good one, and had a happy Easter! (I demolished a white chocolate egg that left me feeling really nauseous, but it was totally worth it!)
Bridge

Struggling with POTS

Today, as expected, I wasn't feeling well. I had a really big night going to see Hugh and the band, and it's going to take me a while to recover.
I think that's the most annoying thing about POTS - how quickly it can all change. Earlier this year I was doing really really well; getting school work done, seeing my friends, doing my exercise program. But this past week I've had a really bad stomach infection, and it's pretty much resulted in the last three months of progress completely deteriorating. I'm back to getting dizzy all the time and getting a major headache, getting nauseous when I eat or drink and constantly having concentration and word recall problems.I mean it's not my fault and I know that - a stomach infection is technically always a risk when you eat out, but it just sucks that I'm going to have to spend the next three months working up to a point that I was at just two weeks ago.
I struggle quite a lot with staying positive with POTS, I guess. I'm glad I went to the concert though, it was so much fun spending some time with my mum and sister and the music was phenomenal. And now that school is on holidays I'll be able to see my friends a lot more anyway, and just spend the next couple of weeks recuperating. Baby steps, Bridge. You'll get there!
Anyway, hope you have a great day! Also please comment! I'd love to know your thoughts/have a chat with some of you. See ya!
Bridge

LOVED IT

Well, that was pretty cool! Hugh Laurie and The Copper Bottom Band exceeded my expectations and more. It was such a feel good concert, all the oldies getting up and boogying to the jazz music. 

I think Hugh made an excellent choice switching from acting to music; you can tell that he's extremely passionate about what he does, and the people that he does it with. If you have the opportunity to go, definitely grasp it! 

The only bad thing was that my POTS flared up and I got a major headache so I couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to, but it was worth going, and I'd go again tonight if I had tickets. 

Now I'm off to download some Louis Armstrong, I recommend that you do to! 

Have a great day!

Bridge

Hugh Laurie and The Copper Bottom Band

Today I've woken up feeling my usual POTS-y self. Sore stomach, nausea, throbbing headache. A little annoying because I am doing an internal today for Trigonometry that I thought I was going to do pretty well in, but it's pretty tough when my POTS is flaring up as it affects my concentration and memory as well - yay.
Aside from my complaining, what I wanted to talk about today was the fact that I'm going to a concert! Hugh Laurie and The Copper Bottom Band are coming to Wellington tonight and I'm so excited to see them perform. I first became obsessed with Hugh Laurie when I started getting sick 3 years ago, and started watching House. Since then he's become one of my favourite actors because of his charisma and general attitude. And I love the fact that he's branched out into music too. It's gonna be so cool to see him and his band live tonight! They perform a mix of blues, salsa, and South American music, can't wait. Here's a link of the band performing for the BBC.
I'll let you know later how it goes. Hope you all have a wonderful day!
Bridge

HI!

So, hi. I'm Bridget, nickname Bridge. I'm a 17 year old kiwi living in Wellington, suffering from POTS. You've probably never heard of it, but it sucks. As a result I have a lot of spare time, and a lot of thoughts racing through my mind, and thought I'd become a part of this online community, since it seems pretty cool. 
Bit about me - I do school mainly from home. I'm interested in art, cooking, quantum physics, music, films - pretty much anything! I like writing, back can't commit to more than a couple of pages. I read an insane amount, classics to YA fiction to science books, I love it all. 
I used to play netball and was a rower for a season, but then I got sick and now I can't do much of that anymore without fainting. Hence the 'spinning' in my blog name - my head is twirling pretty much constantly.
And that's me! I'm excited to start this blog, writing about all sorts of different things. I guess you could consider this a 'lifestyle' blog, but really it's just the life of a sick teenager spending her time bored in her room. I'll try to make it more interesting than that sounds! 
See you later, 
Bridge