Three years ago, I posted this post, all about my time in and out of hospital having a rather large splodge of evil-stuff removed from the middle of my head.. It's become something of an annual ritual to post a similar blog each year.

Balance

Most of my current health problems stem from a lack of balance.
The head is a fluid-filled place, and it all tends to slosh about in there, but it's all closed off so the sloshing of the fluid doesn't usually cause an issue.
When they removed the large tumour/cyst/whatever from my head, it left a bit of a hole, where all this fluid is sloshing about, and causing some pretty severe balance issues.
Essentially, if I move my head slowly about the place, the sloshing isn't too bad, and I can cope well. But if I move around too quickly, or tilt in "just" the wrong way, my head starts to spin, and I become completely off-balance.

Being in the house, this isn't too much of an issue, but when I go outside, I instinctively tend to look around. Watching for oncoming pedestrians, and trying to cross the road, requires a large amount of head tilting and spinning. As such, it's incredibly difficult for me to be outside. There's too many variables, and things aren't good for me.

Similarly, lying down can be difficult! If I move from a seated position to a flat-on-my-back one, the fluid rush causes a HUGE issue in my head, leading to my eyes rolling around, and me being unable to move for a short time due to the insane dizziness. Really not a good situation, and it means I have to gently lie down on my side, and maybe roll around to get comfortable.

Another complication is when there are people talking around me. Listening to a conversation between two people, shifting my view between them, and again sloshing that goop about inside my head. It's not very nice, and is hard to cope with.

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Standing/Walking

As if lying down wasn't troublesome enough, standing is even worse!
I can generally stand for about five minutes at a time, before my legs start to give way.
If I walk about, I can usually get a little further. Walks down to the local Tesco are usually easy enough, as long as I'm with someone, to watch for traffic for me.
After the short walk I tend to need to sit for about half an hour or so, completely shattered.

I'm unsure if this exhaustion is down to lack of movement, or if it's something else health related, but given that my old job used to involve standing in a shop, behind a counter, for hours at a time... The lack of standing isn't exactly good!!

Sickness

Three years ago, I couldn't wake up without being sick. Three years on, and the sickness is mostly .. Um.. Copeable!?
I no longer wake up needing to be sick, and can usually get through a day without being sick.
I now know the warning signs, and am getting used to having to stop doing things, midway, to stave off the sickness.

The sickbowl isn't getting nearly as much use as it once was, but at the same time, I'm trying to learn what I can and can't, so I'm not overdoing things as much as I once were. The balance of the sickness improving, and me learning my limits, is helping immensely.
.. But I still can't decorate a Xmas tree without needing to stop about 1/4 of the way through! .. I'll be trying that again, in a few months!

General Fitness

I'm eating well, and not moving much, so obviously my fitness levels are going a bit downhill!
I recently bought a treadmill, in a desperate attempt to help my fitness levels. I seem to be coping well enough with it. It's got a nice big gripable area, and I'm not physically moving anywhere, so any balance issues are minimal when the treadmill's in use.

Other than that, I'm sitting about the house and being fairly lazy. I'm coping well enough, as long as I continue to sit about and not move.
My life continues on the couch, and I'm carrying on coding away and making silly things, because I can do that without moving about!