Tag: anxiety

2020

As I am recalling this on December 24th, the first thing I wish to do is wish all of the blog readers a very Happy Christmas, and a peaceful, safe and even fun new year. I hope to make it back over to Volterra in the first half of 2021!

Anyway, back to the past.

No idea what we did when we got up, but I remember some time later that morning, I decided to buck my mild agoraphobia and reliance on my support person (Niamh), and head out to a tower at the end of our street. For the princely sum of €2 you can climb to its top and peek out at some fab views of the town.

You can see a nice, big panorama shot of the town from this vantage point here. Open the image in a new tab, and remove the size tag at the end of the address to view it in full size!

Afterwards, when I’d come back to the apartment, we popped out for a small walk and a pizza in Quo Vadis (the improbably named Irish Bar in Volterra). I was really impressed by the white pizza I had – very tasty. I also had a virgin Mojita, which was amazingly refreshing!

On the way back to the apartment, we saw the theatre was open (Teatro Persio Flacco). We’d visited it before, but seeing as I had a new iPhone 11 Pro, I wanted to test out the wide-angle lens.

I was doubly-glad we went in, as this time they actually had the backstage partly opened for people to explore, which was pretty cool.

I love this shot of the Roman ruins through an open window in the Theatre’s backstage

And so back home, where we stayed until we decided to head out to La Taverna della Terra di Mezzo for dinner that night. We just had a single course each, as we’d had pizza earlier on. Niamh had one of her favourites here: Penna all’arrabiata, and I had one of the nicest plates of pasta in Volterra: pappardelle with a lemon ricotta sauce, pancetta, and topped with black truffle. So tasty. We shared a tiramisu too, and on the way home snuck in a gelato from Isola del Gusto!

My tummy and anxiety must have been behaving themselves that night!

The restaurant owner at work, cutting a Florentine Steak

The Acquarium in Livorno – 11/08/2020

Warning: this post is photo-heavy!

In an attempt to (a) fit in like a local, and (b) reduce the effort I have to make to maintain sunblocker on my person, I tend to wear long trouser/jeans in almost any temperature, unless I know I’ll end up spending most of the day in high heat.

I took a look at the temperatures I had been experiencing in Volterra, and the morning we decided to go to the acquarium in Livorno, I compared them to the weather there. A few degrees cooler on the coast today – easy-peasy!

We hopped in the car, and Niamh drove at first to near the outskirts of Cecina, before taking the carriageway north to Livorno. Towards the end, the road lanes reduced to one each side, and hugged the coast a bit more. My God there were tons of people attending beaches. In some cases, cars and scooters lined the roads for kilometers at a time. It was August alright – Italians on holiday everywhere! Some of the scenery along the coast was nice. I couldn’t take shots, as I was the navigator for the journey, and was glued to my phone.

We drove around the outskirts of town, and found our way to the acquarium carpark. There was a queue to get it. Not having sufficient patience, we motored instead to a carpark about 600 meters north, and parked handily enough – albeit in an exposed spot. The car would be warm when we got back, but so what?

I got out.

And I was hit with what I could only describe was something to the wall of steam you generate in a shower. I had neglected the check the humidity. It was around the 85-85% mark, versus Volterra’s mid 40’s. Ok, it’s not quite Florida or Thailand, but it didn’t take long to discover that I had made a cruel mistake by wearing jeans. Thankfully my anxiety wasn’t too bad on the day, or such oppressive heat would have exacerbated it.

I only paused a couple of times to take snaps on the way back to the acquarium. There was a little nervousness from the pair of us, as we were unsure from the website as to whether or not we had to book tickets in advance due to the Covid situation.

We got to the acquarium and we were able to get tickets just by queueing. They were only letting so many people in the building to keep people social distancing as best as possible. Everyone had to mask up – never fun when you’re anxious, but that’s what mindfulness tools are for.

We only had to wait 15-20 minutes and we were in and looking. Generally, people were waiting for sections to be free of people before moving on, so it sort of led to a giant queue going around the facility. I say ‘sort of’, because of course everyone lost their patience and moved on and mingled anyway. Humans gotta human.

We took a monstrous number of snaps.

One of the other reasons I wanted to visit Livorno was right next to the acquarium: Piazza Mascagni – a huge, checker-boarded promenade along the shorefront.

We first got to see it from a terrace a couple of floors up within the acquarium building.

We went back in, and had visited an exhibition of lizards and insects within the acquarium building. This was a nice little surprise addition.

And after we left the acquarium, on our hunt for food, we walked along Piazza Mascagni. It’s a fabulous little attraction, if a little dizzying at times to look down upon while you’re walking!

An unwanted side-feature was the how far we had to walk to find we couldn’t find any halfway decent restaurants ready to accept us as walk-ins. We were baking by now and were eventually happy to walk back and grab one of the last tables in one of the more touristy places near the promenade. I had a breaded escallop with fries, which hit the spot. Niamh was less than happy with her fritto misto, unfortunately.

Once done, we headed back in the oppressive heat and humidity to the car, scorched our bums on the seat and set off for home. It was a fun day, but next time Livorno: shorts! Apologies in advance. I took one shot on the way back to the car, and one on the drive home.

That evening, we headed out to Il Sacco Fiorentino for dinner. They do the nicest fries I’ve had so far in Volterra. I think my stomach was at me, so I just had grilled veggies as a starter and then pasta with some sort of seafood. I wasn’t mad about it and only had about half of it (a very rare event for me). Niamh, on the other hand, had a lovely stew of wild boar and black olives, along with a side of tried and trusted fries.

The restaurant’s main building was just behind us – we sat outside

Osteria Fornelli – 10/08/2020

I got up, took out the trash and, all alone (in your face, anxiety!), traipsed around some of the walls in innards of Volterra. Unsurprisingly, she was looking lovely.

I couldn’t tell you what we had for lunch, I’m afraid, but we decided to go to Osteria Fornelli for dinner. Like Del Duca, this is a bit of the treat, as they do two menus: a traditional one, and a modern take on some classics. Or they used to. This time they only had the traditional offerings – I wonder if they lost their chef. They used to have this killer baked raviolo stuffed with pork – sadly, nowhere to be found.

However, they still had 3 excellent things:

Their bread was wonderful, as always
The cooking was fantastic, regardless
They also have one of the best views for a sunset in Volterra for any restaurant

We had a wee walk on the way.

Piazza Minucci – one of the best Instagrammable shots in Volterra

Then we walked in without a booking and grabbed a table. We didn’t think anything of that, except that we thought that they were insisting we sit inside, for seemingly no good reason. We were a little disappointed, as we wanted to be outside to see the sunset, without having to leave the table.

About 10-15 minutes in, though, it turns out that we were incredibly lucky – the restaurant was actually booked solid. This was the first time that we had been given any kind of a clue that things were beginning to pick-up in Volterra. At first we thought that it was despite the pandemic situation, but it transpired that it was because of the pandemic situation – more on that another day.

Anyway, back to the grub! Niamh had mixed bruschette, and I had (surprise, surprise!) Zuppa all Volterrana. To follow, Niamh had a steak with mixed veg, and I had pasta (pacchieri, by the looks of it) with white ragu (either rabbit or hare – I don’t remember which). Everything was delicious!

I left my table (masked-up!) to take a few colourful sunset shots.

We went home, then – taking snaps on the way. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we stopped at Isola del Gusto for a sneaky gelato!

Chianti Country – 02/08/2020

Right! It was time to spend the bank holiday the right way again. We took the car out and drove to the Chianti area. Much of the drive was lovely, but there were no obvious spots to pull in and take shots, sadly.

The first town we visited was Castellina in Chianti, and for me, it is the best town in the area (we also visited Greve and Montefioralle before – the latter is a hamlet and is gorgeous – I didn’t blog about them, sadly). We found a handy carpark near the old town, but it was at the bottom of a slope – so we winced when we heard the bottom bumper scrape a little off the asphalt.

We got out, and took a stroll around. It seems to embrace its position in the Chianti area a bit more readily than some other towns. The Chianti Cockerel was to be seen everywhere.

We found a restaurant (Taverna Squarcialupi), with a lovely view outside (although we ate indoors due to them having air conditioning). The highlights were Niamh’s stuffed zucchini flowers and my pici with Chianina beef ragu. The latter came with a mini-jug of Chianti sauce on the side. Yum, although my gastritis and anxiety were preventing me from enjoying myself fully.

After we ate, we had a look at their wine cellar – nifty!

Their wine-tasting room (above, bottom left) was lovely!

We explored a little bit more of the town afterwards.

We got back in the car, then, and drove 20 minutes to Radda in Chianti – a smaller town, but lovely for all that.

There was an art exhibition in the town hall. Last year, we encountered the artist in Monteriggioni, and were delighted he seems to be coming up in the world. His was exhibiting with his brother. He paints, but he also draws exquisitely just using Bic pens. We bought the one on the left from him last year – the medium was a Bic pen. It’s hanging in our apartment. The other was part of the exhibition. A talented guy. Unfortunately, he was busy with prospective clients, so we didn’t get a chance to talk to him – but we chatted with his brother for a moment.

After we stopped off at a gelateria, and I had a lemon sorbet – Niamh opted for nothing. It tasted so-so, but it did its job of cooling me down.

On the way home we stopped for two photo-ops. One on the way back to Castellina:

And yet another stop at the O, on the Siena road, much closer to home. The views were gorgeous there, as always.

Check out the hi-res version of the pano shot here.

And then home, and a night in watching telly… and cooling down!

A Tale of Two Walks – 29/07/2020

The hump of the working week. What we did, I can’t say… at least pre-dinner time. We must have eaten in for lunch. Before, we started, though, we went for a walk.

As we are an hour ahead, we have to work ‘later’ than we normally do while over in Italy. Due to the early start with having to bring out the trash almost every morning, it can make the working day seem very long (but perfectly fine for holidays!). We went to Da Beppino for dinner that night. I had been hoping they still had the lamb ragu on the menu, but sadly they didn’t. Instead, I had pici with a Chianina beef ragu, and Niamh had pici carbonara. I thought mine was pretty good. Sadly, Niamh’s was way too heavy (in hindsight pici is a thick and heavy noodle, and served with carbonara isn’t a great idea) and the egg had split in the sauce – she maybe just ate a third of it. She declared her distaste to the very surprised waiter. I don’t think we got anything off the bill! My dish is pictured below.

Afterwards, we had a happy walk around the usual sights, and managed to catch the sunset. I remember being genuinely happy that evening, the indifferent food notwithstanding.

I might skip a separate blog for the 30th, as I only have a handful of photos from the evening. I must have been testing out the nighttime ability of the iPhone 11’s camera. It really is excellent, compared to the old iPhone 7’s:

I must have been in a bit of a state that day, to have skipped on the walk. Sadly, anxiety can sap your will to do anything recreational or creative.

In happier news, our company had given everyone an extra day off leading into the August Bank holiday weekend, and so we actually went somewhere new on the 31st! More on that soon!

Flying out to Italy – 22/07/2020

Two things were bothering me about the trip:

We were facing issues travelling to Italy during Covid; and
Spending hours on end in a mask, whilst cooped up in an airport and in an aircraft with anxiety had me dreading the day – and going through security and temperature checks at both ends.

Well, the gods smiled on us, thankfully, as Italy at the time had just been announed to be on Ireland’s green list for travel (a far cry from the way things are over here and there currently, sadly). Secondly, I woke up feeling few symptoms! I worked a half-day, and then we drove to the airport.

I’ve never seen anything like the airport. It was downright spooky.

There was nobody around. Or almost nobody. The departures schedule on display took up one-and-a-half screens for the entire day. It was mad.

Anyway, our temperature wasn’t checked at Dublin, and we breezed through security. We grabbed something to eat, and hunkered down and waited for the flight. I wasn’t too bothered by my symptoms at all, thank goodness.

We got on the plane and waited. And waited… and waited some more. The aircraft wasn’t budging. Eventually, maybe the guts of an hour later, a member of Dublin’s Fire Brigade enters, wearing full PPE gear. Amazingly, a passenger down the back of the craft burst stitches he had, and had to be re-sewn up. Jesus!

The flight was smooth, and two-and-a-half hours later we floated a landing down into Pisa. Fabulous. In addition, we had no problems with the temperature check, and we were able to grab our baggage really quickly too.

We went to Sixt to rent our car (can’t recommend them highly enough – few hidden costs, good service and selection of cars), and drove to Volterra.

We had work the next day (work laptops enable us to work remotely), and so were mindful of the fact that we were in Volterra a bit after 23:00. Our bags rattled along the paved street, and turning towards Via Gramsci, I spotted Georgina (I apologise if that’s not your name!), and she spotted us while sweeping outside L’Isola del Gusto (best gelato in town – one of the best in Tuscany) and we waved at each other happily!

Trudging up the 76 steps proved not too difficult, as for weeks I had been climbing up and down our own stairs in the mornings before work as exercise. We set our laptops up to use wireless and then went to bed!

I Spent 4 weeks in Volterra in Summer – with Anxiety

The blog temporarily recommences!

Yes, back in late July 2020, Niamh and I spent 4 weeks over in Volterra; 2 of them working, 2 of them playing. However, this time I was not quite myself.

In very late April, I noticed a little diaphragm pain after a walk, but didn’t really think anything of it. Early Friday morning of that week, I woke with a burning sensation in my chest. It was alarming, but I shook it off after an hour or so and went back to sleep. It came back with a vengeance on Sunday night, along with tingling arms, sweats etc. It was the May bank holiday weekend, so my doctor was off on Monday. The symptoms stayed with me through Monday and Tuesday, so I called the doctor then and she agreed that I go for Covid testing at Tallaght stadium. I went next day, and got tested (well, that was weird!) – that day the symptoms had lessened, so I felt mostly ok. Then they came and went every second day, more or less. The problem with this was, when I was bad (sweats, tiredness, breathing issues had come too, limb and chest pain, general malaise, weakness in the legs) you couldn’t remember it every being good again, and when you were good you thought you’d shaken it off and wondered if it was really as bad as I remembered. Then it came back, and depressed you into the bargain.

Anyway, the results came back, and they were negative – the doctor proudly declared and was ready to hang-up. “Hang on,” I said. “Then what the hell is wrong with me?” She said maybe a chest infection, and asked me what I thought. I am no medical professional, so I went ahead with it. I was given weak anti-biotics and was told to phone if the symptoms worsened. I had just been treated for a chest infection a couple of months ago, and was for the first time in living memory on antibiotics, I thought myself hugely unlucky, as I feared I also had gastritis, and was supposed to get a breath test – but that was cancelled due to the emergency.

A week later, the symptoms came and went wreaking havoc with my nerves, so I called the GP again. Was put on to another doctor in the practice. He said that I should go to a Covid assessment centre. I’d never heard of these. Their existence seems to be kept quiet. Anyway, they were off on the edge of Naas, and a couple of PPE’d up doctors there give you a brief medical, take your very recent medical history and (without re-testing you), put their finger in the air and say whether or not they think you have Covid. Several crucial things happened here. In fairness to these doctors, they were probably on edge, and have to put up with potentially diseased people who could end them and/or their families – fair play to them for sticking their necks out.

1) I told them that I was an anxious person at times, but wasn’t clinically diagnosed; they gave me platitudes
2) I attempted to give them a medical history going back 6 months (chest infection, imagined heart issues, possible gastritis), but was cut across and asked about more immediate problems
3) They thought I actually had Covid, gave me a leaflet, asked me to isolate and sent me on my way

This was head-wrecking – why weren’t they testing people there? I went home an isolated and talked to a lady I knew who was getting over symptoms, who agreed that I had it. Again a week passed, and the symptoms came and (occasionally) went. Towards the end of another week, the symptoms still weren’t going away (after the purported 3 weeks), and I felt that my chest and heart were beginning to labour. I called my doctor and he sent me to Naas A&E. They were split between respiratory issues and non-respiratory. I was pretty much on my own, so I was seen pretty quickly. The doctor I got this time listened to everything I had to say (thank God), gave me a manual stomach exam and took bloods and gave me a chest x-ray. The results of the x-ray came back quickly and I was told that, despite having infection-like symptoms, my lungs were completely clear and my heart was ok. The bloods came back a couple of hours later, and everything came back clear (no issues with the heart or blood, kidneys etc.).

So again, what the hell did I have? He said, “Either you have clinical anxiety or are experiencing a major gastric event. Or both.” He gave me stronger anti-biotics, proton pump inhibitors (PPIs are pills with drastically reduce acid production in your stomach), pain killers and told me to get an endoscope down the throat, rather than have the breath test.

My GP got the results and told me I’d have to wait for the endoscope, as hospitals weren’t doing procedures until July. I asked him to set something up for me. I fixated on the results of that endoscope. It was a couple more weeks before I got call from the Beacon asking me if I could wait ’til July to be registered. I said yes, as I thought that I had to wait ’til July anyway. I experienced a few nasty mental-illess issues in the intervening period, and went and bought yearly subscriptions for Headspace and Calm on the iPhone. The former is excellent for beginner’s meditation; the latter is good for led meditations, and is a bit more spiritual, if that’s your thing. Also I experienced the following:

a) Waking up (presumably from a dream), in a panic attack. I didn’t know who I was for about 20 seconds but had a sensation that a group of people wanted me to do something. I saw Niamh, which grounded me as to who I was, but it was another couple of minutes before I calmed myself.
b) When going out for a walk I looked at people going by, kids playing etc. Normally I’d smile at seeing kids play, but the right chemicals weren’t firing off in my brain. They might as well have been stick figures. This happened a few times.
c) Sitting and watching Niamh. Knowing who she was, and that I loved her, but again the chemicals weren’t firing. I had to do some mindfulness stuff to calm myself again – but in truth I just wanted to go off somewhere and cry my guts out.
d) Insomnia (getting sleep maybe only 2 nights in the week). Thanks to Headspace, I was able to get something restful while just keeping my eyes closed.

Thankfully, most of these symptoms are gone – although insomnia is still an issue 2-3 times a week, and I also find it difficult to talk to people in work face-to-face, or drive/walk long distances without Niamh. I think this reduction in symptoms is because (sorry about all these bullet points!):

I had been taking CBT/Wellness-based counselling over Zoom – through my work’s Employee Assistance Programme, as well as using Headspace and Barry MacDonagh’s DARE book;
I read up on PPI drugs, and it would seem that, for some people, PPIs are the Devil’s piss – responsible for a huge range of side-effects, including mental issues. I arranged with my doctor to halve my dose (I’ve sinced halved it again) – note here: I may go back on these if my gastritis doesn’t ease up;
I was proactive and phoned the Beacon on a whim to see if they had a date for my exam. They called me back and said “How’s June 22nd?” I nearly leapt down the phone in an attempt to have carnal relations with the young lady on the other end. I gratefully accepted. In hindsight, I was a little mad at my GP for not fighting this fight for me.

I had the endoscope and then arranged for face-to-face counselling, on an accelerated basis – I’ve since had 18 weeks of it, and between that, the apps and CBT I’ve been slowly building resilience. The scope indicated that I had a little gastritis, so I still had to take the PPIs, but I quickly phased them out – I am not completely adverse to going back on them if my gastritis isn’t sorted. Biopsy results yielded nothing sinister, thank God.

So here I am with both anxiety and gastritis, but some good things are happening (last of the bullets):

I finished the second draft of my novel, and 3/4 of the way through the third!
My wife and family have amazing throughout all this;
Work has also been fantastic. They are allowing me to go to Volterra on July 22nd to work for a couple of weeks, followed by a 2-week holiday there… so a month in Italy – which I’m now (finally!) going to blog;
I have lost 50lbs during this time (I was quite overweight), while most sedentary workers have probably put on a few pounds! I have also proved that I can put the weight on, if I really need to.

My symptoms at the time of writing this are getting a full tummy on small meals, stress headaches, and feeling slightly breathless and having issues straying by myself too far from home. For a couple of months, I’ve been journalling my days, and have scored myself of Anxiety, Emotion, and Sleep Quality. The graphs of these, while seriously spikey, are trending in the right direction.

So, I’m going to blog (when I can) that month Niamh and I spent in Volterra between lockdowns – but I may be referring to anxiety from time to time. I hope you enjoy reading it.