Saturday morning,very tired and achy

Good morning journal,the time is now 6:19am and I have been awake since 4:55am.At the moment,I am very tired and my body aches,stiff joints and muscles that almost seem to burn with pain,and I am reminded once again just how much I hate this shell I'm forced to live in sometimes.The marks that my wife discovered on my back are much worse,so much so,that my wife was somewhat shocked by their appearance last night,I of course can't see them,but she tells me they look angry and sore,so today we will have to slap on some of the steroid cream the doctor gave me and hope that it helps.It reminds me very much of shingles,I had it once before and it was an extremely painful experience,it is the adult form of chicken pox,and I suffered from it twenty odd years ago,but I still remember how painful it was back then,today of course,I am much older and very much weaker,and my recovery time from any illness takes a great deal longer than it used to,but that is just the way my life is today,things take longer than they used to,and I just have to deal with that the best way I can.Yesterday I finally got to the health center and had my x-ray done,by the time my wife and I returned home I was exhausted beyond belief,but I resisted the urge to go to bed and managed to stay in my chair until 11:00pm before I tottered off to dreamland.I would like to rest today as it has been a very busy week where I have had to venture outside a lot,but I have an errand to do in town today so rest will have to wait until my return,but I must admit I am not looking forward to the walk into the town center,especially on a Saturday morning,it is always crowded with weekend shoppers and,with the tourist season in full swing now,it is even busier and getting things done takes longer and is much slower to do.The results of my x-ray will take two weeks,so I just hope it is back in time for my COPD clinic on the 16th,if it isn't,then it seems a pretty pointless exercise to attend on that day,anyway,we can only pray that it gets to my doctor in time for my next visit on the 25th.It never fails to amaze me that something that takes less than a minute to do,stand in front of the plate,deep breath,click your done,can take two weeks to reach your doctor,it just seems far too slow,but it is what it is,and we just have to wait.The weather hasn't helped my breathing over the past day or so,yesterday was very hot and humid,and,as any COPD sufferer will tell you,humidity is not our friend,today it is forecast to be even hotter with a very high pollen count and humid,so it is not an ideal day to be going outside and exerting myself,but it has to be done,so we will just have to cope the best we can,perhaps I will be able to rest tomorrow,the weather is supposed to be even hotter than today,and,although it is beautiful outside and we really shouldn't complain,it does me no favors at all on the breathing side of things.I used to love the Summertime when I was younger,sunshine days when you felt glad just to be alive,I was one of those fortunate people,I never got sunburned,I tanned straight away,deep dark tones that were the envy of my friends who turned bright red,I never did,I guess I was just lucky being naturally dark,it never seemed to affect me in the way it did them.Don't get me wrong,I still love the Summer,it's just harder for me to function than it used to be,especially when the humidity levels are as high as they have been of late,but I'll still take Summer over Winter any day of the week.Sometimes I sit and wonder at just how fast my health has deteriorated in one short year,last year at this time I was still working,still able to walk a fifteen mile beat on my daily patrols as a civil enforcement officer,as fit as any man my age,and probably fitter than some men younger than myself,then of course I suffered my collapse at work on July 27th,and the decline in my health since then has been debilitating and frighteningly rapid.The speed at which my COPD has progressed,the atrophy in my legs and upper torso,and my continuing weight loss forces me to look at things honestly,my deepening depression and my withdrawal from human contact other than my wife,have left me both puzzled and saddened,but it is simply a fact of life for me these days that the only outside communication I have with the world at large is through my journal entries on here,and my friends in this group.Anyway,enough for now journal,I mustn't tire myself too much as I really have to get to town today,so I will leave it for now,until the next time,may God walk with us,and may He give me the physical strength that I need to do what I have to do today.