Life Planning.

I got asked some interesting questions recently:

Life Planning – Question 1
Imagine you are financially secure, that you have enough money to take care of your needs, now and in the future. The question is…how would you live your life? What would you do with your money? Would you change anything? Let yourself go. Don’t gold back on your dreams. Describe a life that is complete, rich and full.

If I was financially secure I would:
I would retire from the city job immediately! Sell the house in Hertfordshire and move to the countryside in either Norfolk or Suffolk. Both our parents live in Essex and we need to be close-ish to them when we retire.

Find a good school for the kids and the find a house near-ish to the school. Max 25 mins away by car. The closer the better.

Buy a house with a large garden, in the countryside, but close to civilisation. Maybe on the outskirts of a small town or village. I mean not completely in the middle of nowhere. Need to close to a big town so we can meet and do things with friends.

House: No bigger than what we have now, and smaller is fine if the money dictates. Light and airy house. South facing garden. Need to have my own room for TV, reading, writing etc. House need to be in good repair because I am rubbish at DIY. Maybe have a granny annex for when the parents get old and frail?

Garden needs to be big-ish. Minimum 1 acre, but preferable 2-4 acres. Pond or small river going through the land. Preferable with views across the land. View of the sunset would be perfect. Small woodland would be lovely and a plot for an orchard with a wide variety of apple trees, plums, pears, nuts etc. Veggie plot for veggie patch.

Garden: can be already in place, or we can build/make the garden from scratch after getting garden designers in to plan everything out. That would be quite cool: to plan, build and make the garden from nothing. We did that in our current home and would be fun to do again: a cool and fun project. Watch the gardens grow and mature.

Ideally have a fast car: new Porsche would be ideal.
Build a kit car from scratch.
Have a garage big enough to build a kit car!
Be a member of a car club and go on tours.
Have the time to learn and play golf. Join a golf club and play a couple of times a week.
Have the time to learn how to sail. Buy a little boat. Nothing too flash, something I can sail on my own, together with being a member of a sailing club.
Have time to read books every day.
Have time to read the paper every day.
Have time to work out every day and at a time of my choice.
Have time to garden daily.
Meditate every morning.
Have cool friends and hang out with them.
Write another book. Fiction this time. I will need to go on some writing courses…that would be fun to meet other writers.

Maybe go back to school? Do some further education. Not sure what…but some interest will no doubt come along and I will “get involved”.
Maybe do some work? Be a director of a little company? I don’t rule it out…maybe that would be fun for a while.
Continue to learn to play the guitar.
Have a house in France so we can spend summers in a warmer climate.
Spend more time with the kids and family.
Chill out after my busy and hectic city/business lifestyle.
I have many interests, and I would do what I want to do, when I want to do it.

Life planning – question 2.

This time you visit your doctor who tells you that you have 5-10 years to live. The good part is that you won’t ever feel sick. The bad news is that you will have no notice of the moment of your death. What will you do in the time you have remaining to live?Will it change your life and how will you do it!

First make a plan to ensure the wife and kids will be financially secure when I’m gone.
Second is easy….I would do exactly the same as in question one!
I can’t think of anything that I do that’s different.
The answer to question one is my ideal life and that’s what I’d do if death loomed.
I have many interests, and I would do what I want to do, when I want to do it.
Chill out after my busy and hectic city/business lifestyle.

Life planning – Question 3

This time your doctor shocks you with the news that you only have one day left to live. Concentrate on the feelings you have as you confront your very real mortality. Ask yourself:
What dreams will be left unfulfilled?
What do I wish I had finished or had been?
What do I wish I had done?
What did I miss?

What dreams will be left unfulfilled? – $hit! I should have jacked city job earlier! Jacked the business lifestyle earlier. I wanted to have time to chill out and do what I wanted to do. Now all I have done with my life is worked my balls off…and then died. How disappointing!

What do I wish I had finished or had been? – Finished? Would have been nice to have a whole heap of time to myself, to my family. Like 1 or 5 or 10 or 20 years retirement without the stress of work…doing what I wanted to do. I am a broker, a middleman…I serve other people. There is more to life than being a broking. If I died now…I would miss out doing things I wanted to do when I had some real free time.

I get up at 6am and get home again at 730-8pm. My work is all-consuming. It would have been nice to do ‘all consuming things’ ….of my own choice. Some of my clients are utter bastards but I still have to speak with these disgusting people every day.

What do I wish I had been?- No. Everything was cool in my life. It was fun being a broker. I have no regrets on that front. Broking was my calling. I’m good at it too.

What do I wish I had done? – I don’t really have any regrets. I have had a good fun life. Work was good, worked with nice people, I was successful too. Pity my health was fucked…but that’s life and I had no choice in that. Nothing I could have done about that. I think I did pretty well considering just how badly ill I was.

What did I miss? —- If I died now…I would have missed retirement: missed having time to do what I wanted to do.

That’s all folks!
Sunshine

Limboland

LimbolandFor the third time this year I tried to support my adrenal glands, again with adrenal cortex. Now that the heart palpitations have stopped due to me giving up wheat, I thought I try again, just to be sure. And after 5 days on a very small quantity of adrenal cortex, just 25mg, a whole heap of nasty symptoms bombarded me and I had to stop supplementation on day seven. Another experiment that failed. So odd! I really need to figure this out! What does it all mean?

I can’t support my thyroid’s because my adrenals are shot.
I can’t support my adrenals because…not sure why the adrenal support is not working, but I’m down a cul-de-sac. I know my adrenals are fatigued, but I can’t figure out how to support them; bugger!

Maybe I need to change my dosing style? Maybe I need to dose higher to start with because the adrenal cortex is doing something odd, like suppressing something? Not sure…but that will be my next experiment! I will switch brands to Nutri Adrenal, and start at 100mg and see what happens. Dr Peatfield said that’s my next step, so that’s plan Batman.

If that does not work, I will speak with Dr P and see what he says. I have also found a website that says adrenal cortex can be multi-dosed, four times a day, starting at 4 x 80mg per day. I guess that will be my next try, if the previous try does not work out. http://www.nutri-meds.com/category_s/84.htm

If that doesn’t work, I guess it will be hydrocortisone (HC) for me. I hope not. Really really I hope not. I really want to avoid HC if I can. But something is wrong with my adrenals, I have tried many other things this last 18 months, and I’m 98pct sure it’s adrenals that’s holding me up, and that’s my focus. I must support my adrenals.

But before I do anything else it’s time to get some lab work done: I have ordered: 4 a day adrenal saliva stress profile, DHEA, Secretory IgA(SIgA), TSH, TT4, FT4, FT3, RT3, TPOAb, TgAb and Ferritin. Hopefully that will show me whats wrong. I have just read the Stop the Thyroid Madness book and that tells me how to read those results. I will also ask on a couple of forums, see if anyone can figure out how I can support my adrenals.

Just a quick thanks to “Thyroid UK” for setting things up with Genova Diagnostics so that people like me can get these blood tests done without a doctor’s prescription. I have to pay for them, but ce la vie. http://www.thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/testing/private_tests.html

For the saliva adrenal test I need to be off all adrenal supplements, which is fine because they all do weird $hit to me anyway, but I have two weeks in limboland where I am just treading water, waiting to get the tests done on Sunday. Will go for the next higher dosing adrenal support next week once the tests are done.

That’s all folks! Not much exciting going on really. Life continues otherwise unchanged.I work. I chill out. Gardens looking amazing!
Sunshine