Hi there, and welcome back to my blog. How are you? I hope you are well. Today, I’m going to talk about my current #rockulele setup. Now it took me a while to get this setup up and running. My setup is in two parts. The filming and the recording and the playing.

My recording

To record me, I bought an iPhone/iPad stand. It has a ring light for where the phone goes and the iPad stand is right below it. 

I use an app called Acapella. This app allows you to record yourself and re-record yourself to create an echo or a self duet. 

For the microphone, I bought this stand from Gear4Music, an online music shop where I bought my original music stand.

When I plug my phone into my microphone, I use a USB input system of a lighting port and an audio cord to a USB converter.

My playing 

When I play my ukulele, I plug my ukulele into my iPad with something called an iRig. An iRig allows me to use apps on my iPad, like ToneBridge, and output the guitar effects from the ukulele. I also use my iPad as my lyrics sheet. I use an app called teleprompter to auto-scroll the lyrics and chords down the iPad automatically. 

When I do a recording, I’ve recently put a sheet for a background. I actually got the idea from my sister, Arveena Kaushal, a motivational speaker, who does the same thing. I use a grey sheet because it’s the colour for brain tumours.

That’s it for now. Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister, and my Naughty Mamaji, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank everyone from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley, and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to share my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to get back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends, and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.

Next time, I’m going to talk about my 2021 – Q4 in review. Please feel free to leave a comment and as always, if you buy something from Amazon, through the blog, or click on an advert, 100% of the money that I get goes to charity.

Thanks and take care.

Ahoy there, and welcome back to my blog. How are you? I hope you are well. Today I’m going to talk about the benefits of moringa oil. Now I’ve only been taking moringa oil for a couple of months. And I do know that most of the benefits that I’m experiencing are mostly related to my eczema but the benefits are for anti-cancer and weight loss.

I’m less itchy

After putting homemade moringa oil on my body for the first time, I was definitely less itchy. I’m not sure why though, but I’m not complaining.

Softer skin

Every morning, my mum puts homemade moringa oil on my body, and after the first couple of days, she commented that my skin is much softer.

I’m finally sweating

After my diagnosis, I would never sweat, either on the treadmill or at Bhanga Blaze dance fitness class. At Bhangra, I would wear a jumper and didn’t sweat. Now, I’m taking moringa, I actually am sweating.

Weight Loss

Before using moringa oil, my weight was stuck at 65KG. I’m happy to say that my weight is now 63KG. With no major changes to my diet and exercise, I’m surprised by the amount of weight that has come off me in such a short amount of time.

Charity notes

Recently, I’ve joined a group called Silver Linings. They specialise with people with brain injuries. I’ve joined their weekly music group and the West Midlands group. Because of this, starting from today, any money that I get through my blog will go to this group as well.

That’s it for now. Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister, and my Naughty Mamaji, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank everyone from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley, and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to share my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to get back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends, and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.

Next time, I’m going to talk about my music/recording setup. Please feel free to leave a comment and as always, if you buy something from Amazon, through the blog, or click on an advert, 100% of the money that I get goes to charity.

Thanks and take care.

Hi there and welcome back to my blog. How are you? I hope you are well. Today’s blog post is about my year so far in the review.

Win Hof

After speaking to someone at Merica MS centre, about a breathing technique that she does every day, I decided to do the same thing. Win Hof is a specific breathing excise that is supposed to turn your body from acid like to alkaline. The Win Hof method also talks about having ice-cold showers and fasting, but so far, I haven’t done any of those yet.

My eczema 

Because I had a smoothie one day, my eczema has flared back. For the past month or so, I’ve been having something called Morninga powder in with lukewarm water. I’ve also been rubbing Morninga powder mixed with mustard oil on me for a few weeks now and it definitely reduced my itching. 

My birthday

It was my birthday last month and my uncle got me a mandolin. That’s why I’ve now divided my time between my electric ukulele and my mandolin. I do find it tricky transiting between the two because they are so similar and yet so different but I feel it’s definitely improving in playing both.

My #rockulele

Recently, I’ve downloaded an app called ToneBridge. What ToneBridge allows me to do, is to plug my ukulele into my iPad via an iRig2 and plug the other end into my amp and I can replicate any rock song effects pedal onto my ukulele. Unfortunately, due to the technology, it does mean that I cannot plug my ukulele into my phone for my recording.

Me working

Unfortunately, I haven’t started working yet. I had a couple of enquiries from friends but they didn’t follow up.

My word and brain games

Unfortunately, two of my word games have removed their daily challenges. Wordful Hexa and Wordie have removed their daily challenge. So what I’ve done, is that I’ve downloaded a new game called CodyCross. A crossword game, which  has two daily challenges., 

Fortunately, one of my brain games, BrainWell have opened their full daily games but with adverts.

Bhangra Blaze and Earls of Uke are meeting up again

Because the majority of the country have been double jabbed, my outdoor hobbies are meeting up again. Bhangra Blaze has a limit of 15 people in the class while my ukulele group has a limit of 20. Unfortunately, none of my cancer/brain tumours groups hasn’t met up yet.

My weight

My weight is 64KG. I know that it hasn’t moved as much as I would like it.

That’s it for now. Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister, and my Naughty Mamaji, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank everyone from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley, and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to share my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to get back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends, and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.

Next time, I’m going to talk about the benefits of Morninga powder.. Please feel free to leave a comment and as always, if you buy something from Amazon, through the blog, or click on an advert, 100% of the money that I get goes to charity.

Thanks and take care.

Hi there, and welcome back to my blog. How are you? I hope you are well. Today, I’m going to talk about how I kept warm during the summer. Now I know it’s different, talking about how to keep warm during the summer when it’s already warm. But for some reason, I’ve felt cold during this summer. Here is how I did it

• Wear more than one jumper
• Spend time outside
• Have the radiator on (but not all the time)
• Be active

Wear more than one jumper

When I’m feeling cold, I try and warm up by putting on more than one jumper. It definitely works.

Spend time outside

When I have my afternoon tea, I like to have it outside. Spending time outside in this weather is perfect for me, I get vitamin D from the sun and the heat from the sun. When going outside though, I always put SPF 50 on my face, head and neck, so I don’t get sunburn.

Put the radiator on (but not  all the time)

When I come downstairs, the first thing that I do is put the electric radiator on. We got an electric radiator when we put solar panels on our house. The thing with the radiator, it’s not good to keep it on all the time. The heat can make you fall asleep.

Be active

Whenever I go on the treadmill, I always feel a lot warmer afterwards. Especially, when I forget to take off my jumper. The blood flow in the body is one of the main reasons why I’m so cold.

That’s it for now. Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister, and my Naughty Mamaji, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank everyone from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley, and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to share my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to get back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends, and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.

Next time, I’m going to talk about 2021 – Q3 in review.. Please feel free to leave a comment and as always, if you buy something from Amazon, through the blog, or click on an advert, 100% of the money that I get goes to charity.

Thanks and take care.

Hi there, and welcome back to my blog. How are you? I hope you are well. Today, I’m going to talk about the process of me playing rock songs on my electric ukulele. I’m going to talk about the process of me picking a song, practising the song, what I found easy, what I found hard why I’m doing it.

As a teenager, I used to listen to a lot of rock songs. Every time that I came home from school, I would immediately put the tv onto Kerrang tv, and sit there for hours. After my diagnosis, I created a playlist on YouTube called tunes, where I put all of the songs that I used to listen to. From this playlist, I would listen to a song, google the chords and learn it. 

When it came to “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen, I had purchased a Patreon subscription to The Uke Teacher. I have been following The Uke teacher from the very start of my ukulele playing and I appreciate him for all of his free lessons. The main reason for me purchasing his Patreon subscription was so I could get his chord sheets.

A friend of mine, Sharron from my local Headway group gave a second-hand copy of the ukulele rock songs. Ever since then, I have also been playing songs from the book as well.

When it came to learning “Freebird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, I have also bought a temporary Patreon subscription to 10 thumbs challenge, so I could get the chord sheet. I had also bought a slide for myself to be able to play the intro for “Freebird” accurately. A slide job is to make moving chords a lot smoother

For my ukulele, I had also bought a capo because of some songs that I was learning with The Earls of Uke and on my own, a capo is required. A capo job is to give the ukulele a lot higher tone. I also bought a new effects pedal for myself that was supposed to be a battery powdered but when I came to use it, it wasn’t.

Recently, I had purchased a subscription for the Acapella. Acapella is an app that allows the user to re-record themselves singing and playing. To get the harmonics of a song correctly. The first time that I used this app was when I did “Bohimeum Rhysposdy”. Because my phone battery doesn’t last that long, I had to purchase this phone adapter and microphone input.

Here are last month’s videos.

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That’s it for now. Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister, and my Naughty Mamaji, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank everyone from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley, and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to share my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to get back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends, and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.

Next time, I’m going to talk about how I handled the weather. Please feel free to leave a comment and as always, if you buy something from Amazon, through the blog, or click on an advert, 100% of the money that I get goes to charity.

Thanks and take care.

Hi there and welcome back to my blog. How are you? I hope you are well. Today’s blog post is about 2021 – Q2 in review.

Covid jabs

The whole family has had their second covid jabs. It’s so uplifting to know that we are safe from the current variant of covid, but I’m aware of other variants so when I do go out on my walks, I always make sure that I’m wearing my mask.

My eczema

My eczema is still troubling me. but I have it under control. I’ve not done any more acupuncture for eczema and I’m only showering once every two weeks. This has really helped my skin recover and not going for long baths.

My ukulele playing

Last month, I made the decision to film myself playing the ukulele and learn a new song every week. Learning a new song every week has really put pressure on me to go upstairs and play the ukulele. I post these videos on my Instagram page and then I share my videos onto a Facebook group called “10 thumb challenge”, a ukulele group that has people sharing videos of themselves playing the ukulele. My second video was me playing a simple version of “Freebird” by Lynard Skynard.
Here are this pasts months videos.

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A post shared by Arvin Kaushal (@arvinkaushal)

My couch to 5K training

I have just finished my slowed down the couch to 5K app training and have since restarted my slightly quicker couch to 5K training. Before lockdown and my eczema flaring back up, I was doing 5K in 20 minutes. Which is quite quick for someone in my condition. My plan is to go back to that time, then do a sponsored run, with some friends, and try to raise money for my charities.

My hula hooping

Recently, I bought a fixed hula hoop. This hula hoop is much easier to keep on because it’s designed to stay on your body. The box packaging says that if you do the hula hoop 3 times for 30 minutes each time, you can burn off 800 calories.

Me working

Unfortunately, I’m not working just yet. I’ve had an old university friend and an old work colleague come to me and asking for estimates but because of my fatigue, my estimates are higher than I expected.

My weight

My weight is 64KG. Sadly, due to the lockdown rules being extended for another month, I’ve not been on my daily walks.

That’s it for now. Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister, and my Naughty Mamaji, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank everyone from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley, and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to share my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to get back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends, and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.

Next time, I’m going to talk about how I started playing rock songs on my ukulele. Please feel free to leave a comment and as always, if you buy something from Amazon, through the blog, or click on an advert, 100% of the money that I get goes to charity.

Thanks and take care.

Hi there, and welcome back to my blog. How are you> I hope you are well. Today, I’m going to talk about what happened to me when I went down further in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Last month, I spoke about what happened to me when I went down to 22 feet and this month, I’m going to talk about what happened to me when I went down to 32 feet.

My word games and brain games have improved. I’m not using any hints in the majority of my word games and my brain games scores have increased to the point when the brain games that I was playing before my diagnosis have reached a high score. The same for my word games

The same goes for my daily solitaire games. Recently, I’ve started playing a different solitaire game called Klondyke Fish Solitaire along with my normal solitaire game and I’ve not used any hints for a few weeks now.

I can’t say much about my eyesight, no massive improvements since going down to 32 feet.

Recently at a Brainwaves meeting, I remembered someone’s name after they didn’t turn up. After Lizzie, the head of the Brainwaves meeting, couldn’t remember who didn’t turn up.

After my second session, at 32 feet, with my typing games, I was able to get high accuracy. I was also able to get a high score on one of my brain games, regarding my coordination, and with my brain games, games that I was playing, before my diagnosis, I was getting high scores.

With my freecodecamp course, I’d normally watch a video from usefulprogrammer before completing the task. But after my second session, I didn’t watch a video to complete a task.

Although these changes are positive, they are unfortunately not permanent, I still struggle with my fatigue and by the time that it’s been over a week, everything is back to square one. But it’s beneficial even it’s for a short amount of time. And it’s fun going back to “normal”.

That’s it for now. Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister, and my Naughty Mamaji, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank everyone from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley, and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to share my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to get back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends, and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.

I would like to thank a good friend of mine, Steven Bracewell, CEO of Gamers beat Cancer. Because of him, I now own a PS4. A few months ago, I was feeling depressed because I miss driving, well thanks to Steven, and me buying a driving wheel and PSVR, I can now have the feeling of driving again.

I would like to also thank Lizzie from Maggies in Nottingham. .During the lockdown, my monthly Brainwaves have been happening through zoom in partnership with Maggies.

Because of these two charities, from now on, if you buy something from Amazon through the blog or click on an advert, money will be paid towards these two charities along with the rest.

Next time, I’m going to talk about 2020 Q2- the year in review. Please feel free to leave a comment and as always, if you buy something from Amazon, through the blog, or click on an advert, 100% of the money that I get goes to charity.
Thanks and take care.

Hi there and welcome back to my blog. How are you? I do hope you are well. Today’s blog post is about my experience with going down a deeper depth inside the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. So far, I’ve been using the hyperbaric oxygen chamber at 16.5ft for over three years. But last month, I took a test to see if I can medically use a deeper depth in the chamber or not and I passed. So last month, I started to use the chamber at 22ft.

The first thing that I had noticed was that it took longer for the pressure to go down and up again. I’m guessing that is because it takes time to get down further. I didn’t feel different in the chamber initially, but afterward, I did notice some massive improvements with regards to my right eye.

My word and brain games have profoundly improved. Normally, I would use a couple of hints to complete my daily challenges but recently, I’ve only used a couple of hints throughout all of my games. With my brain games, I’m getting high scores on all of my games including games that I used to play before my diagnosis

One word game that I like to play every day, Word Scapes, I had a streak of 6 days of completing the daily challenge without using a single hint. The same has been throughout each of my word games. That streak ended when I took part in a Brain Tumour Support fun activity morning which had knackered me out.

As I’ve mentioned a couple of years ago, in my original blog post about the hyperbaric oxygen chamber, my hand-eye coordination had improved after a couple of sessions in the chamber. Now due to being in lockdown, I haven’t used my Chinese therapy balls, but my ukulele playing has improved quite a bit.

My diabetes insipidus has also improved. Before the chamber, I would go to the bathroom, 8 -10 times. Now I’m only going to the bathroom 6 times.

Overall, I am seeing improvements in all aspects of my life. Next month, i should be going down further down to 32 feet.

That’s it for now. Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister, and my Naughty Mamaji, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank everyone from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley, and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to share my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to get back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends, and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.

Next time, I’m going to talk about me going down even deeper in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Please feel free to leave a comment and as always, if you buy something from Amazon, through the blog, or click on an advert, 100% of the money that I get goes to charity.

Thanks and take care.

Hi there, and welcome back to my blog. How are you? I hope you are well. Today’s post is about 2021 Q1 in a review. Hopefully, lockdown is coming to an end, I have some good news and some bad news about my health.

Eczema clearing up
Thankfully, my eczema is finally clearing up thanks to me not taking baths at all. I took one bath to clear up my scabs and that caused everything to go back so that’s when I decided to stop taking baths. I now take a shower once a week at a reasonably high temperature, for about 10 minutes. I know taking a high-temperature shower isn’t a good idea, but because our boiler always switches off when we have any tap on low temperature.

My tablets
My desmopressin has gone down and since February, I have not taken cabergoline since /I got a letter from the hospital saying that there is no need for me to take it anymore.

My daily habits
Unfortunately, my daily habits are not happening. I only go upstairs and play the ukulele on Mondays, Wednesdays and every other Tuesday. The reason for Monday and Wednesday is that’s when my little sister does her zoom kickboxing class and she kicks me and my mum out of the living room. It’s been a while since I’ve done my physiotherapy exercises. The only time that I practice my handwriting or read from a book is when I’ve got a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. I’ve not gone for a walk since last year, Everything else is still there including walking 10,000 steps a day.

Couch to 5K
I had to restart my couch to 5K course because I found it too difficult with my eczema flaring up again. Now that my eczema is finally clear, I’m back on the treadmill every other day. However, when I go on the treadmill, I always grab onto the sidebar with my right hand.

My weight
My weight as of today is 64KG. My weight over the past three months has fluctuated between 65KG and 63KG. I know that’s my fault, because, when I come downstairs and have my breakfast, I sit down, play my brain games, and don’t move until it’s time for me to go to the bathroom. I need to get up more times than I normally would, if not for my health, but for my balance.

Me falling over a lot
The strength in my knees/legs has worsened. As soon as I wake up, I tend to fall over getting out of bed. I tend to fall over after getting up and when I climb the stairs, I go one step at a time. I know why this is happening, it’s because I’m not doing my physiotherapy exercises and I’m not getting up every hour as I should be.

My acupuncture
I had to restart my acupuncture for eczema because I had my usual juice which caused my eczema to flare up massively. Fortunately, it started to clear up before I had a chance to see Damian.

Me working
I haven’t started any work just yet. I know because of lockdown, no work has been around. I’m hoping that in the next 3 months, work will come my way.

Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber
After using the Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber for over 3 years, I have been approved by Merca MS Centre to go at a deeper depth. I will let you know the results of this in my next blog.

That’s it for now. Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister, and my Naughty Mamaji, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank everyone from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley, and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to share my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to get back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends, and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.

Next time, I’m going to talk about me going down deeper in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Please feel free to leave a comment and as always, if you buy something from Amazon, through the blog, or click on an advert, 100% of the money that I get goes to charity.

Thanks and take care.