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)

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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.

Hi there and welcome back. How are you? I hope that you are well. Today I’m going to talk about my 2020 in review; Now 2020, was a tough year for everyone with Covid-19.

I started off the year being positive about 2020. The idea of looking for work, doing a comedy event for Cancers Research, starting drawing with my Apple Pencil and training for a 10K. Then, Covid-19 and my eczema flared up and stopped all of that.

My eczema

I have eczema for the majority of my life. Every now and again, I get flare-ups. It can be quite annoying because when I think that I’m ok, something always stops me. I started taking daily baths early on in the year, mixing up from apple cider vinegar to vitamin e bath oil.

Working

I’m still looking for part-time work. Either contract work, part-time work or self-employed work. I do have some work coming in later on the year from a friend that I took an SEO course a couple of years ago.

My running

Only recently, I’ve started going back on the treadmill redoing the couch to 5K app. Because of lockdown, I have not been out on my daily walks at all.

My exercises

I’ve changed up how I lift my weights, from my basic four exercises to the Pail Bradley workout to something that I found on Pinterest. I’ve stopped doing my daily plank challenge. I’m still going on the treadmill almost everyday. and I’m still using my ab swing and ab-belt but I alternate what day that I use each.

My weight

I started the year weighing in at 64kg, I weighed in at the end of the year at 64kg. Which means no movement in weight whatsoever. My diet has been laxed over covid-19 from me having pancakes for breakfast. I’ve gone back to having porridge for breakfast with gluten-free rice puffs, blueberry jam, and blueberries in it. Overall my fitness has gone down since covid-19, I would sit down after making breakfast and sit there for hours. Even though my watch tells me to stand. Bhanga Blaze isn’t on every week due to Amarjit injuring her back before Christmas.

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 be talking about my first experience of acupuncture. 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 that you are well. Today I’m going to talk about what exercises I do. Now, these exercises I don’t do every day but I do it most days.

Daily om
This exercise I try and do every day. But not all of it as getting on the floor gives me headaches and dizzy spells. The course that I do is called The 4-Minute Peaceful Warrior Workout.

Weights
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Credit for image: https://darebee.com/

I’ve recently changed my weight lifting moves to something that I found on Pinterest. What I’ve been doing is 10 hammer curls, five vertical raises, five ridden rows, five shoulder press with a squat, five heel raises and five bent over rows. I like to do two sets of each exercise.

Ab Swing
I’m still using the ab-swing, even though this past Christmas, I got an ab-belt set. What I do on the ab-swing is I sit on top of the ab-swing and do a set and scoot myself down the seat and do another set..

Treadmill
Because of Covid-19, I’m not in training for a specific race anymore. These days, I go on the treadmill for time and incline. The reason for this is because of my baths, my legs have become very weak. I started off doing 20 minutes on a 2.0 incline to doing a lot more.. I try and go on the treadmill everyday but on the days that I don’t, I go onto the floor bike.

Floor bike
I lost the majority of my weight on the floor bike and that’s why I decided to go back onto he floor bike. I started going on the floor bike for 25 minutes and now I do it for a lot longer

Bhangra Blaze
As I’ve written in another blog post, I like to do Bhangra Blaze class. When its on, I feel improvement in my flexibility and my stamina.

Dancing
Sometimes, I like to get my old Wii switched on and do the Zumba warmups with the Zumba belt. I definitely do feel tired afterward

Chair Yoga
Recently, because of lockdown, Carers Trust have started doing weekly chair yoga. Varsha from Carers Trust runs the class via Zoom. I only found out about this because I’ve liked Carers Ttrust in Facebook. It’s different from regular yoga because it’s more concentrated on breathing than anything else.

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 be talking about 2020 a 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.

Hi there and welcome back to my blog. How are you? I hope you are well. Today I’m going to be talking about my Q3 and Q4 in review. Now just finishing a second lockdown, not much has happened in the past 6 months. But some things have happened.

My birthday

In August, I had my birthday. I’m 32 this year. For my birthday, this year, I was given an electric ukulele, an effects pedal, and a load of cables to connect up the ukulele to my iPad and laptop. My idea is to record a charity single out for download only. I also got a harmonica for my birthday. As a youth, I used to play the flute and had strong lungs because of it. Now my lungs are weaker than before, so that’s why I decided to buy a harmonica.

My tablets

Last month, I had a couple of blood tests and a couple of days later, I got a phone call from the hospital. They told me to stop taking the afternoon half desmopressin completely. The first few days were tricky with my thirst issue kicking back up again. My levothyroxine has also gone down from 100 to 75. Everything else is stable.

My eczema

My eczema is still there but thankfully, I’m taking shorter baths. My eczema is affecting my feet and my walking. Which is my primary reason for me taking shorter baths.

My daily habits

Because of being on constant lockdown, I have decided to put my Productive app on vacation mode. Which means that my habits are on lock mode. I don’t lose their streak even though I haven’t opened the app.

My food

My breakfast has changed from porridge to gluten free oat pancakes with jam. For dinner, I rarely stir fry anymore. I now have basmati rice with dhal(lentils) with a poppadom. I believe that this breakfast gives me slightly more energy than the porridge because of the carbs that I’m having.but the downside is the extra weight.

My weight

I now weigh in at 60kg, which is slightly heavier than when I last updated my blog. It’s probably due to the fact that I haven’t been for a walk for a while. Although, I’ve most recently started going on the treadmill everyday solely because it tires me out and gets me ready for sleep.

My hair

Due to my eczema and the fact that it’s been five years since radiotherapy and I was still rocking a bald spot, I’ve decided to shave my head and grow a goatee. I bought a porkpie hat to go
along with the Heisenberg look and feel.

A small bout of depression

In the past 3 months, I recently had a small bout of depression. I had two baths that day I know that it’s hard dealing with lockdown with recovery from brain tumours, but that’s what got me. I suddenly missed the old me. I posted this on Facebook in September.

“For some reason today, I really missed the old me today. I miss getting up in the morning with a purpose, I miss working full time, I miss going out with friends, I miss my independence, I miss driving. I miss not waking up in the middle of the night, I miss not feeling tired all the time. I miss the old me.”

I have now admitted to myself that the old me is the past and I need to be more focused on the present me.

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 be talking about my weight update and what exercises I do in a 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.

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 eczema journey. I call it my current eczema journey because I’ve suffered from eczema as a baby and every now and again, I get flare-ups but this current flare-up has been the longest and the worst. (bearing in mind, all of my notes are from memory)

My current stint started a couple of years ago when I used Alpecin shampoo a couple of times. Because I was looking to try and grow my hair back. Looking back, this was a big mistake because I’ve now shaved my head.

It started on my feet for some reason, I’m guessing that because shampoo rolls down the whole body. Me and my mum went to my GP and he gave me some allergy tablets and three lots of cream, including a steroid cream. I followed the instructions that my GP gave me for a couple of weeks and saw no improvement.

Then I started to put Pomade Sulphur cream on my body, after having a shower. In which I saw improvement, but Pomade Sulphur is hard to get a load off.

We went back to my GP saying that I’m still suffering and they gave a stronger allergy tablet.

About 6 months ago, I started to take baths. They started out as really long baths (10 hours plus). The only thing that I put in the bath was mustard oil. After a while, I would put apple cider vinegar, some bath salts, and tea tree oil in the bath. For a while, this would work but then my eczema would get worse. After finding out that apple cider vinegar has sugar in it and bath salts baths should not last more than 20 minutes, I stopped using both.

I would do some research and found this non-vegan bath milk, which has had some good reviews. So I started to add that to the bath. Someone on the eczema Facebook group said try E45 bath oil, so I tried that as well. I then experimented with some non-vegan goats milk powder but that didn’t last.

My current bath oils alternate between E45 bath oil, tea tree oil, peppermint oil, and that milk thing
in one day, and the following day, I put in vitamin E bath oil on its own. I still spend over 3 hours in the bath, which is less but still too long. With my baths, I use this bathwater filter that I got from Pure Showers. I open the taps, leave it for a few minutes, and then add the oils in afterward.

After the bath, I like to put Cetraben on my head and neck, and because the bath oil sticks onto me afterward, I leave it as that. Sometimes, I do like putting E45 anti-itch cream on afterward.

My mum did some research and she believes that my liver needs clearing out and I suffer from “Nightshade”. Which makes me allergic to root vegetables like potatoes and aubergines. Which was giving me a reaction. Which is a shame, because I now love aubergines. After speaking to one of her friends, my mum has put me on a strict diet having lots of coriander

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 be talking about 2020 Q3 in a 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.

Hi there and welcome back to my blog. How are you? I hope you are well. Today I’m going to talk about the word games that I like to play every day. Most of these games, I just play the daily challenge.Some of them, I do play the full version of the game. I will separate theses off into categories. The categories are the following:

• Crossword style
• Block linking
• Other

Crossword style
The games that I play in the crossword-style are:

• Word link
• Wordscapes

Crossword games work by a connected grid of hidden words and a circle of letters

Word link
Word Link is the first game that I like to play every day. It has a bland layout and the main game doesn’t follow the crossword-style of gameplay, the main game follows a line system.

Wordscapes
Wordscapes’s main game does follow the crossword system, but I only play the daily challenge. Its layout is more colo8rful than Word Link.

Block linking games
I play a lot more block linking games. They are:

• Word Crush
• Wordful Hexa
• Worddie
• WordWhizzle Themes

Word Crush
This is the first-word game that I started playing, before my diagnosis. It’s very plain layout and colour scheme makes it easier to concentrate on. It does offer free hints after watching a video. This is a more traditional block linking game.

Wordful Hexa
This game is slightly different because instead of squares, this game uses hexagons. Which adds a whole level of difficulty. This game doesn’t offer a free hint, you have to complete the daily challenge to get a free hit.

Worddie
This game, I also started playing before my diagnosis. This game doesn’t offer free hints, you have to complete the daily challenge or complete a pack in the normal game. This game is a simple connect the blocks and the blocks fall down game.

WordWhizzle Themes
This is another game that I played before my diagnosis. Unlike Worddie, this game doesn’t have the blocks fall after you solve them. This game also offers free hints via a short video.

Other games
The other type of games that I like to play are the following:

• Crossword Quiz
• Pictoword
• Word Craze

Crossword Quiz
What this game does, it shows the option of a theme, then displays a blank crossword chart. When you click on a word in the chart, a clue pops up, either a sentence or a picture. When you get a question right, the game gives you coins which you can then use for a hint. Or you could watch a video.

Pictoword
I solely play this game on my phone. This game is quite simple, two images appear with a load of letters. The aim of the game is to get the answer from the two images.

Word Craze
This game is different from the rest. This game has either a written clue or a picture clue and instead of having a limited number of letters to use to guess, it gives you the whole alphabet.It does offer free hints via video and it helps you throughout the game by telling you what letter to put in if you are one letter out.

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 be talking about my most recent journey with eczema. 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.