Evie

Happy cheap chocolate day!

I am a sadly lil llama after yesterday's tennis finals. Ben Shelton was in the Munich final and Carlos Alcaraz was in the Barcelona final - and they both lost 😭 Even worse they both lost to players I Do Not Like 😂

It was also the last year that David Ferrer is the Tournament Director at the Barcelona Open. I was thoroughly enjoying the Ferru spotting all week, not gonna lie.

The one very excellent tennis thing from the last week, however, is that we're getting closer to the end of Jannik Sinner's suspension. He's now allowed to practice tennis again, play on an ATP affiliated court, play with ATP players and work with his coaches. He's spent the last few weeks in the gym with Marco, his fitness trainer and... yeah, Marco's been working that boy hard. He is looking fine. Jannik's been training with Jack Draper last week - OMG so many people ship them and I do not get it but I'm glad they're happy. Me? I'm happy about the fact that him being able to work with his coaches = pictures and videos including Darren and Simone. (Mind, there was also Darren and Simone spotting in Monte Carlo the other week as well which made me all 😻)

This week is the Madrid Masters (and I hadn't realised Feli Lopez was the TD - between him and Ferru, especially with Juanki as Carlitos' coach) it's like a resurgence of the 00s Spanish Armada and I am here for it!)

Is it just me or is this a very ADHD coded post thus far with all the parenthesis?

Lets see... what else?
I spent most of yesterday refreshing my social media profiles (except, apparently, this one. huh. I should look at that). But I'm super pleased at how things now look at tennisdadsaficionado, bibliollama, (and https://www.threads.net/@bibliollama), and tennisdads
I cooked chicken ramen yesterday and it was so fucking good. I used an Itsu broth carton and Itsu noodles but have a recipe for making my own broth next time
Li made hot cross buns yesterday and they were a little doughy (yeast didn't yeast properly) but super sticky and delicious.

I think that's about it from me, so I shall leave you with my Music Monday offering which, as ever, is my most played track of last week. I had a couple of meltdowns last week and so I comfort played a whole bunch of pop/punk, because that's still such a happy place for me.

And then, of course, leads to many many happy memories of so many gigs and tours following Good Charlotte around the UK on multiple occasions 🧡

So I ended up back at the doctor's on Thursday.

At the beginning of last week, after finishing the steroids, I felt okay, but as the week dragged on, I started coughing more and more and getting breathless again. On Wednesday, I barely stopped coughing all day.

On Thursday morning, I completed the online consultation form
I got confirmation that it had been received at 09:09
At 09:19, I got a phone call saying I have an appointment at 10:10
Which, first of all can I just say how fucking fantastic that is because my old doctors, you'd have to start ringing them at 08:30, ring them approximately 50 times to be told there's no appointments, call again tomorrow. So I'm already in love with this new doctor's office

So I saw the doctor and went over the issues I'm having, I'd had the full change of meds from preventer + reliever to MART and been on the steroids last week, but it was getting worse again. I'm taking the inhaler as a reliever like 4-5 times a day, whereas the beginning of the week it was 1-2 times. She listens to my lungs; they're still clear, but she says my cough is 'very asthmatic'. She checks my inhaler technique, which, btw, is 'perfect' (I'd like to think so, I've been asthmatic over 30 years LOL).

And now I have an additional drug - Montelukast which is a top-up to the MART, again I'll be taking this for the rest of forever same as the new inhaler, and it's to help stop my airways from narrowing. I get told that it will kick in 'immediately'.

Wow. They were not joking. I've had two days on it. I walked down and up the stairs this morning without coughing, without being unable to catch my breath and needing my inhaler. I haven't had to take my reliever inhaler today. Not even when I yelled excitedly when Carlos won his semi-final. And then I realised I could breathe well enough to yell like that!

I'm still exhausted. Like my bones are tired. I missed most of the de Minaur v Musetti final this afternoon because I napped. But I'm hoping over the next week or so that will improve