The Internet - Why Our Lives Are Now Smaller

Do you remember a time before the internet?  I am old enough to.  I remember being taught how to use it the very first time.  The trainer asked us to search “how to cook a chicken”.  I did not know then how the internet would quickly form a major part of my life, my routine.  I did not realise how it would change my life, for the better and for the worse.

Anything that I could possibly want to buy is available online.   Books, music, clothes, the food I eat.

In some ways, the internet saves us a lot of time.  You don’t need to go into a clothing store anymore.  You can choose multiple options of whatever you want and get a courier to return what you don’t want.  You want to clean your sink drain, Amazon is here for you.  You can’t be bothered to cook tonight, Just Eat will sort you out. You forget an ingredient for the meal you are cooking tonight, Deliveroo has your back.   You want to go somewhere, you open Google Maps.

The internet has made it so you could reasonably never leave your home if you didn’t want to.  Especially if you work from home.

You can be permanently entertained, forever.  Netflix, Prime, Disney Plus, Youtube.  You will never run out of things to watch.  Adverts can be a thing of the past, if you pay for the privilege.  You can connect to people from all over the world, without ever leaving your sofa.

The internet even provides some with a job now.  You can use it to purchase things and then review them.  You can game and have people watch you play.  You can spout your opinions online and have people listen to you.

The internet has given me much.  The platform I write to you on now.  Twitter, I refuse to use X, that helped me to find some like minded people and opened up my voice.

But with the good, comes the bad.

We are losing social skills.  We are losing human interactions.  We are losing our time to things that do not matter and do not affect our lives.  We lose hours doom scrolling, playing games, always searching for the next dopamine hit.  The next really interesting thing that is surely just a scroll away.

I remember my old morning routine.  I got up in the morning, had a shower, made a fresh coffee, put my makeup on and sat down on the sofa, munching on a slice of toast before I was out of the door.  Quick, easy.  Up and out of the house within 45 minutes.

Now, I sit on the sofa and check to see what is going on in the world before I start my day.  I check Facebook, Twitter, a news website.  What I guess I would consider “the necessary”.  The absolute basics.  Then I “quickly” check Reddit and suddenly thirty more minutes have disappeared, reading stories about other people’s lives.  Scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll.  So it begins.

I drag myself out of the house and catch the bus.  Instead of just quietly sitting there, maybe reading my book if I have remembered it; it is more doom scrolling, maybe playing a game on an app or for a longer journey, watching an episode of one of my shows on Netflix.  I must be entertained.

Sitting quietly, or chatting with someone is a thing of the past.  We can no longer just sit.  We check our emails, check the socials. Shop.  All while the people next to us do the same thing.  Interacting with our phones instead of each other.  We converse with the people in our phones instead of the person right in front of us.

Children’s birthday parties used to be full of games and playing and pin the tail on the donkey.  Listening to music together and dancing.  Now each child sits there, immersed in their own world on their phones.  Your “cool” status rides on how many likes you have, how many followers you have.

I remember having problems in school when I was a child.  Bullying was involved.  But back then, I could go home.  To my safe haven.  Those children were not there.  I was with my family.  There was an escape from it.

Now, there is no escape.  Those same children are now online, talking about you.  Posting about you.  The bullying actually becomes worse because people says things online that they would never to your face.  They can start a rumour about you that spreads in minutes, true or not.  There is no escape.

You can also not just be “you” anymore.  You have to have a label.  As many labels as possible.  The more you can put on your social media profiles, the better.  You are not tidy, you have OCD.  You are not a moody teenager.  You have depression, bipolar, anxiety disorder.  You have an argument with your parents.  Oh, you must have PTSD.  You are struggling with your growing body and hormones.  Maybe you aren’t a girl after all.  Maybe you are a boy.  Maybe you are both. 

Decide.  DECIDE!  Tell the world.  Tell the internet.  And once you decide, you are not allowed to go back.  You cannot change your mind.  Who you are.  Thoughts that you tweeted ten years ago which do not represent you anymore are enough to hang you.  You are not allowed to change.  The internet lasts forever.

The internet can also be used as a weapon in a different form.   That cheeky snap that you send your partner can end up being shared to everyone you know.  That video you made together, can end up on Pornhub.

Men and women have been pitted against each other like never before.  All men are this, all women are that.  How do you know?  Well I saw a video on Youtube.  I read a thread on Reddit.  Not actual interaction.

People tell you, as I have told you above, that our world has increased and been made easier by the internet.

But in fact, when you look, when you really look, our world has gotten so much smaller.  Our lives have become more insular.  We shout at the world telling them to listen to us, read our stories, watch us; but the people next to us no longer exist.

We can never go back.  Our lives are too intertwined. But there are changes we can make.    These are the promises I make to myself:

·       -  When I am with someone, my phone is away.

·       - When I am on the bus, I will read a book, not a Reddit story.

·       - When I want to go somewhere, I will take recommendations from word of mouth, not a Yelp reviewer.

·       -  I will start writing more again.  It gives me peace and enjoyment.  The numbers of who reads and who   doesn’t no longer concerns me.

·       -  If I cannot find something to watch, I will read, I will talk.  I will no longer doom scroll for an hour to     find something.

There is a hard one.  Reddit.  Of all the doom scrolling, this is the one for me.  There is no purpose to Reddit.  You read about other people’s lives and not your own.  You comment on those lives with your opinion, which is right for some but not for others.  You are barely even allowed to have an opinion on Reddit these days as it is, so why am I still there?

I no longer want to engage in things that do not bring anything into my life.   Do not add to my life and in fact, take time away from actually living my life.  I can use the internet for the good it still holds to.  I can educate myself, I can learn about new things.  There is so much out there I do not know and that information is at my fingertips.  But instead, I scroll.

This is the promise we need to make to ourselves. 

Stop. Scrolling. 

It is ok not to be entertained

Recovery from a Hysterectomy - 10 weeks in

 This is a follow up to my initial post on how I have been recovering from a hysterectomy.

I am now ten weeks in and this has been my experience.

The first four weeks of my recovery were much easier than I expected.  Sleepiness, some insomnia, a little pain now and again but on the while, it was plain sailing.  The following two weeks were much the same.

Then, six weeks post surgery (presumably once all the swelling had started to decrease) I started to get pain in my right thigh.  This increased to the point where I was hobbling and barely able to walk.  Prior to this I had been getting up every hour, walking around the house, was back to cooking lunches and dinners every day.  I made sure to go up and down the stairs every day to get a bit of exercise, as the weather outside was not the best.

After suffering with quite significant pain in my thigh for a week, I ended up after taking advice going to urgent care.  What had happened was something which can be a result of the surgery.  I had robotic surgery and was in a diagonal position for three hours.  This trapped a nerve in my thigh.

It was a relief to know at least what was wrong and that the pain would go away.

I had the pain for about another ten days, and was given Codeine and Naproxen for the pain.  Which I have to say amused me because although I needed it, the hospital only gave me three painkillers to take home with me after my hysterectomy.  Three!  Thankfully simple paracetamol worked for me for any pain I had in that regard.

I ended up taking two extra days off work as a result of the trapped nerve and had to be careful for my first week back at work, where typically I work on the top floor, only accessed by stairs.

I share this with you today not to scare you.  Getting a trapped nerve can happen, but it is not a usual thing or something you should worry about expecting to happen.

I am now ten weeks post surgery and I have no pain at all.  My scars are healing wonderfully and I am again back to wondering whether they did take out anything at all, given that my healing journey (leg aside) has been so easy!

I am happy that I had the surgery.  No more pain.  No more periods.  I am back to normal, working and everything is just as it should be.

Recovery from A Hysterectomy - My Journey So Far

On the 30th December I had a hysterectomy.  This is something, after trying many other avenues without success, that was needed.  I met with a Consultant last June and after reviewing my scan which revealed large fibroids that had once again returned, he advised that I should have a hysterectomy, leaving my ovaries so that I could go through menopause naturally.

My answer was obvious.  No more pain, no more periods (woo hoo!).  At my age although the possibility of getting pregnant was still a factor and was possible, I have never wanted children; so taking away that possibility was also something I wanted.  Plus getting rid of the damn Mirena coil was an added bonus.  I had already vowed never, ever to go through the pain of having one in again.

It is now coming up to four weeks since my surgery and I am pleased that I made the right choice.  I have heard many different experiences about recovery post surgery, from what happens when you wake up, to potential pain, problems and mobility after.  So I thought that I would share my experience with you so far.

I had a robotic hysterectomy.  I do urge you to google the machine that they use.  It is amazing!  If you have ever seen RoboCop, the scene where they bring the machine into the board meeting and it ends up killing someone; it looks a little like that.  It is very cool.   Alas I did not get to see in person as I was already under anaesthetic before they wheeled me into surgery.

The next morning after my surgery (finished around 7.30 the last before), I expected to be quite a bit of pain.  For me, the pain wasn't bad at all.  In fact I was more concerned about the catheter that they were due to take out.  I don't know why, but that freaked me out more than anything else.

Before they will discharge you, you have to be able to get up and move around, have the catheter out and have peed at least three times so that they know everything is working there as it should.  I just wanted to go home.  I had not slept well the night before.  The nurses (who were wonderful) checked on me around every 45 minutes during the night so sleep didn't go too well.  So I drank and drank until the required bathroom element was completed and I could go home.

Upon discharge they gave me a sick note for six weeks, which they told me was the minimum (I promptly lost this as soon as I got home and had to get another from my GP).  They also give you seven injections, well six as they did the first in the hospital for me, which you need to inject into your stomach every day.  

No one likes injections, but after the initial "I cannot not this" and then deciding that having my boyfriend in control of the injection rather than me would be worse (yes I am a control freak), I got the first one out of the way.  By injection 4 I was an old hat at it and it barely hurt at all.  

The first thing that I will tell you, which I think is a universal thing, is that you are going to be tired.  Not just right after the surgery and in the days after, but for a long time.  I am still tired, although I am not doing much of anything other than watching box sets and reading books.

Alongside the tiredness, for the first couple of weeks I was also experiencing insomnia.  Sometimes I was wide away until 3-4 am.  This is dissipating now.  But the tiredness persists.  My boyfriend tells me that I am sleeping less during the day now though, so that is some improvement.

One thing that I was worried about was the scarring.  I knew that there would be five incision sites and I had visions of looking like Frankenstein's monster.  I was very pleasantly surprised.  There are five different sites, some with a couple of incisions next to each other.  The size of them surprised me, barely half an inch, if that.  Four weeks on, I have started to use bio oil and am happy to report that they will be barely noticeable.  

Going on to the pain.  Everyone is different, some get a lot, some get prolonged pain, some experience medium levels, some experience none.  In general, my pain levels have been small.  I have had a couple of days recently where the pain has increased, but to do with every knitting together I think.  I was given three days of pain medication, one a day I think, but on the whole, a couple of paracetamol or Ibuprofen have held me comfortably.  Some days I have none at all.

Before the operation and since having it I have been using the Hysterectomy section on Reddit.  This has been massively helpful as many women have written about and answered questions that I wanted to know.  If you have a hysterectomy, I highly recommend going on there.

One thing that I have learned is that it is important to listen to the "don't dos".   Sex is obviously off the menu for a while.  But the important parts are: don't lift anything heavy.  Don't do too much, of anything.  Don't drive.

Not doing anything is a challenge.  But it is necessary.  Doing the smallest thing can tire you out.  Start small.  Very small.

Because I have an office job I was given six weeks off work.  If you have a more manual job they will sign you off for longer.  Take the time.  All of it.  If, like me with smaller pain levels, you get the urge to go back to work early, don't.  If you can't make yourself dinner without having to lie down after, you definately cannot manage to work for eight hours.

That is my journey so far.  I will let you know how I go on when I get back to work in mid February.  But I am healing well and am trying to enjoy this period away from work.  This is the longest period I have had from work since I left school and no doubt will not have again until I retire. 

So far, so good!