I have just finished my second week of physical rehabilitation in rural Devon following medical recovery from a serious health incident. I find humour invaluable to surviving such things and also sharing my every thought with other people. You’re welcome! Week One is here.
Wednesday 9th September
I wake up at 4AM and am unable to go to back to sleep. I do the approved thing and get up and take a book into the dimly-lit sitting room. I had been saving Janice Hadlow’s The Other Bennet Sister for this reset but an hour into it, I find I am not engaged. The prose is all wrong. When it comes to film, I get impatient with the purists who complain if anything diverges from the author’s intentions but it seems I am a purist in the realm of text. I have heard good things about the film, though, so I will watch that. I go back to sleep for an hour.
Today, Matt and I meet to continue the exercises that will ultimately enable me to get up off the floor, talk about my first week and plan the second. I perform deep squats satisfactorily, if not elegantly.
I then become the victim of coerced speech! Matthew insists I affirm that the first week has been a success and that I am doing very well. He then takes my list of intentions for the forthcoming week and reframes it in language that is less punitive and more compassionate. It seems my report card for the first week looks something like this:
Commitment: A+
Effort: A+
Following his instructions: B
Positivity: C
Keeping a diary of my subjective experience of my bodily state rather than a spreadsheet of measurements, data and analysis: F
Fine. I shall work on the last two.
The main hindrance to my recovery continues to be insufficient sleep. I averaged four hours a night in my first week. This is a lifelong problem. I think too much and my body believes I am a nocturnal animal and keeps trying to achieve that. (See previous post about it being a lying bastard). This does not work for my life, however, so I just have to try to do the right things to sleep at nighttime.
I am allowed to push myself a little harder in the forthcoming week and my mission looks like this:
I return to the lodge where my plan is to polish up the diary entries I have been adapting, transfer it to Substack and publish it. This should take half an hour. The plan is derailed by the resort’s WiFi. It drops out repeatedly causing me to paste and repaste the same passages multiple times believing it had not saved. Two hours later, I think I have finally got a single draft and publish. I have not and a mess of repeating text is sent to 7000 people. The almost non-existent WiFi continues to fail me and I finally get it sorted by 9PM and I still have to put away a grocery delivery and cook.
I had committed to being more adventurous with food and trialling five new recipes this week. Today’s offering is prawn linguine. It is high protein and calorie controlled but has way too much flavour for my liking and is sadly unmashable. I will work on an adaptation.
By the time I clear up, collapse in a heap, pick myself up again, have a shower and get into bed, it is 3AM. This is not a good start to my week of focusing particularly on sleep, and the moral of the story is that I should have kept my commitment to staying offline and not publishing anything.
Thursday 10th September
I sleep for 3.5 hours and feel exhausted. My quads are also objecting to the deep squats. I spend a few minutes trying to kick my own bum again to enable locomotion and am semi-successful. There is, however, a bright spot in my morning. The patheticness of the tea mugs in this lodge, containing a thimbleful of tea that merely soaks into the tongue, had been bothering me. I ordered this decent (pint) sized one and her cheerful and competent roundness and capacity bring me joy. Everything will be alright now.
I decide today is an Active Recovery day rather than a push day and go for a 15-minute walk and spend the morning working on the model toy shop I am building. This ridiculous hobby is so satisfying.
I fall asleep in the afternoon and wake up in a much better mood. My legs insist they cannot be used today but I force them out for a 10 minute walk. This becomes a 15 minute walk because I feel I can and then a 20 minute one because I am enjoying the movement and music and ultimately, the 30-minute walk is done! I am so buoyed by this that I cool down by doing a wiggly dance around the kitchen to Shocking Blue’s Venus (Yeah, baby, she’s got it.) Is this positive enough for you, Matthew?
The evening is less successful as I attempt another new meal and produce a depressing beef stir fry that I will not be trying again. The low calorie “trifle” (sugar-free jelly with low-fat yogurt and strawberries) was much better in principle but in practice, I’d forgotten to clean the chopping board before chopping the strawberries so they were marinaded in onion, ginger and garlic. I cannot recommend this.
Friday 11th September
By following all sleep hygiene rules, I manage to sleep for 5.5 hours in two phases and feel great. When replacing my towel on the rail, it slips down and falls on the floor. I squat down and scoop it up automatically and then feel a leap of joy as I realise I have not been able to do this for months. Picking things up off the floor has involved a very ungainly wide stance semi-squat and about 5 attempts.
After breakfast, I skip up the hill to meet the cab driver to take me to Matt’s studio. I burst into it telling Matt that I feel very positive indeed and describing the victory over the towel. I add that this more positive attitude is something I took on with my own agency and not because he told me to because mental autonomy is very important. Matt ignores these kinds of utterances which is probably wise.
He then spends the next hour doing his best to reduce that positivity. We go over the lunges and the deep squats we have been practicing so far and then move onto a mat where I am to do further stretching in the form of kneeling and sitting back on my heels. I get down to and up from the floor with the aid of a box. This is very challenging in terms of both coordination and strength and we do it for 45 minutes with breaks for stretching and pressing a hard ball into my leg.
Matt warns me I am likely to feel sore later (ya think?) and to stretch and use the hot tub this evening. We go over the principle of Active Recovery and how it is part of recovery, not slacking. The aim is to keep myself moving and send blood round all my muscles while not elevating my heart rate to enable my body to recover and have another day when I can push my limits again as soon as possible.
I do remember this later when I have the most difficulty I have had walking and the deepest weariness since I arrived and even attempting to move about makes my heart rate escalate rapidly and my whole body yell at me to sit down. I gently push myself through stretching exercises and get in the hot tub. I sit in it and have a big, ugly cry. I call the husband and tell him I am still having a great time without him but that if he really wants to come and stay with me after I’ve done another week, I can tolerate him and we can do some of the fun activities like archery and axe-throwing. He tells me that I clearly intend to kill him for the life insurance and make it look like an accident and he’d be mad to fall for that. He’s coming next Friday.
I decide against adventurous cooking experiments and mash some tuna into a potato. This also helps.
Saturday 12th September
I wake up at 8 after having achieved 6 hours sleep in a window of 9 and feel considerably restored. My legs protest as I push them through the morning ritual but they simmer down by the time I am sitting on the patio with tea and my heart rate does not escalate. I decide today is definitely an Active Recovery day and not a push day. I am growing as a person.
I have by now read all the books downloaded on my Kindle and the WiFi is not good enough to download any more so I have ordered paper copies of P. D. James books which I read over 30 years ago and the first two have arrived. I am excited about this and my morning mission is to walk slowly half a mile up a hill with my stick to collect them, sit and read for half an hour and then walk down again. My life is very simple right now. There’s a certain charm in that.
Mid-afternoon, my body tells me that sleep is essential immediately. I am torn. Is this a time I should listen to it and be unconscious for an hour or so while it repairs my muscles or is this daytime napping a habit that needs to be resisted for better overall sleep? I tell my body that it will first go for a five minute walk to a bench from which I can still see the lodge and read for 15 minutes and then walk back. If it is still insistent on sleep, it can have it.
Body protests dramatically for the first two minutes, then settles into its stride and becomes a little more alert. We will wait this lag out. Best of all, I find I have good mobile reception from the bench! This makes publishing this week’s diary an option again. Substackians were surprisingly positive about last week’s offering. Weirdos.
Absolutely nothing interesting or amusing happens today. I produce a fish pie which is acceptable and, importantly, mashable.
Sunday 13th September
I manage 5.5 hours sleep in a row which is excellent and I feel physically good today. I also feel quite low and unmotivated, though. It is pouring with rain which might have something to do with it but I also feel generally uninspired. I go through the motions of the morning routine - minor domestic chores, stretches, warm-up exercises and breakfast - and continue to feel flat.
I have deliberately been avoiding looking at online discourse for fear of seeing a “current thing” that people are being wrong about and finding an essay about the nature of their wrongness writing itself in my head, thus getting lost in my own head for several hours and neglecting the focus on my body and health that is my full-time job right now.
Nevertheless, I decide to have a look at X via an account I have that does not do anything but just lets me follow people talking about things I might want to write about. I immediately see people being wrong on the subject of surrogacy and making an argument that does not work even on its own terms and an essay starts to write itself in my head. I had prepared for this eventuality, however, so I get out my notebook and pen and set a timer for 30 minutes. During that time, I jot down an outline for an essay about valid concerns about surrogacy coming from feminists and social conservatives and then narrowing down to the argument I think does not work and why I think it does not work and what is a better way to come at that particular element of the issue. When the alarm goes off, I put the pen down and close the notebook feeling virtuous.
I also now feel in a much better mood and motivated to exercise. I think I might be going a bit stir crazy with the sameness of the days here now and the lack of intellectual stimulation now I am on Day 12 of 28. I might have to allow for an hour to write in the mornings in between my morning walk and either going to the gym or being subjected to contortions by Matt. Just to jot down ideas and outlines for essays and arguments. No actual writing of essays. I will have to give this more thought to be sure it is not just work trying to sneak back in under a guise of an unmet psychological/intellectual need. Hmmm.
Much brightened, I set off for the gym where the next mission is arm machines. I am not looking forward to this because, unlike my legs which are quite strong still due to carrying me about, my arms are limp noodles and dislike being reminded of this. The workout is, as anticipated, pathetic but I manage it and jot down starting weights with satisfaction. I will build on this. On the plus side, these are all familiar machines and not ones inclined to try to eat me. I have previously needed to be rescued from the jaws of one by two bodybuilders who were very kind and respectful and sincerely attempted to conceal their amusement but were not entirely successful.
I dedicate the afternoon to working on my model which is coming along nicely with the rationale that using my arms will prevent them from seizing up. This strategy is only semi-successful. I do stretching exercises and soak in the hot tub before making myself a comforting minced beef hotpot and finishing P.D. James’ Cover Her Face. Has anybody ever surpassed James for late 20th century murder mysteries? Ruth Rendell and Reginald Hill are contenders but I think not.
Monday 14th September
After the fourth day of sticking strictly to good sleep hygiene practices, I sleep for 6 hours in a row at nighttime and wake up feeling like I am on some wonderful drug. I screenshot the evidence of this and send it to Matt exultantly.
I come happily down the stairs and realise, at the bottom, that I did this like a normal person, one foot after the other, rather than jerkily, one step at a time, hanging onto the bannister as I have been doing since the bleed. I go back up in the same fashion and come back down again. Woohoo!
My joy is soon tempered by some anxiety for this morning contains……Aqua Aerobics. I really do not want to do this. I am not one for group exercise to loud upbeat music at the best of times let alone in a swimming costume with my current degree of fatness, level of unfitness and lack of coordination. However, Matt is keen on me doing this because it is the absolute best way for me to get cardio exercise and full-body movement without falling over or straining anything. Fine.
I happened to witness an aqua aerobics class last week while seated on the leg press in the gym. I was reassured to see that it was a class of women of my age and older, a couple of whom were of similar proportions to me. A sense of rhythm and coordination did not seem to be a requirement. This morning, however, the fact that anybody using the leg press will be able to see me flailing about chaotically feels much less reassuring. Nevertheless, I set off.
Aqua Aerobics is both terrible and precisely what I need. It starts badly when I fail to notice the steps that allow one to just walk into the pool and attempt to descend the ladder at the far end. I do not have the coordination for this and try and fail to reach for the second step several times. By this time, people are looking at me so I abandon the effort and just fall backwards into the pool. The splash does not exactly make them stop looking at me. After that, it all goes quite well, even if it is a bit overwhelmingly loud and frantic and yet somehow also tedious. I cannot do all the exercises but when I cannot, I do a similar one that I can manage and I take breaks when needed. I do not enjoy aqua aerobics but it is the most sustained full body workout I have managed so far. The other ladies are regulars and they are friendly and welcoming and I enjoy a chat with them afterwards.
On my way back to the lodge, I decide to try what I think will be a short cut. It is not and ten minutes later, I am standing in a field. I retrace my steps and make my way back. By the time I stagger, dripping, into the lodge, I have done an additional mile’s walk and a sudden downpour has washed most of the chlorine out of my hair. It is important to stay positive at such times, I think. However, I am now extremely weary.
After lunch and several gallons of restorative tea, I do my grocery order for Week Three. The husband will be here for four days so I must shop accordingly. He does not need to lose weight having always had the opposite problem and struggled not to be underweight (bastard). I order cheese and sausages and peanut butter to ensure he does not waste away. I briefly consider forgetting to order coffee as an issue of conscientious objection. When we married, he drank tea like a decent person, but was led astray by the lure of the evil bean shortly after our daughter was born and he felt the need for more efficient caffeine before work. That I did not divorce him demonstrates the strength of my wifely loyalty and commitment to our marriage. I decide that this is not the time for an intervention and order the bloody coffee.
I spend the evening reading. Today is another day for trying new high-protein, calorie controlled recipes and I attempt salmon fishcakes.
Tuesday 15th September
Again, I sleep for 6 hours in a row and wake up feeling good. The sleep hygiene plan is working. However, while making my tea, the peripheral vision in my right eye begins to swirl alarmingly. I attempt to fish the teabag out with a spoon and miss the cup. A migraine is incoming. I may be able to ward it off or I may not. I drink the tea because caffeine helps and take ibuprofen and ginger which also help, get myself a bottle of water, some biscuits and beef jerky and head back upstairs carefully because my balance is very much off kilter. I close the curtains, play an audiobook and lie down on the bed to see which way this will go.
Two hours later, it seems to me that I feel a bit better. I get up gingerly and discover that I now feel as though I have a thoroughly undeserved hangover but my vision and coordination seem to be working. I have tea and test this by going for a gentle walk. That will either make me feel better or worse and decide whether I will be seeing Matt this afternoon. I feel slightly better so I accept that I will be doing this.
I arrive a few minutes early so wander up the street. This is the first time I have noticed what this part of the town is called. West Country town names are often strikingly peculiar and have fascinating origins in both Celtic and Anglo-Saxon history. This one does not.
I feel sorry for East-The-Water that seemingly no-one has ever loved it enough to give it its own peculiar name based on its distinctive features and its identity derives entirely from its location by the river. I tell it that it is more than a mere accessory to a waterway and is beautiful and important in its own right.
Due to my impaired balance, Matt decides against lunge and squat style exercises and instead I lie on my back (from where it is impossible to fall over) to work on strengthening my abdominal muscles. On getting up from the floor Matt notes that I can actually do that quite capably when I have a bench to assist me. Indeed. The problem is that the last two times I have fallen over I didn’t have one. This makes me anxious about travelling. I last fell shortly after getting back from the US and my husband was there to put his hands down for me to push up on. I have been having horrible imaginings that if that had happened while I was in the US, somebody would have had to call an ambulance to get me up. Matt points out that Americans have hands too. This is true. They also have chairs and are generally much more friendly and helpful than Londoners. If I had fallen there, I could likely have just told people what I need to be able to get up. No ambulances, fire trucks, forklift trucks or anything else my imagination can summon up would be required. Just a passerby willing to put down a hand or fetch a chair. I perceive that I may have been taking my very British fear of being a nuisance a little too far and catastrophising the hypothetical scenario somewhat.
Matt says he does not want me to count on being able to get up unaided before I leave here and be discouraged if that does not happen. He demonstrates the progression of steps to that happening. I note them carefully.
Leaning on a bench heavily with both hands from a kneeling position to bring one knee up and push myself to my feet as I am currently doing.
Using one hand on the bench to support me doing that while the other pushes on the raised knee.
Using the bench for balance only while the force comes from my legs and the stability from balancing over the raised knee.
Not relying on the bench at all.
I see. I can accept a need to be more patient and more willing to potentially accept help from strangers and practice those steps towards independent splat recovery at the same time.
Matt again insists that I recognise how much progress I have made this week. He uses words like “smashing” and “awesome” to describe my improved flexibility, mobility and stamina. He points out that I achieved all my goals and that, even when a migrainous crash threatened due to overexertion caused by getting lost and having to walk much further than planned, I recovered from it quickly and carried on. I think of all the active things I’d like to be doing and could do before I lost a third of my blood. He tells me to stop comparing myself to the me of a year ago and instead compare myself to the me of two weeks ago. He is, of course, correct. These four weeks are doing for me exactly what I hoped they would do. I am stronger, fitter and more capable in many measurable ways. Also, very slightly slimmer! At the same time, my time here is making me depressingly aware of my physical limitations and frailties because I have nothing else to distract myself with. That was also the point of these four weeks. It’s a bit upsetting, but it’s also very important to remain aware of both what needs fixing and that I am, in fact, fixing it! It is all going extremely well. I am grateful to Matt and should be proud of myself.
The plan for Week Three is a bit scary. This is because there is no plan. No walks, classes or trips to the weights room to tick off. I am specifically not to plan ahead. Instead, I am to get up each morning, survey my body for its energy levels and any aches and pains, factor in how much sleep I have had and what my body feels like doing, then decide what is the best thing I can do today to progress my recovery. I am to stop and check in with my body a few minutes after starting and regularly throughout and stop while I still have energy in the tank. I am to consider what foods and meal timings will best support what it is I want to do and also note when I am hungry and not hungry. I am to observe tiredness and evaluate whether it indicates a need for invigorating movement, fuelling, rest or sleep. I am, in short, to practice intuitively inhabiting my body as somebody who is in tune with it and cares about it and understands what it needs, rather than somebody who regards it as a vehicle for my brain and a frustrating inconvenience when it malfunctions.
OK, then! I will not think of this as passively “listening to my body” and doing whatever it says it wants in the moment. I will think of it as learning to properly operate this rather spectacular machine I have been given, repairing it and maintaining it! I can do this.
When I get back to the lodge, my body informs me it would like to rest now. That works well for me. I make tea and fetch my next P.D. James mystery. I set out a table and a cushion for the twice daily practice of getting up off the floor. Aside from that, we will play Week Three by ear! Onwards!
Absolutely loved reading these Helen. You are doing so mint (in a non-patronising British slap on the back kind of way). x
Good work! Keep going