It seems my run of bad luck with my body continues. Here I am just a few weeks out from recovering from my bike mishap and no longer feeling bruised and able to return to exercise. I’ve started back at the gym and at Aquasize just last Wednesday.
Everything was going ‘swimmingly’ – pardon the pun – at Aquasize last week. However, part way through the session, my right leg sort of snapped back. Knees are only designed to bend one way, so I knew this wasn’t good! It was one of those moments where you think ‘this might be sore later!’
So since this happened last Wednesday the back of my knee has started to get sorer and sorer. Yesterday, walking round the ward where I work, it was so sore I could hardly stand any weight on it. One of the perks of working in a hospital rehab ward is that we have Physios on tap. I talked to one of our Physios and explained the situation and asked if she had anything I could have to help me. We settled on a walking stick to take some of the pressure off while mobilising.
Today was my first day at work with the walking stick. I have found out how tricky it can be learning to use a walking stick and also how it can sometimes feel like a bit of a hindrance rather than a help. For one thing, every time I get up I have to pick up my usual files in one hand and the stick in the other. There are many doors to go through that are closed and have to be pushed open. This is difficult when loaded on both sides, so a lot of pushing doors with my bottom today and/or people opening doors for me.
Then there were the questions about what I had done to myself. Lots of explaining to lots of people off and on. I said jokingly to one of my colleagues, ‘if someone sees me with the stick today and hasn’t seen me for a while, they might think, Gosh she’s progressed since I saw her!’
It has given me a bit of a taste of the future, because a walking stick is often the first aid that someone with mobility issues has. While it is helpful on the one hand, it accentuates that something is amiss and draws attention to it. It’s nice that people are helpful in opening doors and such, but it is a bit confronting at the same time. I wonder how I will feel if I am still working and need to use some kind of mobility aid. I wonder how long before that becomes my reality.
However, for now this is a temporary situation and I have probably just strained a tendon or something. I am having x-rays in the next few days, so might know more then.
It does sometimes feel like my body is not my friend. That try as I might to exercise, I injure myself seemingly quite easily. It is frustrating to know that now I have to take about two weeks off from pretty much any exercise.
My plans of getting stuck into exercise, have currently become unstuck!
My journey with Parkinsons 