Persevering

Another Robin photo today. The light and weather have been awful recently so this is from a few weeks back.

It's been the usual mixed week of highs and lows. I had a bit of a meltdown on Monday. I was (am!) so fed up with the constant pain and the thankless grind of continually pushing on with the rehab in spite of it. I guess there comes a point when the stress of managing the pain versus progress get on top of you. A good cry and some warm encouragement seemed to relieve some of the tension/frustration. Tuesday, I had to miss table tennis because both my shoulders were too painful and I knew that if I went I'd only end up feeling a whole lot worse about things. Wednesday saw me completing the 10th month of hydrotherapy. That came as a relief. I see-saw between experiencing the hydro work as 'a chance to do exercise' and 'a sentence to endure'! Perhaps the anxiety associated with willing and wanting my physical condition to improve has been mixed up with the pool work. Anyway, I was pleased to notch up another month.

Thursday, I felt pretty good. I did a 35 minute walk and my usual therapy session. Friday, I was up early (7:30am) for my morning pottery class. Again, it was very physically demanding and I spent most of the 3.5 hours standing whilst working on my piece. I was tired when I got home, and my back and shoulders ached, but I was chuffed with how well I coped considering the demands.

Yesterday, we finally had some sunshine! After weeks of depressing, grey, dark days, the sun broke through and I made the most of it. Wrapped up as warm as possible and headed out for a decent 50 minute walk around the fields. My hip stabilisers and glutes are continually twingey and the LHS mid/lower back is still tight/painful to varying degrees but it felt good to stretch everything out and enjoy the sun. Absolute bliss to be out in it.

Today...well....it's Sunday and therefore 'bike day'. I managed another smooth 25 minutes on the bike. It didn't feel as hard going as last week and although I had the usual hip/groin and back twinges, and my shoulders/arms ached/hurt, I think things are shifting in the right direction. I put a hot water bottle on my back afterwards and feel pretty tired now. It'll be a quiet afternoon in front of the telly I reckon. (Shame about Andy Murray's loss this morning but great effort and I'm a big fan. Hopefully he'll win his slam soon. It's hard to imagine anyone getting a look in whilst Roger Federer plays like that. What a sublimely skillful and gifted guy he is).

Edit 9:30pm: Overcome with tiredness through afternoon. Dozed for 50 mins on the sofa between 3 and 4pm, and perked up a bit after supper.