The small step was smaller than I thought. My new senior Physio explained that my joints are not up to the job yet - and if we push them they will become inflamed and painful. So my touch weight bearing will last at least three weeks. It is hard to hide my disappointment.
I have a lot of pain these days too - pain in areas which weren't damaged as well as areas that were. Just putting my toes down seems to trigger pain across the front of my right foot - this is unexpected and frustrating. Despite this I am trying a slightly reduced pain management regime - dropping one of the tablets in the evening (out of a total of 16 over the day). Its tricky - try to reduce the pills but don't compromise the physio. And my responsibility to work it out. I thought I would be walking to my local Scotmid in a couple of weeks... now my housebound predicament is stretching out without end.
Its a strange time. Lots of people ask me if its like being on holiday - all that time to do what I want. But its nothing like being on holiday. My dark thoughts don't go on holiday - they remain. OK - my social life at home has improved - not a day goes by without someone popping in to help with the shopping, cook me dinner, listen to my rants about patient transport. But these visits, although welcome and critically important, have their downsides. I feel need to 'put on a show' of how well everything is going - when actually its all pretty grim. Not just for me - but the other cyclists who haven't been so lucky in their encounters with moving vehicles.
The woman killed at Seafield roundabout. The roundabout is now being redesigned, partly I assume to prevent such a thing happening there again. The young guy who died with a trashed liver in Morningside - comforted on the road by my nursing friend while everyone else stayed in their cars. The man killed up at Causewayside last year. The woman that went under a bus at Crewe Toll in November - alive and doing well - but with more serious injuries than mine Two people killed in Fife at the end of the year. And another accident in Seafield Road this week.
I am now part of a terrible community - at the lucky end of the spectrum - but grieving for us all.... And each time I hear another story my stomach flutters and I think of what might have been..
I have a lot of pain these days too - pain in areas which weren't damaged as well as areas that were. Just putting my toes down seems to trigger pain across the front of my right foot - this is unexpected and frustrating. Despite this I am trying a slightly reduced pain management regime - dropping one of the tablets in the evening (out of a total of 16 over the day). Its tricky - try to reduce the pills but don't compromise the physio. And my responsibility to work it out. I thought I would be walking to my local Scotmid in a couple of weeks... now my housebound predicament is stretching out without end.
Its a strange time. Lots of people ask me if its like being on holiday - all that time to do what I want. But its nothing like being on holiday. My dark thoughts don't go on holiday - they remain. OK - my social life at home has improved - not a day goes by without someone popping in to help with the shopping, cook me dinner, listen to my rants about patient transport. But these visits, although welcome and critically important, have their downsides. I feel need to 'put on a show' of how well everything is going - when actually its all pretty grim. Not just for me - but the other cyclists who haven't been so lucky in their encounters with moving vehicles.
The woman killed at Seafield roundabout. The roundabout is now being redesigned, partly I assume to prevent such a thing happening there again. The young guy who died with a trashed liver in Morningside - comforted on the road by my nursing friend while everyone else stayed in their cars. The man killed up at Causewayside last year. The woman that went under a bus at Crewe Toll in November - alive and doing well - but with more serious injuries than mine Two people killed in Fife at the end of the year. And another accident in Seafield Road this week.
I am now part of a terrible community - at the lucky end of the spectrum - but grieving for us all.... And each time I hear another story my stomach flutters and I think of what might have been..
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