57. Getting out of your comfort zone

Mile 54 – Smooth downhill stretch but very boggy at the end.

A marathon may be further than you normally run. The training and race are likely to push you to break new targets. It isn’t there as a comfortable test, even if you have run them many times before. Each one is different, and you can expect to face new obstacles each time.

It starts with a decision to commit to the challenge and change your normal routine, to fit in the training runs where your week didn’t allow the time before, and to be as ready as you can be on the race day. Who knows, after the event you might find some of those new habits stick, you enjoy the benefits of your improved level of fitness, and you want to enter another.

Over the last 21 months, since I first started to notice the aching muscles, I have spent an awful lot of my time housebound, chair bound and even bed bound. Much of it has been spent in here, my man cave, armed with computer and work desk. This could accurately be described as my comfort zone, and before long I’m going to have to leave it a great deal more. It has served as a gym for my physio routines, a photographic studio (with backdrops clipped to the wardrobe), blog writing study, and model making workshop. At least, I never succumbed to watching daytime TV. However, the time has come to start getting out and finding a new normal.

I have been in touch with the library to arrange training for the role I’ve volunteered for, helping people with their IT devices. It will be just like the old days.

I see that before long the COVID vaccinations programme will start again and I can return to helping out there. Sue and I will have to book regular outings to National Trust properties and there are loads of photography projects I would love to try, not to mention travelling again – we can barely believe we will be able to go anywhere we like after being restricted for so long.

Firstly, I must become a biped again. I have been working on the exercise routines all week, fitting them in after taking the iron tablets and then waiting an hour before eating breakfast. I am adding more to the programme each day, coming on by leaps and bounds, you could say. My right thigh is the main obstacle: it won’t bend very far, but occasionally I try to stretch it a little by sitting with my right foot closer in so there is a gentle pull on the muscle. Last week I struggled to lift my right leg, bend the knee or pull my leg out to the side, but all of those are much easier now. The Static Quads exercise you could all do at home: it involves lying on your back, pressing the knees down as if trying to crack walnuts underneath them and clenching the buttocks tight – as I read somewhere, if you don’t squeeze your bottom, no one else will! I really need to go for longer walks now, still with the two crutches, but so far the endless rain has put me off.

After that, I’ll have to become agile enough to drive the car. Since my broken leg, the one I drive has rested in the garage, and I suspect it will need a jump start and a new battery. I don’t expect there is any official test of my driving competence: it will just depend on my mobility and judgement that I’m not likely to cause an accident. (Years ago, when I dislocated my right shoulder, I was quickly driving to work again: right hand at six o’clock on the wheel, left hand reaching over to indicate. A month later, when my appointment eventually came up at the clinic, they were horrified and said I should have had the arm strapped up all that time.)

—oOo—

On Wednesday we were at the hospital for about three and a half hours: blood tests, Dexamethasone, Bortezomib and Daratumumab.

We had an interesting chat with the nurse as usual: she is so knowledgeable about the subject. Sue asked if it had been easy for her to find a job, as she was talking about her time working in different parts of the country. Oncology nurses are in high demand. Young nurses are put off by the risk to fertility that some of the treatments involve, even for the staff. I suppose we were most aware of that at UCLH last summer when I was at the Nuclear Medicine department and had radioactive injections in preparation for the scans.

My bloods showed that my Haemoglobin is improving so the iron tables are working. Although the normal range starts at 130 g/L, I’m up to 104 g/L which the nurse said is enough to make me feel more active. I haven’t needed the naps during the day this week.

My Creatinine is normal, so drinking all that water is keeping my kidneys in shape.

The Dexamethasone worked as usual, keeping me awake on Wednesday night. I woke at 3am on Thursday, then got up at 4am when I realised sleep was not going to visit me. I read my book (Barbara Kingsolver Flight Behaviour – another great page turner), had my tablets, exercised, breakfasted, and started working on this blog, all hours before Sue was up. We went to the shops in Horsham in the afternoon, including a trip to the Swedish Café, so I was on my feet for longer than I have been so far.

By the time we came home I was exhausted and I felt awful by bedtime.

I recovered on Friday and we looked after Bonnie the Shih Tzu. I took her for a walk, crutch in one hand, lead in the other, and we called in at the dog groomer’s opposite the scene of the crime, where I had slipped and broken my leg nearly five weeks before. I said thanks for the towels that the owner had brought over to keep me warm (it turned out they had all been freshly washed when they were handed to me, not just used on the dogs). She said I was not the only one she had seen fall over on the muddy patch and she had had to run across the road to help others.

However, it all went downhill on the weekend and by Saturday my annoying little cough that I have had from the last few weeks developed into a full blown, rattling chest infection. Sue took me to the walk-in clinic and we saw a doctor on Sunday afternoon who prescribed some antibiotics, so I’m on the mend now but still housebound.

—oOo—

Next week we expect to see the consultant after treatment and will find out, hopefully, more about the levels of cancerous paraprotein cells in my blood, the state of my bones, and what will be involved with the maintenance treatment. It could be the last weekly session and in future I may just be popping in to pick up medication, have blood tests and a Zoledronic Acid infusion once a month, but let’s see. I have read there can be a fair amount of stress leading up to each blood test, in case the cancer has reappeared, but for now I’ll just look forward to having Wednesdays back.

Thanks for reading and take care.