Saturday, October 24, 2009

The Highway will have to wait ...

So now I know I can drive, the highway will have to wait.
I know the roads will still be there, waiting for me to enjoy them.
The fact is, I CAN DRIVE should I choose to.
But for today and tomorrow, I have to rest.
We went out yesterday.
We left home at about 11:30am.
But we took John's truck because we had to buy huge bags of seed (we feed birds and it's getting to that time of year again).
I waited in the vehicle while John bought the seed and it was loaded into the back of the truck, so that wasn't physically demanding on me at all.
Then we walked through store #1.
I managed to get what we neeed and was OK when we left there.
We went to store #2.
I walked through that store because I wanted to look at stuff (I'm in Christmas shopping mode; used to be I would finish that shopping on Remembrance Day -- tempus fugit!).
When we left store #2, I had had the biscuit.
We got home at about 1:30pm -- a mere two hours after we had left.
And I was completely out of gas.
My hips were sore beyond measure and I could not put one leg in front of the other!
Now I know that the reason for this complete exhaustion was because I had so totally depleted myself the day before -- it had been far too long a day and I need lots of time to recover.
But near-home errands should be allowed, shouldn't they?
Apparently not.
Once we got home, I hit the massage bath tub and let it pound my aching body.
Then I rested.
I was asleep by 8:00pm last night.
And I didn't wake 'til 4:00am for a pee break (note:  I did not wake every two hours!).
I actually went back to sleep again until 7:00am -- that is eleven hours sleep.
I should be well rested today.  But I'm not.
My body is aching in every muscle it can identify.
I have applied heat pads to my upper back and ice packs to my hips and groin.
We have done gentle traction, now that we can do that again.
So far today, the TENs machine has addressed my neck and shoulders before it was moved to my mid-back.  It's being moved to my hips next.
Obviously, the reduction to 4mg/day of Cesamet has had some undesirable effects (Note:  my doctor increased me to 4.5mg/day as of yesterday):
  • my sleep pattern became interrupted (was last night an anomaly or did the slight bump up in Cesamet yesterday make the difference?);
  • my hip pain has increased considerably (previously, it took 5mg/day to eliminate the pain at home; 6mg if I was "out and about"); and
  • my body requires longer recovery periods following "abuses" of physical demands (at 5mg/day, recovery periods were very short between physical exertions).
I'll give my body another day to recover before heading into Ottawa on Monday for my physiotherapy session.  So I'll have to wait 'til then before I start ruining Tom Cochrane's song.

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