This week’s update includes an account of me pushing my luck at the hospital, starting to decorate the dining room and another family visit. Oh and did I tell you, I’m suffering withdrawal symptoms?
I haven’t had a run for two weeks and I do miss it. I see runners everywhere and admit to feeling some envy. Some might look knackered, wet, cold or exhausted but I still wish it could be me running. You see I have injured my right foot, undoubtedly from a mixture of over use and through a different running form. A year ago I was recovering from plantar fasciitis and when I started running again I changed the way my feet landed, in other words I changed my running form. It was only a subtle change and one of “protecting” my heel in order to prevent another dose of the dreaded plantar. Ironically that change has cause a painful part in my other (right) foot which has steadily worsened through the year.
My Doctor requested an X-Ray and my appointment at the hospital came through within a couple of days – all good. What wasn’t so good was making a mistake as I entered the appointment into my calendar – two days later.
So on Friday I reported to the hospital, found my way to the appropriate check-in desk and was asked to show my letter, which I duly did. I pushed it through a little slot in the COVID secure perspex screen and watched as it was scrutinised and the computer was checked once more.
“Have you come for a cancellation appointment?”
“No, no I haven’t” I said with a puzzled tone
“Well it’s just that you are two days late”
“Two days! Are you sure, did I mis-read the date on the letter?”
“It appears you did, sir”.
“Oh no, I’m really sorry” as I had fears of having my hospital records now permanently marked as being an unreliable time waister “can anything be done, it’s just a genuine mistake on my part?”
“Well, perhaps. Take a seat for a moment and I’ll see if anything can be done”
I had barely sat down when I saw the receptionist talking to a colleague at the back of the office. She turned, looked at me and gave me the thumbs up sign. Next a radiographer was coming out to get me and take me into the X-X-Ray room.
She explained they were pretty quiet and so could deal with me easily. They are mostly on-call for whoever is sent from Accident & Emergency and didn’t mind X-Raying my foot and she asked what the problem was. She seemed really interested (and looked as if she could be a runner herself). First image taken, then a second and a third, all from different angles.
Apparently X-Rays don’t necessarily show every problem and there are other scans which they can do but these will need to be requested by my Doctor. I was also told it would take about two weeks before my Doctor gets a report with their findings but she was very interested to know about my various tablets and their intended purpose.
So there you are, pushing my luck but got there surprisingly easily. Now all I have to do is wait for the result. Oh and how am I feeling now, having missed running for two weeks? It is still quite painful at times, often all of a sudden.
Decorating, again!
I have now started decorating our dining room; the biggest room here in the Quirky Museum. I had been thinking, once we had agreed on the colour scheme, it would be straightforward. They say the preparation stage is key when it comes to good decorating and I seem to be spending ages on it so far.
The preparation has included filling gaps between the wall and the skirting board (photo above). Also in the Victorian part there are gaps in the cornice which need repair, not to mention gaps left when the old central heating pipes were removed and a piece of architrave which is missing completely (luckily we found some in the garage roof, of all places!).
The plan is to do the decorating in two halves, as the room is in two halves and it makes it easy to push all the furniture from one end to the other. In addition to the preparation outlined already, I have washed the walls and ceiling with sugar soap, painted the ceiling and undercoated half the woodwork. When it goes well, it can be most satisfying!
More family visits
This last weekend we travelled down to see my mother and then on Saturday we all went to Exeter to visit Becky and her hubby. Once again it was one of those priceless, tender times but also rather poignant as I see how my mother has aged considerably in recent months.
The approaching Christmas seems a regular topic of conversation these days. It will be a rather bitter-sweet time as we remember the loss of Rachel’s mum. Sometimes that seems such a long time ago, other times it appears so real it might have happened last week and I wonder if that is all part of the grieving process. Nevertheless we are not wanting to be too sorrowful; we intend to have a very positive Christmas and yet, in an unspoken way, we will inevitably look back on last year.