Well given the nature of the name of this blog, you may well be thinking that since I haven’t checked in and written anything for a while, that my thighs have in fact gone. Well, you’d be wrong. My thighs are still there, still wobblier than they should be but considerably less wobbly than at the beginning of June!
Juneathon was fantastic. I enjoyed it an amazing amount and thrashed my body on the last day…which then laid me up for several days afterwards! My deep tissue massage on the 30th was fantastic but was remedial not relaxing…I got the stress, knots and lactic acid bashed out of my legs and back and it hurt like hell and took a couple of days to recover from. I deserved everything I got and have certainly learned my lesson about feeling like a rock star and doing 500 rep arm workouts and not stretching out enough! My massage therapist showed me exactly the muscle in my back I’d pissed off…and yes, it’s one of those really hard to get to, really painful to treat ones! Stretching, you are my new god!
Two days later, I was the “client” for a student exam at a massage school. It’s a hard life! As I was letting my back recover from it’s last abuse karma, I asked the student therapist to work on my calves and rest of legs as they were feeling very congested and achy from my increased activity in June. I wasn’t expecting much and thought that even a bit of ‘rubbing’ would get the fluid moving. Boy was I wrong. She was excellent! Strong gentle hands managed to smooth out my poor muscles and gently but thoroughly juice my lower legs! My calves were actually thinner afterwards (yes really!) and I spent the day weeing out the results! Now I can actually see the results of my work in June. My legs really are much more toned and less flabby. I had thought I was putting on far too much bulk around my calf muscles and didn’t like it…turns out it’s just fluid build up! Whoohoo! Tried on my (low and sensible, won’t kill my back) heels that I’m wearing for the weddings and my legs look fab! First pair is a round toed black wedge to go with my 1940’s style navy tea dress, second are burgundy satin slingback kitten heels to go with my bridesmaid dress. Having not worn heels for over two years (since I prolapsed a disk) I was a bit scared but they are both really comfortable! Phew!
So, after fixing my body and removing the Juneathon obsession, I started to get on with the things I actually needed to do – like sort out all my junk belongings and sell/dump/pack it. Looking at the weather forecast I planned out my week to do indoor sorting but with it being the last dependable dry day, I employed the teenager to come and do the heavy lifting to empty to the downstairs hall into the garden and sort it all out. Now the downstairs hall is quite large and since it is cut off from the rest of the flat by the flat door has become the dumping ground for all things shed like (because we don’t have a a shed or a garage). There are tools, garden implement, pots, bikes, camper van equipment, mountains of wood and insulation for the camper-van-renovation-that-never-ends, car maintenance stuff, bike maintenance stuff, stuff that was intended for the charity shop or dump but never quite got that far…you get the idea. It was one of my major demons and it had to be sorted! Mainly because I know that under all that junk were some things that needed selling while it’s still summer and things I should actually be using, like my bike. We’ll just skim over the fact that I was also hideously ashamed of it when anyone came over – “Hi, welcome to my home, just ignore the entrance that looks like the set from Steptoe and Son, the rest is much better”.
Things were going well. The teenager was being wonderfully helpful and using the lifting to do his physio for his healing broken arm. We had just got to the point of having got most of it all out into organised piles in the garden and I was fiddling with tiny things considering how to fit it all back in. There was an old broken metal baby stair gate balanced on the windowsill. Many moons ago it was on it’s way to the tip, rested briefly on the windowsill and looked enough like secure bars to earn a place there for a while. Under the baby gate was a pile a small bits of wood from the campervan project. I was just squatting down stacking the wood on the floor, when the baby gate decided that it missed the wood and toppled top down off the windowsill onto my head.
Now you know that point, when something stupid happens and you fill with adrenaline and ohforgodsakeness and clutch your sore bit and try to carry on…there I was hands clamped to my head, hoping that it wasn’t bleeding and trying to work out how to pick up the now open-on-it’s-side can of anti-climb-you’ll-never-get-this-shit-off-paint before it leaked all over the floor…but couldn’t let go of my head. By this point the teenager had stopped laughing, removed the stairgate from my head, picked up and sealed the paint and was sounding quite concerned. I tried to let go of my head and get up but saw lots of pretty stars and felt quite peculiar.
To cut a long story (hey that was seriously cut down!) short, I ended up with dreadful concussion that laid me out for several more days. I’m a clumsy sort of person and am always banging my head on things but it occurred to me that I don’t think that I’ve ever had such a bad concussion before that wasn’t also accompanied my a hangover. It was retrospectively very scary as the symptoms are very much like a dreadful hangover. All except for the dyphasia and aphasia: I either couldn’t remember words or my mind replaced them with something totally wrong. Now to those dear readers that know me in real life know that this isn’t an unusual thing to happen to me…but it was MUCH worse than normal! Even the teenager couldn’t translate for me! Bizarrely I also got a touch of synesthesia. I couldn’t remember the word for something but my mind attributed a shape to it – nothing useful like the actual shape of the thing though! For example when my OH was trying to find something in the freezer and asked where it was I replied “It’s in the big round thing” what I mean was “It’s in the biggest drawer”. Amusing while it lasted but thankfully it’s gone now!
So despite wanting to go for a run…or indeed anything on my own without the OH or teenager watching me worriedly…I behaved and stayed put on the sofa until the splitting headache went away and the confusion returned to a normal level. So I achieved the sum total of no exercise whatsoever last week except my fingers and wrists. All that sofa sitting has resulted in me being about a third of the way though knitting a lovely 1950s inspired jumper!
This week I’m slowly getting my exercise mojo back and spent a long day moving boxes and sorting through them and re-stacking them in anticipation of moving. Was good to get rid of a load of stuff I didn’t need and find lots of things to sell!
Yesterday I battled my insomnia and managed to get up in time for my orthotics appointment. Now have shiny new inserts with a much lower rise in them so it shouldn’t be too much for my back this time. To test them out I got out of the house and had a lovely stomp with the doglet. In between downpours we romped around the park, played many games of ball and met many other people doing exactly the same thing. Was lovely. I love it when the park smells of blossom and rain and is only full of other nice people and dogs thinking the same thing.
So I’ve been scuppered again by my faulty body (and stupidity!). Busy weekend ahead and then I think I’m considering doing a mini 2 week Julyathon so I can fit into my bridesmaids dress and still be able to breathe.
See you on Monday with either an exercise update or a really good excuse 🙂
