‘Good’ afternoon

Today I am meant to be in Cambridge seeing two of my best friends. Instead, I am at home. But I have made it as far as the sofa and that’s the longest journey I can hope to make at the moment. I know it’s largely out of my control but I still feel sad and guilty and disappointed, and many other things, when I have to cancel plans. My friends, as always, are so understanding. I wonder whether it is harder for people to understand why I can’t make things now that I am supposedly in recovery… To me, recovery is more a state of mind at the moment. But my friends, the real ones, have stuck by me.

My week ended much better than it started. (My ‘much better’ and other people’s ‘much better’ is probably very different.) I have been strong enough and well enough to have a shower and start reintroducing my baseline targets and stretches. I can make my own drinks again and get changed out of my pjs and brush my hair… I had forgotten that I should start from the beginning again after Christmas, rather than throwing myself in to the deep end.

In other news, I am trying to grow my hair! I’ve tried before but wasn’t strong enough to get the shampoo out of my hair or to stick at it for longer than a few days. It was exhausting. Some might say I should have pushed myself to do it regardless and my body would have got used to it eventually. I know better than to make my body do something that it can’t. I am also unfit after years of being immobile due to illness and so doing tasks as simple of washing my hair is going to increase my heart rate. Such a simple task has become so, so difficult. To wash longer hair my heart would be working harder to pump blood up arms when my arms were raised to wash my hair. Longer hair also needs more taking care of, but I am going to very slowly give it all a go. (I can hear my siblings and my friends rejoicing as they read this!)

So, back to today. It’s looking like a ‘good’ afternoon. I hope to have a shower and get changed and then, if I’m feeling wild, walk the 4 metres to our front gate and back. Crazy I know! That might be it for today but don’t forget that people able to do ‘simple’ things like feeding myself and getting upstairs to bed later and chatting online are all things that use up my valuable spoons.

Have a lovely Sunday afternoon whatever you are, or aren’t, getting up to.

P.S. Just a quick note to say that if any of you need a bit of laughter in your life, or something to smile about, I suggest you cut your hair incredibly short and take great pleasure in seeing the crazy styles you wake up with in the morning. Just something to consider…the image that greeted me in the mirror this morning was most amusing! (No, you can’t see a photo, cheeky!)