(There have been posts like this one already but some of you joined us along the way so may have missed them.)
Sometimes, not often, but sometimes I can make myself something for lunch. Now when I say make I mean a piece of toast with jam, or a boiled egg (not with toast. That would be too hard.) The other week it was fish fingers.
Let me break it down for you:-
- Walk to the freezer.
- Pull open the door.
- Bend down to get the fish fingers.
- Stand up.
- Close the freezer door.
- Put the fish fingers down on the kitchen table.
- Walk to the cupboard.
- Open the door.
- Pull out a baking tray.
- Close the cupboard door.
- Walk to the kitchen table.
- Put the baking tray down.
- Walk to the drawer.
- Open the drawer.
- Pick up the baking parchment.
- Close the drawer.
- Pull on the roll of parchment.
- Rip off enough to cover the baking tray.
- Place the parchment on the tray.
- Open the packet of fish fingers.
- Place them on the tray.
- Close the packet of fish fingers.
- Walk to the freezer.
- Pull open the door.
- Bend down to put the fish fingers away.
- Stand up.
- Close the freezer door.
- Walk to the oven.
- Turn the oven on.
- Bend down to pull the oven door open.
- Stand up.
- Walk to the kitchen table.
- Pick up the tray of fish fingers.
- Walk back to the oven.
- Bend down.
- Extend arm to put fish fingers in the oven.
- Close the oven door.
- Stand up.
While the fish fingers cook I am unable to relax properly because I am conscious that I could forget that there is something in the oven. I usually use a timer to remind me. I sit back down in a comfy chair, which means walking down the hall to the sitting room. I also always put my feet up because I’ve just had to stand for ‘a while’.
When the cooking time is up…
- Walk to the kitchen.
- Pick up the oven gloves and put them on! (Mr Brain likes to forget this one…)
- Walk to the oven.
- Turn the oven off.
- Bend down.
- Pull open the oven door.
- Take the fish fingers out of the oven.
- Stand up.
- Put the fish fingers down on top of the oven.
- Bend down.
- Shut the oven door.
- Stand up.
You get the idea. Then comes the getting a plate out of the cupboard bit, some cutlery, the ketchup…
If I ‘make’ my own lunch it takes me longer to eat it. I feel the effects of having simply put some fish fingers in the oven, maybe for the rest of the day. (it used to be for longer.) Although I have not used it, the fatigue has travelled as far as my jaw and so chewing is an effort, as is cutting up the food and then moving it up to my mouth…Such exertion is viewed as exercise by my body and it reacts as if I have just taken part in a triathlon!
Like always though, it’s not sympathy I’m after. I personally think it’s amazing how I manage to cook myself something as ambitious as fish fingers! I couldn’t have done it in The Beginning and one day I hope I’ll be able to do it everyday or even make a proper meal with more than one item to it!
Is it worth it?
Yes. It’s all a part of the bigger rehabilitation picture and the sense of achievement is savoured until the next ‘adventure’. As the months and years pass it’s becoming perhaps easier to do such a task. My body has been coaxed, incredibly slowly (over three years), into being able to do things like this. They’re not yet second nature and I don’t manage to do them nearly as often as I’d like, but one day it might not be necessary for such a task to be a whole list of little tasks. One day it might just be classed as one straightforward task; cooking some fish fingers for lunch.
M.E. myself and I 
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