Tightening your tush!

My back pain and I reached an amicable understanding recently. I’d give it copious amounts of paracetamol and Tramadol along with not doing anything to knowingly upset it and it would, for quite large areas of time, generally leave me alone. Of course spending nearly two weeks on holiday in the Royal made it easier for me to uphold my side of the bargain as there’s not really much I can get up to in hospital that would cause it to complain – as long as I take the painkillers that is. I tried to reduce them during my stay in February and ended up aching.

Its surprising how quickly you can get use to being ‘comfortable’ and how quickly you take it for granted and how you only realise this when you do something to contravene the peace treaty and give the back pain cause to complain. In this particular instance I did something that I didn’t even consider would result in a protest – I decided I wanted a tighter tush.

When I wash my hands before doing the peritoneal dialysis (PD) fluid exchange I need to count to 10 or 20 while doing various things. On Saturday I thought I could take advantage of this to do some leg raises or even squats (the leg raises won out). Its not like they result in a big movement – standing on one leg and lifting the other backwards and doing the same thing with the leg bent – but do allegedly result in a shapely behind. I figured three or four times a day and in no time I’d have a behind that I’d be quite happy to have out in front.  Yet this little bit of leg lifting has upset my back pain and I may have made it a tad worse yesterday when I decided that my sewing room needed to look more like a sewing room again than a PD room.

When the initial supplies arrived I stored away from sight as much as was convenient. I realised it wouldn’t be practical to hide absolutely everything and couldn’t decide what to do with the bags of fluid. I tried putting them in one of the plastic ‘drawers’ but it turned out that Arnold Schwarzenegger would have had trouble getting it out, so I thought I’d see how it went with them. By Sunday this is how it was going…

I felt I needed to tidy it up. So following a slight rearrangement of the wardrobe in that room to make space for a box of fluid it looked like this…

Better – well I think so. Now I just need to have a proper sort out of the wardrobe and the rest of the stuff stored in the room probably as I didn’t so much find a space to put one of the boxes in as make a space by moving other stuff around ie, bunging it in the glory-hole and find some sort of attractive receptacle to put my BRIGHT YELLOW waste bag in.

So after this little bit of tidying yesterday and getting tea (I mean cooking spaghetti and warming up some pre-made frozen sauce) I felt like a nap but broke one of my cardinal rules – if you feel like a sleep have one – or you’ll feel worse later. As a result of no kipping I felt quite tired today. I mean I know that I tire easily at the minute but still I didn’t take a little nappy-poo – the next PD exchange was due in half an hour so after that I thought, then B went to work and Bud wouldn’t settle possibly after having B off last week so I entertained him, a friend phoned and it was time to do another exchange before bed.

It was so nice having B at home last week so much so that when he was going to work tonight I suggested he should take his redundancy and stay home with me or rather us. The first week I was in the Royal B’s company announced that the depot would be closing by the end of the year and three smaller transit depots would be opened – at least one being closer to home – and there may be jobs available at an existing warehouse the other side of Manchester. I’d originally told B that in my opinion he should hang in there and see if he got a job in Liverpool or Warrington and if he didn’t like it he could always take his redundancy at that point.

Tea time today I read a text from an Armchair Yoga friend about a couple who are part of the group.  Mrs found out last Wednesday that her cancer was now really serious and she had a matter of months and on Thursday Mr went and had a massive heart attack and died. Seriously – WTF!

So where I’d gone from telling B to stay at work, and not just for the money but also because I think its probably good for him to mix with people where the topic of conversation doesn’t at some point touch on myeloma or dialysis, this news made me want to be totally selfish and just spend more relaxed time together.  He responded that I should be careful what I suggested as he might just do that.

Mind you that might pan out quite well since despite not having actually worked in over 12 months I am still technically employed however I received a letter last week saying that the typists were being absorbed into other areas of the business.  As I wasn’t in on the telephone conference and haven’t received anything more personal than this letter from HR I don’t know where exactly this puts me. Although this might explain why I received a form from work a few weeks ago requesting my permission for them to obtain a medical report even though it said they usually asked for one after five months.

The Perils of Parking

You may recall that B can be a little ‘precious’ about the his car and the one thing he hasn’t had to worry about since last November is me driving it – until yesterday!  I didn’t even tell him about my intention as I thought to quote a friend ‘don’t trouble trouble’.

With not having dialysis yesterday and our next door neighbours collecting me from Liverpool after I’d dropped off my bottle of wee I knew I would be back in time to drive myself to Armchair Yoga.  It’s not far to our new location, just four miles, but it gets busy along the road and I was a tad apprehensive.  BUT I had the incentive to make a shorter trial run to our GPs’ medical centre – the incentive being I’d run out of stronger painkillers.  If your giving me any kind of look you can save your facial muscles because B already did it when he found out.  How did I do this?  I’m not too sure – I was going to try and explain but when I started typing things they still have me thinking – how did I manage to run out.  Needless to say some niggly pain can certainly be an incentive.

I was reversing off the drive thinking ‘What am I doing?’ followed swiftly by ‘It’ll be fine.’ and it was – apart from a windy moment on the small car park at the medical centre, a little ‘kerb drill’ as my Dad used to say when I moved too far over to allow a car past on our road (I have to say I forgot to tell B about it) and this…

The car is 51cm (20″) from the porch window, a reasonable distance I think but which in B’s opinion is too close.

B had briefly woke up after I’d been to the doctors and when he discovered that I’d been out in the car he wanted to know ‘if it was alright’.  He and Bud were out walking when I arrived back from Armchair Yoga and I looked up from what I was doing in the kitchen to find B giving the car the once over and then when he saw me he shouted ‘Could you get it any closer?’  Well obviously I could of.  It’s one of those things were usually I’d have to push it but I could just see it ending in an emergency glazier and paying extra to have it done before B woke up – he’d probably sleep through the bang.

The best thing is I was actually relieved that B hadn’t seen me stop on the drive since the position the car ended up was the first place we stopped or more likely STOPPED.  At least I know the brakes are good.

A fellow Armchair Yoga-ist said that when he saw our car on the car park he fully expected to walk in and find B in a chair!

Bud and I also went for a tramp in the wood yesterday – a short walk that is as opposed to setting about a vagrant – another first since November.  We went again today at Bud’s insistence.  You do something that he likes once and it sets a precedent.

Buddy the Yoga Dog!

I cannot believe I haven’t blogged for four days in a row.  I mean it’s not like I have a valid excuse – I’ve felt well.  In fact that’s been the problem.  I’ve felt so well I’ve done stuff that resulted in needing a sleep due to over exertion and a liberal increase in the consumption of codeine – basically double what I usually take.

You may (or may not) recall that our Tuesday afternoon Armchair Yoga Group at the local oncology centre got evicted from the room that’s been used for the past couple of years.  This was due to a new programme starting, the need of the room for chemotherapy in the future or just because… because we got conflicting information on this point.  Anyhoo we weren’t to be put off yoga-ing because it means a lot to all of us that attend.  Some of us would lunch and natter beforehand and some would attend just for the yoga.  Now it wasn’t officially identified as Armchair Yoga but basically since not many of us, other than the teacher, could even contemplate getting their legs behind their heads (or in my case not any more) and we sit in a chair to do it – Armchair Yoga seems appropriate.

It involves Piranha, no that’s not it, Panorama, oh bum, don’t tell the teacher, wait I’ve got it, it’s Pranayama which is breathing – of course that’s always a good thing, but this is breath control.  I have to say I used it when I had my Hickman line fitted, my PICC line and during my recent MRI.

Anyhoo other members of the group have been looking at new venues, and indeed may have found one, but in the meantime we’re rendezvousing in our lounge, not as an official yoga group just as a bunch of friends meeting up to wiggle things about in front of each other!

Therefore since Friday the house is possibly the cleanest it’s been since, urm, well {hanging head in shame} months.  B offered to give the hob the once over before he went to bed this morning, there was a bit of pancake batter that had missed the pan on Saturday lurking on it, and he was surprised when I said ‘Okay.’  Alright I did then say ‘It’s alright I’ll do it later’ but since he keeps telling me to take it easy he had to do it.  But I’ve had a whale of a time doing other stuff – which I’ll tell you about tomorrow if I remember.

So this afternoon our first yoga-ist arrived and was met by our official welcoming committee ie, Bud.  He wagged, he picked up and ran round, still wagging, with his raw hide bone,, he licked and then he did the leg press thing – when he wants fussing he leans his little furry body against your legs generally when you’re seated while you attend to his tickling requirements.  And then more and more people turned up and he was spoiled for choice and so excited – we’d reached full stiff legged, arched back waggy mode by this time.

Once we were all seated, there were eight of us, I moved his mat so it was between me and the next yoga-ite (what do you call someone who does yoga – if you jog you’re a jogger so maybe yogar) and as she said it looked like he had his own place in the circle.  Bud settled down with his chew and then nodded off whilst the potential new accommodation was discussed and then we started with the exercises.

We interlaced our fingers with our arms out in front and raised them over our heads and Bud’s head snapped up as he surveyed the goings on with a perplexed look on his face.  He then got up, did a quick round of the room and came back to me but wouldn’t settle.  I got him a treat and he lay down to eat it but then got up again and put the front half of his body on the settee and just stood there.  I scooched over, Bud jumped up next to me, like right next to me and settled down.  And he was quite happy to stay there until we did a standing stretch which caused a little looky at what exactly was happening this time.  But he was such a good boy (because he is, he is a good boy) and in fact someone said he I didn’t know where he lived he’d kidnap him – Bud at this point was snuggling with him.

We get to do it again next week and it’s just dawned on me if I can stretch it out until Christmas I won’t be having to do any pre-Christmas panic cleaning as B will have really kept on top of it!  YAY!!!!!