Stay in your lane!

 

 

 

Last night was not a good one.

     Incipient back ache developed during the night into one of those pains that while it wasn’t truly bad, it was bad enough to preclude the possibility of sleep.  And whatever position you choose, it is never the right one for any length of time.

     It reminded me of the horror (there really is no other word that captures it) that comes with trying to sleep in a horizontal position after having a complete knee replacement.  At its worst, my ‘sleep’ was limited to ten minutes from the time of hitting the mattress – not that’s not the right word, getting onto the bed was a tortuously slow process, as was getting up again – and giving up.

     Salvation during that period came from the reclining chair in the living room.  Although the foot rest part of the reclining process was never long enough to accommodate my height, it did allow me to adopt a three-quarter’s prone position that allowed at least fitful sleep – the sort that only occurs through exhaustion.

     What worked once for knees was pressed (literally with the reclining switch) into service for the back.  And to be fair, it did, sort of work.  The pain was still there, but it was almost like a ‘noises off’ effect and it allowed something approaching unconsciousness – a state I would not equate with real sleep.

     Because I go for a swim every morning during the week at 6.30 am, I am programmed to wake early and, even though the pool does not open until 8.00 am on the weekends, my internal body alarm does not differentiate, and I wake up at 5.45 am.

     Which I did this morning, and that gave me one and a half hours to debate with myself whether or not it might be a good thing to go for a swim or simply to stay at home, as, after a few tentative stretches it demonstrated that the pain in my back was still there.

     Eventually, I decided to go, as I reasoned that the water is supportive and I could adapt, tailor and truncate my pool activity to fit my pain threshold.

     The reality when I got into the pool showed that my decision not to skip a session was correct.  Not one of the exercise or stokes was so painful that it could not be done, and so I ended up completing a fairly normal session, with one or two of my exercises extended as I felt that the stretching might be beneficial.

     I cannot say that my swim has helped lessen the pain, which vividly reminds me of its presence when I move in certain ways, but I tell myself that I have exercised, and I have done my stretches, and so, even if I cannot feel the benefits immediately, it will help in the long run.  And in the short run there is the ever-present help of Paracetamol and pungent smelling unguent.  And looking at those two words ‘pungent’ and ‘unguent’ there must be some sort of linguistic link, that I am far too lazy to look up.

     Anyway, none of the above is the point that I set out to write about.  If you are in pain and the drugs and creams have had little effect, then you search for other ways to lessen the affliction.  And the swimming pool offers many.

     Ever since Covid our 25m swimming pool has been roped off into five lanes, and there is a booking system so that the lanes do not get overfull.  In theory each lane can take three swimmers as long as they swim in circles, or rather squashed ellipses.  This system depends on the three swimmers understanding the speed of the people sharing the lane and make due allowances, for example, allowing a stronger swimmer to overtake from time to time.  In theory this system works well.  In theory.

     In practice lanes are jealously guarded and any perfectly reasonable sharing is regarded more as an invasion.

     For example, I swim in lane 1, or lane 5, depending on how you look at it.  I have chosen (!) this lane because there is a hydraulic chair which lowers me into the water and the ladder that accompanies the equipment is particularly difficult to use.  With my two wonky knees I feel that I am more than entitled to use this ingress and egress, and I further feel that such a flamboyant entry surely entitles me to enjoy the lane in splendid isolation – and anyone sharing the lane will have to contend with the steps that jut out into the water and make a straight line difficult to keep.

     Although the basic stokes of swimming are well known, you only must compare two people swimming say crawl to see that their approach to the stroke is different.  In some cases, it is difficult to say with any confidence what particular official version of the common crawl or breaststroke that they are using.  The position of the hands, the length of the stroke, the turn of the head, the time underwater, the breathing, and the use of the legs and feet make an individual’s technique just that, individual.

     And then there is the amount of space that a person takes up when executing their brand of stroke.  The lanes are delimited by floats, they are, by definition, floating.  There is no separation vertically from the floats to the floor of the pool, only observation and consideration keep flailing hands, arms and feet inside the imaginary boundaries of an individual’s lane.

     Crawl is usually (just about) contained within the body’s width – though I have seen some versions of crawl where it is impossible to tell the difference between that and energetic drowning.  Breaststroke goes well outside the body’s width and if you are swimming your squashed ellipse in a lane with three swimmers and are near the floats then your hands and feet are almost certainly going to make your swimming into a contact sport.

     And then there is butterfly.  The sine qua non of selfishness in communal swimming – apart from one extraordinary occurrence I witnessed of a person swimming a width of backstroke when everyone else was swimming lengths!

     So, to lessen the paint of my backache I observed the tensions, the threats and the resentments that are inevitable when people seek to join an already crowded pool.

     As I start and end my session with a series of exercises based on the instructions from the physio who saw me through the first awful weeks after my operation, I have the opportunity to watch various dramas unfold with the barely concealed distate of people who think they are being hard done by.

     And it works.  I was more concerned about the human drama swimming around me than the pain tickling my back!

 

Pushing the boundaries again!

 

 

 

The graph of the usefulness of my knees would look like the inside of a shark’s mouth as the pointed tips of relative pain-free mobility are swamped by the depths of gum deep shitiness.  A rather laboured simile to emphasise that the utility of my knees as working points of articulation in the furtherance of locomotion, is basically low.  I find that I am limiting the length of my walking more and more, and the little that I do is with the aid of a stick.

     Which leads to the question of what I am going to have to do about it.  The obvious solution is to get new kneecaps but, with the backlog of clinical cases given the underfunding of the health service and the horrific demands of Covid something being done in the immediate future seems remote.

     When I finally went to the doctor after the periods of lockdown that we suffered, I was greeted by his saying that the x-rays that he had looked at giving a graphic picture of the state of my knees were among the worst that he had seen.  Nice to see you again too!

     Various (legal!) subterfuges were used to get me on to some sort of list to be seen and I was eventually told that my first visit to a traumatologist would be almost a year in the future!

     To cut a long story short, that “year” is now almost up, and in October I will have my first face-to-face meeting with someone who has the power to do something radical to reduce the pain and to make me fully (?) mobile again.

     Because the state of my knees is so variable, I have, over the last number of months resorted to crutches, sticks, pain killers and highly expensive off-the-shelf powders to bring some sort of relief.  In so far as I am no longer using crutches to move about, I would have to admit that I have made progress.  In so far as I am still in pain and can walk only limited distances, there is much further to go.  So to speak!

     Things were brought to some sort of head when we accompanied my cousin and friend to Sitges for a meal in a restaurant that is situated over the shallows of the sea.  And you can see real fish!

     Our usual parking place in Sitges is far too far for me to walk to get to the sea and so we decided to use the car park under an hotel on the sea front, thereby giving me a fairly flat walk to the restaurant.

     It took me the best part of a week to recover from the walking that I had to do – and the meal was ordinary, over-priced and badly served!  Something had to be done.

     The solution, of sorts involved buying something.  As I am never averse to spending money, especially on gadgets, I was all-in for Toni’s suggestion that the answer may be the purchase of an electric scooter.

     I am well aware that the average age of an electric scooter user is a mere 25% of mine – or less – but I am inured to expressions that look askance at me and what I am doing, so that the only question that arose in my mind was would I be able to balance on it.  And more pressingly, would it fit in the back of the car, as I had absolutely no intention of making it my prime mode of urban transport.

     A further energy depleting walk, and I was ready to buy.

     Although I am given (wholeheartedly) to the concept of the ‘impulse buy’ which my support of various good (and not so good) purchases from sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo can vividly demonstrate, I had to be somewhat circumspect about this purchase as it had to take account of my weight and height and also be something that was not dependent on being sent back to China in case something went wrong.

     Eventually, after yet another bad experience of overestimating how far I could walk, I bought one and awaited its arrival.

     It arrived (via Amazon) very quickly and it was waiting to be unboxed after I returned from my morning swim.

     The amount of construction involved in its formulation was minimal – four screws to keep the handlebars on the stem – but, without Toni it would have been, for me, insurmountable.  Three of the screws went in.  Eventually.  But one was stubborn and now matter how I (or indeed Toni) tried, it would not ‘go home’.

     Far from being downcast (as I was) Toni was jubilant, as this particular problem gave him the opportunity to try out something that he had bought because, “It would come in useful” – a screw thread re-doer.  The thread was re-done and it worked perfectly.

     The machine was charged up and all it then needed was for me to use it.

     At this point, I should point out that I did indeed own a mechanical scooter when I was a single digit child, but I had not tried one since that time.  Over sixty (60) years previously!

     It was therefore with some considerable trepidation that I ventured out onto the road and put foot to platen and pushed myself off.

     While I would not describe myself as a confident, or indeed competent, rider of the scooter, I did not fall off and I managed to return to the house after a trip of a couple of kilometres, with machine and myself undamaged.

     Result!

     The next thing to do is to try and fit it into the boot of the car and then to actually use the thing for the purpose for which it was bought.

     I am trepidatiously confident.

     Future blog entries should show whether such hope was justified or not!

This and that

. . . and stretch!

If pain at the back of the legs indicates dedication to cycling, then I am dedicated.  I am beginning to think that all this much-vaunted belief in the positive power of exercise is much over rated.

            My knee joints, it must be admitted are not the finest articulating things in the world, but they did work without feeling as though someone has wrapped clumsy weights around them.  Now, after a week of cycling, this is not the case.  The pain, such as it is, is a ‘surround’ discomfort and I am working on the basis that this is merely muscle, rather like the alien I have just been watching in a most unsatisfactory film, suddenly called into action after a considerable time being quiescent. 

            Having been called into more stringent duty that they had heretofore been expected to complete, my muscles are rebelling.  And something must be done.

            I have therefore decided to revert to what I always (usually) [sometimes] did before playing squash or badminton – I will stretch my muscles before I put foot to pedal.  This will be, I am sure, the panacea and all manner of things will be well.

            And anyway, there are only a few more weeks to go and I will be able to sink behind the wheel once more!  At least just before and after I have my swim!

Rebellion!

There are some things you do because you have always done them.  Unthinkingly and with a sense that this is how life should be led.  They are the basics which make up the ethos that propels you through life.  Things that you can sink back on in times of trouble and feel that this, at least, is right.

            So it is troubling, to say the least, that I find myself – after a lifetime – going back on something which I have never even had cause to question.

            As far back as I can remember – and this I know because somewhere I still have evidence of my childish faith in books which I slavishly kept – I drank PG Tips.  It was the tea of choice, there was no other.

            In Spain, one of the first things that I did was search out a place where this need could find the raw material to be satisfied.  And I found it – albeit in a French supermarket chain, but I found a supply of tea bags with the requisite trademark.

            It has taken me some time, but I now realise that I have been denying the truth, the truth that I actually prefer Ty-phoo tea.  How can this have happened?

            I have rationalised it of course, it must, I have told myself be something to do with the quality of water.  I am used to the softness of Welsh water, whereas here in Catalonia, as I am fond of saying, I don’t know how something so full of calcium actually makes it out of the taps.  To say our water is hard is . . . and fit in simile or image of your choice . . . and to be frank it is the same for Ty-phoo as it is from PG Tips, but, there it is, after all these years a change of taste.

            Something I will have to learn to live with as I spit my traitorous cuppa!

Open-ended

The writing of the pro forma for the outline of the work that I intend to do for the end of course module which takes the place of the examination in the Open University for my art course is proving to be a damn sight more tricky that I thought it would be.

            Some things, like my bibliography, seem to have taken on a monstrous life of their own, but the actual title and the fiddly little details are tantalizingly out of reach.

            They will have to come to reach in the next 24 hours as the thing has to be handed in and I have to go to Barcelona on Wednesday.  So, the whip is being metaphorically applied and, as usual, in spite of moaning, I will probably manage to get something winging its electronic way.

            This is a real opportunity for my tutor to come up trumps.  She does know much more than I, and she can make or break my long essay by her suggestions.  She seems to be ‘fairly’ on board at the moment and I only hope that the sense of fellow travelling will extend itself to fairly concrete suggestions for the ‘bits’ in my proposal that I have somewhat glossed over!

            In a strange sort of way I am looking forward to this project becoming reality and words actually making it to the screen, because I am interested to see what the end result will be.  Because I don’t have a clear idea at the moment.  And that, I think, is a good thing.  I hope.

Editing

I am at the stage in my book where I am thinking of the order in which the poems should be published.  Thinking is not doing, and I am justifying my laziness by telling myself that I have more pressing academic problems.  How easy it is to write about problems rather than doing something about them.  It was ever thus and, as I have made that a way of life, don’t knock it!