I'm still in plaster. I should have been in Mallorca by now today, meeting other swimmers on my camp and looking forward to a swimming packed holiday. But I'm not. I'm home on the sofa. I'm obviously very disappointed not to be going...but a bit of me is relieved as well. Not to have to cope with a strange environment. Not to have to cope with meeting new people and being sociable. Not to have to push myself with my swimming.
My next appointment at fracture clinic is Tuesday, and I'm hoping for good news. I recognise that that might be pushing it slightly as it'll be a day short of 5 weeks from the accident at that stage. But I would desperately love to be out of plaster, and especially in time for the start of my next decade on Thursday.
I think the upcoming significant birthday is part of the reason why I feel so all over the place at the moment. The last 5 months have been pretty difficult, and the broken wrist has just made it all much harder. A few nice things happened in the past week, but mostly my mood has been low and gloomy. I find it hard reading back over my previous blog when I was training for the half ironman and seeing how consistently I was achieving my training and improving; I think I am sorely feeling the lack of a goal in 2014. Of course I have my plans to swim Windermere, but I am doubting my abilities given the time out of the water. And I am basically doubting all of my swimming plans for this year and next year.
I just don't know what to expect when I finally get back into the pool. I've been fortunate to never have a broken bone before, but this means I don't know how quickly things will come back. I played the piano for the first time today which was doable (I'm encouraged that every day new things come back to me and it seems that the biggest limiting factor is the positioning of the cast which prevents me holding a writing implement), but felt very stiff. I think it will be the wrist joint that will struggle the most. But as soon as the cast is off I can be in the pool and kicking or doing one arm drills.
In terms of fitness, I will have lost quite a bit, but I have at least managed to exercise for at least an hour on every day since the day after the accident, either walking into work (5 miles/1 hour 20) or an hour on the recumbent stationery bike and some pilates/planking. I'm pretty impressed with my elbow plank progress, from struggling to manage one minute 3 weeks ago, I determined that I would be up to five by the time my cast came off. Yesterday I hit a 4 minute pb; Mr Just Keep Swimming said that it would be much harder to do five, so I was determined to prove him wrong and got to 5 today. (I was pretty wobbly for the last 20 seconds as my muscles were shaking so much!).
I've also booked myself onto a Swim for Tri workshop over the Easter weekend. I will be newly out of plaster by then, and having not been in the water for so long, I think it will be really beneficial to spend a weekend doing drills supervised. I also have a great deal of respect for Dan and if there is anyone I want to help me get swimming well again, it is him, so hopefully I will be in a good state to go and spend the weekend swimming. It'll also be a chance for a catch up with swimming twin Vicky (who has firmly said that she loves being twins but didn't want a cast to match mine thank you very much, even if it was pink...).
I suppose the best thing about this is that the injury is time limited and should hopefully fix fairly easily, even if the last 5 weeks have been a bit grim. The cast also elicits sympathy and understanding. The trouble with mental health conditions is that the prognosis is less certain. It's less visible, and consequently people around me find it a lot more difficult to deal with.
No comments:
Post a Comment