Stitch This

So, since my last post I have had my first proper operation, a full foot reconstruction.  Oh you know I don’t do things by halves!

I had the operation on 24 May and today is the first time I have felt like picking  up keyboard and writing about it. To say it has been hard would would be the understatement of the year. Partially because the operation itself was substantial (involving chopping and chipping and breaking and mending) but also because the medications I was prescribed for the pain relief had a bad interaction with my Parkinson’s drugs!

Frustratingly, this is something that could’ve easily been stopped if somebody had actually Thought about the possibilities of one type of drugs not working too well with another set of drugs. I fail to see how that is not an obvious thing to check but anyway it seems that it had never been done before. So one of my actions when I get better is to make sure that I get Parkinsons UK on the case so that doesn’t happen some other poor soul.

Anyway, the upshot of all of this fun and games has been 4 1/2 weeks (and counting) disability, pain, such amazing displays of love by my friends and family that I have been rendered speechless a few times and that is very unusual I can tell you, such tiredness I have never known in my life before, such space and time to think I have never known in my life before, and an intimacy with the interior workings of the NHS prescription process that I never want to know again.

I am I hope over the worst now, but I still have a long way to go. But in the process I have begun to learn a few things:

• I have to respect the limits of my body…in the past I have chosen to ru. Myself into the ground in my rush to ‘do’…I have not been able to do this
• Patience is a necessity not a virtue. Without patience I will not get through this nor the future trials and tribulations I will face.
• Uncomfortable feelings and emotions do not disappear if you distract yourself with action. By which I mean that if I feel sad, going off and starting a new art project will not dispell that sadness. It will displace it for a while but it will not erase it. That uncomfortable feeling will persist until I allow myself to ‘sit’ with it, and allow myself to feel it. I have in the past, I know now, done everything in my power to avoid discord, conflict, sadness, anger…all the ‘negative’ emotions. When, in reality, it’s ok to have a sad thought, it shows humanity. To feel is just human. This has been a massive realization for me. I feel shell shocked by it but strangely released. Life isn’t quite as ‘full on’ now as a result.

Anyway, I also realized how much I missed this blog so here I am. Still holding on. Patiently now though, for now.