It's Wednesday again, a week since my last post, as I sit here sipping chamomile tea rather than the usual glass of Chardonnay! It seems the Universe (or God) is either testing me, trying to break me or maybe it's just trying to show me / teach me more inner strength!
This experience is life changing to all who are involved and not just for the patient. Like we are not dealing with enough with Mark's illness, I then have to deal with another major outage at work (due to the thunder storm), my own illness with gastro and to top it off, my Mum's partner has been offered a room next to hers at her new retirement village residence (most of which I will need to organise)! It seems that the minute I get on top of things, there is something else ready to knock me down again, and it's all the little things that add up to an exhausting day. Simple things like finding a park, trade installations not going to plan, making phone calls and not getting through to the right people, broken toys, dropping, spilling and breaking things, just to name a few, all minor in the grand scheme of things, but when they all happen in a day or two, just make you want to throw your hands up and say, "OK, I give up, just kill me now and put me out of my misery!".
But all these situations could be so much worse and in the end, everything will work itself out, I have to keep believing that. So tonight we blew the dust off the old Yoga DVD and I dragged my man onto his new Yoga mat and we did a session. I feel it helped me a lot to clear my head and help to strengthen my back which I put out a couple of weeks ago when moving a bag of sand from the shed to the playground area for the "so-called hired handyman". Hmmm, it's another story that I don't feel like repeating, but let's just say it's hard to find good help these days!
So I hear you ask, enough about you, how is Mark? Ok, ok, this blog is about me too remember!! He is doing really really well in all aspects. Some days still better than others, but the good days become a higher level of good each time. Like yesterday he actually spent several hours in front of his computer reading and even writing some code. He found the "bits missing" in his brain, which scared him a bit, but he found that he could work through these missing parts and still come up with a programming solution, albeit a bit clumsy and probably took 3 times as long, but it still worked. Next time it will be faster and better and so on and so on.
Physical fitness still has a way to go and seems to be slower than expected. On the weekend, in my brilliance, I suggested we take a walk to Mum's place, the retirement village down the road. Now on this morning, it was overcast, not hot and the walk was downhill. They were having their annual fair and I wanted to show our support and visit Mum at the same time as walk the dog, get some fresh air and get in some exercise. This idea was ticking a number of boxes, time efficient so I thought!
Mark said he was up for it, so with pram, dog and child a ready, we set off. Mark seemed keen and strong and was setting a good pace. Before long we arrived and I suggested he sit down and have a rest while I took a quick look at the brick-a-brack. The clouds started to part and I could see he was getting a little too much sun, so we moved into some shade at some table and chairs so that I could purchase some homemade cakes, lollies for Seb (special occasion) and some pretty average coffee.
It wasn't long before Mark started to fade and he needed desperately to lay down. I quickly grabbed keys from Mum and took him up to her room (with dog as well, shhhhh) so he could lay down. I filled his water bottle and told him I would be back soon with the car.
Back downstairs, I squatted down and looked into Seb's eyes. He knew something was wrong but he was rather quiet. I told him Daddy wasn't feeling well and we need to get home really quickly to fetch the car to bring him home. I told him that I needed him to be strong and not to complain, so that I could get home as fast as possible. Else (the dog) also got a quick pep talk and we headed off at full speed, up the hill. My talks must of worked as Sebastian did not say a word (normally he would ask a hundred questions and whine for something) and Else trotted alongside the pram without once tripping me up or running in front of the pram. Funny how children and animals can sense an emergency and just get it together!
Sweating profusely, I dropped off the dog and grabbed the car keys. Seb hopped in quickly, again without any mucking around and we were back at Mums in record breaking time. He seemed much better and we brought him home. He later told me that he felt like a seizure was coming again and he was quite scared. Thankfully there was no harm done, but he went back into "patient mode" for the rest of that day. Next morning however, I dragged him out again, only this time a much shorter walk to our local oval. Once there, I did the exercise and while he rested in the shade and kicked the ball around a little with Sebastian, then walked home. He told me that it was a good amount of exercise for him and about his limit. This is good, we now have a line in the sand to work with, but we have a very long way to go, considering we used to walk to the oval (Seb as well), then jog 3 to 4 laps, then walk back! Patience my dear, patience....that is what I need - more Yoga and Chamomile tea for me I think!
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