Monday and I wake to an eerie quiet. I realise that the rest of the household have all gone to work, I am silently alone. I check my phone, read a section of David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day and then get up in my wearable blanket. The kitchen gets cleared and I make myself boiled eggs and soldiers (magic get better food) and then watch some David Sedaris’s videos. By 11 o’clock I’ve had enough of both the videos and my wearable blanket. In a fit of self disgruntlement I go upstairs and get into my training kit. I’ve had enough of me and my sore ribs and feeling crap, I’m a man that has run marathons, reduced my fitness age to 40, had a career, provided for my family and owe nothing so what the hell am I doing sitting around feeling sorry for myself, its the rowing machine for me, survive it or not. I get into the garage and find the bloody display on the rowing machine was blank. Feeling as I do I take it personally and very grumpily change the batteries and strap in. I was going to do half an hour but I’m so pissed off with the world in general I go for a 45 minute session. To be honest I don’t give a crap if it makes my ribs worse, but I do take it steady to start with, somewhere in there my reasonable rational self is still looking out for me. Its a very below average session but it gets my PSI points over a 100, which is where I need to consistently be. I guess the distance is a bit down and 500+ burnt calories will have to do. I did say yesterday that this would be “give it another go Monday”.
Having got myself together after the session I record it in the journal, book the coming months medications and get a bath organised. As I am alone I can leave all the doors open and wander around as I please. The plan was to read in the bath but instead I listen to three episodes of The Infinite Monkey Cage ranging across, Sharks, Richard III and Space Dust. Having soaked, laughed and got wrinkly I get out of my rib easing bath and don some clothes. Chicken Soup follows and then more Podcasts of the best bits of the Infinity Monkey Cage. On checking my emails there is an email from the solicitor related to the sale of the house in my sister’s estate. The buyers who have not completed are asking to be able to go in with an architect before completion. Our solicitor advises against it unless accompanied by some of the estate agents staff. I agree on behalf of the executors and note the focus needs to be on the hurdles standing in the way of completion of the sale contract.
As I listen to the radio I see another email comes through from my GP asking me to send my blood pressure reading. Having updated my Excel spreadsheet I send the average for cycle 4 so far. It is highly unlikely that I will get a response but then there is nothing remarkable in my blood pressure, or indeed in any of my metrics. My source of discomfort is my fatigue and there is no measure of that objectively, I suppose I could rate myself on a scale of one to ten but without referents for the ends of the scales I’ve no idea what I would rate myself, beyond not my most chipper. My partner returns from work that signals the start of the evening, a beverage, a phone call to check on her mother and then a meal of some description while we wait for Tesco to deliver. I plan to read, rest, take my meds and go to bed and hopefully repeat tomorrow. The sun has shone today and I have glimpsed the garden, thought briefly of being in it or going to the Shed but felt overwhelmed by it. Today has been about the first step of recuperation, again, and tomorrow might require the same, but I feel the tentacles of guilt seeping into as I have been inattentive to those who write to me or to those to whom I write, so perhaps I will find myself in the Shed tomorrow.
