Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Wheels…and more.

The Doctor cleared me for driving on Monday afternoon, and after forty-five minutes with the Motor Vehicles people at a Registry office in Wetaskiwin; I had a temporary license, and a new picture for my new license in which I do not look like a convicted felon! So I’m driving again. And I had a massage with no serious elevation of blood pressure. Things are looking up.

Now I have to figure out how to get in some decent walking time each day, since I don’t have to walk absolutely everywhere to get places. Failed today: big time rain, and I decided I didn’t want to get wet. The upside of this is that I get to go back to deep-water exercise in the local pool tonight. That should do me in! Looking forward to a good sleep.

While I was hospitalized a week or two ago (I can’t remember which week it was), a nurse heard me snoring from the station, and suggested in the morning that I might want to check out the sleep clinic in Wetaskiwin. I was surprised at this, since I went through a sleep clinic in Calgary twenty years ago, and had minor surgery that was supposed to correct the problem. Since I lost 60 pounds, I thought the apnea problem was behind me. Apparently not. Beatrix never complains about my snoring, but then she sleeps like a log. An apnea problem might explain why I wake up virtually every night sometime after three, wide awake, and sleep only fitfully after that. So I await a referral to Dr. York, the local sleep specialist.

I’m feeling like the recovery process is in a tricky stage at the moment. Without vigilance, I could begin to feel as though I’m totally “cured,” and could simply forget about it. Then I experience the impact of an incredibly blank short-term memory, and I remember that I’m not there yet. This morning, I took my BP cuff to the massage therapist, and used it after a relatively deep tissue massage to see if my BP was much elevated. Thankfully, it was not, so that’s small hurdle cleared. I plan to continue the massages, as my back has become really sore due to not being in shape for walking, etc. I will feel much better as my muscles tone up with exercise.

I still am careful about sudden heavy exertion. I have tentatively arranged with two strong neighbourhood girls to help me clear the garage when I clean it. I know I’m not safely up to lifting all the junk outside and then in again. I’m bribing them with milk chocolate! And gratitude. They are lovely kids, and I need to think of some way of rewarding them for their help.

I’m enjoying the fact that I lost six pounds during the five-day liquid diet, so I’m back down to my regular 160. I want to stay there if I can. I feel much better when a bit less plump.


Beatrix’ surgery is coming up this next Monday, and I am relieved that I can drive her in. I’ve located a place where we can stay if we have to go in the night before, thanks to Helen Chan, a hospital chaplain colleague in Edmonton. We also have a date Friday night to see a Burlesque show in which an old work colleague of mine is involved. Well, our relationship is “old” – she is not. It fascinates me that these relatively traditional sounding women all express their exhibitionist side through burlesque! Many of them are professional women, and this group is a kind of club, very feminist in nature, where groups band together to do classic burlesque! It’s not stripping, as the tacky clubs have it, but undressing tastefully, and sometime completely, to music. It sounds fascinating…and hot as well. I can hardly wait. As my old professor Davey Owens said about reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover way back in the 50’s – “It gave me one or two reassuring experiences…!” I’ll keep you posted on the impact on…my blood pressure at least!

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