Getting Back to Normal?

Last week was my little test to see if I really am getting back to normal. I thought that getting into a routine would be a good idea to check that I am up to such a routine every single day. So, with my daughter in a childcare club every day, it was the ideal time to try it.

Getting up in the morning at a specific time was the first test - we had to be at the childcare club by 9am and it was no problem at all, especially as my daughter was so excited about going there, that we were awake hours before we needed to be!

Before we had our little holiday to the North West, I'd tried driving the car and it was fine, but pulling the seatbelt across me and turning the steering wheel were really quite hard to do.

Last Monday, the whole driving experience was much improved - no problems with the seatbelt or the steering wheel, and moving in my seat was also much easier. Every day I tried to do a few chores - shopping for groceries was the main one, as I don't really want to do One Big Shop a week, like I used to do, as I still can't carry any heavy bags.

I even made time for some exercise and did a long walk one day, as the weather was reasonable. I did washing and ironing, cooking and washing-up and generally all the household things that I wasn't doing when I had my parents and father-in-law looking after me, and it all went well.

On Friday I went into the office to see my boss. We had a great chat about everything that had happened in the department while I've been away and then we arranged that I will start back to work on Wednesday 5th September! At first I will do just a couple of hours and then increase it slowly over a few days, until I'm working my full hours. I'm very excited about going back to work - I realised just how much I've missed it.

So I'm feeling pretty much Back to Normal from the range of movement I have and also in how I feel physically. I mean, sometimes I do things without thinking, like pulling the bathsheet around me when I get out of the shower and then I get a tweek and quickly realise that I still can't do some things! Or at least that I have to make those movements carefully.

I have no problems walking on the flat and I've tried walking up flights of stairs instead of taking the lift (in the multi-storey car park, for example) and it doesn't cause me to get breathless any longer.

Yesterday we went swimming as a family. I mean I didn't really do any swimming - it was more for our daughter to show off her own swimming skills! But I did manage a few strokes, even though I wasn't keen to do breaststroke, as it didn't feel comfortable. It probably would have been fine, but I didn't want to risk it the first time.

By the end of this week it will be 12 weeks since my surgery. I had heard that it takes about 3 months to get over the surgery and, for me, that will be about right.