Stopping Myself In My Tracks

I have done this before. Started walking again when I realise how much I prefer walking to sitting in a wheelchair. Nice idea. Unfortunately with ME patients it doesn't always work like that!
So what has happened before? Over a summer, when the weather has been good I have been out of the house. Maybe starting in April, thinking I would try to start getting a bit more exercise, enjoy the free spirit. By August I am getting on a bus and having a whale of a time. But I am not listening!(see yesterday's post) My body was saying in June, "give me a chance, I know you're anxious to walk again, get some independence, but I'm not ready yet" I might have muscle aches, hip pains, a couple of 'crash' days dotted in and out of the weeks and my life would start to become a full blown wave of booms and busts, with seizures and days in bed, by the end of the summer. By September I'm cursing myself deciding what it could have been that caused all this. With so many symptoms being thrown at me, I am confused to say the least, especially with the last two months of probably hotter weather making it difficult anyway (over 23-24C is too much for me!).
Over the years I have tried more and more strategies to combat this. Just walking three days a week. Not using the bus and staying in the local area, only walking on flat ground. Last year I tried walking 100 yards then resting for a few minutes, taking me 20 minutes or more to go somewhere which would previously take me 6. I found so many walls to lean on and seats and benches around the town, I could lead a guided bus tour of them!
My legs are getting stronger, I don't get dizzy as often when I'm upright. I can stand in the kitchen for longer and have pushed the wheelchair a bit this week when we have been into town, here on holiday. Hindsight and knowledge is giving me a new perspective. If walking, like I have done this week, feels good and I do it every day it will probably lead to another downfall. However, if I walk for 5 minutes every day, or 5 days a week, I may manage quite well. The occasional slightly longer walk or standing will not make a big difference, but as with the meditation and yoga, it is the accumulation of it that makes the impact.
Walking is something I love. It was something I experienced a lot with my parents when I was a child. Going on holiday was about walking, not visiting theme-parks or spending all day by the pool. All it cost was a pair of wellies for everyone, wet-weather coats and a bar of Dutch chocolate for half-time! (my Dad would pick them up when he went over for work!) It is one thing I long for in my future and probably explains why, as soon as I feel the road under my feet, I just want to go, go, go all over again. I'm feeling that again now. It is so hard to restrain myself, but to find the end goal, and I do believe that is a plausible goal now, I have to take it one step at a time.

Rooftop Knitting

Knitting is a big thing for me. My friends will know I am not a closet knitter, but a scream out loud from the rooftops knitter. It is one of the activities that gives me a gauge to measure my wellness. There might be months through the year when I don't pick up needles and yarn, there might be months through the year when I hold them every day. This is the gauge that tells me my health. Cognitive processes are involved. If I am well- so that my arms are quite fit- I might zoom across three or four rows without thinking twice. This is all very well but I might therefore have forgotten a patterned row, or a change of colour have to sit with great concentration and unpick my efforts-this is when my cognitive and physical wellness don't quite match! An easier project will mean I can knit without thinking- so much of my knitting is ingrained; I am an auto-pilot knitter. I have even been known to totally astonish myself with knitting a lace or cable pattern on auto-pilot. The months when I don't knit are usually enforced. If I knit for a couple of short sessions each day, sometimes I can do nothing else helpful or useful. My husband becomes the carer and the bearer! If I am counting stitches and he interrupts me, he takes the brunt of it. This is when I put it down, zip up the bag and hide it.
December last year was the last time I really attempted anything for myself. I was in love with my pattern, a fairIsle cardigan. But my OH was bearing too much! It was hidden. About a month later a friend asked me to knit a cardigan. It was an easier knit, being in a single colour, but it took a long time; four months for one project is unusual for me. There were weeks when I couldn't pick up the needles, just through lack of strength in my arms, weeks when I would try and abandon the attempt after 10 minutes as my brain couldn't fathom what I was doing and weeks when I might manage 3 or 4 sessions of 20-30 minutes. Having achieved that and also finished a baby blanket for another friend, I know I have a bit more time and energy to give to such a project.
So I have reached out to my dearest wool shop, found a pattern that requires time and patience and that I will enjoy. It is for me, it will give me an achievable goal. Twenty or thirty minutes of knitting here and there is a challenge, a smile, a glimpse; to sit in bed or under a blanket on the sofa and knit is something that reminds me of home, something that reminds me of all the years when I have struggled, persevered and achieved. Knitting and sewing have kept me going over the years. Small projects with little goals are perfect to motivate me through the good days and the not-so-good days. I am looking forward to wearing my french navy, wool tweed, shawl collared, short, double breasted, nipped in at the waist, front cabled with moss stitch cardigan by next Autumn. I will achieve it, I will give it my time and patience.