Learning Points …
Last week was a bit of a roller-coaster. It had it’s ups – watching NW & NH in Denver do such a good job for the JISC and UKFAM; having TW visit and “patient-sit” me while Jenny went for a hospital appointment; having a lovely walk and chat with EW who was also “patient-sitting” me; and catching-up with a few things in respect of affairs I’m dealing with in Hastings. It had it’s downs – the urticaria and the “night sweats” both got me down quite a bit, but I had a really bad day yesterday when I got quite depressed. So what do I take from last week?
- Getting something “substantial done” is a big call – pottering is about all you can manage after an operation like this. You get extra-ordinarily tired, even when you don’t think you’re doing anything.
- Following on from this, I think I can fairly say that you suffer a progressive energy drain as the days away from Day 0 increase. I shouldn’t be surprised at that, should I? After all my body is mending itself … bigtime. Patience is not a virtue I possess. It’s hard when it’s being imposed on me.
- When the adrenalin rush comes, as it it did for a couple of days last week, do you ride the wave or throttle back? I really don’t know – I’ll tell you next week. I do know that Friday was a really low-day and that Jenny had to work really hard to motivate me to do anything. I felt really sorry for myself but it was interesting how a chance meeting with a neighbour (DJ) caused me to “buck my ideas up” and “snap out of it”, causing me to believe that I don’t need to stay in a depressed state for any length of time. I’m sure there will be other days like Friday, but now I know what to expect!
- Celebrate the fact that broadly I achieved the objectives I set myself last week. I did specify the PC; I have almost come to a decision about BT Vision – though we used it last night to watch the Frost/Nixon film; I did write a couple of blogposts (and I did a lot of reading and viewing of the Educause 09 Conference in Denver); I did spend some time on my own and in some small ways did more for myself. So on balance I ended the week in a better place than I started. Bring on the champagne – forgot, I’m off wine for a couple more days.
Hopes and fears for Week 4 – I think I’ve got myself into a better place mentally for the coming week. Have had two “setbacks” so hope to learn from them. An obvious fear I have is that I start feeling sorry for myself. Having written that down here – I trust it won’t happen. 🙂 I’m really looking forward to a couple of visits by friends next week. I realise that they could also be tiring, so I must make allowances and take proper rest as well.
Objectives – not so many this week I feel. I think the coming week will be a reading and watching week. Got some stuff I want to read, I may have got to the moment when I can give some time to some serious reading. I also want to watch more of my Michael Palin Travel DVDs; Planet Earth; and the Lord of the Rings – it’s about time I gave that another outing otherwise I’ll wonder why I ever bought it in the first instance. Also I think I’ll work my way through the complete Beatles collection which I bought a few weeks back. I’m surprised from my sampling to date how much I’m enjoying the tracks I didn’t like at the time, and how extra good the ones I did used to enjoy are now in re-mastered stereo. The most serious objective is to do more walking. Been too much “in my head” this last week, must get out and exercise more – it would be good to find some trousers though that don’t chaff the scar on my leg; that would make things easier. Perhaps I’ll resurrect my “joggers” from the bottom drawer. 🙂