Change in Condition
Spasticity Sucks!: I don’t want to moan too much but after a few weeks of my muscles tightening and night spasms, my left arm and leg became more rigid and awkward. I admit I lost quite a bit of patience. In the previous months of recovery, although I had tightness in my muscles, I only had manageable discomfort and aches. Unfortunately, since the spasticity began to really set in last month, I experienced more stiffness, aches and pains in places that had previously been fairly numb.
My Leg and Foot: My “lazy leg” was still straight, which I tended to drag along the floor when I walked. I felt pangs of pain in the area of the bone on the arch of my left foot on many occasions. This resulted in a more pronounced limp as I had to walk more slowly. My left ankle remained inflexible and I continued walking toe to heel, while my right foot would be the normal heel to toe. However, I strangely was able to manipulate and move the left foot around without any problem with my right hand, while I constantly massaged and tried to copy how Della used to do it. On some days, the pain was so excruciating, I just couldn’t put any weight on my left leg at all to walk, which forced me to rest more regularly until the pain faded.
My Arm and Hand: I had twinges of pain and more resistance from across the front and back sides of my left shoulder. My left arm felt heavy and I would have pangs of pain in my upper arm and back whenever I moved it. When I moved my fingers to open and close, I had extreme pins and needles, which made it very difficult and slow to make a normal fist. Whenever I tried to massage the palm of my left hand and fingers with my other hand, I had a horrible twinge sensation at the base of the thumb and palm area. I also would get a mild electric shock shoot up each finger every time I applied pressure on them.
My Head: This still felt tight and heavy. Colin constantly insisted that I took my blood pressure whenever I felt like that, because I’d been guilty of not taking it as regularly since I had the freedom from medical appointments in Malaga a few months ago. I admit I’d been a bit naughty. However, each time we checked, my blood pressure was good but reminded me to be a bit more cautious to take more regular readings in future.
In General: As I attempted to walk and move my arm and fingers, it felt as if I had been trapped in an invisible body harness down the left side of my body to prevent me from moving more naturally. The previous lack of feeling in my left leg, foot, arm and fingers had been replaced with the new sensation of pain to the touch and rigidity of the muscles. My speech was still not that brilliant either. To be honest, I got quite despondent because I felt that I had regressed instead of improved.
Again, it was a feeling of “one step forward but three steps back”. Would this feeling ever go away? We had no idea, but this new stage became a fresh challenge to overcome. To be honest, there had been days when I could have screamed myself hoarse and cried with utter frustration. I became unsure if I was able or enthusiastic enough to fight on. However, I had to keep trying, especially for Colin’s sake. He’s been such a great support with his bullying and funny ways. How could I let him, family and friends down at this stage? No time for too much self pity. I just had to battle on again. Lord help me!
Monday 4th May
1st Day of Walk after Lockdown Relaxed: The Spanish government implemented a plan for the de-escalation of quarantine by introducing 4 phases of releasing the public out of lock down. This day was phase “zero” that allowed the public out for walks at certain times of the day, depending on certain age groups, but we had to remain indoors afterward. As I’d been in my own “lock down” a week earlier than everyone else, this day was the first day out of the house in over 51 days. At first, I felt rather guarded and tentative to venture beyond the confines of our front door. It felt strange but I was also really happy that I was able to join Colin for a walk with Oscar down a small side road to the beach. This new freedom felt so wonderful but I still kept looking over my shoulder for a police presence and was wary whenever we came across a few other walkers. The day was bright and beautiful – just like the hymn. When we got to the beach, the sea was flat and calm. We actually saw a small boat slowly pass by, which was another refreshing sign of normality. The beach was deserted as I enjoyed watching Colin and Oscar have the beach exclusively. This would normally be the time of year for plenty of activity in the Costa del Sol, but the beach was so eerily quiet.
Thursday 7th May
Why did the Chicken Cross the Road?: We had a pleasant surprise before our morning walk. As I locked the front door, I heard a strange “clucking” noise to my left and discovered a chicken nestled in our flower bed! It must have wandered over from our neighbour, Gregorio. I wasn’t sure which one of us had been more alarmed but the chicken soon ran off in the direction of our neighbour’s property when Oscar came over for an inquisitive sniff.
Car Vandals: Thank you so much to the selfish vandals to Colin’s car this week. This was our only mode of transport since we had to sell my car. I wasn’t able to drive since my attack and it had been sitting outside, unused for months. It was clearly sensible to us that we had to sell my “Baby”. I was heart broken at the time but I grew used to the fact that I wasn’t allowed to drive until an updated test – if at all. Colin trustingly parked his car outside our property, which had been safe there for years. This particular week, some vandals thought it clever to break into the car and damage our ignition system, which resulted in having the car towed away for repair. The good news was that our local insurance company had arranged a hire car to help us with our inconvenience during repairs. Not bad, as we received a BMW replacement!
Saturday 9th May
Blog Revamp Project: After all the “to-ing” and “fro-ing” of email messages with Chuck, we nearly managed to get up to date with my Blog. There were just a few more parts and categories to complete. Unfortunately for Chuck, as he had done a great job, I suggested that he continued with his editing of future new posts, which he kindly agreed to do. The poor man. He had no idea what he had agreed to!
Phase 1 Quarantine Release Delayed: After all the build up that we may enter the next phase of release from quarantine, we had the disappointment of a further delay. We noticed that golf clubs and some businesses were allowed to open, but had to maintain social distance rules. I was confused because people couldn’t be more distant from other players in the wide open space of a golf course, especially when they lost their ball in strange places. Such a shame when we all looked forward to a bit more freedom, but it hadn’t been allowed to happen for everyone.
Tuesday 12th May
Oscar in the Dog House: Colin lost his patience and banned Oscar to the garden for just a few minutes. Oscar had already created damage before, then got into the habit of constantly running off with my knickers from our laundry and lots of other naughty antics. However, when he stole Colin’s food from his plate, Colin had enough! We watched him sitting outside in disgrace from our window, but we loved and forgave him two minutes later. Such a mischief maker!
UK Strange Social Distance Rules: We read that the UK tried a partial relaxing of the social distancing rules but this only resulted in confusion. People could meet up with a person of another household but were not allowed to meet two people or more outside the home. People in construction or manufacturing were “actively” encouraged to go back to work but were told NOT to take public transport if they could avoid it. Playing sports with only household members was permitted, but people could go to public parks with one member outside of their household to mix with others. This caused confusion in general. What about mixing with other households in public areas? Estate agents were permitted to open and view properties, but people were encouraged to work from home if possible. Most people scratched their heads about the new rules and other strange restrictions on some businesses. How could that work? A lot of trades relied on public activity. Very puzzling and mixed messages came over from the UK as the public reacted negatively to the new announcements which kept changing on a daily basis.
Leg and Arm Night Attacks: I had extreme uncontrollable jitters and trembling of my left leg and arm at night over the past week. These episodes happened at different times and sometimes I would be jostled awake when they happened. The sensations ended after a few seconds. There were a few occasions when poor Colin woke up too, but we still had no idea how to stop these strange short episodes. I began to lose faith of ever improving at this point.
Thursday 14th May
Finally can Cut an Onion!: Again, not exactly breaking news, but it was a big deal for me after the recent physical drawbacks. For many months I wasn’t able to grip an onion properly, so I had to use an electric chopper. This day I finally managed to grip and slice my own onion and other ingredients very slowly and carefully. It still felt strange because my fingers felt mild electric shocks when I gripped, but my hand was firmer. I was so pathetic, I had to take a picture to record my final achievement!
Accident: I became a bit cocky about my improved grip and tested if I could carry things in both hands. Wrong! While I tried to carry a cup of tea in one hand and a plate of biscuits in the other from the kitchen to Colin, I lost the grip from my left hand and the plate of biscuits smashed onto our tiled lounge floor. Back to the drawing board!
Clicking Noise While I Moved: I noticed that my bones began to make strange cracking or clicking noises whenever I walked, climbed the stairs or moved my left arm. It sounded like snapping celery in half. At first it was alarming, however, as there was no extra pain involved, I got used to the noise. I told Colin that I needed oiling!
Monday 18th May
Spain Implemented Phase 1: The phase status was different in various regions. While some remained in lock down, our province of Andalucia was given phase 1 status. This meant that citizens could only move within their own province during the relaxing of restrictions between the municipalities of that province, and not across the borders into other regions. We were past caring, this meant we were free to go out to restaurants and bars to see friends at last.
Walk on the Beach: Colin and I went back to the beach area. The morning was beautiful and clear. It was really lovely to witness other walkers and people on the beach enjoying their freedom while some swam, walked or fished next to the water’s edge. We also could spot Gibraltar on the horizon. What a pleasure to see a new kind of normality “tip-toe” out of such a long quarantine. We found ourselves smiling and said “hello” to complete strangers as we came across other human contact. It was lovely.
Walking Better: On our way back from the beach we bumped into a neighbour from the Park Beach Complex with her dog. We hadn’t seen her in months so it was nice to stop for a small chat. The lady noticed my improved walk in comparison to many months ago. It was really nice of her to mention and gave me much needed encouragement. From the video I could see how I limped but I felt the twinges were still there during that walk. I certainly wasn’t going to complain on film! I could see that my left arm was still bent rather than looked natural. The video helped me to see what others observed and areas where I could improve. Della sent me a lovely message as we compared to how I struggled the same time the previous year. I felt positive and much happier inspite of the recent aches and pains.
Our First Social Drink: Colin and I arranged to meet Matt for our first “freedom” social drink in a bar later that afternoon. It was good to see people sitting in their social distanced clusters. Although we had to wear face masks on public roads, we could dispense with them as soon as we sat down to drink. I went inside and had a well needed “girlie” chat with Joanna, while Colin and Matt sat with friends outside. I told Joanna that our housekeeping skills hadn’t been great during the lock down period, so we arranged for her to come the following week to work her usual “magic”. Well, Our first social outing with some friends and being among other people was wonderful and passed without any problems.
Tuesday 19th May
Day Out to the Bank: While we were in quarantine Colin and I had a number of frustrating experiences with our online banking, as our accounts continued to be drained while we had no income from the suspension of our business from March. We ended up arranging a meeting with our branch manager in Estepona, because our local branch was still closed. There I was, armed with mask and gloves in public, when Colin was taking the photo, I stupidly smiled. Who on earth could tell under my mask!
Enrique, our manager, was so friendly, helpful and able to solve our problems in minutes, which took us weeks to try to understand, muddle through and had failed during the quarantine period. I had a sneaky feeling the fault was entirely on our part!
Friday 22nd May
Tom Moore to get a Knighthood: It was really lovely to hear that, after all his efforts to reach over 30 million sterling to support the British NHS (National Health Service), this quiet and determined gentleman was to receive a knighthood. How wonderful. Amazing stories like his, had come out of lock down and each of their individual stories were equally heroic in my eyes.
Saturday 23rd May
Masks Compulsory in Supermarkets and Shops: When Colin came home he told me that he witnessed some customers in one of our local supermarkets had been refused entry because they wouldn’t wear face masks. We felt the company had acted correctly because so many of us wore our masks in public, but some refused to wear a mask as they selfishly would use the excuse of, “it doesn’t bother me”. What about everybody else? Finally there was a rule to ensure that EVERYONE had to wear masks to avoid any confusion. The supermarket was a great example of public safety before economics. Unfortunately this wasn’t evident in some other countries.
Social Drinks with Friends: Colin took me to one of our favourite drinking places to meet Matt . I saw some of my “Naughty Golf Girls” with their other halves and other golf buddies from my Golf club. While Colin sat with his group, I was able to hobble over and had a brief chat with the gang. We were all so pleased to get out of quarantine and gather under “nearly normal” circumstances again. I just had to share the news that our friend, Gill sent me a message that she got a “Hole in One” the very same morning. It was a pleasant reunion of mates.
Wednesday 27th May:
Dominic Cummings UK Scandal: Well, there was so much news coverage of the fact that Dominic Cummings, the top aide advisor to the UK Prime minister, had earlier in the week broken the UK lock down rules! There was a great deal of controversy over this, as many senior government ministers either backed his job or claimed complete ignorance of his long drive of over 250 miles with his family, during lock down, from London to Scotland at the end of March. It appeared to be “one rule for the general public and another for government superiors!”. Many had demanded an investigation into his conduct and disregard of rules that could have had an impact on the risk to public lives if everyone did the same. The government remained tight-lipped and retained him as the Prime Minister’s top advisor. Unbelievabl! A Scottish minister had recently been dismissed for a much lesser trip in comparison.
Family Barbeque: Matt and Andrea had kindly invited us to a family lunch barbeque to celebrate getting together and our little freedom. I didn’t want to come empty handed. As my left grip had slightly improved, I made some of my known “Curry Puffs”, which were curried minced beef and vegetables in a puff pastry triangle. These could be eaten hot or cold and seemed to have gone down well with everyone. The barbeque was a wonderful release to relax with good friends and their lovely family.
Friday 29th May: Colin and I went for drinks at the Granada Bar again. This time I felt conscious of the well-meaning smiles of familiar faces and the unintentional stares of strangers, as I struggled past to get to our table. Although I had a nice time, when we eventually decided to leave, I suddenly felt totally inadequate while I hobbled back to Colin’s car. I wasn’t sure if my diluted wine was the result of the fact that I had felt sorry for myself, but I choked and started to cry in the car. I felt pathetic and hopeless. Colin told me to snap out of it. I had come a long way, I had to be happy and remind myself how far I had come, instead of dwelling on the negative. He was right of course.
Please view next page 32 at link “Freedom, BLM, Feelings & Updates”: https://www.rebootinglinda.com/32-more-arm-movement-more-freedom-from-quarantine-black-lives-matter-movement-new-feelings-and-medical-update/
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As usual your photos go well enhancing the writing, gives it more depth. Doing very good for a “one” handed typist, keep up the good work.
Ha Ha – Glad you like the images and videos. They help to break up the block of text and also illustrated what I have written. Thanks for your support, from your favourite “one handed” typist 🙂 xxx