Rest is as Good as a Change

Perhaps it is an age thing, but T and I are not unhappy that we had to cancel our trip away this week. We were due to go to our favourite hotel on the shore of Clew Bay in Mayo. But I continue to be very sore with my hip injury and T is exhausted from commuting, working and studying. Despite the undoubted delights of being there, we decided that the five hour journey to Mayo was too much for us in our depleted states. We grumbled a little at first, but then relaxed into a week of rest at home. The only member of the family to actually be delighted was Rex who no longer had to go into the kennels.

I’ve been spending plenty of time doing my stretching exercises and icing my hip. But the pain remains very stubborn. Indeed it seems to have spread to my right knee. According to the osteopath, this is not surprising as I am concentrating on stretching the muscles all down my right side. The stored up imbalances are being worked on and they refer pain up and down the leg and into the groin. I’ve begun to take extract of Turmeric, called Curcumin, which is a natural anti-inflammatory. I’m not sure whether it is having a positive effect yet. But I know that I cannot take Diclofenac or any other NSAID because I only have one kidney.

Sitting for any length of time is one of the things that always exacerbates the pain. I’ve taken to using a small padded cushion at home and taking it with me when I go out. We went to the Mourne Seafood Bar in Dundrum for my birthday. The food was excellent as usual, but the plain wooden chairs were very hard on me. I try and go for regular easy walks, accompanying T part-way down the lane. She is now in charge of dog walking.

One of my presents was a Fitbit, a device which records how many steps you take a day. I was surprised how many steps I took just around the house. But the distances that it calculates for you are problematic, as the type of steps you take around the house and when out walking are very different. The Fitbit calculates the distance on a constant stride length. I’ve found that I have to set an average stride length that is significantly below my normal walking stride in order to get anywhere near an  approximate reading of how far I walk in a day (which currently is much less than I would be doing normally).

The most interesting reading that the Fitbit takes is its recording of your sleep patterns. Each morning it tells you how much time you spent awake, in light sleep, in REM (dreaming) sleep and in deep sleep. I believe it calculates the stages of sleep from pulse readings and the episodes of wakening from the motion sensor. So if you are awake and unmoving it will record that as light sleep. Each morning I look forward to seeing its calculation of the types of sleep I had. And its calculations of how little or much REM and deep sleep I had seems to correlate well with how tired I feel on waking. 

Over the week we have both been catching up on our sleep. T has been sleeping in and reading in bed till noon. Although I would tend to get up rather than lie in, I’ve taken to having afternoon naps again. There is an old saying which goes something like, when you begin to rest you find out just how tired you actually are. This week we’ve both discovered that we have been pretty run down.  We could both probably do with another week of good rest.