Mind over matter

An interesting thing has come to my attention this week. For the last few weeks my leg has been giving me trouble, ie. pain. I have started having remedial massage therapy to try and break down the scar tissue on the muscle on the outer thigh, just two sessions so far. It hurts quite a lot while she is doing it, but feels amazing afterwards - no pain at all! But then it wears off after a couple of days.

This week, my mother has gone down with pneumonia again, and the dog has contracted gastro-enteritis, so I've had a bit to think about. Thankfully Mum has been transferred to hospital, later than she should have been. My poor father had to cope with a couple of falls and confusion caused by low oxygen levels, it's a good thing we live close by and they have other good friends who stood in while we were away at the weekend. Now at least Mum will get the treatment she needs.

Meanwhile Django became ill on Sunday while we were away and the vet thinks it is gastro-enteritis, his kidneys, liver and bloods looking generally ok. There is one more test to do for his pancreas which we have not had the results for yet. So, he has an upset tummy and right now he can't go into kennels as was planned this weekend.

So, the interesting thing I have noticed is that while I've been worrying about Mum and Django my leg has been hurting less. Even after some lawn-mowing yesterday evening, and having forgotten to take the Dihydrocodeine the last two days.

I think this goes to show how powerful a painkiller distraction can be!

Pushing the limits

I'm just back from the gym and for the first time in 5 weeks I was in tears in a class because I'd overdone it and my hip hurt and I hate that it is still controlling my limits after 2 years.  

It was my own fault.  So far in my gym classes I've been quite wary of anything that *might* hurt, ie. star jumps, running etc. Today for some reason I thought "well I've got to try it sometime" and for a bit it was ok, but then it all went wrong.

I've taken two steps forward over the last month, I guess this was my one step back.. time to back off a bit again.

But if we never push ourselves to our limits, how do we find out what our limits are....?