Tonight is the first in a several-month-long series of evening classes for leigh. She’s repeating a 4-unit maths professional development course because the fabulous and incredibly organised Teachers’ Institute didn’t get around to accrediting it last year so none of the hours she devoted to it count towards her mandatory PD total. This year it is accredited, but even though the course is *identical*, they won’t backdate.
Leigh could have chosen to make up the hours doing something new, but she found the course so useful last year that she was sure she’d get something out of it again, so we’re back to solo Tuesdays for a while.
So, anyway, I was already kind of dreading today because it meant I’d be on my own for breakfast, lunch, dinner and bedtime. It’s un-fun, but the kids are of course a year older than the last time we did this, so it shouldn’t be so bad.
But, alas, today has so far managed to be even more craptacular than anticipated, right from the get-go.
At about 6.30 am Hunter came into my bed for a snuggle. I opened my eyes and the room spun. So I closed them and tried again. More spinning. Hunter wanted to come out to the loungeroom so I went to open the door for her and was so dizzy I could barely stay upright.
I left her watching TV for half an hour while I went back to bed. I thought the dizzy might have been a woken-suddenly or not-enough-sleep thing, but when Hugo woke me the next time it was still there.
I was also starting to feel clammy and vaguely nauseous and thought maybe I should see if leigh would pull a sickie and stay home. Then I remembered she’d gone swimming and had already left the house.
I managed to get the kids breakfast and let them feed themselves while I flopped on the couch. After a while I told them we might not be able to go to playgroup because mummy didn’t feel well. They both bawled like it was the worst news they ever heard.
‘Fortunately’ for me, I only had time to listen to a few moments of heart wrenching sobs before I had to run off to the bathroom for the puking to begin. When it subsided, I rested my head on the tiled wall and wondered how I was ever going to get through this long day.
As it turned out, I did start to feel better post-puke, and about an hour later I decided we would go to playgroup after all. I wasn’t 100% but I was okay, and I knew playgroup would at least keep them busy for a while.
As the morning wore on I felt much better and was pretty much back to normal by the end of preschool.
Except for my knee.
I started an exercise program last week and while it’s been going well in terms of me being able to keep up and not collapse from sheer lack of fitness, I have been having trouble with my right knee.
First time out was fine. Second time, a little niggle. Third time, pain and tenderness that hasn’t completely subsided after two days.
Fourth day out, Saturday just gone, it was pretty painful by the time I got home and it has been stiff and sore ever since. I can’t say I had seen a lot of improvement between then and now (Tuesday).
So I invested in a $220 pair of running shoes, bought a knee stabiliser, iced my knee several times a day, have been doing all the recommended stretches and applying voltaren.
Today I thought I’d try it out and just see how I went taking it gently. I got through the five minute warm up walk but did not last even 10 seconds into the first run.
I’m really disheartened and don’t know what to do. If I can hurt myself this much with just the introductory week, what’s the point? I can’t walk up two steps without wincing at the moment and bending down to do anything is a special kind of torture.
But I don’t want to quit at the first hurdle either, so now I am torn.
I’m going to give it a few days of real rest and then re-assess.
Meanwhile, it’s time to start the bedtime routine, which is almost guaranteed to be the icing on the cake today.
It's not easy being green (and pink) 
Bionic Brooklynite said,
August 4, 2009 @ 11:50 pm
Man, you are a trooper to do all that after waking up so sick!
Please don’t keep doing the running until you get someone to look at your knee. Please? It’s not “quitting” — it’s taking reasonable care of yourself, which is the point of exercise anyway, isn’t it?
I wrecked my feet (and very nearly my knees and hips) by running through pain, thinking I was just a wimp and that a better person wouldn’t hurt, so I should just tough it out. The result was ages and ages of ugly shoes, drugs, ice, and tiresome exercises, when it probably could have been only a little bit of same if I’d had the sense to ask for help when I first started hurting, instead of soldiering on and making my injury more severe. Be smarter than I am.