Thoughts from the outside

It’s been a week since I moved back home from the Epworth and I’ve had some more time to myself for sleeping (thank god), thinking and catching up with friends. I’ve also had lots of quality couch time :)

I’ve had so many lovely texts and calls checking in on me to make sure I’m ok. I’ve had grocery deliveries (thanks Alex), lasagne deliveries (thanks Lizzie), cake deliveries (thanks Nic) and online shopping deliveries (thanks Aus Post).

There’s also been plenty of sudoku, I don’t think I’ll ever tire of it.

I’ve also been into work to say hi and catch up on news and views. The highlight without doubt has been my visit today - the guys helped me spice up my crutches a bit with some gold paint. Epic! They’ve been so, so good throughout this whole episode, I’m very fortunate to be able to call them my colleagues and friends.

I received a call from the TAC today to let me know my outpatient services have been approved for funding. I should hear from the Epworth in the coming days to get my timetable and further details on when I’ll be heading in next. My care coordinator Liz said “you’ll be very busy” so I’m looking forward to seeing what’s lined up.

The move home generally went well, I’m doing well and feel confident moving around the house thanks to all the help from the OTs to setup my flat with tools and tricks. I can shuffle around my flat pretty well but any further than a couple of metres and I need my crutches for support. My back gets pretty sore during the day, especially if I’ve been in a car or if I’ve been standing for long periods. I met with my new GP on Monday, Dr Laura Lallenec from the Alphington Sports Med practice. She’s lovely and incredibly competent, so I feel confident that I’m in the right hands. She’ll be my new Josh, so predominately looking after my painkillers, my progression and helping to support and coordinate the other service providers.

The first goal is to get off the opioid painkillers I’m still taking as they’re rather addictive and need to be managed carefully. We have a plan for swapping day relievers out first, then eventually the night ones. We’re also looking towards my next scans on the 30th May and my follow up appointment with Dr Curry (leg surgeon) on the 2nd June to confirm my hip has healed well. Between physio, hydro, OT, vocational OT, social worker, GP and surgeon, I think I’ll be well looked after!

To get my dose of pet therapy, all I need to do is head into work to visit Evan’s dog Haki. She comes inside and hangs out, chatting with everyone.

I’m missing the 3x week chats with Dr Walterfang. His visits were always so beneficial and really helped me work through what’s been on my mind. I’ll still see him as an outpatient but for the past week I’ve been left to my own devices, so read on at your own discretion.

I guess at the moment I feel like I’m a living contradiction, jumping between what I am feeling, what I think I should be feeling and anticipation from wondering what doing ‘x’ will feel like. There’s the tiredness, anxiety, restlessness and hopelessness, yet there’s also moments of relaxation, determination and curiosity. I feel like I’ve been craving the peace and quiet of home for so long that now that I have it, I wonder what specifically I was after out of it. I think it was mostly wanting a clear headspace, feeling like I had the time and environment to just sit and rake through the volumes of thoughts that have occupied my mind since February. Some have been resolved or dismissed while others have been lingering more noisily than others. Squeaky wheel gets the grease, right?

Along the way I’ve had this thought that I’m the author of this journey that has been indelibly written in my mind and shared through my blog. However there have been others who have chosen to ‘contribute’ in their own ways. I can laugh about some of them - the very common “when I broke my big toe/had the flu, I did XYZ, I know exactly how you feel” - but then there’s the words of advice, guidance and expectation. So while I’ve been editing my own thoughts, I’ve also had to wordsmith others contributions too. Some have helped enormously and I’d like to think they’ve recognised when I’ve appreciated their thoughts, while other times I’ve tried to act like teflon and let the comments go unnoticed despite hitting me hard.

There are also the thoughts that typically centre on identity, ‘what ifs’ and ‘what next’s’ stemming from an insurmountable pressure I put on myself. The majority of these thoughts come from the word should. I should feel like this, I should act like this, I should have known that. Everyone has to manage their own expectations and I’m certainly not suggesting that I’m the only one who has to try and balance self vs others. Sometimes it just feels like what I should be doing is so far from what I am doing, it generally points to failure. For a while there I felt like I’d failed my recovery because I hadn’t been positive enough - how nuts is that.

These days I’m more of a contradiction - restful vs restless. For the former, there are some days that I sit in the Bermuda Triangle - a blank space occupied by neither myself nor others. I might be quietly staring into space what I’ll be like once I’m “better” but I’ll repeat in my mind “just focus on getting better” with no expectation to actually do anything useful. On these days I feel relaxed, yet empty. I feel like I’m striving for something I can’t see so I don’t bother thinking and absorb myself in Netflix. No wonder I’ve worked through 300 hours of content!

Then there are days where the weight of expectation is enormous and I feel so much pressure to figure out who I think I should be. I think I know who I “was” - I know I wasn’t really that happy with myself a lot of the time because I thought I could always do better. As a result, I keep asking myself - Who will I be when this is all done? What will I be doing, what will I enjoy and what will be different? I’ve felt pressure to have this revelation during my time off like you wouldn’t believe. Wondering turned into worry and I was terrified last week that I was leaving the Epworth without having all the answers. I was reassured from the doctors that you’re never going to have all the answers when you leave because the journey doesn’t end there, which did make me feel better. However I am now faced with the question, “well, when does it end and what if I run out of time?”. I see a few milestones in the future - returning to work, losing the crutches, finishing up with physiotherapy - and worry that I still won’t have all the answers when these come around.

I’ve been trying to solve one of my biggest questions - what does better look like? I think it’s being happier in myself in the moment, having the confidence to know I’m heading in the right direction and the curiosity to seek out experiences that I know will challenge yet reward me. It’s taking initiative when things aren’t going right and taking more responsibility in my own direction. I think in the type of work I had been involved with, it’s so easy to fall into the vacuum of “going with the flow” and not giving enough thought about whether it’s in the right direction. I feel like I’ve been floating downhill steadily, hitting a few rocks on the way (some bigger than others), yet not pulling over to look at the map to see where I went off the trail. I don’t think we ever know what the end goal is but it’s having the markers laid out to give some purpose for how we spend our days. There were a few events in recent years that I probably could have recognised as weighing me down but in pursuit of ‘greater good’ I didn’t take a break and kept plodding along.

What this future person will look like, I’m not sure. Will I be a comeback person, who doesn’t let a car door get in the way of previous ambitions with my bike. Or do I let it go, take a clean break and forge ahead in a completely different direction? What’s the better choice for me and for my future? I have no idea and I’m not sure if I’ll ever know. I’m trying not to think about it but naturally it continues to be an open question. I made one big bike decision yesterday. I received a phone call from Richmond Police saying they still had my bike. I went into the station and didn’t really know what it would look like given I’d been dragged 7m up the road. Sure enough, hardly any scratches at all, just a scuff on the seat and the bars were out of alignment with the front wheel. Incredible huh, I definitely came out worse.

I had the choice of taking the bike (well, calling someone to see if they could help me collect it), or just letting it go. I decided to leave the bike with the police. I’ve already lost one bike thanks to the irritating person who broke into my storage cage while I was in hospital and the thought of keeping this one didn’t really appeal. I asked the police if they could donate it to a community group or if they could give it a second life, which they assured me they could, so I’m glad someone who doesn’t know the history behind it will get the chance to enjoy it. I’m sure if I do decide to get back on the bike, I’d want to head out on a fresh one.

As a final note, the above is 100% a stream of consciousness paired with a keyboard bash session - please don’t take it as any more than me letting some words drift onto the page. I’m simply trying to shed some light into the either vacant or cluttered state of my thinking! It’s a blunt post, I’ll admit, but I thought it was worth writing down while I’m working through it as often putting pen to paper is the best way to rationalise these thoughts. If you’ve made it this far, I’m impressed but please don’t take any of the above to heart :)