achieved

Just recently there have been some things I have achieved that I feel help to mark progress on the road to recovery. I am aware that these are things that in more people's worlds are normal and everyday, but for me they are not, and are a step forward.

- I am now walking nine minutes a day. It is a four and half minutes along the road and turn round and four and a half minutes back. Due to the nature of the roads around us there are no round routes to walk round. At first I felt silly walking along turning around and going back. But i Have managed to get over that.

- I am swimming once a week, and managing to do a fair bit of actual swimming. And when I get home I need a rest but I don't feel shattered.

- I drove the car today and yesterday. Today was much more challenging because I was a bit tired from yesterday, so I had to turn off everything apart from the engine coz even the background noise of the air coming through the vents was too much.

- I went to Sainsbury's on my own. This meant I was out of the house on my own. And I had to make decisions about what to buy all by myself. And two of those decisions were lovely new items of clothes for me. And I managed to have some fun chat with the till lady.

- I went to the doctors all by myself. I am rubbish at even going out of the house by myself, let along somewhere that means I have to converse a doctor and listen properly to give him the information he needs to help me get better.

- I got really wiped out last weekend, but through careful management and pacing I have now pulled myself back to the point where I was before the weekend. I was so convinced after last weekend that I had gone so many steps back that it would take me weeks to recover. But it hasn't, and I shall know that in the future.