Extreme Knitting Redhead: Adventures in August

Thursday, August 25, 2022

Adventures in August

It should have been so simple; eat, sleep, run, repeat in training for my 10 marathons in 10 days. But that didn't take into account the exceedingly dry weather which made stiles wobbly and already unsecure footplates unsteady. I was running well, it was hot but bearable, everything felt good. When I placed my foot carefully onto the top footplate of a stile I suddenly found myself lying on the rock-hard ground with my left leg bent in a strange manner with my left food underneath it but twisted onto its side. Ouch, I shouted at the Universe! I observed my foot and thought it didn't look quite right and I wasn't wrong. I found just how sore it was as soon as I stood up. Oh bother, that meant I had to limp 3 miles across the fields to get home. I phoned Mike to let him know I was coming home slowly but didn't tell him what had happened as he would have freaked out with worry, bless him. By the time I was about .5 mile from home it stsrted hurting and was stiffening up. Hmmm, not a good sign. On further investigation at home it had started to swell up and there were signs of bruising all over the place. This was 2 weeks before my 10 in 10 and was a bit of a shock to say the least! So straight away I started following the RICE protocol which means Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation. I sought advice from all my running chums and they rallied round with lots of helpful suggestions such a Arnica cream for the bruising, Kale soup for healing, hot/cold treatment on the areas affected,Ibuprofen to reduce the swelling. I've been using my wobble board to get back the muscle memory that I've lost due to the sprain. It's great for proprioception and I'm starting to heal nicely now. The sad thing is that I wasn't recovered enough for the 10in10 so have had to postpone to a different one later in the year. In completing the 10 days I will have climbed circa 28,000ft - YIKES! Hopefully I'll be back out training again very soon. With apologies for the formatting but blogger isn't very helpful since it was taken over by Google!

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Mum's Story

In 1997 my mother, then aged 81, had a series of minor strokes. Shortly after that we started to notice behavioural changes notably memory loss and confusion over everyday items. We thought it was just old age finally catching up with her. Then she started wandering and had violent mood swings. Although she already lived with us it became obvious that she couldn't be left alone for long and so I left my job to care for her. The next few years saw a gradual decline into the blackness that is 'vascular dementia'. My normally placid mum became violent and aggressive. She had psychotic incidents where she would see imaginary people (children hiding in her wardrobe, Russians sitting on the stairs, women stealing her clothes) and she would shout at them and sometimes throw things too. She was so convincing that we used to go and check that there wasn't anyone there! When my sister died mum did not know who Judy was or that she was her daughter. There came a point when I suddenly realised she no longer knew that I was her daughter and this was a terrible time for me. In the last 2 years that she lived with us, life for us all became almost unbearable as she needed 24 hour care - she couldn't be left alone at all because she would either wander off or hurt herself, she never slept for more than 30 minutes at a time during the night, she became incontinent and incapable of doing anything for herself. Finally my husband and I realised that we could no longer provide her with the care that she needed and she went to live in a special care home where the team did a splendid job caring for her in the last few months of her life. There she lived a zombified existence unaware of who she was, what she was or where she was. It was heartbreaking. She died in March 2005, the day after her 89th birthday.

Thank you for taking the time to read mum's story and I hope you'll dig deep and sponsor me using the link below to help find a way of beating this destructive disease.