Forgoing the walk

I decided to give the walk a miss this morning, just as I did on the day of the book launch. I am conserving my energy. Whether I need to or not, I am not sure but have found I am still not that good on my feet and get tired easily. I have a healing coming up at 11 and I wanted to be fresh for this and do some of the bigger housework jobs before my client arrived.

I figured I can still walk in the afternoon, if I feel thus inclined. The whole purpose of these walks is to regain some of the fitness I had before the pericarditis. Those days, I was massaging several clients a day and that kept my fitness up. It is nearly four years since I first got sick and two of those, I was virtually bed ridden. I am surprised that I am not fitter than I am and this hit home last week when I asked Stephen to drop me off and I would walk to the house he was visiting. Part of this walk entailed negotiating a reasonably steep hill, which I found extremely difficult and had to ring Stephen to pick me up midway along. Obviously, I need to include some hill work in my fitness as the beach is always flat and even though I have got used to that walk, I have not increased the distance. Perhaps I should.

When I had the heart MRI last year, it showed there was no permanent heart damage, though still a mild pericardial effusion. Perhaps this is still there and responsible for my ongoing tiredness. But it wasn’t enough to concern the cardiologist, who does not wish to see me again.

After my first bout of pericarditis, 13 years ago, I came right after six or seven months. I was training then to be a massage therapist and was able to go straight into work when the course ended. This time, the recovery has been a lot slower, and the condition a lot longer to abate. Perhaps this is because I am older, or maybe, something else.

The familiar phrase, use it or lose it, sits at the back of my subconscious. If I let myself be old prematurely, I know I will only get worse so it is this that spurs me on with these walks. It is so easy to stop for one reason or another, but I know if I do this, then I will not recoup that fitness. Several years ago, I did 12 months of yoga, stopping when I broke my ankle. During this period, I was so supple and all my back issues disappeared. I keep telling myself, I will start yoga again soon. But I have been saying that for far too long.

I like the words I saw on Facebook the other day. Just do one, one stretch, one, pose, one of anything. The next day, do one more of each of these. That sounds so damn simple, yet it is that first ‘one’ that is the difficult one. Perhaps after writing this, I will go and do that first downward dog.