Tuesday morning dawns …. well, it’s been a long time coming as I mentioned yesterday as sleep was very hard to come.  Anyhow, time to get my act together and get up and have a shower and wash and blow dry my hair – that always makes one feel more human I believe.

So, that job done, I do my static exercises, I don’t think I have mentioned these yet.  There are four exercises to do whilst lying in bed – at least they are exercises and it gets me quite pumped to think I am actually allowed to move.  So here they are:

Heel pumps – basically lying down and performing ankle flexion

Quad squeeze – lying down and squeezing your quads to push the backs of your knees into the mattress

Knee bends – lying down bending one knee, keeping foot flat on the mattress and sliding heel up towards buttocks as far as possible and back down again

Buttock squeezes – so basically glute squeeze holding for 5 seconds then releasing.

Each of these above exercises to be done every hour 10 reps each

Breakfast arrives – scrambled eggs and tomato, protein bread and black coffee – delicious way to start the day.  I should add the coffee doesn’t come from the catering staff but from my trusty training partner who pops in each morning after her gym session and brings me a lovely fresh large coffee.

Another round of injections and blood pressure checks, tablets and questions on my general wellbeing.

The physio arrives for my daily walk.  He rocks up with crutches and I ask if we can please go with the walking stick instead.  A little thought goes into this request, but eventually he acquieces and we set off round the corridors of the hospital.  When we have done a couple of laps, he suggests a go at the stairs to see how we progress.  Seems pretty easy going up – coming down needs a little more concentration.

I am now progressing extremely well I am told and can move onto some new exercises whilst still doing the bed based exercises.  So here are the new ones

Standing hip flexion, standing hip abduction, hip extension, mini squats, hip hitching (basically raising your hip bone upwards keeping leg straight), hip flexor stretch and glute bridges.  If nothing else, these exercises fill in time and need to be completed three times a day and the ward walks 2 or 3 times morning and afternoon.

Not much happening today around the rooms, I am waiting for the endocrinologist to visit – Dr Chen.  I have been told it will be this afternoon which can stretch to 10 pm in a hospital and is still considered afternoon.  There seems to be confusion as to when I will be going to Waratah Private hospital for rehab.  This is also dependent on the Dr Chen visit.  My legs are so swollen and rock hard as is my stomach and nobody seems to know why or how to fix this just that it will fix itself at some point!!

My first bad bad meal – everything looked grey on the plate and was almost undistinguishable between the grey fish, grey mash and grey cauliflower.  Think I’ll give it a miss and have some emergency rations in the form of tomato, gluten free bread, avo, yoghurt and raspberries (not all in the same bowl I’ll have you know).

Mr Chen rocks up in a flurry at about 7.30 pm just as MKR is starting – bugger, I’ll miss the beginning.  He asks lots of questions and is unable to offer a reason or solution to my lack of cortisol, potassium and albumin in the blood until after we have done some tests.  He stops the intravenous cortisol and puts me on a lower dose tablet advising that blood will be taken in the morning as it needs to be fasting blood tests.  With that, he flurries out again.

MKR now my sole focus followed by The Good Doctor – a great evenings viewing.  Finish off with a couple of chapters of my book and then to see if I can sleep.  I’ll let you know tomorrow how I go….

Hippy Times … 🏋🏻‍♀️