I’ve been using Advent to reflect on how I felt 2015 went for me. Rather than focus on the goals I set for 2015, this is more about the other stuff, the things that touched a nerve or places where I recognised that the issue was emotional and couldn’t be changed without some acknowledgement of that. The last two weeks have been about money and relationships, this week is all about health.
It’s worth separating this into two strands, mental and emotional health and physical health.
First mental and emotional health. I feel that I’m doing well here and that 2015 saw me in a really healthy place. I actually covered some of my ‘weak’ areas in the focus on money and relationships, I do have a tendency to isolate myself and to carry on as if nothing is wrong but generally my moods are even and I’ve gotten really good at recognising what’s going on with me and adjusting accordingly. This autumn was the first time in ages that I didn’t feel totally bent over due to SAD, which I thinks was because of the 6 weeks off to recover from the osteotomy and while I can’t do that every year, it gave me some perspective on it which I will try and carry into next year.
I guess the biggest change for me over the last 4 or so years is that I’m both happy and content. Sure, life isn’t as I imagined it and there is room for improvement, but I don’t feel that I’m doomed and I’m appreciative of the life I have. Part of that is knowing that it could be so much worse, part of it is that this year I made more of an effort to help others and get more involved in some different things, the allotment volunteer day, using one of my CSR days to go and help sort out the foodbank, babysitting and helping friends when I could.
Overall my physical health is pretty good, I eat well, my blood pressure is good for a woman my age (and really good if you factor in my weight!), my cholesterol levels are ok, I’m active and walk a lot. Introducing the 35 minute walk on the way to and from work, has also had a positive affect on my mental health too, as did the regular Body Balance classes that I did earlier in the year.
One of the lovely things about the osteotomy was how positive the health professionals were about my general health, they were expecting bad things and apart from my weight I was within all the normal parameters. My weight may become more of an issue as I age though and before the osteotomy, I was just at the cusp of being uncomfortable about it. Oddly enough the six weeks stuck indoors while my foot got better has been instructive. I eat good things, I just eat too much of them. Portion size and boredom eating are my issues, six weeks on the couch helped me reset my eating a little and that needs to continue into 2016.
Despite being generally well, at the beginning of the year, I had the cold and cough that would not die and turned into a chest infection and a whole week off work and this year I’ve taken more antibiotics than I have in the previous 5 years! It seemed like I just couldn’t get better and my breathing has been wheezy for a good portion of this year. According to the doctor, I haven’t been alone, it’s been a bad year for coughs and colds, I notice that I seem to have a couple of years when I have really bad reactions to infection (coughs, tonsillitis, chest infections etc) and then go bad to just getting colds. So I can only hope that 2015 marks the end of the bad reactions!
Migraines are the other major recurring issue for me. I don’t like to talk about them in case it makes them worse. The thing is that I know what causes them, I get them about the same time each month and the doctor doesn’t think there is much I can do about them, basically I have to wait them out and in 10 or so years they’ll stop (no HRT for me!). Meanwhile, things I do notice, they are worse in winter (well isn’t everything) and when I don’t exercise. Worse is this scenario means harder to fend off and longer. Alcohol doesn’t seem to make them better or worse but sugar and caffeine can help stave them off when they are imminent.
The final health issue this year has been the osteotomy and recovery. It’s been the major issue in the last bit of the year. It wasn’t nearly as painful as I expected but I am and continue to be annoyed/surprised/frustrated by how long recovery is taking, while at the same time being impressed at how well the scar is healing. My foot is still swollen and walking is difficult. I’ve had to cancel my gym membership until July and accept that I will not be resuming my walking in January as I had hoped.
So overall, 2015 was a rough year for being ill but I’m not feeling too down about it because mentally I’m in good shape. I have a fair idea of what I need to do in 2016, which starts off with rehab for my foot, regular and consistent exercise and not eating more than I need.
The bag sits there and then when it’s full, the contents get dumped in the slow cooker. 
I fill the slow cooker up with water, switch to low and it sits there happily becoming stock for (and this is the bit people get a little bit funny about!) a couple of days. Look, it’s never made me sick, you may feel differently, in which case, put it all in a saucepan and do it all on the same day.
Once I decide it’s ready, I strain it into 1 and a half cup portions and freeze.
Anyway stock, simple, easy, free.
However, in my 40’s I’ve begun to notice that my skin around my eyes do have wrinkles and the skin doesn’t bounce back like it used to. Eye cream is one of those beauty products that feels expensive, I see those cute little pots and am shocked at the prices, it seems like a lot of money to spend if it doesn’t work and how am I going to know if it works? Sure you only use a little but then with the pots, there’s all that time I’m sticking my fingers in it. So I went for something lower down the scale and bought a bottle of the 
If anyone has a suggestion for an eye cream they swear by please let me know…
The cream, most of the potatoes and blueberries were used for the lunch on Saturday.
For the rest of the week, I intended to use what was in the freezer and the vegetables, fortunately there were a couple of things on for Christmas at work so I didn’t have to put too much thinking into meal planning for the week, thank goodness, because work was tiring and I didn’t have much brain space to think about it!
Thursday, I was out for another work Christmas lunch and I didn’t eat at home all day. Friday I was home resting my poorly foot and realised that the yogurt in the fridge was nearing it’s dead date so I made 
I’m very easily tired though and last week, as planned, featured three Christmas lunches and straight back into the big monthly meeting I minute and generally arrange it was much more tiring than I expected, I really could not have done any of it without my lovely colleagues who did most of the heavy lifting and running around (literally!)
Monday was the department lunch with bonus belly dancer! Tuesday and Wednesday were straightforward workdays. Thursday was big meeting in the morning and Christmas lunch with that team.
Ma and I got some of the Christmas food shopping done on the way back & bumped into my old primary school teacher at the same time!
Having said that, I have had a number of conversations this year about how self contained I am and how distant I can be. While I would love to dismiss this as stuff and nonsense when the two people you are most open with (your mother and the closest thing you have to a father) agree with each other, then you should probably reflect on it before you dismiss the criticism.
However, after Stef died it got worse and I became more cautious about trusting others. For friends that were around, I think it was generally difficult to cope with me at the time, I’m quite hard to read and my coping strategies didn’t help. Also, sticking by someone as they grieve is profoundly uncomfortable and hard to do, if you’re not in that space. For some it was too much and that, with a whole lot of other stuff lost me some friendships. There’s no blame here but at that point a switch flipped in my head and relationships became a hell of a lot easier for me to cope with, minus drama and overthinking but also minus expectation of emotional or physical support. While I was happy to offer it to other people, I didn’t show much of myself to others because I wasn’t sure that anyone was interested to know.
That habit has really solidified in the last couple of years as friends have got married and had kids and have other things to worry about. Honestly, I’m happy to talk about those things because it really isn’t all about me but it shouldn’t never be about me. I’ve had six weeks on a sofa and I can count the number of people who got in contact and visited me in that time on one hand and honestly, I can’t decide if I’m hurt or cross about it.
which means making 
If you don’t drive and anyway you can’t drive at all for the first two weeks or drive a manual car for 6 weeks. Sort out someone (friend/taxi etc) to pick you up from the hospital and transport you to and from your appointments. Which is the point that I thank my brother for coming all the way over in the cab and taking me to and from the hospital. That was great because Ma and Ben went for a coffee while I was having my stitches out! Also remember parking charges, I was in the hospital for about 55 minutes and it cost £6!
In the first two weeks, your foot should be raised above your pelvis about 95% of the time, including when you sleep. Don’t skip this, when I got out of hospital on the first day, I felt so good and thought it would be fine, however, the nurse had told me that I was to view myself as pretty much housebound for the first two weeks and that was good advice, it’s a pretty traumatic thing to do to your foot and it’s important that you give your body time to adjust and recover. It’s important for your healing that the blood goes to your foot so the only thing you can do, is put it up as much as possible and wait! I couldn’t wait to get the itchy bandage off and felt a lot better once I could see my foot, even though it looked terrible!
This is the hardest part, I just wanted to get better and quickly and everything stayed much the same for the first 3 or so weeks, but by the end of week 4 I was seeing real improvement in my ability to walk, move my foot, stand and have my foot down. I don’t think I would have if I had tried to do too much in the first weeks.
