Views from the couch

The floral wreath hanging in our living room window, reflected in the afternoon sun on our living room wall.

Pain

Well, what a week it's been. I've always had a weak back since I took a fall from a stool at high school but it's mostly been manageable. Last Saturday, after having had an exercise stress test on Friday on a treadmill that was set at just a little too fast a speed, I found I couldn't sit down at breakfast without leaning to one side. By Sunday night, I was in the emergency department of our local hospital in more pain than I've - literally - been in in my entire life.

Sciatica.

I have basically been lying on my side on the bed for a week except for going out to see my local doctor twice as well as the physiotherapist. I have taken more painkillers in the last week than I have taken ever. Morphine, apparently, but no morphean flights of fancy for me! No - just fuzzy pain, as opposed to pain neat and on the rocks. I have slept fitfully and eaten little.

But, but. I am starting pull out of it. And I cannot tell you how purely and simply good that makes me feel. I can now sit at the computer for more than two seconds, I am walking more and I am even able to concentrate on a book. And I have realised just how wonderful and precious it is to have a gorgeous husband and two beautiful parents who have made me toast, bought groceries, let me cry and scream, helped me in and out of pyjamas and read aloud to me.

The colour is coming back into my little patch of the Wood, and on this hard journey, I have truly seen the things that really matter.

Every Day a New Beginning

Back on deck and feeling a lot better, thanks in large part to a course of antibiotics. Thank you for your kind wishes! While taking some enforced time out, I have been dipping in and out of a lovely little book by Stephanie Dowrick called Every Day a New Beginning. A lot of what she says seems simple and yet is difficult to take on board. For example:

It is not a failure of self-encouragement to feel sad. Sadness is appropriate in many situations. Sadness can also be a useful invitation to look into a complex situation more deeply.

In this sweet-and-sour year I've been having, I've found this to be very true. As trite as it may sound, in sadness, one can also realise how much there is to be happy about. I think that sometimes we need that jolt, that plunge into the depths, to realise what is really around us. Have a Happy Monday :)