Day 069 – Doctor Visit

Welcome to Day 69!

It was a busy day.  There was a visit to the doctor some cookie baking, work for work, and the holding of a mindfulness session. 

Beginning with the doctor’s visit.  Rocked up and COVID has left its mark on the doctor’s office.  There’s the expected sanitizer bottle greeting you at the entrance.  You grab a seat and one of the admin crew rocks up with a thermometer to take your temperature.  Because I was seeing the doctor, I pulled out my mask for the wellbeing of all concerned.  Walked in to see the doctor and she was also predictably wearing a mask.

This got me thinking whether mask wearing is something doctors will continue to do even after COVID has moved on. It would make sense for this to be the case, after all doctors are always coming into contact with patients with all sorts of symptoms.  Although precautions were being taken even before COVID arrived on the scene anyway.  

A quick blood pressure test showed it was perfect.  Then onto the swelling of the feet. Turns out that the recent humidity is one of the culprits (yes, we’re in Australia and we’re leaving summer heading into autumn).  In addition to the humidity, the long days and late nights didn’t help the swelling situation. The doctor recommended to turn the air-conditioning on for a while when it gets humid, elevate the foot for the next couple of days, preferably above the heart on balance with using the ankle as much as possible. I was to book in to see a physiotherapist for additional advice on ankle recovery taking the knee pain into account.

The knee pain has probably occurred as a result of hyperextending the knee while elevating it at my desk (there’s no support under the knee, just where my ankle is).  When the large moon boot got fitted it was the last thing the knee needed, and it’s been painful ever since.      

Present year excepted; my doctor visits are rare – which is a shame because she’s so lovely. Anyway, she suggested now that I’m getting older 🙄, it would be a good idea to get a bone density test.  She didn’t think the fracture was anything serious, but the density test will provide confirmation nothing sinister is there or on the horizon.  There were a couple of other things discussed and it got me a referral for a blood test. My index finger hadn’t felt the same since the broken ankle. So, that’s a referral for another x-ray.  

Back from the doc and I was feelin’ good.  Feet were great from the extra sleep and elevation.  Guess what I wanted to do, bake cookies.  Before heading back into the office, I whipped up a batch of cookies.  Only problem was, while “whipping” around without the moon boot (snail pace), forgot about the ankle and fully stretched one of those really tight knotted ankle muscles.  The pain was excruciating 😫!  

To put the pain into perspective, on a pain scale of one to ten, where ten is fainting from the pain, and one is lightly knocking your elbow, the pain level hit nine for at least five minutes.  After the woozy feeling passed and vision returned, I hobbled to the lounge (not far) and swore at my stupidity.   The pain settled to about a six on the pain scale, and even while writing this it was still there.  Admittedly, I avoid taking painkillers 24 hours a day for weeks on end, so they’re reserved for sleeping whenever possible – I took some now.  

The mission of going to the office was to try and disperse some of the work, so it wouldn’t lapse.  I kept needing to centre myself.  This was handy because, I’d agreed to run a mindfulness session today at work.  In today’s mindfulness session, I decided to teach a mindful technique for “instant” in-the-momentness.  of course, the catch is you need to at least do one mindfulness session to be able to create the instant for yourself.  It’s not a mindfulness or meditation session and therefore will most likely not provide the same benefits but sometimes it’s all you need to quickly centre and stay focussed.  Also, enlightenment takes but a moment, or so I’ve read somewhere … maybe in The Transformed Mind. 

Most people probably wouldn’t believe that I lacked confidence or was shy and for the most part I’m not.  When it comes to putting myself out there it’s another ball game.  It’s probably not shyness, it’s more fear-based rather than shy.  One day, I’ll write on the reasons I believe why.  For the moment, there are parts of me that struggle, particularly putting myself out there.  It’s probably really the reason, I haven’t found time for those socials yet.  Also, trying to find a way to have the website fund itself, and not have advertisers.  Recording my voice is not something I have enjoyed doing.  Up until a few years ago, singing SingStar was a blanket “No” – then you couldn’t keep me away! 

Perhaps, SingStar was a way to break through that barrier, because I’m getting better with recording my voice or me. So, this time, I voice recorded the mindfulness session and posted it at work for anyone there to access.  I’m quite proud of myself for ripping off that Band-Aid.  For me the mindfulness session was the biggest part of the day, especially since the swelling turned out to be no big deal.