4 March 2005

I didn't feel like getting up in the morning. I had to get up early because I had swim group at 9 a.m. and I had to be ready by 8.15 a.m. for taxi pick up. It was still quite dark when I got up. Lillian seemed to be a bit better this morning so Tim decided to take her to childcare. They left before my taxi arrived. The taxi didn't turn up at 8.30 a.m. and I thought if I had to share it with other people like last week it might be a bit later than that. I waited anxiously in the study and finally, I saw a taxi coming from the other side of the road. I thought it might be for me so I quickly closed the blinds, pick up my bag and stick and opened the door. I was a bit upset that the taxi didn't stop right in front of our house but a few houses down. I rushed to it and was cursing it all the way. I thought it was a bit strange that there were no other passengers in the taxi. It turned out that this taxi was for no.53 - a few houses down from us. I wondered where my taxi was because it was so close to 9.00 a.m. A few minutes later, I saw another taxi coming from the other side of the street and this time, it was for me.

My swim group had not started when I got there - I was a bit surprised because it was already 9.05 a.m. Yvette turned up a bit later and told us all to get in the pool. There was another new person joining us today. Yvette asked me wha would I like to achieve from this. I didn't tell her that this is the last time I'm in the swim group at MECRS because I'm going to Epworth next week. I told her that I just want to do what I was doing before - breast stroke with my head above the water. She got me do to a little bit of that but I kept going around in a circle - my right arm and leg were doing all the work. She got me to practice just using my arms only with a float around me - this made me feel like a little kid just starting to swim. After a while, I was able to go more in a straight line and not around in a circle anymore. I think this has been good exercise for me and felt a bit sad that this would be the last time for me to attend.

After the swim group, I had a quick shower and went up to my gym session. Yvette was with another patient so she told me to start with the bike. This puzzled me a little bit - I thought I made it clear the other day that I have an exercise bike and a treadmill at home and I don't need to do those when I'm here! I didn't want to argue with her so I hopped on the exercise bike unwillingly. After about 10 minutes, Edna came over and told me to stop the bike and she got me to do the treadmill. I felt like asking her which part of "I don't need to do treadmill and bike here " don't they understand but I thought there's no point offending them anyway since I'm finishing up here anyway. In a way, I'm glad that I didn't have a good session at the gym because I won't have any regrets in going to Epworth. There's nothing I'll miss about this place.

In the afternoon, I had an appointment with Dale, the social worker. I told him about how Catherine's comments upset me. He thinks it's good that I don't see myself as a disabled person. He said a lot of people he dealt with felt like that - nobody likes to be labelled as disabled. He always reminds me what I was like when he first met me - I was not able to get to the taxi from the house because I couldn't walk down the curb without help. I've almost forgotten how little I could do when I first got home 6 months ago. I think I'm going to miss our coffee sessions.