7 October 2005

I don’t know what happened to me yesterday because I just felt tired the whole day and had no energy. I did a little bit of running and jumping practice in the morning before I saw Judy, the massage therapist. I felt much worse after my massage. My whole left side was aching (which is quite normal) and I couldn’t and didn’t do any physical exercises. I spent the rest of the day fixing up a corrupt MYOB file for one of Tim’s entities – probably not the most exciting thing to do. I actually felt a lot worse in the evening and even Tim thought I felt a bit warm and I probably had a tempature. I took some panadols and went to bed early. I think sometimes it’s hard for me to tell if my muscle aches are due to exercises or a sympton of flu because there has not been a day that I don’t get muscle pains from exercising or even just walking.

I went to my physio session at Epworth this morning. I’m panicking a bit because Gavin is going away for two months in less than two weeks. I have all these questions that need to be answered. I actually made a list of them in my notebook just so I don’t forget:

1. I need to confirm with him that my the research I’ve done in relation to my hip weakness is correct. Ie. Is it because the weakness in my hip abductors and external rotators (gleutus medius) that my knee tends to internally rotate when I’m on the leg press or on the trampoline?

2. I tend to circumduct (swing out) the left leg when I go upstairs and is this also linked to the weakness in the hip, gluteus medius?

3. He mentioned that my calf is not shortened, it’s just I don’t know how to release the muscle so when I’m sitting, if I put my leg back the heel is not touching the ground. Judy said I should find out how do I release the muscle.

4. My left knee tends to buckle when I shift weight on it but I can actually straighten my knee when I’m standing on a wedge (for calf stretch). Why is that the case.

It might make me sounds like I’m full of questions but I truly believe that I’ll recover better if I have answers to all my questions. I’m not sure if I’ll have a chance to ask him all the questions but if I write them down I can probably ask Prema when I see her next time.

When I went to the physio treatment room, I was surprised to find Gary was there already. I don’t actually mind him that much these days. I asked him if he watched Catalyst on ABC last night. I didn’t think he would, I think it’s a bit too intellectual for most people. There was an interesting segment on it last night – about nerve regrowth in people who had spinal injuries.

I was doing the running and jumping practice today – on the trampoline, in the walking rails and in the middle of the room. I actually noticed something today when I was doing my running practice on the trampoline. I think I might have been too harsh on Gary in thinking that he has a big mouth and doesn’t shut up. I noticed today that Gavin is quite a chatter box as well. He would get Gary to do a few stands and then some rest. When Gary was resting, he just wouldn’t shut up. At one stage, I was very tempted to tell him to shut up so I can concentrate on my practice. Fortunately, I was able to switch off after a while so it becomes like having radio in the background.

I told Gavin that I saw my neurosurgeon, Prof Kaye, a few weeks ago and he was very happy with my progress and he thought my physio had done a good job. I then went on and told him something I probably shouldn’t have – I told him this incident at MECRS when Prof Kaye came to visit me and questioned the physio, Jane, about what has been done about my arm and Jane was so upset that she lodged a complaint against him. I thought he may have heard about this from Fary Khan and then John Olver anyway but apparently not. I’m not sure if this has upset him because he said that even if my neurosurgeon thinks he’s done a bad job, he doesn’t care. I thought the comment was a bit arrogant. Maybe he is empathetic about a fellow physio. This is quite different from the accounting culture. Accountants usually bag other accountants from another firm – we tend to blame the client’s previous accountants for ‘stuffing up’. He said he probably knows Jane but cannot remember her face. He asked me what I thought of Jane. I really don’t have anything nice to say about the staff at MECRS. I told him that I didn’t think she was very good and worse still, they were all so negative about my recovery. Gary joined in and said he felt the same about Royal Talbot that the consultant there told him that he’d never walk again. We then went on about how they shouldn’t kill people’s hopes and bagged all the ones who did. I complained to Gavin that Jane told me it would probably take me two to five years or maybe never to be able to drink a cup of tea with my left hand. Thanks to Neil and Rosemary that I can do that in Five months or there about. Gavin said it’s more of a culture thing and at Epworth the therapists don’t usually say that. I wonder if they think that way though. He then turned around and said to me that John (Olver) usually tells people that it’s hard to tell rather than ‘never’ because it is often hard to tell with brain injuries. I actually had something nasty to say about him but was able stop myself from saying it. John was the one who told Tim that people who have brain injuries can ‘never’ have normal gait again. I think I’m in this ‘business’ long enough to know when to switch off and filter out all the negative comments.

I didn’t actually have a chance to ask Gavin all the questions I had (as I predicted) because he was rushing to go to a meeting. I have to find a way to have all my questions answered next week.