JULY 30 — “This is how I die.”
That was my thought as the bus I was in made a sharp turn as I was standing.
A young man laughed at me when I held on for dear life, my sandals refusing to do more than slide across the floor of the bus.
It would have been easy to yell at his lack of concern but I just thought to myself, well, sooner or later his knees will come for him too.
Because I’d been going a little stir-crazy from not leaving the house in so long, I thought I’d drop in on a games-related event.
Apparently event organisers seem to think we all have working knees and can go on without sitting down for hours.
A pox on their joints.
I needed a few days to recover from that little jaunt.
Still I did have one good experience from it — one of my oldest and dearest friends was in town so we had tea at Tsutaya.
Tsutaya, unlike another chain bookstore I won’t name, has improved a lot since its opening.
There are so many seats, the cafe and seating area is clean, comfortable and very welcoming to the point my friend is keen to go back there again.
I think I will go back to bringing my cane along as I am rather tired of seeing people stare at me as I hobble, grimacing every few seconds.
It’s the next best thing to having a sign on my head saying “Cancer Patient Still Recovering from Surgery” and truth be told I don’t want to leave the house or go anywhere.
Yet this very painful reality is that I must move.
I took a week off from all the workouts because I was quite sick of everything and did not want to do another damn stretch, thanks very much.
The week is over and my hips feel as though they are made of rusty, clanking steel — this is what happens when you don’t do your stretches, Erna.
I am also quite irritable and semi-furious all the time probably because I am always in pain.
On the bright side, this probably means there aren’t large tumours sapping my energy because if there was one thing I noticed in the months before my diagnosis was I wasn’t getting angry.
I thought it was me getting older and wiser; no, it was just cancer.
What also irritates me is that accessible assistive tech or aids for the disabled have not improved all that much in the last couple of years.
Instead mega corporations are throwing billions at making technology to do things people should be able to do on their own, at least if they want to get good at something.
Even finding an affordable, adjustable walking cane has me going to Amazon US because my local choices are limited or too expensive.
Next month I will be at the hospital nearly every day and I’m not looking forward to the multiple journeys, standing for long stretches of time while trying not to fall.
My body is taking its own sweet time to heal and some days it is frustrating.
There are, I’m finding out, no shortcuts for healing and doing more stretches isn’t going to make me better faster.
No magic exercises, no miracle pills, just time and patience as well as a stubborn hope that I will in time stop walking like I need a hip replacement.
Perhaps I should also rejoice in this current tedium where there is nothing to report besides my being able to go down stairs a little faster, and that I’m no longer out of breath just standing on my mini-trampoline.
It’s progress and I’m grateful, the pain be damned.
Here’s to unexciting days and uneventful visits to the hospital, and the simple joys in being alive.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
