And that was Week 2

As I headed back from Wonky Bootcamp at the end of week 2, my mind was full of everything that we had done. I could feel that we had worked hard, with my body grumbling at me all over, but I also watched my WhatsApp go wild with messages of support and kindness from our group. I hadn’t even been gone an hour! There is something about the friendships that we have made on the ward that can’t quite be quantified. We are all very different people but, as chronic illness or injury warriors, we are all fighting through similar battles in our lives. It genuinely is ok not to be ok - whether you need a hug, or a cry, or to be left alone for some peace and quiet. You’re allowed to say that you hurt, or that you’re tired, and you know that the others understand the depths that such words so insufficiently convey in other situations. 

The “shoulder crew”, who have been going through a two week rehab to improve their function after upper-limb injuries, had finished their programme. While we have only known each other for eight ward nights, the experience is such an intense one that there are some really firm bonds, and we all cried when the time came to say goodbye. There were even promises of visits for next week! I don’t think that you can live with a bunch of warriors, each of whom has overcome massive obstacles during their rehab programmes (such as washing their own hair for the first time in years), without feeling a special connection with them. 

This middle week of rehab for the 3-weekers has been about getting into all the areas of life that our disabilities affect and looking for ways to find improvements. I’ve had some really interesting sessions with my Occupational Therapist on better techniques and aids for bathing, cooking, and trying to keep up hand/finger stamina. My physio has given me exercises that have me playing board games, and ball games (!), with the boys, all in the aid of strength and stamina. She also has big plans for next week and walking! As for my psychologist, we spoke about grieving for former life, about emotionally pushing through the new life, and about perfectionism - for which I got reading homework. Every day’s a school day!

In our group classroom sessions, we’ve looked into more depth at our bodies (studying anatomy and pain in the most relevant Biology lessons I’ve ever had!), at how to manage work-life and home-life, including relationships and communication skills, checking our understanding of medication, and looking at lifestyle tweaks like nutrition, postural aids, and sleep. We’ve had our daily mindful movement classes and looked at a range of relaxation styles to calm the tension caused by chronic pain. Everyone finds different sessions more or less difficult in terms of the emotional baggage that we carry, and we have all relied on one another to lift us out of black patches when a subject hits too close to home. This programme is not designed to skate over any aspect of life and, if you are able to be honest with the others in your group, you will get the most out of it. 

Two of the most “fun” hours we have had were a group session each of recreational movement and hydrotherapy. The former was an utterly bonkers hour of playing badminton, table tennis, and curling, alongside gentle stretching exercises and gym ball physio techniques. Even though we were constantly reminded to consider our pacing and our own physio programmes, it is suffice to say that we all totally overdid it - attempting to coax our bodies into maintaining rallies and the like was somewhat tricky! The idea of this was genuinely to encourage us to have fun and to see if we could let our subconscious take over with some natural movement, even if just for a couple of minutes at a time. As for hydrotherapy, that was once again a highlight - lovely warm water, well-balanced exercises, and a little time at the end for floating on noodles and having some free swimming space. 

One of the things that I love about this programme is that they do try to help you work out how to apply what you have learned in “real life”. You discuss your goals for each weekend on a Thursday, talking through any plans that you have for the weekend and how you will manage them better. Being under orders to sit down in Eucharist whenever you need to is quite empowering, as is setting one of your goals to be to play a boardgame sat on your gym ball at the table! My top goal for the weekend just gone was to be able to enjoy helping my best friend out with her newborn by remembering all of my best physio techniques. I might have overdone it in enthusiasm, but they were utterly worth it!

So now we head back for the final week, ready to set goals to work on over the coming three months before the first follow-up appointment. I’m hoping that we’ll have another takeaway night (because there’s only so much hospital food you can handle), more silly giggles, more sharing of top tips, and more celebrations of what may seem like minor achievements but actually matter to us like no-one else can understand. I’m hoping that I can keep my pain managed enough to do everything that needs to be done, and leave with a full toolkit that will help me find improvements across all aspects of life. I’ve managed to get this finished just in time to not-quite be Week 3 yet, so I’d better press post!