Last Monday I woke up and felt well, grumpy, unable to speak and barely able to see so basically how I typically feel when I first wake up particularly if anyone (Bernard) is expecting me to do anything (like make breakfast). However once I’d come to I didn’t feel good, I didn’t even feel okay – I felt fantastic – really fantastic . I’d had this ‘conversation’ with a friend about how, despite having to work round the bone stuff limiting my daily activities by a vast extent compared to, as B says ‘the old Paula’, I probably still thought deep down one day I’d wake up and feel like I could conquer the world again. And last Monday was as close as its got after myeloma put a spanner in the works.
We hadn’t all walked together for over a week and since B had put his alarm on for a really early wake up call, 13:30, to do a paint a couple of fence panels I felt able to do these myself in order that we could get to walk together, ‘cos I kinda like doing that. So Bud got two walks that day. However for the rest of the week I was at times somewhat lacklustre – well in my opinion anyway. Despite the several disgruntled notifications from B regarding the fence panels, especially since he’d expressly forbidden me to do them, I however put the lack of lustre down to the two walks because I must have walked milessssss and miles and miles. B himself proforred a suggested four miles per walk – so eight miles in one day – WOW. Well WOW for now, I once did 10 just in a morning on the treadmill to ward off the excesses of Christmas. Heck, I’d do five after getting home from work and before hitting the weights and getting tea to get rid of a cream cake but for now – WOW.
So Saturday I measured it on the street atlas, I measured it several times in fact, with several different kinds of measuring stuff – because wool can stretch but my dinky little tape measure wasn’t as flexible round corners. I myself had started to think that it wasn’t as far as B thought because I have short legs, well in fact the whole of me is quite short – and indeed is about one and a half inches shorter than ‘the old Paula’. So although I walked quite fast before anything above 3.3 miles an hour resulted in the odd skipped step/start of a jog. Now with this in mind and the fact that I walk a lot slower than I did it dawned on me that to get this walk done in the hour and a half it usually takes would be nigh on impossible if it was anywhere near four miles.
So as the saying goes ‘what can’t speak can’t lie’ and the tape/wool/ruler says 2.5 miles and 2.75 absolute maximum even with a bit of creative cornering. So much for thinking that I take not so much my life in my hands but my femur lesion in my stride on every walk due to the speed I go. I guess it’s back to my extreme sport being using Signature Needle Arts Stiletto Point knitting needles!
