Getting back into the groove
The after-Christmas period turned out to be a difficult one, but with some compensations.
After trying to go back to work briefly with my leg, I ended up off sick again. At first, it wasn't so much the leg as just the way I felt exhausted and unable to get my energy back, plus the fact that I hadn't quite lasted as well as I would have liked taught me that taking it a bit easy would be good.
Taking Thursday off morphed into taking Friday off and I expected a triumphant return back to work at the start of the week. So didn't happen. Instead, I slowly lost the battle to some gastric flu type thing, which improved only after I threw up. After that, I just gave up, signed myself off until further notice and spent the next week recovering.
So, the next Monday, I do go in, only to find that I'm in lots of pain sitting and completely shattered due to remaining surgery stuff. But, this provoked a conversation with the management and this led to me being able to effectively go home whenever I wanted. This helped a lot, as I'd push until it hurt too much and give up and go home.
I'm not quite sure what happened, but there's more of a genuine feeling that I'm unwell and people are a little more sympathetic to me, which has helped a lot. Maybe the fact that I kept coming in also helped, as is the fact that I've stayed as long as I can each time.
Part of the recovery process also involved not eating much at all. In that way, I lost a bit of weight, which was good, and started to eat very carefully, only doing things that were light. Among that, I made a foray back to cooking with pasta sauces, just trying stuff out that I had in my head without regards for whether it would work or what people would think.
In the end, I created an OK courgette and aubergine pasta tomato-based pasta sauce, but the best thing I created was a creamy leek and bacon sauce, which was ludicrously simple and yet of so tasty. I also tried making fritters with some left over courgettes and aubergines (this did not work) and roasted butter-nut squash risotto (it was OK), so it was fun to do all that.
On Friday, I also managed to catch up with someone I hadn't seen for a while, one of the people I befriended right at the start of going to TransLondon. It was nice to talk to them because, well, both of us still have huge problems in our lives, and it was good to talk about them, but both of us are in much, much better places than we were all those years ago when we started, so that talking things out was a lovely positive thing. Instead of focusing on all the stuff I haven't done or haven't achieved because of the trans stuff, it was good to focus on the positive, see positive things happening and know that, however things go, they'll get better somehow.
After trying to go back to work briefly with my leg, I ended up off sick again. At first, it wasn't so much the leg as just the way I felt exhausted and unable to get my energy back, plus the fact that I hadn't quite lasted as well as I would have liked taught me that taking it a bit easy would be good.
Taking Thursday off morphed into taking Friday off and I expected a triumphant return back to work at the start of the week. So didn't happen. Instead, I slowly lost the battle to some gastric flu type thing, which improved only after I threw up. After that, I just gave up, signed myself off until further notice and spent the next week recovering.
So, the next Monday, I do go in, only to find that I'm in lots of pain sitting and completely shattered due to remaining surgery stuff. But, this provoked a conversation with the management and this led to me being able to effectively go home whenever I wanted. This helped a lot, as I'd push until it hurt too much and give up and go home.
I'm not quite sure what happened, but there's more of a genuine feeling that I'm unwell and people are a little more sympathetic to me, which has helped a lot. Maybe the fact that I kept coming in also helped, as is the fact that I've stayed as long as I can each time.
Part of the recovery process also involved not eating much at all. In that way, I lost a bit of weight, which was good, and started to eat very carefully, only doing things that were light. Among that, I made a foray back to cooking with pasta sauces, just trying stuff out that I had in my head without regards for whether it would work or what people would think.
In the end, I created an OK courgette and aubergine pasta tomato-based pasta sauce, but the best thing I created was a creamy leek and bacon sauce, which was ludicrously simple and yet of so tasty. I also tried making fritters with some left over courgettes and aubergines (this did not work) and roasted butter-nut squash risotto (it was OK), so it was fun to do all that.
On Friday, I also managed to catch up with someone I hadn't seen for a while, one of the people I befriended right at the start of going to TransLondon. It was nice to talk to them because, well, both of us still have huge problems in our lives, and it was good to talk about them, but both of us are in much, much better places than we were all those years ago when we started, so that talking things out was a lovely positive thing. Instead of focusing on all the stuff I haven't done or haven't achieved because of the trans stuff, it was good to focus on the positive, see positive things happening and know that, however things go, they'll get better somehow.